Bored of apathy

"I haven't really paid too much attention to the soap operas surrounding Contador and Armstrong," Boonen said in Qatar. "It’s been going on for a while and nobody actually really cares about it anymore. Every time you open your mouth about these cases you get a great pile of shit over your head. I like Alberto and I hope that everything turns out okay for him, but that's all I have to say about it."

Forgetting the part about what happens when Tom opens his mouth (moving his press conferences away from compost tips would seem an appropriate step), being bored has been a common refrain this week, not just from riders but from commentators, fans and even journalists, some writing not a million miles from this website.

Not that everyone is ignoring this week's monster triple dose of doping judgements. Take retired Professor Unay Talara Robles (please!).

Robles is staging a hunger strike in the Spanish town of Ayamonte, near Huelva. No morsel shall pass the 74-year-old's lips until Alberto Contador's "unjust" backdated two-year ban is overturned. Taking up residence in Ayamonte's Town Hall, Robles vowed not to leave until Contador was free to ride again. When police removed him from the building at closing time, he showed admirable flexibility by vowing to return to the town hall to continue his sit-in during opening hours.

In Pinto, Contador's home town near Madrid, another town hall is lending its support to a campaign titled 'Alberto somos todos' (We are all Alberto*). The campaign comes with a free downloadable Contador mask, complete with the in-no-way-unnerving feature of eyeholes cut into sunglasses. Protesters will ride their bikes from a local park on Sunday morning to the Plaza de la Constitucion, where Contador celebrated his three Tour de France victories.

The reasoning behind this protest is unclear. Perhaps it is an attempt to recreate the famous scene from Spartacus (in which case the protesters would have been better donning their masks to attend the July 2010 doping test). Perhaps the protestors wish to sacrifice themselves alongside Contador, sending the message that if one Alberto is stripped of his results going back to the 2010 Tour de France, this must apply to anyone who looks exactly like Contador, judging only from the neck up and paying no attention to the punchholes in the centre of their sunglasses. Maybe it is simply an excuse to wear a great mask and meet people.

And here's the odd thing. Ill-fated as Professor Hunger Strike's protest is (the Broom Wagon gives it until Tuesday before someone tempts him with a sandwich made from Mexican beef), and epically pointless as the We are Alberto march will certainly prove, their response is healthier for cycling in the long run than Boonen's.

It is proper and right to care about the Contador decision, regardless of whether you feel justice has been served, Contador is a lamb sacrificed to a too-rigid anti-doping policy, or whether you feel the truth lies somewhere in between.

It is good that we care about the week's other big development: the decision by US federal prosecutors to close their investigation of Lance Armstrong. Armstrong's is an exceptionally murky era, as underlined by Jan Ullrich's suspension on Thursday. (Congratulations to grand tour winners Michele Scarponi and Andy Schleck and 2006 Tour de Suisse winner Koldo Gil, while we are here). No reason was given for closing the Armstrong case. Perhaps it was cost v benefit, or perhaps the evidence, which included the eyewitness testimony of former teammates, was not enough for a conviction. Cycling is poorer because we will likely never know.

Ullrich's ban should be welcomed, not because it rights past wrongs or because a ban has any real effect on a retired athlete, but because even six years after the fact it helps send the message that clean sport matters. And ultimately, for all that cycling is a complex and beautiful beast, unless we care about that message and the attempts to enforce it, we are in danger of finding ourselves willing participants in a con.

*A noble sentiment unless you are Mrs Contador.

The week in ...

... priorities

50 per cent of male respondents to Bicycling magazine's reader survey said they would rather give up sex for a month than cycling. The figure was 58 per cent for women.

... Warne

Hitler hears about Victorian premier Ted Ballieu's dismissal of Shane Warne's proposal for compulsory registration for cyclists.

Hitler rants about bicycles and reacts to Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu's recent remarks that the registration of bicycles is not feasible.

... manners

Melbourne, you will recall, is the world's second official 'bike city', after Copenhagen, so we can presume Supersport world champion Andrew Pitt's experience was not the norm.

Pitt was cycling with friends, including Northern Irishman Jonathan Rae and Fabien Foret, from France, who are in Melbourne preparing for the Superbike World Championship on Phillip Island. The group were riding from the Dandenong Ranges into the city when, Pitt said, they were cut off by a public bus, which missed cleaning them up by centimetres.

The bus driver pulled over but closed the bus's doors as the cyclists tried to demand an explanation. At that point, Pitt said, a teenage passenger took a meat cleaver out of his bag and began waving it about.*

Pitt said his friends had been "blown away by the manners of Aussies on the road".

*As tourism campaigns go, the meat cleaver approach leaves a lot to be desired but is still probably better than 'Where the bloody hell are ya?'

Dispatches from the Twitterverse

So the race has moved to a different breakfast hall this morning. Panic attacks ensued. It properly freaked me out. #dontlikechange - @Mark Cavendish

Daq - @CadelOfficial

"Daq" – lil' man's first tweet... (!) - @CadelOfficial

Classic YouTube

Rick 'the Clutch' Roth and Tony 'the Sack' Roth are Arizona-based riders cut from the same cloth as Scotland's Danny MacAskill (and if you still haven't had the pleasure of Danny's around-town stunt work, do yourself a favour and set aside 15 minutes on YouTube). The Roths are not quite up to Danny's standards, but to be fair Danny was not on a road bike.