ESPN.com’s Bonnie Ford provides an in-depth profile of Christian Vande Velde and how he has converted himself from support rider to leader during the Tour de France.
From the article: “Likewise, it won’t be of any use to pore over his blood test results, laid bare for all to see in Bicycling Magazine this week and declared honest by one of the world’s top anti-doping researchers. Anything else would have been a shock, since Vande Velde is the leader of a team that long ago dedicated itself to proving it was possible to compete clean.”
“It’s not about the numbers. To explain this transformation, you’d need to track the inner workings of Vande Velde’s heart with a monitor a lot more sensitive than the thin black strap he wears around his chest. You’d have to see a longitudinal chart of his confidence, which has spiked recently after years of meandering in a valley as his early promise took detour after detour.”
