Beards, doping and Lance Armstrong

"Grumpy" Art Vanderlay is visiting (a Team Grumpy outing is planned for this evening - watch this blog for more details), and after a gentle leg-easing bike ride made quite an astute observation about beards and doping. You may have noticed Grumpy Bob's facial hair in the photographs accompanying the Team Grumpy 2009 launch event.

"Grumpy" Art observed a correlation between doping and beards, particularly goatee beards (which Grumpy Bob's beard is beginning to resemble). Citing as evidence Marco Pantani, Frank Vandenbroucke, and Floyd Landis as examples (not to mention the suggestion that Richard Virenque and David Millar became facially hirsute at around the time they got caught doping), he made the proposition that beards were a clear indicator of dubious practice. Grumpy Bob observes that Lance Armstrong (who of course has never tested positive) does not have a beard. Team Grumpy leaves it to the reader to make what they will of that factoid. In the meantime, perhaps it is time to lose the beard?