This article was written by my brother's good friend and old teammate. Suggested reading.
http://www.racelistings.com/rzone/articles/article.asp?recid=329Some of you might have heard my name every once in a while, you might have read some of my past articles in USA Cycling that I got banned from while writing. Some of you might know me as a loud mouth punk, or however you like to call me. Or you might of caught a good side of me, setting a world cycling record up Mt. Lemmon and donating a month of my meager $1500 a month salary to the Southern Arizona Center Against Sexual Assault. But nobody can doubt my experience and things I have seen and been through. There is no reason to lie, because in this article you will read about one of the reasons I am not racing anymore.
Doping was first introduced to me in 1998 when I joined G.S. Filati Alessandra. I got an invitation to join the team at the age of 19 after being the top American finisher at the first ever U-23 World Championships in Lugano, Switzerland. On the National Team we knew of the problem, we even saw large syringes painted on the roads of the world championships, with the words, “Via EPO” or something in Italian. We thought it was hilarious, but we were all clean on the good old US Team, led by Knickman. The best man who ever came to help the USA Cycling Team. Knickman pulled all the GTs out of storage that were there for sponsorship and gave them to riders like myself, instead of keeping them clean so that they could be sold at the end of the year. Knickman was our hero coming up, and he tought us that we couldn’t always win clean, but it is possible.
So I went to the U-23 Team in Italy, and the first night in the building I noticed a lot of needles around the house and a lot of IV’s going into arms. Soon I was to realized that 90 percent of my team was on EPO and HGH. If you were 19 they didn’t want you to take drugs, only when you turned 20 did they want you to stick needles in your arm. So as a 19 year old American who didn’t even speak the language and being 2000 miles away from my family it was quite a predicament to be in. I had to draw on a lot of inner strength to avoid all the drugs. The GM would scream at us at the races that the problem with our team was that we weren’t taking enough medicine. He said, “The guys last year took HGH and they finished in the front, you guys need to take HGH!” I pretended like I didn’t understand the Italian and I did. Guys started cracking, soon all the riders were excepting the silver refrigerated bags filled with EPO at the end of the race weekend. I am sure some who read this might think this was heaven. Free EPO and HGH! But to me it was a living hell. And if we didn’t win the abuse continued on our team. Our GM would stop paying our bills on time at our team restaurant and have the chef cook us meals last. We would sit there for 4 hours after the race, maybe longer waiting to eat our food. The chef always made sure we ate last. Our in house cook was instructed to make lots of noise and wake us early in the morning. I was never paid, and I was given a steel bike while the rest of the team had aluminum. It sucked. But at the same time I was happy to have the experience to see Italy and ride to the Leaning Tower of Pisa and see the sights of Florence. But it was really a sad time for me.
There were times I couldn’t even stay with my teammates during training rides. The funny thing was at the February camp I could drop them all and a month later after they cycled the EPO they would drop me for 5 minutes on all the climbs. I did my best and finished in the top 15 a couple of times, but that was about the best I could do. I thought it was exceptional considering 120 started and about 15 would finish and I was a clean racer. I found more success with the National Team when I would leave for the Peace Race or longer stage races. For some reason the drugs the competition was taking seemed to have a greater effect on one day races. In the longer races I could beat them and I finished 28th Overall in the Peace Race and 2nd best in the young rider category.
But all and all the drugs, and seeing what they were doing was taking its effect. So one training ride I decided I could make a left and take drugs or make a right and go home to America and quit racing. I decided to make a right and I went back to my team apartment in Italy and quit racing.
So I came back to the states and took a job in Boone, NC. I worked at a summer camp and rode just for fun. Then I moved to Florida to sell jewelry and found myself at break dance clubs most of the times. I didn’t even consider riding bikes again until I was enrolled in Appalachian State University in 1998. I made friends with some of the riders on the collegiate team and I started to hang out with them and eat together on Thursdays. It was a typical college racing thing to do and it made biking fun again. I soon joined the team with them and I won my first race. Soon I was back on the fast track after finishing 2nd in Collegiate Nats, and then again at U-23 nats. I found a spot back on the National Team this time with Noel Dejonkheere. It was a whole new program and I missed the old glory days with Knickman and living in Germany. Belgium was hard and less fun but I worked hard and Noel went to bat for me and after finishing 17th in the World U-23 Time Trial Championships I got selected for the Linda McCartney Pro Team.
So I moved to Europe in the spring of 2000. I was still determined to race clean in Europe. I found the racing scene to be different because the drugs were a big secret but they were still there. Now nobody talked about it and it was kind of like, “Drugs are illegal and this is a drug free team but you need to be professional and do what it takes to win.” Let’s put it this way - the reason Pascal Richard had to quit the Giro wasn’t from a stomach virus it was because he had something in his system that would test positive. Our team was getting mad at him all the time for leaving his EPO in our truck. But Pascal was old school and believed he had the right because the sport was too hard. He would sometimes keep me up at night with his blood spinners. He had shots for everything including his noodle which he injected for 4 hour erections. Drugs were definitely ruling his life but that was the scene. He lived a rock star life and he liked sleeping with 14 different girls during the Giro, having a mistress, and a wife. He cracked one of my teammates with all his drama. My teammate threw the phone at him and told him to get his life strengthened out.
Racing was a crazy world in Europe and it was hard. Sometimes our team would do a random blood spin after dinner to make sure everyone’s blood was not too thick. If it was, they would have to drain 200 ml (a coke can) out and pour it down the sink. There was nothing glamorous going on behind closed doors believe me. I was still able to do well, finishing in the top 40 Overall in the Tour of Denmark. I would make little results that made me really happy and I was happy racing clean. It sucked not getting paid anything, but I enjoyed racing against the best in the world. But my results at the end of the year did not secure me a contract so I had to come back to the states.
Once back in the states I joined Saturn. Unfortunately for me, Saturn was almost as bad as my European Teams. It was a lot more hidden but I was seeing the signs of doping going on, during my time on Saturn. And then doubt was lifted after I helped administer an IV before an important time trial. Yeah, boys! Way to go, doping in America, F#$king losers. I stayed clean no matter what and soon decided to switch back to my old favorite director and what I thought would be the cleanest team I could find - Prime Alliance.
Sure enough Prime Alliance, was about as clean as it got. At least for what I could see. I don’t believe everyone was clean but I would say 95 percent of us were. Mainly I drew strength from Danny Pate, Creed, Jonas, Svein Tuft, and Candelario. We stuck together tight as a clean bike racing unit and constantly made fun of all the dopers as often as possible to keep us sane. We did awesome too. Danny won Altoona clean, after his high of winning the Worlds Clean, and I took the yellow jersey in Canada’s Gran Prix de Beauce against Micheal Rodgers and the Mapei team. After he beat me in the time trial, I lost it however and this is where I got black listed. After he won I rode up to Mapei and with all the aggression I had built up over the years of being cheated, I screamed, “HEY, I am racing here clean, how about you!” The Italians *****ed and moaned that they were clean racers but I had a hard time believing any of the words considering that over 90 percent of my U-23 team was doped to the gills - why would they stop when the reached the pro level? I had to settle with 2nd, but it was good for me and I still had my yellow jersey to hang on the wall.
