Rapha criticised over Pantani water bottle text’s links to eating disorders

Eh?

It must be my foreign sense of humour. 

Let me explain in hopefully simple terms, the bible says many things which could have a negative effect on the weak minded, some people believe what is written in it is gospel. 

This is just an extract from Duetromony, It is saying that "A woman shouldn't wear mens clothing or vice versa, if you do you are an abomination,"

How would this affect the minds of all these men or women who wear the said clothing. 

This does not stop it from being one of the best selling books in the world.

In otherwords, there are more problems in the world like eating too much and exercising too little causing fat shaming, not a water bottle which is cycling specific, surely pick on Fast food, supermarkets, manufacturing for producing high fat/sugar products designed to be addictive or pick on the individual for not being arsed to get up and exercise. You choose. 

I'm still not really sure what your point is. Are you suggesting that being 'one of the best selling books in the world' means that the bible is above criticism? In which case I'm going to have to disagree. Plenty of harms have been caused by some of what's written in the bible, by people feeling pressure to conform to ways of living that are psychologically harmful to them (and being 'weak minded' is no pre-requisite for that). Sales figures are a strange way to judge the moral worth of something.

And the 'more problems in the world' argument is no argument at all - why couldn't you challenge food formulation, supermarket promotions, and this messaging? There's no reason why you have to pick just one.

Also, I think you've slightly missed the point if you think the issue is all about being 'fat shamed' for being overweight. That may have been part of this particular person's story, but others can have eating disorders without ever having been overweight. It has more to do with the promotion of a distorted view of an idealised diet / lifestyle.

People give him a free pass as a 'legend' because he died. Otherwise he was just another cheat from an age of cheat. Same reason I have no interest in Tom Simpson.

I think Armstrong is revlied at least as much for his lying and bullying as for his use of drugs. If we were to despise all athletes using drugs to enhance their performance, the TV schedules would look at bit different... 

peted76 wrote:

If we have to watch everything we say for fear of upsetting someone somewhere, we're in danger of censoring ourselves at this rate. We surely must promote support systems (and healthy eating) for athletes now and future (I actually thought the sport was doing much better on the healthy eating message in recent years with more people talking about it and the multitude of cycling cook books out there).. not just snipe at history, because there's simply too much bad history to snipe at. 

Triggers are different depending on the person. I wouldn't have a problem with the Bidon as I never had an eating disorder or felt like I was pressurised into starving myself for a sport. However it obviously is a problem for the people who have suffered it or had family members who also had. If you read theTwitter replies it isn't just him with the same point. 

We don't have to watch everything as we don't know what will be an issue, (apart from obvious ones like race etc), however once raised it is up to the company to make a decision on this really. Look at the flak Audi have got from their marketing for example on the main news page. 

What I don't like seeing is so many people treating it lightly or adding "humourous" turns to it (not you Pete) as at some point there will be something they find upsetting that others won't. 

Compact Corned Beef wrote:

I'm not sure it's glorifying Pantani any more than cycling culture at large does, and it's not Rapha's job to change people's minds on that.

It's not their job to perpetuate it either though.

You're right - their job is to make money. But they've decided to do so by leaning into a specific strain of cycling culture, and that's proved pretty rich pickings, for the most part. So it's not surprising they're still running with that while simultaneously embracing the new in the Grinduro and Outdoor Voices lines.

Fair enough, but then they're also 'leaning in' to the possibility of controversy and negative publicity as a result. If that's the business decision they've taken, that's up to them, but then they have to take any criticism that comes their way for being a part of it. They can't have their cake and, er, not eat it, as it were.

Very true! Chapeau to the cake line too, made me chuckle.

My Rapha jeans have a nice patch inside entitled 'Fumer' which pretty much glorifies the 'Hollywood cool' of smoking.

I suspect someone who has suffered from Alcohilism problems might not find it as funny though. But as more children suffer from body dysmorphic disorder then alcoholism, I suspect the children are not as much a concern this time. 

It'll only hold the one bottle of champagne, by the time you've ridden and lost half of it to the fizzing out of the spout there probably wouldn't be enough to get you drunk.

Besides, heralding the behaviours of known dopers is probably not the best image a cycling brand could put forward.

I suspect like lots of triggers, people who have had these type of issues will see this and see the harm it can cause. I don't blame him for raising it at all. I suspect the Rapha Marketing bods saw it was a bidon and typed in "cycling legends water" into google and it through out the Pantini quote.

You might be grown up enough to realise that, and probably everyone that comes to this site is, but a 16 year old who is desperate to succeed? When people make such a big deal about the legends of the sport (cycling more than almost any other bar perhaps formula 1) when the behaviours they showed were pretty dangerous and irrisponsible. With people dying from using illegal weight loss pill, it's not a huge leap to have a seed planted in someone's head that starving yourself might work, so might taking drugs to shed the weight.

Blackthorne wrote:

FFS social media. Of all the things in the world. Get out and ride your bike. Road.cc, why is this tweet being given a platform?

Because it's raising an interesting debate regarding cycling?