'Enough is Enough' - Lance Armstrong

Enduro

No

ThisRegard wrote: »

It's on ongoing joke over in the Athletics forum, guys come on asking how much training they need to do to run a sub 4 minute mile by the end of the month as they do a bit of GAA training during the week so are fairly fit. That type of thing.

If you didn't spend your days running around the alps or courses in America to set all sorts of Irish records you'd have more time to waste on the ART forum and spot these threads

Oh I know that alright. But this is the cycling forum!!! You need to at least put a smilie in there, as only a small percentage of readers here will know about A/R forum in-jokes.

Raam

No

Here are the distances.
http://bikeraceinfo.com/tdf/tdfstats.html

Lumen

petethedrummer wrote: »

Average speed of a tour isn't that important. Lemond won at 38km/hr, The last 2 tours were 39.8km/hr. Doping only really shows in TTs and mountaineous stages. The rest of the time its not gonna effect the overall speed too much. Maybe 1 or 2km/hr but not 5 or 10

It takes about 15% more power to do 40kph than 38kph.

15% is also about the difference between 5.8W/kg (good pro) and 6.7W/kg (disturbingly good pro).

Just saying...

mcgratheoin

No

Lumen wrote: »

It takes about 15% more power to do 40kph than 38kph.

Didn't I read some cyclist saying that the flat stages in the tour are a lot more difficult than they used to be? I have a vague recollection of somebody talking about everybody jumping around in the peleton trying to get in the right position and that there aren't as many stages where the peleton just coasts around anymore.

petethedrummer

No

Lumen wrote: »

It takes about 15% more power to do 40kph than 38kph.

15% is also about the difference between 5.8W/kg (good pro) and 6.7W/kg (disturbingly good pro).

Just saying...

I'm led to believe they take turns at the front in cycling.

petethedrummer

No

mcgratheoin wrote: »

Didn't I read some cyclist saying that the flat stages in the tour are a lot more difficult than they used to be? I have a vague recollection of somebody talking about everybody jumping around in the peleton trying to get in the right position and that there aren't as many stages where the peleton just coasts around anymore.

Lemond said it in an interview IIRC. He said anyone could keep up with them at the start of a stage in the 80s.

Lumen

petethedrummer wrote: »

I'm led to believe they take turns at the front in cycling.

Are you suggesting that modern cycling has more turn-taking, or that the riders previously weren't trying hard enough?

edit: I just read

petethedrummer wrote: »

Lemond said it in an interview IIRC. He said anyone could keep up with them at the start of a stage in the 80s.

..so presumably the latter.

I've read that blood manipulation doesn't just affect threshold and super-threshold efforts. Fast tempo riding is supposed to be easier too.

2 Wheels Good

No

Raam wrote: »

Here are the distances.
http://bikeraceinfo.com/tdf/tdfstats.html

Interesting, '87 was the last in the sub 37kph avg speed tour (also last over 4000kms)

petethedrummer

No

Lumen wrote: »

Are you suggesting that modern cycling has more turn-taking, or that the riders previously weren't trying hard enough?

edit: I just read

..so presumably the latter.

I don't have to suggest the latter. Lemond has said it and Kelly has said it on Eurosport. They are under more pressure now for exposure and breaks these days. I would have said they were "differently trying" in those days rather than being lazy. I would also suggest there is a deeper talent pool. Slightly better equipment and slightly better training. And more specific targetting of Tours. EDIT: And the entire peloton doesn't have to be 15% stronger, which you know. So why am I saying it. I dunno.

Lumen wrote: »

I've read that blood manipulation doesn't just affect threshold and super-threshold efforts. Fast tempo riding is supposed to be easier too.

I don't doubt it.

Maybe 40Km/h is impossible without doping but then you would have to doubt your country man (you are Belgian aren't you?), if you round his finishing speed to the nearest whole number.:p

Would it drop to 30-35Km/h though if the entire peloton went panyagua? I'll leave that to you Professor Numbers.

walshb

mcgratheoin wrote: »

I'm not sure that other sports skate by to be fair. I know you'll say that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but there hasn't been much of a suggestion around other sports of the type of systematic doping that cycling had a problem with. (Hopefully the Fuentes evidence will be made available to WADA to see what the real story is though) Where Armstrong makes his estimate of 5 clean guys riding the tours he competed in, I'm not sure that there's another sport out there with that level of doping.

In terms of law enforcement officials identifying drug cheats, cycling is far from alone there - baseball and athletics have both been the beneficiaries of the BALCO investigation, and I'd suggest that athletics has at times in recent history been as much of a "punch-bag" as cycling.

You also need to recognise that within endurance sports, doping will have a much larger effect on performance and hence the outcome. Sports like cycling or cross-country skiing are examples where it is virtully impossible for a clean athlete to compete with a doped athlete, while the gains made by doping in other sports are less obvious and more marginal (but it's still cheating). This also means that the situation we had in cycling (dope or get out) is less likely to arise in other sports, with the consequence that a Kimmage, Bassons, Simeoni type figure is less likely to be forced out of the sport and spill the beans.


As an aside, I would imagine that the average football fan would be (not my opinion so don't have a go at me over it) roughly of the attitude that you can take as many drugs as you want, but you're still not going to be able to go past players like Messi, or read a game like Cannavaro, so therefore doping isn't a problem.

Very succinct!

Flandria

No

This thread...

petethedrummer

No

I don't have alot on in work at the moment. Can you tell?

Flandria

No

:D:D

furiousox

No

Ferrari says Armstrong could have reached the same level without doping :rolleyes:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ferrari-armstrong-could-have-reached-the-same-level-without-doping

MPFG

No

Wiggins on Armstrong

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest/536591/bradley-wiggins-no-sympathy-for-lance-armstrong.html

shaka

No

Good to see wiggins say what everyone on the street has been saying , lance was dirty in 09 and 10

Flandria

No

shaka wrote: »

Good to see wiggins say what everyone on the street has been saying , lance was dirty in 09 and 10

Yes, and quite a volte face to offer such a strong opinion on a rider that he couldn't even recall racing against a few weeks ago...:rolleyes:

GT_TDI_150

No

Flandria wrote: »

Yes, and quite a volte face to offer such a strong opinion on a rider that he couldn't even recall racing against a few weeks ago...:rolleyes:

Was just thinking the same

couerdelion

Yes, but he's still great

Flandria wrote: »

Yes, and quite a volte face to offer such a strong opinion on a rider that he couldn't even recall racing against a few weeks ago...:rolleyes:

He does the things that most cyclists seem to be doing - not offering any real opinion - and gets criticism, so he gives his views and then gets more criticism for not telling it how it was in the first place. He really can't win can he.

MPFG

No

couerdelion wrote: »

He does the things that most cyclists seem to be doing - not offering any real opinion - and gets criticism, so he gives his views and then gets more criticism for not telling it how it was in the first place. He really can't win can he.

I agree....some people just want to havea go at Wiggins no matter what

Fr D Maugire

No

couerdelion wrote: »

He does the things that most cyclists seem to be doing - not offering any real opinion - and gets criticism, so he gives his views and then gets more criticism for not telling it how it was in the first place. He really can't win can he.

No he get's criticism for constantly changing his opinion. If he kept it straight there would be no questions asked unless of course, he was still calling Armstrong fantastic which he has done in the past.

Max_Charger

No

Fr D Maugire wrote: »

No he get's criticism for constantly changing his opinion. If he kept it straight there would be no questions asked unless of course, he was still calling Armstrong fantastic which he has done in the past.

A lot of people called him fantastic in the past, including myself. I've since changed my opinion. Heaven forbid someone should change their opinion.

corny

No

"That was the thing that upset me the most about 2009 and 2010. I thought you lying bastard. I can still remember going toe-to-toe with him, watching him and his body language. The man I saw at the top of Verbier in 2009 to the man I saw on the top of Ventoux two weeks later, it wasn't the same bike rider. Watch the videos and see the way the guy was riding."

Yet according to Bradley and Sky a few weeks ago he never raced with Armstrong.:rolleyes:

See this is what really bothers me not just with Wiggins but with the peloton in general. They'd obviously be the first to know who doped, what they took and when they took it yet the type of honesty above is rarely seen and is certainly never spoken of until the man is caught and in the gutter. Wiggins knew all of the above in 2009 yet a couple of months ago he was Shocked by the USADA report. 'Run with the fox and bark with the hounds'.

MPFG

No

Wiggins & Froome on the Beeb

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/21190542

OMG ..Bradley your hair...like Rita Fairclough Sullivan Tanners after a blowdry at Audry Roberts salon !

Fr D Maugire

No

Max_Charger wrote: »

A lot of people called him fantastic in the past, including myself. I've since changed my opinion. Heaven forbid someone should change their opinion.

Well if you were still calling him fantastic in 2009 you were a bit deluded I am afraid.

Anyhow you are some regular joe so wouldn't exactly have the inside scope that Wiggins had. Neither did I but then common sense and all the available evidence kinda made it obvious from about 2002/03.

Wiggins was team-mates with quite a few guys who testified against Lance like Vaughters, Vandevelde, Zabriskie, Barry. I guess they never discussed Lance even once when they were riding against him as a team;).

I think most pro's knew he was doping from way back.

leftism

No

Have to say, i have always been a big fan of Wiggo! I think that along with Cadel, he has helped bring the sport into an era where we can start to really believe that clean riders are winning the Grand Tours.

However, since his Tour de France victory i don't think he has handled the media attention at all well. Suddenly the outspoken anti-doping advocate -the mod who calls it like he see's it- seems a lot quieter, and when he is talking, he's making stupid comments about journalists and flip-flopping from one side of the fence to the other.

Don't get me wrong, i think Wiggo is clean as a whistle and i'd be devastated if he ever failed a test or was linked to doping in any way. I just think he's uncomfortable with the mantle of "Tour King" and is much too careful with what he's saying and how he says it... Maybe its team or UCI censorship; that he's being told to tone down the anti-doping banter, but i'd still like to see more of the old Wiggo and less of the Wiggo 2.0.

Bluefoam

No

leftism wrote: »

Have to say, i have always been a big fan of Wiggo! I think that along with Cadel, he has helped bring the sport into an era where we can start to really believe that clean riders are winning the Grand Tours.

However, since his Tour de France victory i don't think he has handled the media attention at all well. Suddenly the outspoken anti-doping advocate -the mod who calls it like he see's it- seems a lot quieter, and when he is talking, he's making stupid comments about journalists and flip-flopping from one side of the fence to the other.

Don't get me wrong, i think Wiggo is clean as a whistle and i'd be devastated if he ever failed a test or was linked to doping in any way. I just think he's uncomfortable with the mantle of "Tour King" and is much too careful with what he's saying and how he says it... Maybe its team or UCI censorship; that he's being told to tone down the anti-doping banter, but i'd still like to see more of the old Wiggo and less of the Wiggo 2.0.

I wish i shared your blind faith

davyjose

Flandria wrote: »

Yes, and quite a volte face to offer such a strong opinion on a rider that he couldn't even recall racing against a few weeks ago...:rolleyes:

Wiggins is about as clear-cut as it gets in professional cycling tbh. If you don't like it, you sure as hell aren't going to like what any other rider has to say. Breaking the Omertà has destroyed careers. Wiggins is king of the hill but still no idiot. That culture is locked in. Even Kimmage was done with the sport before he spoke out.

iregk

No

couerdelion wrote: »

He does the things that most cyclists seem to be doing - not offering any real opinion - and gets criticism, so he gives his views and then gets more criticism for not telling it how it was in the first place. He really can't win can he.

MPFG wrote: »

I agree....some people just want to havea go at Wiggins no matter what

He can win easily, just say it like it is from the start. We are supposed to be moving on as a sport and last week you have Wiggins coming out and saying this: "looking at Lance's confession you have to pretty much wipe out the 90's all together". I'm sorry Brad but did LA win all 7 tours in the 90's? No. So why not wipe out the 00's as well? Oh because you were racing then so that means wiping out your results too.

It's that double standard that annoys people about him. He was a very outspoken anti drug campaigner until he started to have some success, then he went extremely quiet. Right or wrongly that leads people to be suspicious and therefore annoyed at him.

Same with Cavendish, last week when asked about LA and the scandal he said you're talking about a bygone era. 2 years ago is not a bygone era. He then in a seperate incident preceeded to tell a journalist who asked about Lance to "f*ck off" and can be heard shouting at his PR guy to get this "d*ck head" away he asking about Lance, "f*ck off". I think we can safely say if anyone of us done that in our day job we'd be sacked!

elduggo

mcgratheoin wrote: »

Didn't I read some cyclist saying that the flat stages in the tour are a lot more difficult than they used to be? I have a vague recollection of somebody talking about everybody jumping around in the peleton trying to get in the right position and that there aren't as many stages where the peleton just coasts around anymore.

Cadel Evans said it the year he won the tour. He compared it to the previous year's Giro (the year he won that amazing Straide Bianchi stage) which was way longer and should really have been way harder. He said that in the Giro there is a lot of 'easy riding', that there is a settling in period in stages before attacks go, and that generally you go flat out for a lot less time.

In the tour there is almost no easy riding (apart from the occasional transitional day, maybe in the 3rd week where they let a break go early and allow it stay away, or a day that Fabian Cancellara decides its too dangerous to ride so everyone coasts along). As someone else rightly said, theres too much at stake at the tour. Thats when riders are negotiating their contracts for the following year, the biggest shop window, etc.

I recall a stage in the tour. maybe 6/7 years back. It was a high mountains stage and started on an uphill. I recall Christope Moreau (then with ag2r) going on the attack straight away and Sean Kelly being almost shocked that he'd attack so early, that it'd make him unpopular in the bunch for doing so. That being the case it clearly wasn't something that was done in Kelly's day, and possibly for several years afterwards.