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@Jimmy_Fingers
I've read a lot of anger from the MTB community towards Ryder and his fellows, a lot of people that raced against him in the early noughties and saw the transformation from mid-pack fodder to being unbeatable. It seems very unlikely that the tired 'I only did it for a season then saw the error of my ways and stopped' excuse is at all true, just neatly puts him outside of the SoL so he escapes censure.
And it's the last bit that sticks in the craw. Ryder has benefitted from drugs, won races because of them, secured contracts and fat wage cheques because of them. His career is one built on lies and at the expense of more honest racers. So now's he's at Garmin and winning races and Vaughters is running around like aheadless chicken on Twitter attempting to obfuscate and deflect. The big thing seems to be 'ok Ryder doped but what about Scarponi?'. When I suggested on Twitter that his doping in 2003 means there is doubt cast on his Giro win JV replied 'yes, to the uneducated'. What do you take us for Vaughters? How many times have we heard a rider say they tried it once but then stopped. It's the Clinton excuse: 'yes I smoked it but I never inhaled'. Bullshit. Utter, utter bullshit. The probability is Ryder doped extensively up until he joined Garmin at the very least. Whether he stopped when he joined Garmin is anybody's guess, but he's never being censured or punished so I don't really care is JV knew about his doping past, or whether he had admitted it all to USADA, or qwhether he has been riding clean, none of that matters, he should be puniched and sod the SoL.
And the Giro win does look suspicious, exp when contrasted with his appalling form this season. Very disappointing from Ryder, from JV and from a 'clean' team like Garmin.