I canceled my subscription to RBR today....
 

RoadBikeRider.com that is...... They have a little weekly news letter they send out each week. They've always been a bit judgemental of people but this time I think they just went to far. They more of less said that Landis was Guilty as sin and should fess up and come clean. He's just like all the other cheaters.... and they went on to name several.

I felt if I didn't cancel I was letting them get away with something they shouldn't have. They wrote me back a snotty little note saying that if I changed my mind, to bad, I was forever blocked. LOL, I didn't even swear in my note to them...... I believe I did refer to their publication as a rag though, and I told them I thought their public conviction of Floyd sans trial was despicable. They can call people cheats and liars but I can't call them despicable?

Oh well, they need my money worse than I needed them. :D

Good for you!

I just cancelled the newsletter service. Who needs them?

I had a similar experience with RBR a while back. One of the main guys chided Eddy Merckx for being so heavy after retiring, saying that he, "ate like a sewer." That's a rotten thing to say about anybody with a compuslive eating disorder, but Eddy Merckx? What, he didn't do enough for cycling in his day??? I haven't missed their glorified blog one bit since I bailed.

Wow. I was half expecting to get flamed for my first post..... I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!!:cry: :D

Not at all Grampy.........RBR doesn't know whether to be stuffy and deadwood traditional in some of their views....or whether to be hot snot provocative and judgemental in others. Besides, mostly it just functions to tease us into buying their pubs. Perish the thought that we accuse the Indelible Lance of anything. I think Floyd, despite appearances, should be given the same regard. I respect The Lance's achievements, but I'd rather be locked in a submarine with Floyd any day.

Grampy, when I see what's going on in the world today, I think people ought to be outraged on an almost daily basis. Good for you for standing up for what you believe, AND telling others about it.

When your editorial board is 13 years old it's hard to have perspective on anything. Road bike review are really weirdoes. They asked me to write a bunch of bicycle reviews and after I wrote them and sent them off they never posted anything nor told me why. My guess is that the guy who asked for them moved on after his 14th birthday and they didn't know what the email from me was all about.

Right On! I'm with you Dude!

Grampy, I had a subscription to RBR that recently expired and I was about to renew, however, any company that responds to a customer complaint in the manner RBR did to yours, isn't one that will get my money.

I had a run-in with them when subscribed several years ago. The email I got was always blank! I know they sent out something because my wife's copy was good. (She used the same ISP, same OS, and same email client.)

The exchange was short. It was my problem and they weren't interested in looking into it. Apparently they haven't gotten any better. :rolleyes:

I'm an RBR subscriber. I'm disappointed to hear they couldn't be more civil about things:( . Sometimes you have to vote with your feet (or email). I don't have a problem with that.

Like most folks, I'd love to see Floyd somehow exonerated, but I doubt that it's going to happen. Being objective, right now, based on the evidence, I'd say that it looks pretty bad. And the fallout is horrendous - careers being trashed, Floyd's FIL committing suicide, etc. Nobody's happy (not even Perreiro!).

For me, one point in Floyd's favor was the fact that the TDF officials let him use his TT bar in the early time trial, but then reversed their position just before the second time trial and he had to switch off. Pretty fishy...

Below is an email I sent these guys. So, I'm proud to be banned from their site. Folks like that just make me boil:


Gentlemen and Ladies:

I do not even subscribe to your site, but given what I have read on the Bikeforms.net 50+ group – I will never subscribe or recommend your site to anyone.

Your heavy handed and left wing approach to your subscribers complaints regarding your “Conviction of Floyd Landis” speaks volumes on your PC.

I think you might be radicals, defined as:
Someone who has redoubled their effort after loosing sight of their objective.

fthomas

I even suggested they call me if they really wanted to know what I thought!

RBR is run by a bunch of ex-Buycycling! editors as a weekly storefront for their online publishing business. It tends to sound "slick" and has attained its success by following an editorial formula characteristic of Buycling!. I subscribe to it primarily because it's free and it's a way to keep tabs on what these people - who have an active involvement in the industry - are thinking.

Their target market seems to be primarily Cat 4 and 5 road racers, as they dispense a lot of basic information. There's not much leading edge stuff there, and I find they tend to possess a certain arrogance about their level of knowledge; i.e., you can't tell them anythang!

They have a technical guy named Uncle Al, who actually owns a bike shop. He sometimes comes up with some good advice, but he also has some wierd ideas. The wierdest is his contention that people overpressurize their tires. He doesn't think you should put more than 95 pounds into your 700x23 clinchers. Now, coming from a track background, I'm used to putting my body weight (175 pounds) into my tubular track tires, but when I tried reducing the pressure of my road clinchers to 95 pounds, I found I started getting pinch flats, so I went back to 115-120 pounds, and it's worked great since. I sent Uncle Al a note to this effect, as well as a query about how much pressure he thought tandem tires should get, and I haven't heard from him.

I must have missed the issue where they castigated Floyd, but last week I sent them a note basically saying that I was convinced that Tloyd's samples must have been sabotaged. Something is wrong when all the samples before and after are negative, and there is synthetic testosterone in the positive samples. Had it been natural testosterone, I'd be on the fence, but I think synthetic testosterone is a good indication that the samples were tampered with. There's definitely a motive (politically, by the French drug testing company or one of its employees), so I think we need a criminal investigation to clear up a few questions. Such as how are the samples stored? Who has access to both A and B samples? Are the samples left alone with anyone at any time? How can synthetic testosterone be added to a sealed sample without being detected? So far, I have not heard back from RBR.

Even if sabotage is detected, I doubt that French investigators or WADA would want the info disclosed. It would mean the end of Dick Pound's career, and Pound has been visibly chasing the position of head of the IOC for years. It may sound paranoid, but I think they want to get Floyd because they can't get Lance, and I'm sure there's got to be a way to doctor a sealed sample. Somebody just has to find the flaw in the testing process.

- L.

Left wing? Where did that come from?

That got my attention too. A political statement perhaps?

re: Floyd - I was talking to a US Sheriff over the weekend and he was stationed in Europe for about 10 years and he said that it was his opinion that Floyd was framed. Nothing like getting an opinion from someone familiar with the system over there.

Good point! I'm not even sure where it came from?

Was he a US Sheriff over there or a GI? By the way neither of which gives his opinion any weight on doping.

I keep wondering how all those trained to expose this kind of stuff can be so wrong.