Krebs cycle said:
Supposedly according to who? Nobody in pro cycling, nor anti-doping nor on this forum has ever stated that 2010 was a "clean" year or the start of a "clean" era. Everybody in pro cycling and anti-doping and cycling performance experts are saying that the slower times reflect a "cleaner" peloton.
Now I'm sure you are intelligent enough to figure out the difference between the absolute term "clean" and the relative term "cleaner".
Well you mentioned 2010 in an earlier post, as though what was achieved then could have possibly been done clean, I have two issues with that.
1) The Tourmalet performance is psycho, Stage 17 of a GT. If that was on Alpe d'Huez they would have been close to breaking into 38' territory. If the estimations are correct then to say this is possibly a clean performance is highly misleading when only crazy dopers have ever reached this level (think Aubisque 2007).
2) The list of riders at the top in that year:
Ivan "look at my numbers" Basso
Michele "one more bag" Scarponi
Vincenzo "Franco's training partner" Nibali
Alberto "what's the beef?" Contador
Andy "Frank's brother" Schleck
Denis "never tested positive" Menchov
Eze "it's not performance enhancing" Mosquera
There is direct evidence that Scarponi and Contador used transfusions that year, you are welcome to come to your own conclusions on what the others did or didn't do.
My point is that we shouldn't even be talking about what the numbers may indicate relative to theoretical limits when it's very hard to say any of the above rode clean.