Recent content by rickibobbi

it's about a 5, mostly because of WVA, possibly one of the greatest efforts in modern cycling history, (unless it was simply a really weak field this year). MvdP is setting a very bad trend, killing the first week and then leaving, it's legal, but the spirit of the race is shattered, how do...

Re: Re: the new data on micro-epo dosing being effective and pretty much undetectable is just another advancement in the "arms race" on use and detection. Probably should just make everything legal for racers over 21 years of age. Watching the Astana riders ride as hard as they did at the...

digging deep into the stupid locker, yet again, yes, I know, sports reporting is not rocket science, but there is more here, Liggett and Roll are implicated in keeping all the crap going. To me, its not about the doping, its about the thuggery surrounding it. This was a money making/fame...

agreed there is a larger conspiracy here, crude intimidation, advanced medicine, silence and/or complicity for all the powers that be. To be clear, media, the main governing bodies, sponsors, top riders, etc, all benefited by the "success" of US Postal and Lance specifically. And I don't even...

oopsy! well its not either\or but he might have dialed in his drug program starting today and/or he's properly fit, either way, its lights out for the others, as it should be, given everyone dopes, he's the best, everyone knows this, he didn't win the tour in 2011 because he put everything into...

yes, Korda was nabbed a few others were suspected, now Ferrer and Nadal look a bit too .... something, as does Stosur (have you seen her muscle definition?!). Compare Tipsaravic and Ferrer, both about the same ranking on the world tour, both about hte same height, but very very different upper...

the EPO equivalent must have kicked in today in the Vuelta. Glad he finally dialed in his drugs, it was getting a little hairy.

boring!!!!! jesus, what a way to neutralize a great stage, don't have a mountain finish, it doesn't help that the best riders are out of the tour and its essentially a bunch of second raters vying for the win. Thus, we have most of the GC leaders just marking each other. Although Nibali tried...

the tour is weak this year, no Contador, no Andy Shleck. Last year Contador didn't know if he would be allowed into the TDF so he went full gas at the Giro and didn't have the reserves for the TDF, it was a calculated gamble. This is really Contador's time, everyone knows this. That being...

strange sport cycling clearly it was never about whether Armstrong doped, etc, but how, everyone inside the sport knew it, its interesting how this got translated into a real legal investigation. Sometimes there is a disjunction between what counts as legal evidence and what humans actually...

versus versus what? yeah, it sucks, but turn off the sound and record it, problem solved really. Roll was a bike racer, thus, guilty until proven innocent in regard to being a moron. Best proof, when LA did his bully thing to shut down Simeoni in 2004 Roll was ecstatic, "that Lance, a true...

doping unity uber alles my take on this is most pro level racers, unfortunately based on personal experience, (and those who are pros know that I'm right) are almost too stupid to breath on their own, (witness Andy Schleck's cross shifting miscues, not once, but at least twice in last year's...

Really don't have a favorite here, AC or AS, grand tour riding is brutal, most of the people involved are really not paragons of much of anything save being really amazing athletes. Schleck benefited from peleton crashes in the cobblestones, for example. Often when people wait for the yellow...

Sastre in 2008 benefited from Evans being really banged up for the final TT, (remember Evans was in a really bad fall, urinating blood etc.). So its not clear that's a good example for Schleck and AC.

I agree, the last km wasn't uphill in any real way, any speculation on AC's fitness, etc is premature and naive. And let's assume AC was having problems breathing, imagine what that means when he isn't!?! And I'm not a fan(atic) booster of any particular rider. But so far there is no useful...