Evans is a winner, just the big one is f***ing hard

[meat puppet]

perhaps his body is aged in the same cellar as lance's winning tubulars were. one two three four five six seven years.

 

[sniper]

Evans 'tuning up' in Spain.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/gallery-evans-and-bmc-training-in-spain

 

[Benotti69]

Evans 'tuning up' in Spain.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/gallery-evans-and-bmc-training-in-spain

"one of the highest mountains".......that you can park a camper van loaded with pharmaceuticals on ..........."in the region and the perfect place for Tour de France winner Cadel Evans and his teammates to get some climbing in."

 

[Mambo95]

So he's gone to a mountain that isn't covered in snow and skiers.

Good god, you pathetic people are so desperate.

 

[happychappy]

So he's gone to a mountain that isn't covered in snow and skiers.

Good god, you pathetic people are so desperate.

Desperate for high cadence! Oooooooooh yeaah baby! Lovely spanish high cadence. I heard training in Spain allows you to pedal at a much higher RPM than anywhere else! No wonder he's all smiles.

 

[Roninho]

It wasn't just Evans who thought he could recover the lost time in that TT. It was a long one, more than 50 km, and Sastre isn't a top time trialist. I was mostly convinced that Evans had won the Tour after l'Alp d'Huez. He didn't choke at the TT. Actually, he got almost the exact same time than Menchov, for example, and to be beaten by Cancellara or Schumacher is pretty much normal. Sastre, on the other hand, managed to deliver a great (and also highly suspicious) TT that year.

Obviously most expected Evans to win more time on Sastre during the TT.
However, and i have not checked it by looking at race results, i get the feeling that in general after 3 weeks of tdf it is more about who is in better shape then who is the best tt-rider. If a better TT-rider kind of underperformed in the last mountain stage you'll almost never see them perform good in the TT. If a climber 'overperformed' in the last mountain stage they generally tend to perform decent in the TT (if they have something to race for obviously).

I'm not saying Evans underperformed in the Alp d'huez stage, i'm just saying that Sastre was really really strong in that stage (Evans did start to set the pace in the end and couldn't get time back, while menchov couldn't follow sastre to begin with) so it doesn't suprise me that he performed relatively good in his TT. He just seemed to be the guy in best shape at the end of the 3 weeks.

 

[Roninho]

Imagine Armstrong paid for exclusive and Ferarri was 'training' others at the same time, excellent.

Even though it would be funny in the end it didn't really matter since LA won what he wanted. The Fuentes case is funnier since he was essentially fueling half the peloton and it seemed like most thought they (or their team) were the only ones...

 

[Benotti69]

Even though it would be funny in the end it didn't really matter since LA won what he wanted. The Fuentes case is funnier since he was essentially fueling half the peloton and it seemed like most thought they (or their team) were the only ones...

Be doubly funny if Ferarri fueled Contador to beat Armstrong at comeback 2.0...

 

[Roninho]

Just to further this point, Alan Peiper said in his book that whilst he really wanted to help Cadel in his time with Lotto, he was notoriously difficult to get along with. Odd as two left shoes apparently, and such was his behaviour to other riders on the team, that Peiper was very worried for the guy. So it was a relief that McEwen and someone else who I forget, took him under their wing and just put up with his moods and his rantings.
By the way there was a time I wanted to believe in Cadel. However, in my opinion, there is no way he could have competed in the Tours he did, and come in the positions he did, without the aid of blood vector doping like the rest. The advantages of doping are so great, I cannot understand how he could be that close to dopers, and in many cases, actually beat them.

Yeah that was also my understanding, the guy is/was considered a loner/not a 'teamguy'. In the case of him being the teamleader that is something the team accepts (although as you can see by the Peiper comments wasn't something they were particularly happy with), but at Telekom/T-mobile it was a different situation since he was going to be a domestique. You don't want a weirdo who might damage teammorale in your team, especially when your t-mobile and you have a bunch of qualified domestiques.

As for your last comment, it is essentially my reasoning as well. Over the past decade so many comparable contenders (actually most) have been busted or so deeply implicated that it makes it very hard for me to believe that the few who didn't get implicated are actually clean. Add in the teams he rode for and his weird behaviour (which although not 'scientific' (hey it is the clinic )), which imo certainly not helps his case.

 

[Roninho]

If Evans is clean then he is the dumbest mofo in the peloton. If he can compete clean, a boost of a few percent would turn him into a legend.

The Drs. Fuentes and Ferrari wholeheartedly endorse your comment ]
Exactly, i totally do not agree with BroDeal's comment. If he is indeed clean and gets these results he shouldn't even be thinking about doping. World champion, TDF win, classic wins, bunch of top 5's in GT's. Great career without doping. Never the feeling of being a cheater, never the feeling when am i going to get busted, and great results.

Years ago i visited the Tour de Flanders and watched it at about 80-100km's to the finish, at a long cobblestonesection. The top 20 looked fresh, a bunch of guys where having difficulty and the last 30-40 riders in the peloton looked like they were dying. I saw Roy Sentjens in the back of the peloton and he looked awfull, just awfull. I remember thinking that if i had to make my money while feeling (well at least looking) that awfull with 100 km's to go, without any chances to ever go for a win myself i'd go for a different job.
In a situation like that i could see why someone would go for doping (assuming he didn't dope a that time obviously, Sentjes got busted later in his career), especially if you think that other guys around you get results due to doping. And add in that you probably trained all your life with the ambition to win, and in the youth categories you beaten guys and now you get beaten by the Kohls and schumachers on dope. It must be frustrating as ****.

But to dope when you get the results cadel is getting? No that wouldn't make sense imo.

 

[BroDeal]

Exactly, i totally do not agree with BroDeal's comment. If he is indeed clean and gets these results he shouldn't even be thinking about doping. World champion, TDF win, classic wins, bunch of top 5's in GT's. Great career without doping. Never the feeling of being a cheater, never the feeling when am i going to get busted, and great results.

Years ago i visited the Tour de Flanders and watched it at about 80-100km's to the finish, at a long cobblestonesection. The top 20 looked fresh, a bunch of guys where having difficulty and the last 30-40 riders in the peloton looked like they were dying. I saw Roy Sentjens in the back of the peloton and he looked awfull, just awfull. I remember thinking that if i had to make my money while feeling (well at least looking) that awfull with 100 km's to go, without any chances to ever go for a win myself i'd go for a different job.
In a situation like that i could see why someone would go for doping (assuming he didn't dope a that time obviously, Sentjes got busted later in his career), especially if you think that other guys around you get results due to doping. And add in that you probably trained all your life with the ambition to win, and in the youth categories you beaten guys and now you get beaten by the Kohls and schumachers on dope. It must be frustrating as ****.

But to dope when you get the results cadel is getting? No that wouldn't make sense imo.

This thread was started in March of 2011.

For all of Evans supposed talent, he has a scant number of wins. With a boost of a few percent he would have won at least three Tours, two Giros, two Vueltas, and multiple monuments. Instead he is the rider who lucked out and won the Tour when everyone else crashed, was injured, or not invited. My point stands. He would have been a giant of the era. He would have been the Australian Contador but with added monuments.

Anyway, the thought that Evans was GT competitive while racing clean through the EPO era, bouncing from one dirty team to another while guided by Tony Rominger (the man who on Vino's behalf pushed Saiz to reestablish his relationship with Fuentes after it had broken down when Heras was caught), and just happened to find new levels of form after joining a team owned by the man who personally paid for Landis' doping program is absurd.

 

[sniper]

Exactly, i totally do not agree with BroDeal's comment. If he is indeed clean and gets these results he shouldn't even be thinking about doping. World champion, TDF win, classic wins, bunch of top 5's in GT's. Great career without doping. Never the feeling of being a cheater, never the feeling when am i going to get busted, and great results.

Years ago i visited the Tour de Flanders and watched it at about 80-100km's to the finish, at a long cobblestonesection. The top 20 looked fresh, a bunch of guys where having difficulty and the last 30-40 riders in the peloton looked like they were dying. I saw Roy Sentjens in the back of the peloton and he looked awfull, just awfull. I remember thinking that if i had to make my money while feeling (well at least looking) that awfull with 100 km's to go, without any chances to ever go for a win myself i'd go for a different job.
In a situation like that i could see why someone would go for doping (assuming he didn't dope a that time obviously, Sentjes got busted later in his career), especially if you think that other guys around you get results due to doping. And add in that you probably trained all your life with the ambition to win, and in the youth categories you beaten guys and now you get beaten by the Kohls and schumachers on dope. It must be frustrating as ****.

But to dope when you get the results cadel is getting? No that wouldn't make sense imo.

You don'T easily get into the propeloton (let alone to be a teamleader) without doping in the first place.
And of course it's not hard to understand why these guys dope.
All you need is to spend a couple of months without a job and income, and you'll soon get to a point where you'd do basically anything for money, without moral qualms.
If you're in cycling and you get the chance to make a living out of it, from that point onwards it's dope vs. clean = contract vs. no contract = money vs. no money.
Not a difficult choice, I reckon, not even a moral dilemma to most.

Topsport (not just cycling) is obviously not going to get much cleaner as long as there is big money involved, on the contrary. and that's not pessimism, that's banal realism.

 

[JA.Tri]

You don'T easily get into the propeloton (let alone to be a teamleader) without doping in the first place.
And of course it's not hard to understand why these guys dope.
All you need is to spend a couple of months without a job and income, and you'll soon get to a point where you'd do basically anything for money, without moral qualms.
If you're in cycling and you get the chance to make a living out of it, from that point onwards it's dope vs. clean = contract vs. no contract = money vs. no money.
Not a difficult choice, I reckon, not even a moral dilemma to most.

Topsport (not just cycling) is obviously not going to get much cleaner as long as there is big money involved, on the contrary. and that's not pessimism, that's banal realism.

While I have read many of your posts I do not recall the substance (early onset dementia).

Do you believe all the peloton dope? If not, who does not? as your points above seem to argue against racing clean (if I have understood your thoughts)?

 

[The Hitch]

Exactly, i totally do not agree with BroDeal's comment.

Bro Deal made the comment long before Evans was given a final shot at the Tour.

Back when Evans was a 34 year old rider who had come 2nd at the Tour twice, failed at the Giro and got a podium in the VUelta.


So your logic that he is a TDF champion doesnt refute a comment made before he became one.

 

[sniper]

While I have read many of your posts I do not recall the substance (early onset dementia).

Do you believe all the peloton dope? If not, who does not? as your points above seem to argue against racing clean (if I have understood your thoughts)?

Indeed, I'm not too optimistic about the state of cycling or of any sports where there is so much to gain by doping just a little bit.
These guys' salaries are exponentially proportional to the quality and quantity of doping they are willing to take.
It's not about the fame, nor about the game. it's about the dough.