I still like the "dead" spor wrote:
Former Cyclist, thanks for the sane, calm analysis.
Your description of a doping climber's explosiveness makes me think of Contador in last year's TdF. What's your guess on him?
And off the doping subject: Do you think Armstrong can make up that gap on Contador this year?
I don't like to place blame on anyone who can't definitively be proven to have doped. It's hard for the sport to survive if everyone who is good gets blamed...Contador gets the benefit of the doubt, despite the fact that there are things about him that are particularly suspicious. He was also originally brought up in the names related to Operation Puerto, although he was later cleared of involvement. Make of that what you will.
If you want some cyclists to root for that I think are most likely clean...(although again, very few people would surprise me by testing positive, and my professional friends are U.S. professionals, I can't speak for the men in Europe)...
but, I feel that Michael Rogers is likely to be clean, also, I believe Damiano Cunego likely to be clean.
Cavendish and Wiggins have also been very, very outspoken against doping, and one wants to believe them and assume its not a ruse, although Wiggins ridiculous improvement as a stage racer leaves many people in doubt, I'd imagine. You can't know for sure, but those are some riders I believe are likely clean. Rogers and Cunego, perhaps Cavendish, perhaps Wiggins. All are winners.
One always wants their favorite riders to be clean, of course, which is why I was upset back when Vinokourov tested positive back in the day. I loved Zabel, too, and I actually do believe his claims that he only doped for a year...maybe that's naive, but whatever. For the record, I do NOT believe Johan Museeuw's similar claim, as much as I loved watching him race.
I want to believe the entirety of Garmin is clean, since that's their schtick, but obviously there has been a shadow thrown over that by Floyd. You can't know for sure. Vaughters (team director) as more or less admitted to doping as a professional, but everything about how their team has been run seemed to be legit (as surprising as that may be). Now, it's hard to know. Christian Vandevelde...I want to believe he's clean, he's an extremely nice guy, always ways very talented as a young rider, but unfortunately there's just no way of knowing, even for a team as transparent as Garmin.
To answer your final question:
I do not believe Lance can overcome Contador, assuming Contador is in peak form for the TdF. It doesn't help Lance that he's been sick and missed a LOT of racing in the spring, and now he's missing a big time trial test at the ToC. Personally I think he's very, very short on racing this year. We'll see, though, he's a guy you can never count out, for whatever reason...