Throw a dog a bone

In the interests of sanity and those who ride clean, Anthony Tan asks you to throw pro cycling a bone.

We no longer expect athletes to refrain from doping because of a crisis of conscience, because it is cheating, because it is fraudulent, because ultimately it is wrong. We expect them to refrain because they may get caught, sanctioned, fined, humiliated, banned.

By the time Procycling magazine founder Jeremy Whittle published Bad Blood in 2009, he was jaded as a Kings Cross druggie living on a diet of smack. Worn out by the surfeit of denials of those who he once idolised and claimed to be riding clean but were not; many were instead gluttons for EPO, growth hormone, testosterone, blood doping... whatever would give them the edge.

"In the end that is the greatest loss of innocence: that we now expect them to at least try to dope," continued Whittle in his epilogue.

"So because we cannot trust them, we have to police them, to monitor their movements. We DNA test them; we take hair, blood and urine samples to store for the future; we rouse them at dawn for yet more testing. We don't believe in them, or in their word, any more."

While I accept cycling is in a bad way, and may be for some time, I do not accept they are all bad eggs. To say "we now expect them to at least try to dope" is akin to throwing the entire peloton under the bus and for good measure, running them over again.

You see, Whittle, like many of you, was once in awe of and idolised Lance Armstrong. On more than a few covers, he would put the face of cycling's All American Boy on his magazine. Those issues always sold well. He also idolised David Millar. And again, the charming though idiosyncratic British rider would appear often and prominently.

While the ongoing FDA investigation into alleged malpractice at the United States Postal Service cycling team is some way from reaching its dénouement, Whittle, who no longer works at Procycling (in fact, he has little to do with professional cycling nowadays), made his mind up a few years ago.

So has another prominent cycling editor, Bill Strickland, Bicycling's editor-at-large, who, after spending years of glorifying Armstrong and his achievements to the point of sycophancy – "He's one of us," Johan Bruyneel replied, when Mark Higgins, Armstrong's personal assistant, asked why a journalist was sitting in the front passenger seat of their car at the 2009 Tour de France – and selling millions of copies of the sport's largest-selling journal – decided after information received from an anonymous source, the Texan doped to win more than one of his seven Tours de France.

"Off-the-record information finally convinced me that in some form he doped to win some of his Tours," Strickland told The Oregonian this March, shortly before publication of Bicycling's May issue, where he penned the ominously titled Armstrong story, 'End Game'.

"I don't know how many. What I wanted to say to [readers) is, 'I believe this now.'"

You, too, may have your minds made up about Armstrong and others. But before you throw them all under the proverbial bus, ask yourself how fair you're being, and if it was someone in your family or a friend of yours, would you treat them the same way?

For the archetypal cycling fan, I absolutely concede, it must be hard to take: a hero turns anti-hero, villain, rogue, criminal, serial liar, taker of dreams, persona non grata – call them what you will.

But just because some do, does not mean all do.

In respect of those who ride clean – whether they be in the minority or majority – I'm asking you to throw a dog a bone. Because the point where you decide all eggs are bad before having cracked one open and tasted it, it's probably time to walk away, just as Whittle did.

Follow Anthony on Twitter: @anthony_tan