The one that doped the best 😜

Really, I wish they would just go away.

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Team Zoot So Cal

i am consistently surprised by this attitude. you're not the first and you won't be the last to express such feelings but i am always surprised when i see it.

i got into cycling after reading lance's first book. he inspired me; i never doubted him. then, when all evidence pointed toward the inevitable answer(s) i finally capitulated. i despised him. then, a few years go by and, you know what, i don't care that he doped. i care that he was an asshole. and a bully.

objectively, he's an incredibly interesting guy with an incredibly unique perspective on a sport that i enjoy following.

My money is on George, but that's only a guess.

I won't subscribe to his Members Only Pass or whatever, but I like what he's doing with Wedu, Forward, and Move. His lawsuits are settled and he's paid his price, which includes the ongoing price of a lifetime ban. He's an ass sometimes, but I think everyone deserves a second chance if they've "served their time," so to speak.

This is my experience too - even had the "I'm on my bike 6 hours a day - what are you on?" poster on the wall above my desk at work for a few years in the early-mid 2000s. I'm now past the stage of just downright despising the guy for what he did, and enjoy listening to his podcast for his and GH's insights.

I was a Lance lover-turned-hater. I loved watching him race, although through time the doubts started to creep in (ok, barrel in like a freight train...). However in all of my interactions with him at post-confession races (he still does MTB races - though I'm sure he's paid) he's been personable. I listened to his podcast for the first time this year, and I found them enjoyable with lots of good insight. Even when he comes off as an ass, he's coming off as genuine. I find a genuine ass is better than a fake nice person. I understand people who hate him (especially people who feel like they could have been 'contenders' if not for the doping culture at the time) but I've moved on.

OTOH, George is nice to another level. I introduced my wife and young son (2 yo at the time) to him and he struck up a conversation talking about kids and family life. They talked for a while and he was genuine and easy going. I feel like we all could have talked for hours if not for the crowds of people.

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Why? They've got the #1 cycling podcast and are putting out content and coverage that nobody else is

I was undoubtedly a fan, but always recognised cycling has been / (is) a dirty sport. Period.

So dirty that having banned him for life and removed all his titles they couldn't find anyone to give them to

I've no real problem with the drugs, it's undesirable but in the end, there's never been a uniformly clean period in cycling

His behaviour was abhorrent, he's controlling and a bully, which is by far and away the bigger crime

However he's super smart, articulate, interesting and philosophical and a hell of a lot more insightful than the eurosport team

How bout you just avoid their content? Cuz many of us (like me) really enjoy the Wedu podcasts and tour coverage. It’s such a good addition to consumption of the tour.

Lie, cheat, steal take your choice. Listen to Lance, he is still arrogant.

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Team Zoot So Cal

Same here. I will not suscribe to find out who won or to get a members only tshirt, but I really enjoy the podcast and would like to know who won if you have the info.

We just had a Tour de France that honored a doper (Merckx). Wiggins and Contador were just brought in as part of the media. Virenque is a media darling, and Anquetil openly admitted to it. I'm far from a Lance Armstrong fan, but I'm not sure why he (and the other Americans that were tossed in the mix) were stripped of their wins while many others stand. If you want to say he ruined the sport, the guy was doing it the same time as Festina, Puerto, and that time was so rife with doping the entire top 10 for the 03 Tour have been implicated in some form to doping.

It will probably irk Karl even more to know that Lance's TDF Podcast made over $1M for those 3 weeks!

Because Armstrong made too many enemies. In June 2013, Ulrich went on record stating that he'd "always said that Lance wouldn't get out of it. He made too many enemies."

I am curious too. No one can tell us, apparently.

They sure are hard up to sell some wedu subscriptions. I thought Lance was still crazy rich from good investments.

This.

NBC Sports had Bob & Phil interview him on TV during the tour. I wonder if they were testing the waters to see what the reaction would be from people. I wonder if they start rolling out more interviews with him during other races and 4-5 years have him take over for Phil during the tour?

Don’t forget the doper Froome.

My Dad owned a bike shop in Texas and has been active in the Texas cycling scene since about 1970. We followed Lance's career from the beginning. I remember when he won the first tour, we were all sitting around the shop joking about how Lance must have found the best drugs of anyone in the race. We thought he was doping all along, especially when everyone he dominated got caught along the way. I actually think anyone who has ever won the TdF has been on something and I think most professional sports have the same issue, where there's money to be made there's PED's.

Despite all of that, I enjoy listening to Lance's podcast and I really enjoy listening to Johan's insights that they added this year. I would rather listen to those guys than any of the official TV commentators. I'm with the other guys here that didn't want to pay $60 just to watch that race and get a t-shirt, so that's why I was asking if anybody knew who won. I still haven't heard, so hopefully someone in the know will spill the beans. I did see that somebody in Aspen called the cops on the race because one of the filming trucks was driving wonky, so that's kind of funny.

I fully and completely respect and understand this opinion.

That said, I'm a huge Lance Armstrong fan. I can't put my finger on why, but I am. I watched all his Tours while I was in college and just absolutely loved it all. I had an inkling of his doping from the get-go and I couldn't make myself care (edit; I couldn't make myself care once I realized the depth and breadth of doping in the sport). I was never a Lance/team apologist, but I didn't need to be. He's the reason I got interested in endurance sports and Lance is the reason that would bring me back to it whenever I'd just say, 'eh, whatever, I'll just lift.' I think the guy is incredible on a lot of levels. Maybe that makes me a homer, ok. That's fine, but it's how I feel about it. I'm glad he's around and I consider him one of, if not the best, of all time.

Just a newbie's 2c.

That said, the race footage that's been teased on instagram looks so, so dope.

M

George won according to IG comments

Not much has changed. There has been doping in professional cycling since the 60s. I understand if people do not like LA for being a bully, etc., but not liking him for being a professional cyclist at the most elite level because he was doping is not understanding that all of those guys were and are still taking performance enhancing whatevers (in my opinion!!)............ I wouldn't be suprised if pro cyclists were having testosterone things inserted surgically into their ball sacks to avoid detection. Dislike him for being a jerk, bully, etc., but not liking him because he used performance enhancing drugs to win the tour 7 times is LOL funny.

What is the name of this podcast?

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Be Uncommon

Its not really arrogance if you literally were the best.

I agree with the comment above about doping in sports.

I’ve always found it interesting that everyone goes crazy about the doping in cycling... and then turns the other cheek to all of the steroid and HGH abuse happening in Baseball, Football, Hockey and Basketball.

I suppose I should just be happy that they’re trying to clean up cycling. However, it seems like the NFL and MLB have been able to control the narrative better by accepting steroid use happened/happens and suspending players appropriately (yes I know many more players dope than get caught). But I think by not accepting cyclings dark days and just focusing on Lance, this has created a larger distrust in clean cycling.

Just a thought.

Not sure who won, but I do enjoy me some George Hincapie on the Move.

The Move and The Forward. They are really good. The Move does race analysis. The Forward is the one where he interviews people from all walks of life.

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Let food be thy medicine...

Not the best. He's not the best at riding clean, because he doped. He's not the best at doping because the people best at doping don't get caught. So he's straight mediocre.

I'd call Indurain the best in recent decades. He has 5 official TdF wins. Lance: zero.

Whatever...

Haters gonna hate... if he hadn’t doped...won 7 tours...you’d still hate him. Which...in all honesty is fine...different strokes and all...

But...I would be shocked if Indurain didn’t dope for his five wins...he worked with people who were dirty...

And you can CHOOSE to say Lance has no titles... but we all know he has 7...and we all know OJ did it...

Oh, I don't hate him. Just saying he's not very competent. Indurain did it better. Froome doing it better. Super nice people too.

Alex Rodriguez is best exemplifies your point.

Exactly my point... which is fine...hard to argue when you put it that way...but you left the last part out originally.

Arod is an example of how we will only use roids against you if we don't like you. Arod is a likeable guy who's a good commentator. Lance is still so unlikeable and comes off poorly in interviews. For this reason Lance is better compared to Barry Bonds than Arod.

2 key things that help Big Mig and Froomey get away with it - they are nice people and they are European (well, Froome is Euro enough).

I've heard that the NBA doesn't even test for PED's. If so, that would probably explain why LeBron was so swollen when he was 18 years old.

There has never been anything likeable about A-Rod.

Indurain began working with Dr. Conconi in 1987. He rode during a time when there was no test for EPO. He retired when it became clear the UCI was going to adopt a 50% hematocrit rule for the 1997 season. In the 90s you would have to be incredibly unlucky to get caught for anything.

Froome's team made it clear that it would cost the doping authorities millions to pursue the case so the rules requiring a controlled medical study were conveniently ignored. UKAD would not even go after Wiggins when he was found by a British inquiry to have used bogus TUEs for use of cortisone fr the purpose of losing weight to improve power to weight ratio.

I don't believe the original poster was asking YOUR opinion.

They asked who won the mountain bike race. Therefore your input is totally useless and you're also an arse.

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Around 11 years before Lance won the tour de France this is was the 100m finals in Seoul looked like (maybe Calvin Smith and Robson daSilva were the only two out of 6 finalists who never had a positive test)




If anyone thinks the Lance era was more rife with doping than the Indurain, Hinault, Fignon, Merckx, Anquetil, Coppi eras, there is a bridge in Brooklyn for sale too. The Lance era just had different drugs and systems.....but realistically all of that was already discovered by the 1984 LA Olympics and used by the US Olympic cycling team (not EPO, but blood transfusions).



Yeah, Steve Bauer lost to a blood doper (but it was legal at the time just as EPO use was not really banned when Miguel Indurain was on fire):





And Francisco Moser worked with Dr. Conconi for his 51.151 World Hour Record in Mexico City in 1985 on this set up:



This was the same year Hinault won his last Tour de France.

All this was not done on bread and water.

Lance did not invent doping, and he did not perfect it. He didn't even had a monopoly on being a dick. If anyone things Hinault or Merckx were choir boys then maybe the media has us fooled.

What you want is 5+ and keep your TdF titles. Hinault and Merckx busted for doping but got to keep their jerseys. Indurain to my best knowledge never even got busted because what he was on was technically legal or at least impossible to sanction (EPO....as there was no test).

In Lance's words, when trying to tempt Kirsten Armstrong out of retirement to take a run at another gold at Rio and her "declining", and then Lance responding something along this lines of "Yeah, I should have just stayed retired too".

So George won?

He mentioned staying retired jokingly a couple of times on The Move during the tour as well. I think he realizes that informed cycling fans know he won 7 tours whether the AOC "recognizes" it or not.

Correct.

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Shawne Merriman was a first-team all-pro the same year he was suspended for PEDs. Julian Edelman was superbowl MVP the same year he was suspended for PEDs. Rodney Harrison played in a superbowl the same year he was suspended for PEDs. Like you said, in the NFL it's just "hey, it happens" and they move on.

In the last episode this year, they were talking about how many tours Bernal will win and Lance emphatically reminded everyone that the record is 7.

I think you mean UCI. Or ASO?

the only thing i like about froome

I also think that's how other doping agencies would like to handle it; someone gets popped the agency doesn't want to strip titles or suspend. They only do enough to appease public opinion. USADA tried to create a new standard by removing Lance, Zabriskie, Leipheimer, and Danielson's results but that obviously hasn't stuck. Other nations won't do that and IMO, that ruling has affected American cycling going forward. There are teams out there that want nothing to do with USADA so they won't sign unknown Americans.

Adding that and our Domestic teams signing so many foreigners and veterans, it doesn't leave the future of Americans in the UCI in a very good spot.

Thank you for saying that. I have the exact same story. I would have never found triathlon if it was not for Lance inspiring me as a kid.

The comment, and the way he said it, brought my opinion back to where it was when he got banned, ie, he deserved it. I was slowly getting to "maybe the ban was too much". Nope, he has no regret, other than getting caught and he doesn't see he did way more than the other guys of his era. That comment ws as arrogant as the picture of him on his couch with the jerseys on the wall.

Lol, can we get back to the point here? Bunch of off-topic ass hats talking about who doped the best. I want some results without having to pay for that damn membership

You know who else doesn't regret doping? Merckx and over half the people that have ridden in the ProTour.

I don't do the Twitter thing but someone sent me a link to a Lance tweet the other day and I noticed his bio reads "Father of 5, Founder of WEDŪ, partner at NEXT Ventūres, endurance junkie, and 7 MJ’s."

We should ask them

1) Do you regret doping ?
2) Do you regret paying off competitors to win races ?
3) Do you regret paying off the UCI to hide test results ?
4) Do you regret financially destroying or attempting to destroy people's livelihood to protect your cheating ?
5) Do you regret perjuring yourself when testifying under oath ?

Nobody else did that, so I guess no, they don't have regrets.

If everyone was doing #1, it was a level playing field. If everyone was doing #1 except one guy who was doing it all, benefiting financially from it and then using those proceeds to further distance himself from the rest, that isn't a level playing field. Its funny because in one episode Bruynel went on about how much advantage teams with big budgets, buses, private planes....have.

I can completely understand how a guy like him could go down a path. I can see how hard it would be to correct that path. But once it's all out there don't have the nerve to say you didn't do anything worse than next guy and it was a level playing field. It wasn't. He didn't win those 7 Tours.

And there must have been some good trash talking along the way. At what point did George drop the "see you in the douches" line on Lance?

Yes, George won, by a few minutes. They had to ride back to where they do the podcast, carry the bike up the stairs (it's on the second story w/a patio) and tap the WEDU flag. Stunning course and they have some great drone shots.

Love the podcast, especially when you can watch it. Lance is an ass, but would he have been so good if he wasn't? I don't think so (sort of like Steve Jobs always had a chip on his shoulder which drove him). I'm waiting for my "See you in the douches" t-shirt to arrive.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Finally! 3 pages of pointless arguing and we finally get a definitive answer to the question! Thanks!

By the way, what exactly does the "see you in the douches" line mean? I don't think of anything endurance sport related when I read "douches"

This. ^^ A few years ago, Phil wouldn't even speak Lance's name on the air. Now Phil is helping to secure his replacement.

"See you in the showers" - V. Ekimov used to say that when he put the throttle down and rode away from whomever he was with. Douches = showers

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Just think, and the difference between being the best and being straight mediocre rides on that fine edge of deciding whether to throw Landis a bone at Tour of California or to rub his nose in shit. That decision was his idiot hubris and vindictiveness and what did him in, right there.

NBC did a long segment on Indurain during this years broadcast. A disciple of Conconi, the mentor of Ferrari. No doubt he was topped to the gills with orange juice. But, he never got caught. So he's the best. He would have thrown Landis a bone.

Isn't it a reference to the showers at Roubaix velodrome?

I think so - said by Ekimov.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Thanks for sharing!

Re: Indurain, see below...
http://www.cyclingnews.com/...ere-conconi-clients/

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"Discipline is the highest of all virtues. Only so may strength and desire be counterbalanced and the endeavors of man bear fruit."
Nikos Kazantzakis, The Rock Garden

Doping in the Tour has been going on since 1903, and continued ever since. Jacques Anqutiel staged a protest when they tried to ban Amphetemines. Everyone admitted it. Cocaine eye drops due to 17 hour stages, everything you can think of. From 60s to 80s you only got a time penalty most of the time for a doping offense. There are two great books on the Tour by Bill McGann, probably the best documented history of the race.

Anyway, I was a Lance hater from the beginning, it was so obvious he was doping. Then after he confessed, I became a fan. The podcasts are good, though I have to admit that the real gem of The Move podcast is Johann Bruyneel and the preview show. That guy knows his stuff when it comes to what is going on. Lance comes across as almost ignorant of everything, and his ego started to come out this year with George being on the show, that was a bit of a turn off.

Johann predicted George would win by the way.

That's a nice touch ... sort of a CX element?

****

In case anyone gives a shit, I still wear my Livestrong Band

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ost=4038970#p4038970




WOW!!!

Fifteen years now, and ten since Dad passed

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Thanks Cathy

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Right, because MOST everyone cheats, even the ‘elite’ age groupers!! If you don’t believe it, then you have you left head so far up your arse, just like you did about Lance. He’s the best ever, period end of story, because they still cheat...FROOME, Geraint, ALL OF THEM...and if you don’t believe it, once again, I say you have your head up your arse!! #icarus!

"Nope, he has no regret, other than getting caught and he doesn't see he did way more than the other guys of his era."

And how is that different to any other doper of his era? Indeed and other doper full stop! Seems to me that Lance is being penalised more for his arrogance and abhorrent behaviour than his doping.


If we've learnt nothing else from all this doping over the years it is that it is not old, it hasn't stopped, people are still and will continue to look for a chemically enhanced performance edge.

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Trust me I’m a doctor!
Well, I have a PhD :-)

Ok I’m with you...so where does that leave you on Lance? I find it interesting that people appear to get more upset that he was a doper but care less that he was an asshole. Where are you?

Ahhhhh and yet here you are. Commenting on a thread about a man you wish would go away. I find this hypocrisy amusing.

So how exactly are they cheating? And if you know then why haven't you reported the fact to the relevant authorities?

Seriously? I need to answer that? George H never got caught, he confessed. Most never get caught...it’s their livelihood we are talking about...they will do what they need to in order to feed their families...it’s not even with my time to respond. It’s common sense. The age groupers are cheating because of ego, they want to say they’re the best...it’s a fact of life!!! Get over it. #icarus.

"Nope, he has no regret, other than getting caught and he doesn't see he did way more than the other guys of his era."

Lance did not do way more than the others. He was in a unique position that all he had to do was test his form a couple of times pre-Tour, win the Tour, and call it a season. Compare that to someone like Tyler the year he was caught; he was full-on doped to the gills for the Ardennees, the pre-Tour races, the Tour, the Olympics, and the Vuelta. On top of that I know from clients of Dr. Ferrari that Ferrari was very conservative; he advised to take only what worked and as little of that as possible. Compared to teams like Liberty-Seguros who were loading their riders up with dozens of drugs, everything that anyone thought might have a remote chance of making a difference, and as much of those as possible.

Yes, I guess you are right about the hypocrisy. I guess I might convince others their penalty should be shunning. Did not work with you, but am glad I made you smile.

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Team Zoot So Cal

Doping wise you might be right, but Lance also committed several other crimes beyond doping:

Bribery (sysmex and other "donations")
Intimidation (Lemond, Andreu, Hamilton etc)
Libel (Lemond, Emma O'Reilly)
Perjury (SCA/Tailwind case)

I can keep going...

It was never just about the doping.