2012 Vuelta a España - Tour of Spain

The only difference being that no Sky rider has ever been convicted of a doping offence whereas Contador has.

I extend the benefit of doubt to very few people in pro cycling, and Contador, given his record and the company he keeps, is definitely not one of them.

What about David Millar?

??

Unlike Contador, he has on the odd occasion had to say something about doping. I mean, you practically have to drag it out of him, but there you go. I don't believe Contador has made any similar pronouncements, and it is very likely that he still maintains his innocence in relation to his conviction.

Not much point going through it again, but people are far happier to extend the benefit of the doubt to British / Sky riders than anyone else.

Actually I think that is more about your obsession with Sky/British riders than anything else. Voeckler, Roland, Moncoutie, Heysjedal, Hushovd, Farrar, and others would all make my list of riders I would give the benefit of the doubt to as regards blood doping. Or 'oxygen vector' doping as we apparently now have to learn to call it.

all contador did was a eat a steroid filled steak accidentally
where's the fault in that ?
it must be a nightmare trying to choose what to eat for dinner as a pro cyclist

Troll

rumbled

Troll

Free range troll is fine, although battery fed troll is laced with performance enhancers. Even to the untrained eye the differences between the two meets is apparent, but only before the cooking process.

I am not convinced of anyone's innoncence really, given the fact it's easy to pass tests despite being juiced. But I'm less convinced people are guilty generally: performance never constitutes absolute proof.

Vaughters said that the peloton is much cleaner generally now, that there is a feeling there that you're stupid if you do dope, so the attitude is different. Garmin is clean, of that I am pretty sure. I am also sure that Sky certainly don't have a team-wide doping programme as cynics accuse them of, but individual members maybe, although Froome looks very human now.

But I trust no-one 100%, except Cav. I'll punch anyone in the face that says different

Cav is a whinging little bitch. Albeit a rather fast one.

Troll (with chips).

I prefer mine with a greek salad.

He can call him a whinging bitch, just not a dirty drugs cheat

Not that he is a whinging bitch

After his little tantrum at the Olympics I've got no time for him, despite his obvious talents. Whinging.Little.Bitch.

Anyway.......on to the Vuelta...

Can anyone catch Cunty in the hills tomorrow?

although Froome looks very human now.

Agreed, but to go back to Andy's initial point that Contador, Valverde 'look suspicious', they are actually producing watts/kg well below where Wiggins and Froome were at the tour.

Either you make judgements based on evidence, or you make it on perception. If the former, we have to give everyone a free run for current performance.

If the latter, I am just as entitled to speculate how odd it is that a team with a dodgy doctor and a dodgy DS has managed to change a pursuit rider to a TDF winner with a body transformation, and to take a nobody with bilharzia to second in the vuelta and the tour, whilst hiring riders (Mick Rogers) who have conspicuously dodgy pasts.

If the latter, I am just as entitled to speculate how odd it is that a team with a dodgy doctor and a dodgy DS has managed to change a pursuit rider to a TDF winner with a body transformation, and to take a nobody with bilharzia to second in the vuelta and the tour, whilst hiring riders (Mick Rogers) who have conspicuously dodgy pasts.

Wiggo was a TdF contender before Sky, fourth with Garmin 2009 of course. Vaughters has said he is sure Wiggo was clean when he rode for them, although he didn't consider him a GC contender. He's also said he thinks Wiggo is clean now, because his power output hasn't changed since his time there (this is from the horses mouth so to speak: JV posted this in the clinic). We know good track riders can make it on the road, can top pursuiters (and lets remember Wiggins is/was one of the best pursuiters in the world|) turn into GC contenders?

I would say of course they can if the engine is good enough. Pursuiters make very good TTers, and that is one half of makes a good GC rider. Usually it's a climber than can TT, in Wiggo's case its a TTer that can climb. But I still don't think he's that good a climber. His win was a team effort, isolated on climbs he would get hurt you tend to think.

The conspiracy theory is now in overdrive of course, but the truism remains that the numbers being oput out are achievable clean, both in the Vuelta and in the Tour

He was ori

After his little tantrum at the Olympics I've got no time for him, despite his obvious talents. Whinging.Little.Bitch.

Considering what happened to him at the Beijing Olympics you can forgive him a fit of pique when denied in the RR in London, or should be able to. He was right: the peloton was against him and the British team, no-one else helped to close down the breakaway apart from Tony Martin and Eisel, probably both as personal favours to Cav rather than team instructions. The Germans were the biggest culprits: Greipel would have delivered them a medal in a bunch sprint, but they preferred to let the Brits do the work and hoped to profit leter but it backfired.

There is an incredible amount of politics within the pro-peloton, deals being done behind the scenes, even money exchanged hands between riders and teams to help each other. Recent example of that is Tiralongo pacing Contador when he attacked.

Tomorrow I hope Purito finds his legs again.

Agreed, but to go back to Andy's initial point that Contador, Valverde 'look suspicious', they are actually producing watts/kg well below where Wiggins and Froome were at the tour.

Either you make judgements based on evidence, or you make it on perception. If the former, we have to give everyone a free run for current performance.

If the latter, I am just as entitled to speculate how odd it is that a team with a dodgy doctor and a dodgy DS has managed to change a pursuit rider to a TDF winner with a body transformation, and to take a nobody with bilharzia to second in the vuelta and the tour, whilst hiring riders (Mick Rogers) who have conspicuously dodgy pasts.

You can pretty much level all of those complaints at Garmin (no idea about their doctor though), but they get given a free ride 'cos Vaughters gives good tweets.

Garmin get off in the court of public opinion with good pr, Contador because he's an exciting rider to watch.
Sky suffer because some on twitter are still raging about Wiggins shatting on poor JV when leaving Garmin, and because their racing style isn't exciting.

He was right: the peloton was against him and the British team, no-one else helped to close down the breakaway

I don't think it was any great conspiracy against Cav or Team GB. The fact is they rode a one day race like a tour stage, and as a smaller team with no radios or DS instructions they blew it. Letting a large group with some brilliant one day riders get more than 5 minutes in front was a big mistake. Most teams in the peleton had team mates in the breakaway with some chance of a medal, so had nothing to gain by chasing them down and gifting it to Cav.

Anyway, it's old news. It's a flat day in Spain and they're averaging 36km/h according to the feed. Either they mean mph or the lads are having lazy day in the sunshine.

Horses! Motocross!

I don't think it was any great conspiracy against Cav or Team GB. The fact is they rode a one day race like a tour stage, and as a smaller team with no radios or DS instructions they blew it. Letting a large group with some brilliant one day riders get more than 5 minutes in front was a big mistake. Most teams in the peleton had team mates in the breakaway with some chance of a medal, so had nothing to gain by chasing them down and gifting it to Cav.

There was no conspiracy, just like Rodriguez did two days ago they found themselves without friends in the peloton. I'm guessing the feeling was they've won enough, we want a peice of this, so no one helped them.

And if it's old new news why bring it up?

Moreno stealing a time bonus from Purito on the finish line?

:|

Well.. catching up now. Rodders threw that away. He looked strong the day before but its clearly taken its toll.

Thought the biggest news for you would be Clarke getting KoM: very impressive riding considering the parcours and the sheer climbing quality throughout the field. OGE must be chuffed

Now I've seen the final stages, yes the biggest news for us lot is Clarkey getting the spotty blue.

He didn't sound too confident about winning it on his twitter feed but I sent him some motivational videos from another awesome Melbourne hill climbing champion and he was right as rain.

Didn't have the chance/time to get into this like the TdF but I enjoyed every stage and final I have seen tremendously. The battle for the GC remained exciting until the end and well, there's even 2 Dutchies in the top 10. Laurens ten Dam, way to go! And Alberto, well done, I hope he's clean because he is one of the riders that makes cycling so great to watch. Keeping my fingers crossed next year's TdF will finally see some excitement like this.