Bike Pure

I ran across an interesting website yesterday called Bike Pure. After looking around a little, I realized that Bike Pure is working to promote the same ideals that Transparent Racing is, and wanted to share a bit about the organization.

According to Bike Pure's website,

Bike Pure aims to protect the integrity of cycling and promote clean cyclesport. Cycling fans worldwide deserve heroes they can believe in. Supporters want a clean sport and the professional riders need their credibility back.

This is something that we at Transparent Racing STRONGLY agree with. We believe that cycling is a wonderful sport that should not be marred by illegal performance enhancers and that cyclists of all disciplines are losing credibility because of the bad choices of some racers.

One of Transparent Racing's goals is to have great results WITHOUT using performance enhancers. We believe that if a racer or rider cannot enjoy cycling without cheating, then they should not be cycling. We also seek to build trust with cycling fans around the world by being open, honest and accessible. When our team website goes live, we will be posting our training and racing data online, as well as the results from our anti-doping tests to prove to the world that we are a clean race team.

Another interesting aspect of Bike Pure is how they plan to bring about this positive change in cycling. Here is what they have to say:

Through media pressure and rider and fan support Bike Pure shall encourage the athletes and teams to sign an 'Honour Code’, declaring that they race clean, without performance enhancing drugs and with a pledge that will encourage our sport to flourish. If any rider should be deemed positive, Bike Pure encourages the introduction of a life ban from cycle sport and move forward, forgetting the doper and focusing the media attention on passion and results.

We believe it is only through the adoption of stiffer penalties that riders will think twice about doping. Riders are held responsible for their own behaviour, their sponsors can have faith that their investment is safe, and the public can have confidence in the results.

We are not naive to think this is a complete solution, but it is an important first element getting the clean riders to joining forces with the supporters and laying a foundation for the future.

So far, many well-known cyclists (mountain, cyclocross and road) have taken Bike Pure's pledge, including racers from Garmin-Slipstream, Jelly Belly Pro Cycling Team, Specialized MTB, Subaru-Gary Fisher, Spike, and Velo Bella, just to name a few.

Transparent Racing is proud to have taken the Bike Pure pledge, and will be racing and training with Bike Pure's wristband and headset spacer. Look for the blue and join us. Working together, we can return cycling to it's true form...PURE sport. (If you are interested in seeing the pledge that each Bike Pure pledger must sign, click here)