Tour de France 2007

The tour starts outside France every second year, much in the same way as they alternate between a clockwise and anti-clockwise journey around Frnace each year.

Of course Armstrong was doped. They still haven't got a test for HGH, so thats one way of beating dope control. plus all the other competitors are the elite of elite athletes and most are juiced up. I dont see Armstrong as being such a talent that he could beat guys who are already freaks of nature, then take dope. Armstrong wouldn't have chance of beating them clean.

Levi has no chance of winning. Valverde, Vino, Kloden, Sastre. Levi crumbles when the pressure goes on

Good info on Valverde. GUILTY.

No big surprise with Astana. Half the team are former T-Mobile riders. They should dominate the tour and already Klodden seems to be in good form. It will be interesting to see if he rides for himself or Vino. Both are perhaps the best riders in the field.

I've thought about Michael Rogers and I'm on the guilty side to. He was obviously beating a lot of cheats to win his three world time trial titles.

Evans could be the one exception. He came from a mountain bike background (though I know Landis did as well) and was instantly a good climber in road cycling. I seem to recall him challenging in the tour of Italy shortly after changing sports. He has never made any major suspicious improvements. As far as I know, the sport of mountain biking is not steeped in doping. Clarification?

I'd say Evans shows all the signs of not doping. He has had a relative slow rise to the top of road cycling. And yes several years ago Evans had a very good start to the Giro wearing the pink jersey, only he cooked himself with about a week to go from memory. If he was tackled up, i'm sure his legs would have lasted to the end of the tour.

With the odd exception i think mtb is relatively free of dopers.

The stock price of the pharmeceuticals I own always go up each Tour De France. I wonder why ?

60secsurge wrote:

Evans could be the one exception. He came from a mountain bike background (though I know Landis did as well) and was instantly a good climber in road cycling.

Not just a MTB background. Two time World Cup series champion. He was a very, very GOOD mountain biker.

Cristophe Moreau may be the best clean rider out there. He's been consistently in the top 10-15, but never challenged for the podium. His consistency speaks for itself.

You have got to be kidding! Let's see, Moreau rode for Festina throughout the late '90s and confessed to doping after the big drug bust in 1998! A look at his record shows that he really isn't that consistent. His flashes of brilliance post 1998 (he beat Armstrong/Ullrich in the 2001 prologue) make it hard to believe that Moreau went on the straight and narrow.

There are lots of topics popping up on this thread.

Anyone who thinks the pro MTB scene is purer, google Filip Meirhaeghe (the biggest star in the discipline) and you'll find an EPO positive and admission in 2004 or 2005. I have to concede that I don't follow MT biking, so I'm not aware of other cases. 5 years ago though, there weren't any drug cases in Major League baseball.

I find that the only proof anyone can seem to muster up concerning Armstrong doping is the fact that he beat a lot of riders known to dope. That 'proof' belongs more in the realm of belief rather than objective fact, but have it your way. Considering the French gov't, ASO (the group that operates the Tour), WADA, newspapers, muck-raking authors and probably more have spent most of 7 years relentlessly trying to prove Armstrong doped, you'd think there would be something more convincing than he must have doped because he won. As for the guilt by association approach, it's not very effective in light of the fact that US Postal/Discovery have never had a doping positive/drug bust. Frankie Andreu admitted he doped in 1999 while on US Postal. That's it! The former teammates who have been busted, got busted on other teams after a significant improvement in results from their Postal days. See what Landis, Hamilton, and Heras won in Postal colors compared to post-Postal.

Did Armstrong dope? I don't know, but I'd hate to have to conclude that greatness=drug cheat.

Arch Stanton wrote:

I find that the only proof anyone can seem to muster up concerning Armstrong doping is the fact that he beat a lot of riders known to dope.

Oh geez, pull your fuc\king head out of your ass. We've been over this a million times. Plenty of witnesses and even a positive sample or two. Somehow Armstrong is the one who always gets off on a technicality or gets away with discrediting the whistleblowers. But there is just as much evidence against Armstrong as there ever was against some of the riders who have now confessed. If not more.

I thought it was generally assumed that most major league baseballers were on steroids!

Some good points made about Armstrong. There is no 'evidence' that he doped. You can just about ignore anything the French newspaper L 'Equipe has said. They have had it in for him for years.

Was Heras riding for Postal when he won (and then was busted) the Tour Of Spain? I think he also won the Tour Of Spain a few years earlier to. Heras form when with Postal was fantastic. I can remember on Alp duez in 2002, he destroyed everyone except for Armstrong and Beloki. He stayed up with those guys to the summit and he had done all of the hard work! Roberto in that form was good enough to finish top ten in the tour if he wasn't riding in support of Armstrong. In the one or two tours that Heras rode in post postal he was useless.

You are right regarding Landis and Hamilton though. They weren't anything special when at US Postal.

I will always regard Armstong as clean until a conclusive positive test proves otherwise. But I am a lot more suspicious then I used to be. As of now Lance is arguably the greatest sportsman of all time. I want to start another argument/discussion on this thread!

I'm sure there are plenty of Ali, Bradman, Jordan, Woods, Federer, Gebrselassie, etc, lovers out there.

Bonds has passed every test they've given him too.

Mountain bike racing is definitely much cleaner than the road. There is some dope at the very top but I don't think there is much of it out of the top 10 at world cups.

I've been associated with top level mountain bike racing for years and think Cadel was clean when he was riding the dirt. He had a huge break out year at one point but he lost a ton of weight in the offseason and was climbing much better because of it.

As far as him being clean now, who knows? If anybody on that level is clean I would bet it to be him though. He has always been amazingly consistent throughout 8 month seasons even as a junior.

Calm down, you're getting hysterical. Does Armstrong discredit them, or are they uncreditible? There's a difference which I doubt you're bright enough to discern. There's money to be made accusing Armstrong of doping. If you're willing to say, they're willing to pay. David Walsh writes the same book every year and releases it in June. People think there are more accusations, but it's all recycled. There was the guy who tried to extort him for start-up money for a bike shop. There was the old US Postal doctor who tried to shake him down (as revealed recently in papers released from one of LA's court cases). Do these little stories add up to LA doping? Why is there never any real evidence? Do all the bigfoot stories over the decades add up to Bigfoot's existence? To you I'm sure they do.

Even the verbal one in his testimony?

When Heras was busted for EPO he was riding for Liberty Seguros. Heras always had excellent form at the Tour of Spain regardless of the team he rode for. He won once with Postal (2003). Heras was maddeningly inconsistent in the Tour and really only rode well once in 2002 where he was so spectacular. Wasn't that great?! He also stunk at the Tour after his Postal days too. Anyway, I think his performances indicate that he was doping independent of the Postal team structure. If it was a team thing, he would have been flying at the Tour too. Why would Armstrong/Bruyneel deny his top climbing domestique the dope? It must have been easier for him to get his dope in Spain or maybe it was simpler to evade the testers.

You're right though, Heras was a good rider with Postal, but also before (with Kelme) and after. Landis and Hamilton, well, they didn't do much previously.

or US postal had their own designer steroid....not unlike BALCO...if we learned anything from the BALCO mess is that there are small independent labs out there with the science and capability to produce undetectable steroids. Maybe when Heras was with US postal, he was on their designer but with Liberty, they didn't have the same operating budget therefore he got caught. How many of Armstrong's ex teammates have gotten caught; Landis (waiting for now but come on) Hamilton, Heras, who else am i missing?

I just noticed that Schmalz is doing his Tour blogging again this year. Highly recommended reading.

http://www.velocitynation.com/article.aspx?ID=1527&CID=2

My favorite lines from the latest entry:

"Zabel second. Do I even need to type that? Isn’t it implied automatically?"

Why is bobroll.com not up and running? That is one hysterical dude. His story about riding a race and having to take a dump in someone's yard was absolutely classic. In fact, I think that was the last time I cried because I was laughing so hard.

DaveZabriskie.com is also a great read in a querky sort of way, but he hasn't updated it lately either. You got to love the off-the-wall questions he asks riders during the actual tour stages and then posts them on his blog.

What bizarre hand gesture was he making as he told that story?

Bob Roll is hilarious. He makes up for Al Trautwig.