The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, Inside Communications, Inc.

Why we like bike people
Dear Editor,
I found a pair of glasses on the hill at the National CX, I have some pictures of the glasses. I have sent out emails etc... all over, if you can do something I will mail them to the racer.

Thank you.
Roger F. Harrison
Kansas City
Kansas Community College

[nid:41329]No, thank you, Roger. What a nice gesture… and the racing photos are terrific to boot. Thank you. Folks if those are your glasses, drop us a line and we'll put you in touch with Mr. Harrison. – Editor

Workin' man's 'cross
Editors,
Michael Olenick (Monday's Mailbag) has it a**-backwards - here's how 'cross nationals worked for me:

Work 80 - 90 hours a week (by necessity, not choice). Squeeze in 5 - 8 hours of training around work and family. Save my money, take time off of work (yeah!!!!!) and go to Cyclocross Nationals. Meet the greats of the sport that I love, get to meet and compete against them, finish anonymously in the pack proud that I've done my best, and hang for three days immersed in great racing and great people.

Definitely for me.
Lou D'Amelio
Van Dessel Factory Team
Belle Mead New Jersey

The need for bad boys
Dear Velo,
A response to the guy complaining about Michael Ball and his team being "Powered by $300 jeans." Got some news for you; just like every other sport, cycling need sponsors and those sponsors aren't charities, they are real businesses who overcharge every day but I guess you don't have a problem with overpriced mobile phones, insurance, bikes, media companies or computer services. I don't. It's part of the consumer culture we live in, so if they want to sprinkle some of those big markups on a sport that is on relatively few American's sports radar, especially post Lance, then more power to him and his team.

All I know is the guy spoke his mind, so what, it's his right – even more so since he is sponsoring a cycling team in America (doesn't seem to be the most popular business decision nowadays) and getting noticed. Good! Discovery is gone. American cycling will always struggle to reach the popularity levels it has in Europe so thank god this guy sees the value in putting his money up.

Get off the high horse. This ain't politics, it's sport, so don't confuse the two.

Besides, we need some "bad boys" in cycling...
Michael Menta
Austin, Texas

Dubious company
Dear Editors,
We have heard little in the last year about Santiago Botero’s alleged involvement in the Operación Puerto affair, other than that the Columbian federation had “cleared” him of any involvement or wrongdoing.

How reassuring.

About this time last year, another American-registered team, Discovery Channel, signed another high-profile athlete, Ivan Basso, who had also been “cleared” of wrongdoing by his native Italy’s authorities.

Ahem.

That particular stunt didn’t pass the laugh test. It was public knowledge that the UCI (at a minimum claimed to have) held a substantial amount of damning evidence against Basso at the time Johan Bruyneel signed him to Discovery. The catch was that the UCI and other sports bodies were barred from using the evidence they supposedly had in-hand by a Spanish court, because of that court’s ongoing investigation. That may have given Bruyneel, Lance Armstrong, and their Tailwind Sports management company a legalistic “out” to sign Basso, but it stank to high heaven as a deeply cynical ploy. We know the coda to that story.

Now the WADA and USADA-bashing Michael Ball, owner of Rock Racing, has hired another “name” from Operación Puerto’s infamous roster: Santiago Botero. I fear the Botero case was handled with minimal legitimate scrutiny and maximum legal parsing. What do we actually know of the investigation by the Federación Colombiana de Ciclismo, other than that President Ettore Sangiovanni, far away from the scrutiny of the European press, stated that “(t)here’s no real proof and only suppositions.” Perhaps, but I’d like to know more. In addition to Botero's mention in the Puerto dossier, he has certainly kept some dubious company over the years, riding first for Kelme, then the “bad old” T-Mobile team, and then Phonak.

Time is running short before the Tour of California names its invited teams, and I certainly hope they have the good sense to keep their flagship race clean of murky riders and the cynical teams that would employ them.

I think VeloNews has the best journalistic chops to give the cycling community the real story in the meantime.
Apollo Anderson
Summit, New Jersey