Criterium Corner with Euro Freddie
Growing up on the boards of the velodrome, my father, Reddy Freddie, learned to be competitive at a very early age. Here’s an old photo of him as a tyke, drafting a derny with my grandfather, Neddie, at the controls. You could say I was born into a cycling family.
My US artist friend is somewhat of an artistic protégé as well, though he rather believes that competitive behavior, much like capitalism, has a genetic predisposition towards cheating... He has also brought to my attention that Il Campionissimo’s great rival back in the day, Gino Bartali, infamously claimed that he could predict Coppi’s next day race strategy by examining the vials and tablets laid out upon Fausto’s hotel nightstand the night before.
You know, it all starts out innocently enough, with a bunch of your mates having fun racing as amateurs, but with a growing fantasy of one day making it as a professional, you turn to the slippery slope of multi-vitamins. And it soon becomes very apparent that without PEDs, you will never reach the level of competition required to secure a contract with a professional UCI World Doping Team.
“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been 15 years since I have given my last confabulation. I have cheated with performance enhancing drugs (PEDs)... I have coveted another man’s testosterone... I have murdered my own liver!”
- TO BE CONTINUED -