My Yearly (Foolish) Rant against VeloNews

Once again it's the annual "don't take our magazine serious" time of year with Velonews throwing their hat into the comedy ring for April Fools Day.  Growing up (before the internet) I would anxiously wait to get my biweekly copy of VeloNews to read about the comings and goings of professional cycling.  Back then VeloNews (now Velo) wasn't a glossy high class magazine but rather a newsprint style paper.  The flashy magazine at the time was "Winning" but it only came around every month and was certain to be behind the times with their reporting.  I loved reading the timely reporting of races in Europe and the USA and how my favorite riders were doing.  I could always count on these magazines to give me what I wanted.  But over the past ten years or so, Velonews has this seemingly aching desire to be too cool for the room and engage in fake stories on April Fools Day.  VeloNews is nice enough to at least let you know when a story is real.  Whew, thanks guys.

HUGE IN EUROPE, NOT SO MUCH IN THE USA
While many people might dismiss my rant here with curmudgeon jokes about my age and attitude, I have a greater point to serve in my disdain for VeloNews and their foolish ways every April 1st.  Cycling in the USA is not a mainstream sport.  There, I said it.  If this comes as news to you then perhaps you need to get a life and do a reality check.  Put down your cone wrenches, stop gluing your tubulars and pouring over Watts or VAM via TrainingPeaks, stop streaming a race in Europe with more pop-ups than a virus ridden porn site and just watch ESPN for an hour.  No cycling!  None....nada.  In my life and many of my friends, cycling is everything where we verbally trade in the world of statistics, wins and losses and strategy all the time.  We group text at 7 a.m. Sunday morning about how Sagan blew the sprint in Gent Wavelgem.  I know my pro cycling history like George Will knows baseball (complete over statement).  But just because I can name the winner of the 1989 Santa Cruz Classic (Scott McKinley, but I was actually there that day - side note, I hung out with Thurlow Rogers and his wife that day) or the 1988 World Championships (Maurizio Fondriest) doesn't mean the sport is followed this closely by a majority of people in the US.  I can't tell you how many times I've had the discussion about whether cycling is a an actual sport or not....oh wait, that was golf.  NO, cycling I have to defend against the doping scandals which seemingly make our sport a joke to most.  So when you have such a small niche following cycling in the US, perhaps it would be good if the news sources covering cycling helped to promote the sport rather than perpetuated it as a joke.  I personally may know that a story on VeloNews is fake, but what about those that do the drive-by cycling news intake?

PEELING THE LAYERS OF THE COMEDIC ONION

I wouldn't expect to read a story from The Onion and post it on my Facebook page with the expectation that anyone would take the story at face value.  Then again, I don't go read the Onion expecting hard hitting news stories.  The Onion is a purely satirical news source where everyday is April Fools.  (note: The Onion also doesn't have to tweet that a certain story on their site is not an "#AprilFools story.")

There are certain papers and news publications that are seen as respectable.  The Wall Street Journal is held in high esteem for the investing community much like the New York Times once was a legendary source of great news reporting.  The NY Times has had some problems in the past, but it's still a news source that cannot be mistaken for The Onion, The National Enquirer, The Globe or something akin the local free "newspaper" I see on the corner.

VeloNews is one of the dominant cycling news sources for Americans with both an online presence and a magazine edition.  The whole news venture is based out of Boulder Colorado (the heart of American cycling) with writers in Europe, the eastern US and all over covering cycling and cycling related topics.  Every year at Tour de France time VeloNews has a daily diary where they interview a rider prior to the stage and recap the previous day's race and predict the upcoming one.  They do some really in depth reporting with a slant towards American riders.  VeloNews has serious articles on the racing scene most of the time.  Their Editor, Neal Rogers, was specifically targeted by Floyd Landis and Lance Armstrong for his writing and questioning of their performances when suspicions of performance enhancing drugs were discovered.

Yet, each year VeloNews takes a stab at being "The Onion" of cycling publications all while still hoping to be thought of as the "Wall Street Journal" the rest of the year.  Oh how clever they are.  On their home page they display actual news story headlines mixed with ridiculous ones like the following from 2013

• Desperate for race miles, Schleck to start Paris-Roubaix
• Shimano Di2 breakdown reveals remote control capabilities

This year, VeloNews trots out the same old tricks with this little attempt at trying to be the next Jon Stewart - Any reference in your magazine to alien abduction has to be grounds for crazy, right?  I mean, this year they actually did a story about ALIENS!:

Froome faces scrutiny over extraterrestrial DNA test results. 

UCI commission to recommend Google Glass use on WorldTour.

Besides the "snooze" factor of these articles and the fact that the writing ventures into comedic territory they have no business entering, trying to "pull one over" on the reader is not why I come to VeloNews.  If I wanted snarky commentary on cycling I'd stick with Neal Browne, Cyclocosm or Eurosports "Blazzin Saddles."  Now, if VeloNews wants a funnyman why not just use their own Dan Wouri?  The guy is hands down one of the best witty tweeters around and he already writes a column for VeloNews that includes his witticism.  Granted, Dan is funny and I expect his writings to be such but I never read his articles wondering if he's making up quotes just to be funny.  However, every year on April Fools I end up with this same rant and avoiding VeloNews altogether.  In fact, I've found myself avoiding VeloNews more and more during the cycling season and moving on towards CyclingNews.com, or INRNG because, how do I know that only on April Fools day Velonews is making up a quote or story?  Oh right, look to their twitter account for "not an #AprilFools story" type tweet.  Gotcha.

FOOL ME ONCE...

It's not just the reader that VeloNews is fooling, but also the big news organizations as well.  According to the following tweet by Cyclocosm, the Boston Globe was "Punked" by a Velonews April Fools story back in 2005. 

The problem here is, when a major news outlet is "punked" by a small cycling news magazine it's more than likely the cycling news magazine won't be used as a source again.  Fooled me once...blah blah blah.  But hey dude, that Globe paper was royally embarrassed by that hip cycling journal in Boulder.  Way to burn the man!  Or rather, way to limit the cycling coverage from VeloNews as reported by the Boston Globe in the future.  Mission Accomplished.  We all remember the story of the boy who cried Wolf, right?

ALIEN(ated)
Would you ever expect the Wall Street Journal to put out an April Fools edition?  Absolutely not, because for 365 days of the year the WSJ wants to be thought of as credible.  Any reputable newspaper can run a comic strip and still be considered a great source of news.  But even though the National Enquirer had the story correct about former disgraced Senator John Edwards and his cheating ways, they have had too many cover stories about alien abductions and celebrity alien babies to be thought of as your first source for hard hitting news.  Hey, I enjoy the freak stories I see as I'm checking out at the grocery store, but I know they aren't a serious news magazine when I see President Obama has taken a secret gay lover.  But how soon until Velo is next to the Globe at checkout?  VeloNews is now my National Enquirer as I'm reminded why every April 1st.  ALIENS, they wrote about ALIENS.