Originally Posted by asgelle
I've reread my post several times and I can't find where I might have attacked you personally. The only reference to you is in comparing Vaughters contribution to cycling to your own, and you agree with me that his is greater than yours.
You seem very sensitive to personal attacks for someone who threw in a gratuitous personal attack on two riders who had nothing to do with this discussion. Every year riders retire for numerous personal reasons. I don't think it would be appropriate for us to judge them even if we had all the facts; given that we never do know all the facts makes it even more wrong to judge these people.
I didn't make a personal attack. I stated a fact. Livingstone and Vaughters were at a dead end and they hung it up. Julich made a second effort. I choose to respect him for that instead of assuming he is a cheater. Call me a positive thinker.
I couldn't understand why Livingstone quit and I was disappointed in him. But yeah, I don't have any idea what his life was like, the challenges he faced, etc. etc. Having seen Vaughters have the ups and down in Le Tour, I can understand him quiting. I didn't intend to imply any disrespect, only to point out how difficult it was for Julich to refocus and restart and illustrate an example of two promising pros who gave up when faced with similar circumstances. Yet nobody pours the hate on them in this forum and Julich seems to have a lot of haters, and I just don't understand that.
Trying to compare me in an absolute sense to Vaughters is kind of silly, really. I'll tell you one thing, if everybody walked the talk like Vaughers did, cycling would be better off. But he did quit where Julich soldiered on and made something out of nothing. Instead of getting respect Julich gets accusations. That is messed up.
I contribute in the way that I can, and many people have told me I make a difference, and I do what I can. In a relative sense I'd like to think my contribution is comparable, given the amount of power I have. I'd like to think I have the same intentions as Vaughters, to make people into better racers, and raise the total level of bike racing. His street cred is greater than mine on a whole different scale, so it isn't really too reasonable to expect me to found a developmental team. Not that he was reasonable about that either, he is quite the visonary. But really this is beside the point, I brought up on the bike stuff, you changed the topic to off the bike stuff, and then compared me off the bike to Vaughters off the bike. Really does seem personal to me.
If you found my points about Vaughters and Livingstone to be personal attacks, you could just say that without attacking me in turn. I mean I could understand how you could read it that way, so I hope what I have said above provides appropriate clarification. Does it?