Jerkstrong: The Reviews

One of the, um, unique things about online journalism is that you get instant reader feedback. Instant, and in the case of my Lance Armstrong/Sarah Palin piece, voluminous. So now there are 118 comments in "The Fray" and counting, and probably 100 of them didn't really like the article, and accused me of various things, including having a "casual" knowledge of cycling. (FWIW, I've covered bike racing since 1998, and I've also raced road, mountain, and cyclocross.)

I also got called a "groupie" by someone who is, quite obviously, a groupie. But one of my favorites was also one of the first:

You want to write about bike riding? Follow the peleton up L'Alpe d'Huez. When you know how hard it is, then maybe you'll understand why Armstrong was nauseated at the thought of some sportwriter passing judgment on those guys who got caught doping.

Somehow, I don't think that was why he was "nauseated."

The reply was also great:

hahahahaha! classic dentist roadie response.

What's a "dentist roadie?" Who knows. I haven't ridden Alpe d'Huez, though; maybe I should. (Oh, wait -- it's not on this year's Tour.)

Anyway, Deadspin picked up the theme and added their own thoughts on "The Critic-Proofing of Lance Armstrong":

Armstrong's petulance is understandable, at least to a point: He's been held up as the face of doping in a sport that owes its very existence to doping. Its earliest practitioners were, as author John Hoberman has written, "continuing the work of of experimental physiologists interested in learning how much abuse animals or humans could take" and who, to weather the stress, spiked their coffee with cocaine and strychnine and took nitroglycerin to aid their breathing. If he has been persecuted, it has been for the sins of his own sport.

The result, however, is that he has curdled into the joyless, scowling Nixon-on-a-bike we see today, one who snarks at his critics from his Twitter account and who needsuseful idiots like Rick Reilly to lighten up his image. (Seriously, read Reilly's latest. He talks to Armstrong's bare ass.) This may render him largely insufferable to a segment of the public, but it makes him a perfect pitchman for a shoe company that sells a certain spirit of sporty resentment, and sells it hard. The Nike commercial is the latest step in Armstrong's personal evolution. He has critic-proofed himself. In his mind, he is beyond any questions of guilt and innocence now. He is the Messiah of the infirm.

Oh, and that Nike ad ("Driven") that started it all off? It's not running on Versus anymore. They must have agreed with this cycling insider (who emailed me privately):

As the man that has made some Lance ads for Nike in my time, that piece of shit that they're selling now is horrible. I couldn't believe it wasn't a BMSquib spot. Sad for everyone- especially the poor cancer people.