Halfway done reading Tyler Hamilton's book "The Secret Race." Here are some great tidbits I thought I'd share.

So Tyler talks about the finish in the below video.

* Tyler says the reason Lance fell is because one of his strategies was to get dangerously close to the crowd so riders behind couldn't get a 100% draft off him.

* Tyler instructed the lead pack to wait for Lance.

* Lance later texted Tyler's wife Haven (they were good friends) "Your husband's the fucking man. Thanks so much."

Rare example of them being nice to each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEqQW1-casM

jamin wrote:

* There's a story where on time they were riding up hills through some complex streets and a car went by and almost hit them and yelled at them out the window. Lance took off and disappeared, chasing the char up the hill, and when Tyler and the rest of the pack caught up they saw that Lance had pulled the driver out of the car and was beating him down on the street.

Holy cr@p! Was this due to roid rage? I have read stuff about bodybuilders going on violent rampages and stuff due to roids. That being said the driver probably deserved it as drivers are often disrespectful to cyclists on roads and they often kill cyclists. Instead of getting beaten down by Lance he should have had his driver's license suspended for dangerous driving - that would have been a more civilized way to go about things.

I'll take things that never happened for 500, alex.

jamin wrote:

So Tyler talks about the finish in the below video.

* Tyler says the reason Lance fell is because one of his strategies was to get dangerously close to the crowd so riders behind couldn't get a 100% draft off him.

* Tyler instructed the lead pack to wait for Lance.

* Lance later texted Tyler's wife Haven (they were good friends) "Your husband's the fucking man. Thanks so much."

Rare example of them being nice to each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEqQW1-casM

I believe a lot of it is true, but...don't believe everything he says about Lance. Some of it is completely far-fetched and most likely sugar coated. Getting dangerously close to crowds to eliminate 100% drafting? Ummm, no---not likely.

I've watched it every year since back in the Lemond days when I was 12 years old. That statement is ridiculous. But yes, I agree that Lance has a HUGE ego and that he surely bullied a lot of people, including the innocent young masseuse that Lance called a horror...he'll pay for that as will his atheist beliefs.

Do you want people on these boards to believe everything that posters say about you?

PED-Powered Yellow Jersey Contenders wrote:

And Pantani was hell on wheels - a huge responder to PEDs. The guy couldn't TT were crap, generally was with ousy teams and yet single handedly won the Tour in 1998!

Every team was basically dropping out of that Tour when the French police tried to enforce some sort of drug testing. It started with the Festina team being booted out in the early stages of that tour due to PEDs being found in the team physio's car. Sort of like the Jama Aden situation except that the track and field authortities did nothing about that one and let all the group carry on competing as if nothing had happened.

1980TrialR wrote:

Getting dangerously close to crowds to eliminate 100% drafting? Ummm, no---not likely.

He said drafting still has a significant effect on climbs and you only get full effect if you're directly behind a rider. When Lance was leading climbs, he'd get super close to the side of the road so that anyone behind him could only get a half draft unless they also went super close to the side.

trolero wrote:

Confirms what we know: Lance was the Alberto Salazar of cycling. It wouldn’t surprise me if these two are genetically related if you do one of those ancestry.com DNA tests on them.

But Alberto didn’t actually use the serious doping drugs

jamin wrote:

* The guys on the Postal team were obsessive about resting their legs in between training rides. They picked up this obsession from George Hincappie, who would completely avoid walking up any staircase and try to avoid walking as much walking as possible and rarely ever left the couch. Tyler said when he and his wife lived on some beach in Nice, France his wife always ask him if he wanted to go on a romantic walk on the beach and he always said no because he was afraid it would affect his legs for tomorrow's ride.

* Tyler was a momma's body, almost alludes at having a Freudian Complex.

- The irony is that with how much time these spend on the bike non-weight bearing exercise to the extreme. Some light walking would be good for there bone density and skeletal health. I believe Michael Woods has commented on this as riders at the end of Grand Tours show signs of osteoporosis.

- Isn't it called an Oedipus complex? Freud was the one who introduced the concept.

I also like how no one is wearing a helmet in any of the videos posted. These guys really didn't a give a bleep.

Uphill finishes don’t require helmets because of the low speed.

Loved the book, grain of salt, though.

Best part were the instances of riders whose health was ruined by doping. Usually younger riders who couldn’t adapt to the harsh side effects.

Can’t believe Tyler’s story about being in Armstrong’s hangout in Aspen. There must be a hundred nice joints in that town, pick another one, Tyler.

jamin wrote:

Some more interesting tidbits:

* Although Lance won 7 TDFs, it's worth noting that he was focused exclusively on winning the TDF, skipped Giro d'Italia and other, arguably more prestiguous and competitive races (not as much name recognition with non-cyclists as the TDF), something other pros on the circuit looked down on him for.

Uh, no, there is no arguing that there's a more prestigious or competitive race than the TdF.

No real bike racer would say that, no real bike racing fan would say that.

Check this out - The Pirate & the Texan shooting it out to the summit of Mt. Ventoux during the 2000 Tour. Rocket-fueled turbo boosters at work here! Wow!

https://youtu.be/6q38Gyjv4EE[/quote

]

If I remember correctly Pantani got very angry at Lance for letting him win that stage, also because Lance called him Il Elefantino (because of his ears) instead of the name he preferred, which was Il Pirata.

jesseriley wrote:

Uphill finishes don’t require helmets because of the low speed.

.

Huh?

apples to oranges wrote:

trolero wrote:

Confirms what we know: Lance was the Alberto Salazar of cycling. It wouldn’t surprise me if these two are genetically related if you do one of those ancestry.com DNA tests on them.

But Alberto didn’t actually use the serious doping drugs

You are are kidding..right..?! AlSal and NOP was using epo and all of gear ... don’t fool yourself.

Glass of vino wrote:

jesseriley wrote:

Uphill finishes don’t require helmets because of the low speed.

.

Huh?

At that time, riders could take off helmets on the final climb to the finish.

It was a halfway step before the instituted mandatory helmet usage for the entire stage. Prior to that, riders could choose whether or not they wore a helmet.

Home come cyclists can be, and often are, at their peak career in late 30s? I thought VO2 max starts declining measurably around age 30? And being a top cyclists requires more cardiovascular than a top runner, for sure?

very few cyclists peak or are still competitive in their late 30s; most cyclists' best years are usually age 25-30 or maybe low 30s

This sounds like Trump.

* The inter-team competiveness on Postal was toxically high and mostly driven by Lance. Lance was expert at mental games in and out of racing. On daily training rides he would always be subtly toying with the pace to gauge his fitness relative to others. The team would do individual time trials in training and Lance had to be #1. There was a time trial in which Lance finished 2nd to some other team member, but the guy who timed told him he was 1st just to keep tensions low. There was another where Tyler beat Lance's record and tried to keep it a secret but word got out. That was when Lance suddenly became unfriendly towards Tyler and soon after Tyler would quit the team.