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I Made a Deal in a Bike Race
- feep 7y agoThis kind of side deal in bike racing (especially when money is involved) is very common. And accepted by most who race at that level. It has always bothered me as a fan. I know one of the riders, and I know of the other. They both seem like good people. Well-written story about aftereffects, and a reconciliation of sorts.
- ben7799 7y agoHaving done a lot of bike races you're even making deals with your teammates realistically. It's an odd artifact of the sport awarding prizes to individuals when it is impossible most of the time to win without teamwork, and only one person on the team that works together can actually win. I don't fault the racer in this story who reneged on his deal to win.
- PhasmaFelis 7y agoIf making deals is acceptable to begin with, then breaking them is wrong. I can't see any interpretation where Mike didn't do something wrong.
- robrenaud 7y ago> If making deals is acceptable to begin with, then breaking them is wrong Making cycling an athletic version of diplomacy actually sounds pretty cool to me.
- panzagl 7y agolet me draft for the next mile and I'll support Sil->Ber from Kiel...
- Nelson69 7y agoIt's also arguably not acceptable. There have been allegations of fairly large amounts of money changing hand for in some of the deals, promoters and sponsors tend to frown upon that stuff, as do sports books and it might be against the law (sporting fraud) in a few European countries. The rules and the codes regarding this sort of thing are fuzzy. There is also a class system of sorts in play. When Lance Armstrong went to the media and claimed he let Marco Pantani win on Ventoux in the 2000 Tour, that's against the code too but because Lance was so dominant nobody said much about it. The fact was, nobody could make Lance pay for that on the road. In the romantic ideal world, a bunch of Italian teams would have worked together to prevent Lance's teammates from winning some monuments (maybe Hincapie at Paris Roubaix, but he was never really in it) that they were targeting but the fact was the team was built for one purpose and that never was an option. The ability to enforce the deal is part of it. Likewise, in retrospect, Lance going public with it was a scorched earth psychological tactic that made his image even bigger. I would say, at least at some levels (u-23 national championship might not be that) that if you can get someone to gift you a win for an unenforceable deal, then you beat them and you did it mentally. It's like all the secret rules of baseball.
- paganel 7y agoI don't think it is that unacceptable. I remember Jalabert giving the stage victory to the other rider at least once in the Spanish la Vuelta the year that he won it (they had been part of a 2-men escape) and more recently Contador did the same thing at least once.
- benj111 7y agoBut yet we celebrate the individual, not the team. I can't think of another sport that is quite so teamwork orientated, but so individualistic in celebrating the winners. I'm not even sure if the winners are the 'best' riders. I'm reminded of when Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France. He and Chris Froome had broken away from the other contenders, Froome was leading him up a mountain and Wiggins couldn't keep up, Froome had to slow down for him. Froome was the better man that day, probably that tour.
- ed312 7y agoFormula 1 and most high-level motor racing is similar. Drivers get lots of fame but it is truly a team sport.
- benj111 7y agoWell theres motorsport where they have identical cars. If we take F1 you can still race against your team mate. And team mates are fairly loose concepts in F1. Team orders weren't allowed for a long time, disobeying team orders isn't unusual. But yes most of the time it's the guy with the best car that wins.
- maxxxxx 7y agoAn F1 driver is also part of team leadership and responsible for building the team. That was schumacher’s strength and a weakness of Alonso from what I have read.
- singlow 7y agoThe extent of the drivers role in the team varies drastically. Sure, as Schumacher move on in his career this was true. When a team brings on an experienced driver to a young team this is probably very true, such as Kimi this year. But even Hamilton, with several championships, is probably only somewhat involved in decision making, not leading it. And younger guys like Le Clerc are probably not involved in team decisions beyond the tech setup of their own car in any meaningful way. That's not to say either of them is not capable of contributing in that way, but they are on teams with plenty of proven experience at all levels, so it's just not as necessary. Alonso was on a team that struggled for several years at McClaren with a lot of leadership turnover, so they would have probably benefited from that quality, although I don't really know whether their failings had anything to do with a weakness of Alonso's in that regard, but I generally got the impression he was not the personality to really get everyone motivated or inspired.
- fiftyacorn 7y agoIt does - but the other guy could have ignored the deal too. That happens a lot too
- hammock 7y agoHolding money in escrow might have been an effective way to enforce this deal.
- stouset 7y agoDeals like this, as the article discusses, are not made before a race, they are made during a race. Typically (but not always) this happens toward the end of a race, where competitors race prisoner’s dilemma of sorts: by working together, they can have a higher chance of clinching the 1 and 2 spots, but when one racer is demonstrably stronger than the other, the stronger rider might reasonably worry that the weaker rider will “defect” and sprint for first place. Working together improves their chance of a first-or-second finish, but might decrease their chance of a strictly first-place finish if the weaker rider defects and sprints for the finish. If the stronger rider defects and drops the weaker rider, they risk getting caught by the pack and not making a podium at all. The deal is that the weaker rider will take second, giving first place to the stronger rider and ensuring mutual cooperation that increases both their chances of a podium finish. In this instance, the weaker rider promised to cooperate and later defected.
- QuotedForTruth 7y agoI realize you already know this, but just to add to what you've said... It also makes a lot more sense in stage races. The win for the day's stage is not the only win to be had. The overall race win is based on combined time across all stages. Often someone who is in the running for the overall race win will make a deal with someone who isn't. By not attacking each other, their average speed can be higher. One rider gets to win the stage and the other gets the benefit of working together to finish the stage in the quickest possible time. This allows them to gain on their rivals for the overall win. In a single stage race, the win is mostly the only thing that matters.
- hammock 7y agoIn that case aside from missing a stage win, it really doesn't hurt the stronger rider at all when the weaker rider defects. Wouldn't call that a prisoner's dilemma.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- NSAID 7y agoThis same race was a topic in a recent episode of the This American Life podcast https://www.thisamericanlife.org/668/the-long-fuse/act-three-5 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/668/the-long-fuse/act-three...
- crescentfresh 7y agoThanks! That episode's description in my podcast app sounded pretty uninteresting so I had originally skipped it. Have it queued up now!
- everly 7y agoI thought the author was far too harsh on Mike and the whole article comes off as extremely self-serving.
- phkahler 7y agoMike was harsh on himself. Neither you nor I get to define Mike's personal standards. As for the author, I think (speculation) he would have gotten over it if his racing career had not been cut short due to injury.
- OneWordSoln 7y agoWisdom states that there are things we like that are bad for us and things we don't like that are good for us. The young man that reneged on his deal felt the pain of that selfish decision his entire life, until, 15 years later, he confronted the person he screwed over, apologized and handed over the jersey. As can be seen from the lives of those two over the years, karma is a harsh mistress when one causes such unhappiness in another. Our conscience is a real thing though we are completely free to ignore its urgings, but payment for such transgressions come due with feelings of unhappiness. It's our nature and nature's feedback mechanism to nudge us towards selfless, honest, compassionate behavior and away from selfishness in all its forms. Some people work their entire lives to suppress their conscience and their unhappiness shows upon their face and in their tone of voice. That is why Trump can only fake a smile (and badly at that); when you see him in introspective moments, the crushing truth of his life of selfish belligerence to one and all becomes obvious. And the bastard deserves every single bit of it. And yet, even he could change and lighten his burden by apologizing and truly changing. Ahh, but the inertia of such lives are very, very difficult to undo. Such drastic honesty and courageous change is sadly rare, however. That doesn't mean it isn't possible, though.
- deadmetheny 7y agoAn entirely non-political article, and people still find a way to shoehorn complaints about the POTUS into the comments. What a time to be alive.
- OneWordSoln 7y agoThe article was about a cheater and their regrets. It is very appropos for people who look around the world and see what is happening and who is running it. Donald Trump has much to regret and the day will come when those chickens come home to roost. His is an evil, bigoted, misogynistic, lying narcissist. Unless he changes course soon he will find the rest of his life as miserable as his pal Paul Manafort. Read the article again; the parallels are obvious.
- nicky0 7y agoHaha, I was reading the comment thinking -- this seems like a thoughful and interesting contributioon, I wonder why it is light grey ... oh.
- Cyclone_ 7y agoI just got done racing the La Crosse Omnium and my favorite stage by far was the uphill time trial. No drafting, just going straight up the bluff for 2.3 miles climbing 530 ft.
- data_spy 7y agoThis happens all the time. Julian Alaphilippe basically did that in one of the classics and at Amstel Gold, the rider he tricked the last time around (J. Fuglsang) didn't give in and neither won (although Fuglsang got 3rd). Cycling is filled with ways to get others to work more than others.
- davidw 7y agoAmstel Gold was pretty amazing, but unless you heard differently, that was just tactics rather than any kind of 'deal'. Fuglsang played that one right - to win you have to risk losing.
- data_spy 7y agoYeah, it's tactics but in the same vein where he says his legs are 'fu&ked' and wants someone else to pull more and then outsprints them in the end. This is a quote from Fuglsang: “From when he attacked, I was still the one who was putting in the most effort because he always said that he was fucked. But he did the same at Strade Bianche, and there he still got me, so that's the game – that's the tactic."
- jonknee 7y agoWell that was a huge waste of words. > Mike looked back. He saw the pack getting closer to catching us. He panicked. He offered a deal. > A rider who is weaker or at a tactical disadvantage will sometimes offer a promise not to sprint for the win if the stronger rider will promise to stop trying to get away. > Near a sign that said there was one kilometer to go, we rounded a left hand turn. I looked back at Mike. I said to him, “You remember our deal?” > But Mike can’t remember if he acknowledged the other racer. He can’t remember if he nodded yes, the way I remember it, or if he didn’t do anything at all. He remembers only that when he saw the finish line, a banner across the road at the top of a short abrupt hill, he suddenly was sprinting. > And as Mike drove, he made a call he’d long wanted to make. Long needed to make. He said into the phone that he had that jersey with him. He said, I cheated. I’m sorry.
- umvi 7y agoSome people enjoy the details. It lets you immerse yourself momentarily in bike racing culture which is incredibly interesting. After reading Lord of the Rings: "Well, that was a huge waste of words." > Bilbo gives long lost evil ring to son Frodo > Frodo goes on a long journey with friends to destroy the ring > A few friends die; a lot of enemies die > Frodo can't destroy the ring in the moment of truth because it has corrupted him > It gets destroyed anyway There, saved you from reading 1000+ pages of literature
- jonknee 7y agoAnd some people don't so I provided the key parts. Surely someone else will appreciate it, but if not it doesn't in any way prevent you from reading each and every sentence. I would also very much appreciate a summary if someone posted a 1000+ page piece to HN.
- learc83 7y agoNo one is faulting you for posting a summary, but for calling the article a huge waste of words.
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- umvi 7y agoI think it probably haunted Mike more than Ian judging by his actions. I'm glad the story ended in forgiveness. People make mistakes, especially in critical moments when the stakes are high and emotions are surging.
- chrisseaton 7y agoIf you read to the end he admitted it was cheating - it wasn’t a mistake.
- senorprogrammer 7y agoIt's common to look back in life and see that what was once a deliberate action was in fact a mistake. Not a mistake in the sense of an accidental occurrence, but in the sense that if one could do it over again, one would do it differently. That's how the term "mistake" is used in this article.
- hisnameisjimmy 7y agoAny mistake worth writing an article about is probably something where there's culpability. People commit crimes and describe them as mistakes. There's nothing confusing about that phrasing.
- phkahler 7y agoCheating was the mistake. For some personalities cheating and using others is a way of life and it would not have been a big deal. For others it may have been somewhere in between. But for Mike, cheating probably violated his own sense of morality. It was a mistake, and he only found that out by doing it.
- ncallaway 7y agoI mean this is purely semantics at this point, but I would certainly argue that deliberate and intentional actions can be mistakes.
- IggleSniggle 7y agoIf you read to the end, you realize that it’s more complicated than that. It truly and legitimately felt like cheating, and yet under the written rules, it was not clearly cheating. That’s part of what makes this such a great story. He knew it was cheating, even if it wasn’t cheating from a these are the rules perspective. That is, cheating exists within a cultural context, not just a written context. I feel like this is a weird place in American law: the law is an interpretive endeavor, and yet it is treated as a “rule” where loopholes are “ok” even if it’s not in line with the spirit of the law.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- lifeisstillgood 7y agoI saw a listing a while back of the number of winners of the Tour De France that had been disqualified for drug releated cheating - I think it was fully half since 1990. This is not one bad apple. This is an entire orchard. At some point, where the proven drug users are merely fractions of percents ahead of the others, (The Tour is usually won by dozens of seconds over hundreds of hours of racing) should we not think that no-one can compete at that level without drug use. And just try a reboot. Or stop the whole thing. I am totally in favour of encouraging fitness - but most olympic level athletes are frankly ignoring their bodies screaming at them to stop. cf the biographies of any marathon runner. That seems unhealthy This is the closest article I can find to my memory : https://www.smh.com.au/sport/cycling/tour-de-france-the-hall-of-shame-20121019-27wsd.html https://www.smh.com.au/sport/cycling/tour-de-france-the-hall...
- crescentfresh 7y agoWhat is your commentary on the article specifically, here? That both riders were probably cheating anyway?
- username223 7y agoCyclists have been using drugs for a long time -- Tom Simpson was doped to the gills when he died on Mont Ventoux in 1967. EPO, HGH, blood doping, etc. may only be worth a few percent, but at the elite level a few percent matter. For cycling, you can look at the power output on Tour de France climbs before and after they developed an effective test for EPO. Elite level anything is unhealthy, because you're pushing the limits of what humans can accomplish, at the expense of everything else.
- popzq 7y agohttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Tom_Simpson_c1966.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Tom_Simp... Wow what the hell... he was supposedly 28 here... looks more like 60
- Consultant32452 7y agoI don't believe there is even a single person competing at the top percentile of professional sports (household names) that is doing so without one or more forms of artificial assistance such as EPO, HGH, blood doping, etc. I wonder, is this a controversial statement?
- notananthem 7y agoIts kind of gross how cut and dry this is painted from the perspective of the guy who feels he was cheated. I have to imagine this happens all day every day- at least I know similar situations happen in the professional world and are common. Raises, promotions, projects, etc. You can make hallway deals sure, but someone's gonna sprint and get that prize.
- IggleSniggle 7y agoAnd here I thought it was interesting from the opposite side. Mike made a choice that was within the rules of the game but not the spirit of the game, which already existed within morally dubious territory, and was punished with a lifetime of regret, even though he won the prize. I don’t even remember the name of the other character.
- logfromblammo 7y agoI am flummoxed as to how anyone would consider any kind of verbal communications during a cycling race to be "cheating". There are no rules governing informal collusion agreements made during a race, as far as I know. If there is any kind of problem here, it's that two or more colluding racers that take turns drafting each other can race faster together than each of the individual racers cycling alone, and that cycling features many different competitions including some of the same competitors. This creates a trust-dependent metagame. So the correct game theory play against someone reneging on a false promise would be for someone to seek out and draft the renegade racer in the next national championship competition, without ever giving them the opportunity to draft, thus punishing the betrayal in a tit-for-tat fashion. Seems like an inconvenient and bloody-minded thing to do, though. The business with handing over the winner's trophies to the runner-up just seemed bizarre and awkward to me.
- rconti 7y agoThe 2-rider break are at a massive disadvantage compared to the riders in the peloton doing far less work and getting a much better draft, conserving far more energy. Of course, at some point, some riders may choose to try to bridge the gap, which is difficult. But typically, breakaways get swallowed up by the much more efficient peloton.
- taejo 7y ago> If there is any kind of problem here, it's that two or more colluding racers that take turns drafting each other can race faster together than each of the individual racers cycling alone, and that cycling features many different competitions including some of the same competitors. This creates a trust-dependent metagame. This "problem" is basically the whole strategic aspect of road racing.
- hjk05 7y ago> So the correct game theory play against someone reneging on a false promise would be ... To be public about the false promis removing the ability of the rider to make future deals thus removing their ability to compete on equal terms with other competitors and seriously damaging their carriers. If you want to model the real world using game theory, then you have to include the fact that players can communicate outside of active competition, and that players have reputations, tarnished by their bad faith actions.
- tomcam 7y agoTrying to understand the subculture here, and failing. If I understand correctly, during a very important bike race the author made a verbal deal with his competitor near the end of the race, and the competitor broke that verbal deal. Let me hasten to say that had I made such a deal, I wouldn’t have broken it. But shouldn’t the author have assumed that his competitor was playing mind games? If I understand correctly there are no rules against deals like this. And I imagine there are no rules against lying to your competitor. I would feel if I were in the author’s place that I had allowed myself to be taken advantage of, that I had trusted a competitor, which is generally speaking not a good idea in a race like that. It seems to me this is the author saying he trained physically for the race but got hoodwinked by someone he by nature should not trust. Or is there something about the subculture I’m missing?
- drenvuk 7y agoYou're not wrong. He is a sore loser who assumed there were certain rules in play and failed because of it.
- brazzy 7y agoYes, he is wrong and so are you, because those rules do exist even if they are unwritten. They are part of the sport, and they have to be because while placements are awarded to individuals, it is impossible for an individual to perform well with cooperating with others.
- quadrangle 7y agoIt's not just the subculture. It's like any trust game. You violate trust, you won't get trusted in the future. There's long-term reputation. And that's just some of the factors behind how subcultures come to basically honor agreements like this. The concept of such agreements would be discarded and laughed at in a context where they were rarely kept. Just knowing that the concept exists is enough to know that it must have gained trust and deference in the subculture. Listen to the This American Life episode linked elsewhere in the comments to get the context. The guy who broke his promise actually meant the promise when he said it and then felt privately ashamed of breaking it (and breaking the promise was itself a spur-of-the-moment, wasn't-thinking decision). That's not what happens if it's just mind games.
- Pils 7y agoI can't help to see similarities between this article and the recent phenomena of competitive battle royale games. Currently, Fortnite is in the midst of perhaps the largest open-entry tournaments in history[1], and seems to be establishing these sorts of norms very quickly. Although "teaming" (direct collusion, such as the event featured in this article) is explicitly prohibited with serious consequences, most players implicitly acknowledge that the competition isn't truly "winner takes all," at least at the individual match level, since there are incentives for placing in the top 5, top 25, etc. As someone who does not play Fortnite but is interested in the social aspects of the game, one term I noticed being thrown around a lot in the competitive subreddit was "w-keying" and its impact on the competitive aspects of the game. "W-key" is a reference to the "W" on a QWERTY keyboard, or "forward" based on WASD movement, and refers to (overly-)aggressive players in Fortnite's competitive scene[2]. This term is derogatory; being called a "W-Keyer" implies a lack of tactical awareness and immaturity as well as a degree of unsportsmanlike behavior. At first I thought this was sort of weird. "Aggression" in competitive games generally refers to a tactics-level decision, and is thus is generally accepted as part of the game, keeps other tactics in check and makes a better spectator sport by encouraging proactivity. Think zerg-rushing in Starcraft, Mono-red Aggro in Magic The Gathering or Serve-and-Volley in tennis. But most competitive games are zero-sum at the match level (one wins, one loses, or both tie), whereas Fortnite is not. In Fortnite's competitive mode, certain types of aggression is akin to "defecting" in the Prisoner's Dilemma, reducing the overall likelihood of both parties placing (due to one party being eliminated, both parties using up a significant amount of resources, and a reasonable likelihood that a third party swoops in). I'm not going to go any deeper into the game theory aspects since I would quickly go beyond my comfort area. However, that it's essential that such phenomena are explored more deeply. E-Sports figures are the newest celebrity class, and "people famous for playing video games" has gone from a Wikipedia stub to an ecosystem that mirrors "traditional" star athlete culture. If W-Keying becomes an unwritten taboo, how will punishment for breaking this taboo be meted out? Will those who play the game The Right Way seek to ostracize these players or seek retribution inside/outside the game? Will exceptions be made for star players or would said players face even more scrutiny? What degree of governorship do the companies that put on these competitions have over this type of behavior? [1]https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/22/18235132/fortnite-world-cup-final-date-prize-money-new-york-esports https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/22/18235132/fortnite-world-c... [2] I am not 100% sure if this term is specific to Fortnite, Battle Royale-style games or WASD-controlled games in general, I've just only encountered it in this context.
- pmarreck 7y agoReminds me a bit of the old advice on “Playing to Win” http://www.sirlin.net/ptw http://www.sirlin.net/ptw
- jancsika 7y agoI am 100% in favor of people lying about their deals in these cases, just as I am 100% in favor of a future class of ransomware attackers who collect the ransom and then destroy the key without ever decrypting the victim's data. In both cases it improves the bottom line of the endeavor. For cycling you get more dynamic races and race endings. For computers it means hospitals and power grids actually go ahead and get rid of their Windows XP machines.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- SCAQTony 7y agoParaphrasing Jean-Paul Sartre here: We are condemned to have a free will. Everything we do, we own and are entirely responsible for the cause and the effect. But more importantly, what we do shows other people how they should act. Ipso facto, despite whatever culture exists in the cycling world, making deals is cheating. Then again that sport has a long sordid history with that subject.
- RickJWagner 7y ago<Spoiler alert> No witty comment here. That story is a great read.
- vbsteven 7y agoDeals happen in lots of bike races, both in pro and amateur/youth categories. But word gets around fast in the peloton if you make a deal and do not honor it. If you pull a stunt like this especially in a big race like a national championship you can be sure that practically no one will ever make another deal with you and often riders won't even enter a breakaway with you. They might even ask you to drop out of the breakaway or they stop pulling.