After hearing Michael Barry's confession, reading Tyler's book reading the Lance coverage and now hearing the string of confessions from others, what I see is a common thread between all these dopers. They grew up, dreamed of being pro cyclists and probably had a dream based on an illusion from the grandeur of Anquetil, Merckx, Fignon, Hinualt, Roche etc.

Then like all those guys who came before them, they arrive on the scene and they learn that to keep the dream alive doping is part of the "process"

If you are Lemond, you arrived, "just in time"...and could maybe squeek out a few Tour wins racing clean against guys on "minor dope". Then in 1991, you're looking at your SRM and you're doing the same power as 1990 or 1989, and you are off the back. Thankfully your career is coming to an end and EPO (as the saying goes today) was turning donkey's into race horses, but I'd rather explain it as, "turning clydesdales into race horses". Now big guys like Indurain and Riis who could never climb that well were going to win grand tours.

So now an entire generation of riders arrives on the scene and they find out that they can go on EPO and stay in the game, or pack their bags and go home.

If you grow up dreaming of becoming a doctor, you can go to Standford Medical school, do your residency and have a good living without cheating. You can go to Wharton, do an MBA and there are plenty of jobs in the world of business where you can play by the rules and make a good living.

But what happens to all these kids who did not go to school, dream of a pro cycling career, work their tails off and arrive at the door step in the mid 90's and learn "this is the process". As we are hearing from all of them, they chose to dive in work within the informal rules of engagement, rather than quite and go home. it's not like there are 200,000 other equivalent jobs where you can make $200K per year as you can with an MBA. There are only around 200 jobs for these guys.

Guess what, they screwed up, because they wanted to be pro cyclists so bad that they had no other choice...dope and stay in the game, or don't dope and go home (well, some chose not to and could race as a continental pro in North America).

You can hate an entire generation of cyclists because they happened to grow up at the exact same time that the pharmaceutical industry had come up with a drug that helped patients who needed assist with red blood cell production produce them. That does not get LA off the hook for brow beating his peers and his teammmates. I'll leave that to the morality police to debate.

But I can see how these guys ended up doing what they did. From my position, being a professional in a fairly well paying industry where there are a several hundred thousand jobs for guys with similar intellect and creativity, it is easy to shit all over these cyclists. But if my industry only had 200 jobs, I don't think my colleagues and competition would be quite so "level headed" and would "play by the rules". Everyone would be eating eat other's lunch just to keep their salaries. We already do that at the corporate level to stay in business, but thankfully don't need to do that at the individual level.

I don't think other pro sports are that different....dope and stay in the NFL or don't dope and be cut from the team. What does the kid who dreamed of being the next Tom Brady do now as he tries out for Michigan?

Guess what, they screwed up, because they wanted to be pro cyclists so bad that they had no other choice...dope and stay in the game, or don't dope and go home (well, some chose not to and could race as a continental pro in North America).

I think guys who don't dope have a chance today. In 1995 or 1998, maybe less to none. Some of them like Tyler could probably barely keep their jobs un doped. See my comment about Mike Barry those are the types of riders I feel worst for.