Stay positive, stay positive, stay positive! That’s one of our core (no pun intended) principles around the Coeur office. Especially when it comes to posting anything online. Now to be clear, the office is most definitely not full of a bunch of “goody two shoes”. Anyone who has stopped by after 5:00 p.m. or joined us on a group ride (or for a couple bottles of wine) can attest to that.
In fact, some of the jokes and comments that fly around the office might shock a casual bystander. Especially when we get on the topic of our digestive tracks and training or racing!
You did what with your sock on that long run???
To be clear though, the comments are always good natured and more often than not about ourselves. The reason, we try so hard to be positive and encouraging is because, we believe that the internet has a tendency to accentuate the negative without any help from us. Maybe it’s just how humans are wired or perhaps it’s the anonymity of the web. In any event, we believe that there are plenty of people posting about or commenting on what’s wrong in the world and that chiming in with our two cents probably won’t add much value. Now to be clear, we frequently agree with many of those comments, it’s just that we try to do our part and balance the scales by commenting on what’s right in the world.
Unfortunately, there are some cases where we have to part with our own guidelines and vent. What we saw this weekend at IMTX was one of those cases. We had a number of Coeur customers, friends, and Ambassadors racing, so we were pretty much glued to the screen on race day. Then someone was kind enough to post a live feed of a camera mounted on an overpass.
Now this isn’t a scientific assessment, but based on what we saw, the pros and then the first groups of bikers that came by seemed to be racing by the rules and there was good spacing between them. Then, before long, we started seeing the packs appear. Basically, it looked like good old fashioned pelotons coming down the road.
That’s when we started to deviate from our own little Golden Rule. We posted a tongue in cheek comment online about how we must be watching the ITU Draft Legal Race (big congrats to Katie Zaferes by the way) and then the responses started flooding in confirming our suspicions. Not long after that, we heard that one of our ambassadors had crashed during the race when someone swerved into her and it only got worse after that. The reports were that multiple packs formed up on the bike and that race officials were few and far between.
We suppose that the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” came when one of our ambassadors let us know that she was told “F off, everyone’s doing it” when she tried to shake someone off her wheel.
Now, we’re just sad, upset, & angry and can’t help but take a few moments to vent. Similar to how we feel about doping and dopers, we can only imagine how it must feel for someone to put in the work, race clean & fair and then see their Kona spot or rightful place in the race results go to someone who decides that it’s ok since “everyone is doing it”.
Now, we’re not 100% sure how to help stop it, but with doping, we have put our support and our $$’s behind The Clean Sport Collective.
We really like their approach in that they help create social pressure to try and stop doping. They also add emphasis by having people and organizations pledge to race clean and only support those that do.
With drafting, however, it’s not quite as clear cut, since sometimes inadvertent drafting can happen (it's a little harder to inadvertently jam that needle full of EPO in your bottom). We can understand how someone could be riding alone and all the sudden a pack envelopes them. Then an official shows up and next thing you know, you're cooling your heels in the penalty tent.
Now certainly, more race officials would help (a lot!) but we know that they can’t be everywhere all the time. So for now, we're going to try and do our little part to, at least, help on the social pressure front. Hopefully, anyone who wears a Coeur kit knows that we try to stand for something. We also truly believe that our Customers, our Collective Beat Members, and our Ambassadors want to do the right thing.
If (in the unlikely event), that's not the case, then it's clear, we're just not a good fit together.
Beyond that, we'd love input on what else can be done. We'll do our part and know that you all will as well.
Happy Training and Racing
Your Friends at Coeur