Tour de France 2007

i'm heading into central london to have a butchers anyone else free today fancy a beer early doors ? jon snow later

DK: LOL! Geebuz, what's the world coming to? Is their actually a law that says you must have both hands on the bars? The worst thing about cops is you can't argue with them - you might get jailed.. or tazered! You could always try to outrun them through the city. I busted a red the other day right in front of a cop van. It pulled along-side and I did the driver trick of pretending it didn't exist. They lost me, well, I lost them in traffic :)

I think any law would simply state that you must be in control of your vehicle. But I was... still able to brake, still able to skid (I would've got my hands to the bars to control the end of it), still able to turn.

I just laughed.

Another cyclist caught up when the car pulled off and asked me what that was about, when I told him he just pissed himself laughing.

They really have nothing better to do.

There's loads of pics on a couple of posts on the new BikeGaydar site

here
and
here

the-smiling-buddha I am no expert, but EPO doping can be lethal ,"hyperviscosity," or thickened blood which can cause a heart attack, what I have read is that more than a few have died in their sleep due to thickened blood. What this means is that if a clean cyclist is faced with the choice of being disadvantaged by the 5 - 15 % advantage that EPO doping affords or he EPO dopes and potentially risks heart attack. I am the last person to get on his high horse about drug abuse BUT the reason they ALL take drugs is because you can't ever win if even a few take them.

You can easily spot the cyclists who are on EPO because they're the ones going up and down the hotel stairs at 3am to keep their blood flowing so they don't die in the night.

LOL......no hands AND no feet, now that'd warrant a warning. Plod must've been very bored.

mdja [quote]You can easily spot the cyclists who are on EPO because they're the ones going up and down the hotel stairs at 3am to keep their blood flowing so they don't die in the night.

Yeah but all this happens in the training camps. Gotta leave time for the hematocrit to settle back down to normal before Tdf.

Ha.. Have you read 'the Hour' as well mdja?

Nope, I probably should! I just hear lots of stories from my little brother who reads that sort of thing...

They are all at the drugs bar one or two. I don't care that much, except I remember i was (naively) gutted last year after enjoying the Landis miracle recovery . "This is the most remarkable comeback in the history of the Tour de France". Amazing what a large whisky or two will do to sort you out.

Anyroad - I have money on Kloden. C'mon you big German bastard!

i second kloden.

is anyone else riding out of town to watch on sunday?
I'm hopefully heading down to goudhurst, have no idea if the roads will be packed with cyclists riding to watch the show or the will the roads be rammed with cars?
they are expecting up to 10,000 people there! it's only a small village.

Why Goudhurst? It's quite a way out of London.. I've still not decided whether I go and watch Sunday or just do a club run and watch the TV.

there is a bitch of a climb plus lots of pubs and restaurants

I'll be in Goudhurst, plan to get there at 12pm. The caravan passes through at 12:15pm, followed by the riders at around 1:45-2pm.

Should be the busiest spot on the day!

They just went through Goudhurt.. on Sky+ recording.
Millar and co in break. Pity Wiggans or him didn't win yesterday but it was a good day.
ESB pie is calling my name..

Going back to what we saying about drugs, I don't think the spectacle is improved at all by EPO.

What makes a dramatic Tour?

Let's look the best of the last 20 years. 98, 89 & 87.

All three featured brilliant attacking rides which precipitated the dramatic collapse of the favourite and/or inspired reaction from same. EPO makes it nearly impossible to provoke these collapses, leading to the 'blocked race' phenomenon so familiar from the Indurain and Armstrong years. (OK, so 98 was an EPO year, but it was still a superb spectacle, with Il Pirata provoking the catastrophic collapse of the Sausage king.)

The drugs may make them rider faster for longer, but does that extra 5 k/hour make it a better spectacle? I don't think so.

Well.. let's go to a more recent example: 2006. Everyone was awed at Floyd's huge comeback ride. It was amazing.

It was amazing until the test results came out. So, you could argue that the drugs 'can' make a great spectacle. Making a lower rider or knackered rider come back in fighting style. But as soon as you realise it is drug assisted it becomes a tainted result. So, back under the carpet I say! (Now can I get a job with the UCI?) :)

Or you could look at the other way, which is that because drug use had become so restricted because of the new testing regime, Lloyd Flandis' collapse was caused by less, rather than more, drugs.

And anyway, everyone watching that ride was thinking the same thing: it's too good to be true, but he couldn't be that stupid, surely?

Lets just say I'm very naive sometimes and totally cynical at other times. When it's live and something like that happens I can forget about the scandal for a while and think "my god what a fantastic comeback!". As soon as some doubt is cast though I'm the first to tar the whole peloton with dope use.. all except the Aussies of course who we know are squeeeeeky clean. :)

See, what I don't get is that if the testing is so tough. Why did Lance outperform everyone else and still never return a positive test?
Either testing isn't that tough - which sounds plausible based on some of the evidence presented in various books - or he was clean and a freak. The latter totally spoils my "they all dope" theory. Damnit! I wish we could just read their minds and come up with an answer!

Just get Jeremy Kyle on the case with his lie detector.

They don't all dope. A rider who was known throughout the peloton for being clean was Charly Mottet.

He managed to win big big races without dope, but was undoubtedly at a disadvantage in the Tour, when 'preparation' allowed the big riders to recover better. If you look at Mottet's results in the Tour he was competitive for the 1st 10 days and then would fall away.

Have you read breaking the chain by Willy Voet? It explains a lot.

And for an insight into to how riders that really don't want to dope, end up deing forced to read Millar's interview in I can't remember which either Guardian, Obs or Indy or maybe cyclingnews.com

Mottet's career was '83-94 and before widespread EPO use (Festina affair '98). I'd imagine that stimulant use was higher back then though? A friend of a friend made it to semi-pro Euro ranks and then retired from the sport before doing anything major because he'd be racing against people who were dead one day and winning the next. He didn't want to play ball with the gear so he quit.
We had a talk from an Aussie pro who raced in Belgium a few years running. He was a good rider but said he was up against guys who's eyes were like dinner plates on the start line and from the sound of it he blamed their drug use for his ability to only ever finish 10-20th in the Kermesse's he was racing.

Nothing explains how Lance can be SO good and never test positive? On one hand I'd like to believe he was that good but on the other we have the fact that the best who were on drugs STILL couldn't catch him.

I have Breaking the Chain by Voet. Rough Rider(s)? by Paul Kimmage was another book to reveal some of the doping cases. I also have In Search of Robert Millar which I'm yet to read. Flying Scotsman Graeme Obree was another rider who was reported to have given up the pro racing because of the prevelance of drugs in the sport.

If you want to stamp out doping.. test everyone, all the time and give a no second chances, lifetime ban and forfeit of a years wages for any positive test.

"But it's my natural level" they will claim.. what then?