The current issue.
A week or so ago, there was a post here about the article in this issue by a respected cycling journalist with a long and close association with Lance who concluded that he was convinced that Lance had in fact used performance enhancing drugs.
A writer for Oregon Live was surprised that Bicycling Magazine had gone as far as it has on this issue, in part because the magazine had been rather late to the entire issue of drugs and bikes. He interviewed the editor, Peter Flax, who had all the usual justifications. But he pointed out that their analysis, published in chart form in the same issue, showed that in the Tour de France from 2000 to 2009 in some years seven of the top ten riders had been associated with banned performance enhancers. Seven of ten. Yikes.
The blogger pressed Editor Flax about the allegations that the magazine had been slow to take a look at the story of biking and drugs because it was not going to be good for the industry from which it receives most of its advertising revenue. The editor denied this:
“Our asset is our credibility and the way our readers trust us. We’re the largest cycling magazine in the world and even though we have our reservations of wading into the rumors and allegations (against Armstrong), we had to find a way to cover this for our readership.”
