So I rode with him. He looked fast to amateurs. In hindsight, he didn’t look pro probably. I do remember almost beating him a couple times. But I guess my ego made me think I was fast instead of him being slow. He always bragged about how low his HR was though….pointing to his HR monitor on his Wahoo. So in hindsight maybe his bike was rigged. He started riding a gravel bike a lot and didn’t get slower! If his bike was rigged then mechanic was definitely in on it, and he owns shop now.
I've read earlier articles about this sociopathic sleazebag, and it's mind-boggling how his BS was able to snow anyone with an iota of knowledge about cycling, especially that absurd tale about him being "invited" to ride Paris-Roubaix at age 42 by a non-existent Italian team. If you look at the photos of Clark in his fake team kit -which he designed and ordered hikself- at that time, he was grossly overweight by pro cyclist standards.
All the so called cyclists around him, including the sponsored women's team, probably sucked at riding and are hobby cyclists. Anyone that follows cycling could tell you they never heard of a Nick Clark riding in the biggest races for some of the biggest teams.
And I bet none of his victims were brave enough to call him fat because that would get you cancelled by leftists nowadays even if you are absolutely right.
So I rode with him. He looked fast to amateurs. In hindsight, he didn’t look pro probably. I do remember almost beating him a couple times. But I guess my ego made me think I was fast instead of him being slow. He always bragged about how low his HR was though….pointing to his HR monitor on his Wahoo. So in hindsight maybe his bike was rigged. He started riding a gravel bike a lot and didn’t get slower! If his bike was rigged then mechanic was definitely in on it, and he owns shop now.
Guy moves from Australia to Virginia to open bike shop. Guy alleges he was a former pro cyclist, among many other notable achievements. Guy starts picking off King of the Mountain Strava cycle segments with unbelievable times and metrics. A person that was dethroned starts looking into this guy's background. Guy's entire self-proclaimed existence discovered to be a lie.
This deserves a better thread title than Strava Cheat, really. It's so, so much more than that.
This guy basically fabricated multiple entire lives at various points in time, including where he had lived, education and degrees, military service, jobs, professional cycling background. Jumped from job to job making up a new life history for each one. Lived a fairly public life as CEO of a public company, started a successful bike shop, put together a women's cycling team, and more all under completely false pretenses and without being exposed despite being all over news articles, public filings from the company he was CEO of, etc. Edited Wikipedia and hired PR companies to help him spread the lies.
Until one day he took the wrong guy's KOM on Strava and the cycling lies began to unravel, and the journalist then unraveled everything else.
This deserves a better thread title than Strava Cheat, really. It's so, so much more than that.
This guy basically fabricated multiple entire lives at various points in time, including where he had lived, education and degrees, military service, jobs, professional cycling background. Jumped from job to job making up a new life history for each one. Lived a fairly public life as CEO of a public company, started a successful bike shop, put together a women's cycling team, and more all under completely false pretenses and without being exposed despite being all over news articles, public filings from the company he was CEO of, etc. Edited Wikipedia and hired PR companies to help him spread the lies.
Until one day he took the wrong guy's KOM on Strava and the cycling lies began to unravel, and the journalist then unraveled everything else.
fascinating how the numerous lies weren't found out until someone took a strava setgment
Yes agree, especially considering how he lied. He said he had been invited back to ride Paris-Roubaix with an Italian team. For that to be true he had to be in incredible shape and ride 5-7 hours daily. But he did one hell of a job forging old memorabilia(?) so I guess I somewhat understand people believed in him.
It really is. Some of the things he did were pretty blatant - e.g. saying he had gotten the women's cycling team was sponsored by the bike company Colnago (they weren't - he bought the team their bikes). He even said he was affiliated with an Italian continental team Lipomo and wore/sold clothes with that name on them, but that team never existed - did no one look them up? People bought team-logo'd kit and wore it around without checking that a team existed?? The confidence you need to have to swindle people like that is incredible.
But you can see how taking a segment could lead to discovery. Someone who is pretty high profile sees that their very good segment time was taken by someone claiming to be an ex-pro in their Strava profile. Who is this guy, never heard of him so start to search around. Ask their friends who were around at the time. All the sudden there are multiple people who should know this guy personally based on the info online but no one's ever heard of him. And the lie falls apart.
This deserves a better thread title than Strava Cheat, really. It's so, so much more than that.
Well it's about the third thread on this topic this week, so go pick another one to reply to if the title of one of those is more appealing.
Is it? I'm just seeing this for the first time. The article definitely needs a tldr. From reading the first half, then skimming I got that the guy is a serial liar who fabricated multiple life stories, one of which was being a pro cyclist.
These stories helped him run a successful bike shop for a time and helped in other businesses he's run/running.
I couldn't find what method he used to cheat strava, but it doesn't really matter and I'll assume its a motor.
I see running segments from time to time where its obvious the top time was set with a bike. Some people will just never be secure in who they are.
I'm too lazy to read that long thing. How was he cheating on Strava?
The article doesn't address the how, but suggested he could have used a motor on his bike. The strava segment was the catalyst for the whole unraveling, but was really only a tiny piece of the story.
But you can see how taking a segment could lead to discovery. Someone who is pretty high profile sees that their very good segment time was taken by someone claiming to be an ex-pro in their Strava profile. Who is this guy, never heard of him so start to search around. Ask their friends who were around at the time. All the sudden there are multiple people who should know this guy personally based on the info online but no one's ever heard of him. And the lie falls apart.
oh for sure. He claims right on his profile that he was former pro so if it were me, i would look him up just out of curiosity. Seems all the other lies are obvious too like the 3rd place at UCI juniors. If I met someone with an achievement like that, I'd look up race on youtube or something to find out more
But you can see how taking a segment could lead to discovery. Someone who is pretty high profile sees that their very good segment time was taken by someone claiming to be an ex-pro in their Strava profile. Who is this guy, never heard of him so start to search around. Ask their friends who were around at the time. All the sudden there are multiple people who should know this guy personally based on the info online but no one's ever heard of him. And the lie falls apart.
oh for sure. He claims right on his profile that he was former pro so if it were me, i would look him up just out of curiosity. Seems all the other lies are obvious too like the 3rd place at UCI juniors. If I met someone with an achievement like that, I'd look up race on youtube or something to find out more
If you read the article (which is long but good) apparently he went so far as to edit a wikipedia entry about himself. He also had a medal (fake) from UCI juniors displayed.
It's also important to remember that not everything was documented and memorialized back then the way it is now.
I had a decent career as a teenager in another sport around the same time (late 80s/early 90s), including winning my state final and placing in a national championship. I have the trophies and pictures and hard copy programs to prove it. But if you google my name, you'll see absolutely no indication I ever competed in that sport. Those records simply are too old to be on-line.
Things were different back then - athletic performances had much less of a paper trail, and no electronic trail.
'96ish was really the point where results started coming online, but a lot of the 90's sites have gone dark and the results are not available on the internet. I even tried to find triathlon results from the mid-2000s from a reputable triathlon and there's simply nothing available online. It would take more digging and research than most would be willing to do to verify that kind of information.