Of course not! No scriptwriter would ever write something so boring.
-
The Cycling News forum is still looking to add volunteer moderators with. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to
In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.
Thanks!
I was close to giving up after the joke Visma made of the sport last year, peaking with the skeleton fisherman nearly going into orbit at the Tour.
However this year has been a breath of fresh air. Yes, one man is dominating but at least he is entertaining.
The Tour for the last 2 years would nearly have you convinced we were back to the Sky train human centipede days.
Long live Pog.
However this year has been a breath of fresh air. Yes, one man is dominating but at least he is entertaining.
The Tour for the last 2 years would nearly have you convinced we were back to the Sky train human centipede days.
Long live Pog.
ManicJack
BANNED
The problem with allowing pharma products under a physician's supervision is it would widen the gaps between the richer teams and the rest.
The great thing about watching cycling over a number of decades, as many of the grumpy old men on this forum clearly have, is that one gets to see things repeat over time. It seems like just other day I was reading all those articles about how Indurain's exploits could be completely explained by advances in training, nutrition and bikes, in combination with his freakish natural attributes. A turbocharged rider bringing kids into the sport? Yes, we all miss Marco. Journalists banging on about how someone dominating the sport is "inspirational"? Got far too much in the Lance era, but maybe that's considered old news now. Teams pretending that "this time is different"? Well, all dominant teams try that one. Sometimes they even get it to stick for a while.
There's more money involved now, and we have carefully managed social media feeds to show us how lovable our heroes are. Maybe it'll take someone getting up to "7" before the appeal of watching a couple of riders in a different universe to the rest wears off, one of them managing to do it in the classics too. Are all the attacks still as interesting when nothing is really being risked as the difference in levels is so extreme? It felt like something changed in the Combloux time trial last year, even some Vingo supporters becoming a bit uneasy with the display. Then this year the nice Mr Gianetti and the smiling "kid on a bike" came back with even bigger nukes and the number of people finding it hard to suspend disbelief seems to be growing. Hard to maintain the halo while skirting the difficult questions, CO is probably just the beginning.
But the show must go on. The clinic in the 2050s will probably be fired up by arguments about a couple of riders who have had more advanced genetic engineering than the rest. Some old codger will then remind the rest that this is nothing, he was around for the days of Pog and Vingo in the 2020s. At which point a forum contrarian will disagree and point to the real villain of this age: Superman Lopez.
There's more money involved now, and we have carefully managed social media feeds to show us how lovable our heroes are. Maybe it'll take someone getting up to "7" before the appeal of watching a couple of riders in a different universe to the rest wears off, one of them managing to do it in the classics too. Are all the attacks still as interesting when nothing is really being risked as the difference in levels is so extreme? It felt like something changed in the Combloux time trial last year, even some Vingo supporters becoming a bit uneasy with the display. Then this year the nice Mr Gianetti and the smiling "kid on a bike" came back with even bigger nukes and the number of people finding it hard to suspend disbelief seems to be growing. Hard to maintain the halo while skirting the difficult questions, CO is probably just the beginning.
But the show must go on. The clinic in the 2050s will probably be fired up by arguments about a couple of riders who have had more advanced genetic engineering than the rest. Some old codger will then remind the rest that this is nothing, he was around for the days of Pog and Vingo in the 2020s. At which point a forum contrarian will disagree and point to the real villain of this age: Superman Lopez.
What you are talking about is the reality if cycling at the moment.
Allowing products maybe could decrease the gap by letting them use cheap but efficient products.
No it wouldn't. How do you test to ensure products are efficient and safe? Everything in medical research costs a lot of money.
How different perception can be.
This year, only really after stage 11, there was a second where I thought we might have a race at the end. But that did not last long.
I found the Tours 22 and 23 infinetely more entertaining than this year's.
Might also be related to the fact that I do find Vingegaard an entertaining rider.
Just been catching up before the Olympics with some of the comings and goings in the track events I plan to watch. Can confirm it's not just cycling, a lot of athletes seem to be really 'finally committing fully to their training'. Middle distance running especially stands out as one to watch for all clinic favourites.
The Tour was just the appetiser, I get the impression the next few weeks are about to serve up the biggest farce we've ever witnessed.
The Tour was just the appetiser, I get the impression the next few weeks are about to serve up the biggest farce we've ever witnessed.
I agree with that. If there is blood vector doping possible in cycling without being caught. Why not somewhere else? So records in athletics and swimming will be crushed. I mean, middle- to long-distance running anyway already showed a similar trend to cycling of going faster and faster.
ManicJack
BANNED
Rumor is that the track is the fastest ever built and they now oil their spikes to lessen the friction/traction ratio.
Also there is a constant tailwind (1,8m/s) and amazingly the track is slightly downhill all the time...
ManicJack
BANNED
A reminder that many PEDs are medically controlled substances that normal people need to treat serious conditions or to live. No, we shouldn't legalize doping
h
I agree. If they made it wide open for everyone we’d still see an arms race, it would just be even more extreme and would ironically probably be more dangerous (doctors are already supervising them, so supervising even higher doses/methods wouldn’t be safer). Fairness/parity is always going to be higher when less doping is allowed imo. But that doesn’t mean the rich and powerful teams/countries aren’t already taking advantage of that; they’ll always be taking advantage of it.
I think the winner gets abuse because a large portion of cycling fans pathologically gravitate towards the runner-up. It could be because the sport has always been firmly rooted in the working class and we see ourselves in the plucky underdog rather than the glamorous winner, but I think there's another reason too. Cycling fans in general want to see the hurt and suffering of the main riders as they push each other to the verge of death in a brutal war of attrition. Life is literally on the line, both on the way up, as Tom Simpson learned in the hardest way possible, and on the way down, something the long history of tragic high-speed crashes on descents makes abundantly clear. Riders like Chris Anker-Sørensen and Thomas Voeckler have cult followings for no other reason than that their atrocious poker faces broadcast their hurt to everyone watching. Cycling is so synonymous with suffering that riders that crash are often both willing and expected to finish the race with broken bones and bleeding wounds. Any worthy winner in a sport like that simply has to be able to out-suffer everyone else, and we cheer for the runner-up because he is ultimately the last man left that can force the winner to dig even deeper.
The theatre of pain is why Paris-Roubaix remains so revered to this day. There is no way you can win that race without being extraordinarily strong, willing to endure lengthy punishment and brave to the point of stupidity on the cobbles. You're either going to get through to the end and be battered and bruised or you're going to crash and be in even worse condition. There's no escape. There's no easy way out. Bleeding elbows and knees, blistered and bloody hands, mud and dust everywhere, including their lungs. They go to war every single year, the sheer hardness of the race whittling away favourite after favourite until they're down to a handful at best. At the end even the most paranoid and skeptical Clinic hermits usually drop some chain lube on their rusty and disused enthusiasm and admit that, yes, it was actually a damn good race.
True, unrelenting, visible suffering seems to be a rare thing in winners of stage races these days. There was no war of attrition when the Sky train churned robotically up and down the mountains until everyone had been shelled off. We lauded Nairo Quintana in 2013 when he sat hunched and lifeless on the ground at the top of Ventoux, and Romain Bardet's 1000 yard stare and anguished look of pain at the end of the 2017 Tour garnered similar respect. But they didn't win. Quintana ultimately only bested Froome on a single stage, the last stage before Paris where Froome's victory was already as good as guaranteed. Bardet was within reach, but the combination of his lacking ability against the clock and fatigue cost him minutes on the time trial in Marseille. Two riders, but far from the only two, who left everything on the road on multiple occasions, yet second best was the closest they ever got to winning the Tour. The robotic, inevitable train of Team Sky keeping them comfortably out of reach every time, inflicting a hurt they seemingly never had to experience themselves.
This year's edition of the Tour has turned the volume of the criticism back up again because it goes against the very core of what made cycling the best sport in the world. A team funded by a Middle-Eastern oil state is the antithesis of the working class, salt-of-the-earth fighting spirit that keeps riders going at all costs. The winner comfortably and consistently shedding every single competitor with his very first burst of speed and looking fresh and unaffected after crossing the finish line does not satisfy our demand for suffering, nor does the suffering of others go rewarded when he regularly breezes past the last remnants of the breakaway who have been desperately fighting it out amongst themselves in the hope that they can manage to scavenge some of the few crumbs still left in the race.
It offends and upsets when it happens during the crown jewel of the calendar, but this year it has happened in almost every major race so far. I always enjoyed the race, but the year I truly fell in love with the Strade Bianche was when Wout van Aert literally keeled over on the final climb, too exhausted to keep the pedals turning on the steep incline. This year that beautiful race was over two hours before the finish line was even crossed. The Giro, a favourite amongst the hipsters who feel the Tour gets too much mainstream attention, has long been the Grand Tour to watch for fans who don't like long stretches of dynastic tyranny where one team wins several editions in a row. It has traditionally had stage profiles far less considerate of the riders' well-being than those in the Tour, often helped by longer and steeper climbs than you're likely to see anywhere else. The late spring start regularly brings the kind of weather every fan secretly hopes for to make the race as excrutiating as possible for the guys in it. That race was also as good as decided before the halfway point, no fierce duels in harsh terrain and harsher weather were ever needed to settle the score. So many races this year are being won by a rider who does not seem to pay for his wins in the only currency a lot of cycling fans accept, which makes those wins seem dishonest. It can't, or at least shouldn't, be that easy. And so the fans feel like they're owed a debt. They want answers. For many, the only logical answer is cheating and the only acceptable repayment is the wins being stripped away. Which is, I guess, ultimately why we are even in this particular damp, sweat-stained corner of the internet.
I will say, though, in fairness to Pogacar... He might have fallen well short of my suffering requirements this year, but at least us, the viewers, are no longer subjected to the suffering that is watching Chris Froome as he molests his bike further and further up the road year after year.
Last edited:
That's a nice first post.
What get's me is that there is always, as a negative side to the celebration of heroism, the picture of the super villains. And don't misunderstand me here. There are definitively people who contribute more to the issue than others. But overall there seems to be a huge tendency to miss the forest for the trees, to look at individuals rather than the systemic issues that make this a phenomenon that is on repeat, and comes and goes in waves. Yet only when things collapse is there usually any real attention for the culture of doping and it's roots in the economy, psychology and sociology of professional cycling and professional sports in general. And so the surprise that this happens always returns, the disappointment repeats, something changes, and then it comes back. An old demon, so to speak, always wearing a new mask, but always saying the same things.
And it doesn't help to become aware of this, it's in a way more depressing, because one starts seeing the how inevitable it all is, because usually nothing fundamental changes. The passport did a trick, there was a long period in which certain barriers were not brocken. But I think it was always to optimistic to think it would last, and I feel stupid now, because I should've known better, to have thought it might last.
I think the fact that cyclingnews allows this sort of discussion is proof positive that everyone will remain safe.
This site would not exist if not for the ad revenue coming in from those close to the sport, and despite attempts in the past to bury the topic and ban members while ignoring those who insisted nay-sayers are stupid, the Clinic is still here. I would love to be a fly on the wall listening to the back-and-forth producers of this site have had with various people who have a vested interest in protecting their rider, and or product. How many times have they been threatened with legal action, and how did that all pan out?
I realize I'm kind of rambling here, but I guess my question to those who maintain this site is: Why does the Clinic still exist? I'm very glad it does -- it is like a breath of fresh air -- but you guys must have enemies in the industry.
This site would not exist if not for the ad revenue coming in from those close to the sport, and despite attempts in the past to bury the topic and ban members while ignoring those who insisted nay-sayers are stupid, the Clinic is still here. I would love to be a fly on the wall listening to the back-and-forth producers of this site have had with various people who have a vested interest in protecting their rider, and or product. How many times have they been threatened with legal action, and how did that all pan out?
I realize I'm kind of rambling here, but I guess my question to those who maintain this site is: Why does the Clinic still exist? I'm very glad it does -- it is like a breath of fresh air -- but you guys must have enemies in the industry.
Only reason to want it is so at least I can be free of journalists, pundits and whatever the *** telling me they are so cleanz.
It's such a grave insult. They're lying. They're know they're lying. I know they're lying. They know I know they're lying. Yet still they will tell me to suck the **** that pisses on me.
I have hoped for a long time that teams and manufacturers. have some kind of pop up on Cycling news, either leading us to another platform to see content from teams. You see EF,Rapha,UAE, Movistar,Visma, Bahrain, and more all produce video content that is available on YouTube, Instagram but you have to look for it. I visit Cycling News multiple times per day, mostly because I don't like regular news. I hope that CN can be a conduit between fans and teams and races. Pro bike racing makes the sport as difficult to watch and follow as humanly possible. CN is a great place to make the connection, and hopefully profit from it
This is great poetry. (Unironically, it's a wonderful description, and very funny).
You are one of the reasons why I'm in this particular "damp, sweat-stained corner of the internet" and I thank you for it. I don't agree with the notion of being satisfied with wins being stripped away -- I think it's absurd to revoke Armstrong's wins -- but I kind of get a kick out of watching Pogi challenge for sprints when he doesn't need to. It adds to the comedic aspect, and I kind of enjoy it.
And how could you tell if a doctor had supervised the EPO you found in someone's system?
Obviously legalizing even a little bit makes it basically a prerequisite to dope to the gills, or to one vial less than whatever will kill you. Not much margin for error, then...
there is a reason Bernard Hinault in interviews comes across as like, the most deluded fanboy in the Tadej Pogacar thread.
re: suffering, i think blowing up on Loze gave Pogacar as many fans as winning the tour. the guy even had the sense to blow up with a media-ready quotable (i think at least one paper had "Je suis mort" as a headline). I imagine Vingegaard breaking down in tears after losing the tour for the first time, and his interview at Le Lioran will do the same for him.
then who knows. maybe he comes back with another step up in the arms race next year, or Red Bull decide to throw their billions around in the pursuit of medical science.
I think the fact that riders in the 90s had to get up in the middle of the night and exercise to get their blood circulating enough to stop it from clogging up like dried sewage because they had used so much EPO their red blood cells were thickening it to an ooze is enough to tell everyone that giving riders carte blanche to do whatever they want is a terrible god damn idea. For a lot of these guys the desire to win literally overrides their self-preservation and common sense.
And no rules does not mean parity either. It would be lovely if performance increases were equal and uniform, but they aren't. X syringes do not equal a performance increase of Y%. Allowing doping adds an additional factor into determining the talent of a rider. It's no longer just the combination of physical talent and a strong work ethic that dictates performance. Ability to respond to pharmaceutical products gets added to the mix. It's completely at odds with what I think is a core value of sports in general - that they should be as equal as possible, all the way from the grassroots level to the top. That means the win conditions should be the same, so the 10 year old kid who's winning races in his home town and the 30 year old pro who's winning monuments should both be doing it because their bodies are naturally better at transporting oxygen and producing whatever absolute power or power to weight ratio is needed to win. The pro shouldn't be winning because he's sort of alright at the whole pedalling thing and f*cking incredible at drugs. Imagine normalising this: "Yeah, we've found this dude who can inject more of the stuff than anyone in the world, and also, when he does it his body seems to be doing something really incredible with it that we've never quite seen before in anyone else. Most talented guy we've ever seen without a doubt."
That's not sport. It's not fair, it's not safe. It can get f*cked.
And no rules does not mean parity either. It would be lovely if performance increases were equal and uniform, but they aren't. X syringes do not equal a performance increase of Y%. Allowing doping adds an additional factor into determining the talent of a rider. It's no longer just the combination of physical talent and a strong work ethic that dictates performance. Ability to respond to pharmaceutical products gets added to the mix. It's completely at odds with what I think is a core value of sports in general - that they should be as equal as possible, all the way from the grassroots level to the top. That means the win conditions should be the same, so the 10 year old kid who's winning races in his home town and the 30 year old pro who's winning monuments should both be doing it because their bodies are naturally better at transporting oxygen and producing whatever absolute power or power to weight ratio is needed to win. The pro shouldn't be winning because he's sort of alright at the whole pedalling thing and f*cking incredible at drugs. Imagine normalising this: "Yeah, we've found this dude who can inject more of the stuff than anyone in the world, and also, when he does it his body seems to be doing something really incredible with it that we've never quite seen before in anyone else. Most talented guy we've ever seen without a doubt."
That's not sport. It's not fair, it's not safe. It can get f*cked.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Teams & Riders The Remco Evenepoel is the next Eddy Merckx thread- Started by DNP-Old
- Replies: 29K
-
Teams & Riders The Great Big Cycling Transfers, Extensions, and Rumours Thread- Started by RedheadDane
- Replies: 11K
-
Teams & Riders Alberto Contador Discussion Thread- Started by LaFlorecita
- Replies: 51K
-
Teams & Riders Tadej Pogačar discussion thread- Started by Lequack
- Replies: 23K
-
-
Teams & Riders Everybody needs a little bit of Roglstomp in their lives- Started by johnymax
- Replies: 19K
-
Teams & Riders Chris Froome Discussion Thread.- Started by Miburo
- Replies: 21K
Latest posts
-
-
-
-
-
New Jerseys - 2025 Season - TeamKits-Maillots-Tricots-Tenues- Latest: Armchair Cyclist
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram