Dewey Dickey Lives

Those countries take their races seriously. To win, the cyclists often took a little extra something. Steroids can be bought over the counter in Latin America. The American cyclists heard the Latino riders talking in hotel hallways about doping, then the next day watched them go up the mountains as if they were flat terrain.

World cycling, for that matter, had become synonymous with doping. Tour de France climbing champion Richard Virenque faced French criminal charges for doping, and Italian police had found doping evidence in hotel raids during the Giro d’Italia. Everybody knew how the cyclists had ridden like superhumans. “That’s free advertising for doping,” Dickey says. “I thought, ‘This stuff must be great.’ ”

At the time, Dickey wouldn’t even take aspirin. Yet during the Tour of Venezuela, he bought a steroid shot at the pharmacy. Six weeks later in the Tour of Guatemala, where he won the King of the Mountains jersey, the drugs were still in his system when he was randomly selected for testing. He tested positive for three banned substances: the stimulant phentermine, along with boldenone and nandrolone, both anabolic steroids.

“I guarantee you if they had tested everybody in the field in Guatemala, 90 percent would have been positive,” Dickey says. “If you admit use, they punish you worse than if you deny it. I was forced to deny it.”

Today, he says he had also used diet pills with phentermine more than once that season, especially for training. He says the stimulant definitely affected his performance, but claims it was not a factor in race outcomes. “It’s not going to turn a mule into a racehorse.”

In December 2001, the United States Anti-Doping Agency slapped Dickey with a two-year suspension, now standard for first-time offenders, but considered harsh then. Worse, he faced the scorn of the cycling community. When he showed up at citizen races in Wisconsin, for which he was still eligible, organizers ran him off. He read nasty comments on the Minnesota Cycling Federation chat room pages and received spiteful e-mail.

One dirty urine test had tainted everything he had accomplished in his cycling career. Guys he had beaten in races a decade earlier told him they knew how he had done it. “It was an ugly time.” he says. Dickey looks out the restaurant window at the fading sunlight. “That was harder than the illnesses.”

By the time his suspension cleared in October of 2003, Dickey was burning to redeem his reputation. In January, he left the Minnesota winter to train in Tucson. That’s when he started having blurred spots in his vision. He eventually lost all sight in his right eye. In April, he finally went to a doctor, who ordered an MRI. It revealed a craniopharyngioma, a tumor pressing against his pituitary gland and disturbing his optic nerve.

Dickey headed to the Mayo Clinic, where he underwent an unsuccessful attempt to biopsy the tumor through the nose. Three days later, he submitted to a craniotomy. The surgeon was able to get a biopsy, but not able to remove the tumor. “He said there was a lot of expensive real estate there and he wasn’t going to chance it,” Dickey recalls.

Instead, the doctor prescribed a grueling regimen of radiation treatments five days a week for six weeks. The treatments caused sudden, violent headaches that blurred his vision, blocked his hearing, and caused loss of mobility in his right leg. The radiation also caused swelling in his brain, resulting in what he calls “melon head.” The rays marked his scalp with burn spots, and his hair fell out in those places. The high dose also weakened his bones, resulting in osteoporosis. He was in bad shape, but continued to ride.