Tyler Hamilton's Book on Sale 9/18/2012...

Tyler Hamilton, the disgraced American cyclist who tested positive for PED's not once but twice during his career, has written a book about his life in the peloton. The second time he got busted for DHEA while with the US domestic Rock Racing team, he said he'd write a book one day about his days as a professional rider, and cryptically stated there was a definite "mafia" in cycling. No one knows what's in the book or what topics are touched upon in depth, but there are many who are expecting a tell-all that delves into the underbelly of the sport and the use of steroids and blood doping.

Hamilton has credibility issues galore. His record in this regard speaks for itself-lying about doping, soliciting funds from the public for a ridiculous defense, and never coming clean about the doping issues revolving around the 2004 Olympics road race and that years' Vuelta a España a few weeks later. He was caught for blood doping because he transfused someone elses' blood, the same thing that Alexander Vinokourov was busted for.

This means the doctor who was overseeing the transfusion messed up. Who was the doctor? How was the blood stored that they got the bags mixed up? These are the details I want to see addressed. I've said this in a previous post, but the depression Hamilton says he suffers from HAS to be a direct consequence of what we know to be some seriously prodigious drug use. The PED calendar from the year Tyler won Leige-Bastogne-Liege and the Tour of Romandie from Dr. Fuentes of Spain tells a story that needs elucidation. And why payments to this doctor were made by Tyler's wife using her maiden name.

Tyler with then-wife Haven Hamilton-

Ekimov, Hamilton and Bobby Julich at the 2004 Olympic road race...

Lots of questions need answering, and Hamilton's co-writer Dan Coyle, author of "Lance Armstrong's War", was given unprecedented access to Tyler Hamilton, gathering 200 hours worth of interviews with the subject. There has been plenty of self-righteous indignation revolving around Hamilton and his intentions, basically the same bullshit we've been hearing ever since Tyler decided to go on the investigative TV program "60 Minutes" to tell America their hero, Lance Armstrong, was a con artist and a fraud. No need to rehash that bullshit here, because this will not become a vehicle for idiotic trolls and fanboys to denigrate a rider who's already been through enough. He's paid a heavy price to make his sporting dreams come true, and now that everything has been taken from him, it's time to let the man speak on his own terms.

Lance Armstrong's reaction when he found out Hamilton wrote a book detailing drug use in the pro peloton-

Lance Armstrong isn't the only one who gets to set the narrative on what went on in cycling during the years he dominated the peloton, and it's been that way for far too long. His story, if there is any justice in this world, will follow right behind Hamilton's. And as the release of the book falls on Armstrong's birthday, this tells me that Tyler has the type of sense of humor we appreciate here on "Busting Chops"*.

*The release date for the book has been moved up to September 5th, 2012. I guess Tyler Hamilton's publishers were either threatened with a lawsuit by Armstrong or they are looking to take advantage of the anti-Armstrong zeitgeist that is swarming around us cycling fans right about now. Either way, it's always good to be able to read it sooner rather than later.