File under "You have got to be &$(%ing kidding me?!

[Netserk]

It was not stated by Hitch but clearly inferred - otherwise 2007 PdB would not even be discussed on this thread. Anyhow, I think Hitch has just answered your challenge on my behalf ?

As the primary argument of his doping?

 

[Cookster15]

As the primary argument of his doping?

Not primary, but PdB was certainly being used to support the argument. Anyhow I think Hitch's suggestion of Evans TT performances in 2007 deserves more credit than 2007 PdB. Certainly Cadel never looked as strong in TT - even in 2011. But then again he was the oldest post war winner by then. But in 2007 Evans would be close to his theoretical physiological peak as a GC rider.

 

[Cookster15]

3) Even without his jour sans on PdB, he still wouldn't have beaten Chicken. If he had had a good day he would still have lost time, just less than the 1'52''. If he had been with Leipheimer he would only have lost 40''. In that case he would've been 3'51'' behind Rasmussen before the last ITT (of course it would have been more than that since both Contador and Rasmussen completely ignored Evans on Aubisque and only concentrated about each other. Rasmussen could easily have distanced Evans by more that day if he had to). For Rasmussen to lose 3'52'' to Evans in the last ITT he would have to place 30th in the ITT 4'43'' behind Leech. He would have to lose more than a minute to Valverde that day (the same Valverde he caught and passed in the first ITT that year). Heck even if Evans was good enough to win over Chicken and Contador on PdB in a sprint, he still wouldn't have beaten Chicken in the final GC.

I need to comment on the bold bit. Contador was eventually dropped by Rasmussen on the Aubisque and finished the stage only 8 secs ahead of Evans. But I agree that Chicken could have made more time but then we all know what happened after that stage .

Like I said keeping Chicken in the race just made the whole Tour a complete farce - and even his team knew it. I think when it was obvious he was going to win they pulled the pin.

Frankly Evans effort to minimize his losses that day after being dropped well down the climb were impressive. He was obviously suffering very very badly but hung in there to finish just 43 sec behind albeit with Chicken holding back.

Other than he being Aussie it was 2007 Aubisque that made me a fan of Evans despite his many detractors and prickly personality.

 

[roundabout]

Obliterated? He was something like a minute faster in the first TT which was over an hour long.

That's not obliterated.

 

[roundabout]

the confusion comes because someone(don't know who) said that in 1998 they finished at a 50 meters lower altitude

I think that's what the official profile said

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/results/archives/oct97/oct26.html

 

[42x16ss]

Obliterated? He was something like a minute faster in the first TT which was over an hour long.

That's not obliterated.

Evans was 1'04 faster than Contador (6th with Vino removed) who still beat the likes of:

Cancellara
Kirchen
Millar
Leipheimer
Lang

And was only 4s behind Wigans in 4th.

 

[The Hitch]

Evans was 1'04 faster than Contador (6th with Vino removed) who still beat the likes of:

Cancellara
Kirchen
Millar
Leipheimer
Lang

And was only 4s behind Wigans in 4th.

A Bradley Wiggins who one might add gave up track cycling for two years specifically to win that tt and suggested after failing to do so that he was done with road cycling.

 

[blackcat]

Evans was 1'04 faster than Contador (6th with Vino removed) who still beat the likes of:

Cancellara
Kirchen
Millar
Leipheimer
Lang

And was only 4s behind Wigans in 4th.

Kirchen could never tt in his first ten years out of the jnrs.

The TdF tt, is a decent opportunity for a rider like Segei Gonchar to peak for the Tour and the tt, and forget about the p/w to go up hill. Grabsch really never did anything til later in his career.

and Sebastian LAng and Michael Rich never could win a worlds or a TdF tt.

The stage race tts are different from one day specialist tts. And different from GT tts again. I always thought the TdF tt was the defacto World Champs tt.

And in the 90s, the GP des Nations which always was pretty long65km +/- 5 km, was the defacto worlds tt.

You need to go au bloc to win the tt. But the GC players, they need to be ready to ride the next day. A rider like Schumacher or Honchar, who does not have to worry about GC, can go au bloc, without worrying about the next day. And they can come in with the gruppetto in the preceding days.

... and it is impossible to neutralise it for these factors. But they can give a wider insight into the tt finishes in the stage!

 

[blackcat]

A Bradley Wiggins who one might add gave up track cycling for two years specifically to win that tt and suggested after failing to do so that he was done with road cycling.

and he was still doping. you dont just switch overnight.

but he did switch to PROPER doping. not just a little, or recovery doping. BigTime full ret@rd doping

 

[Cookster15]

Kirchen could never tt in his first ten years out of the jnrs.

The TdF tt, is a decent opportunity for a rider like Segei Gonchar to peak for the Tour and the tt, and forget about the p/w to go up hill. Grabsch really never did anything til later in his career.

and Sebastian LAng and Michael Rich never could win a worlds or a TdF tt.

The stage race tts are different from one day specialist tts. And different from GT tts again. I always thought the TdF tt was the defacto World Champs tt.

And in the 90s, the GP des Nations which always was pretty long65km +/- 5 km, was the defacto worlds tt.

You need to go au bloc to win the tt. But the GC players, they need to be ready to ride the next day. A rider like Schumacher or Honchar, who does not have to worry about GC, can go au bloc, without worrying about the next day. And they can come in with the gruppetto in the preceding days.

... and it is impossible to neutralise it for these factors. But they can give a wider insight into the tt finishes in the stage!

Plus also there is Cancellara listed but he was only 26 in 2007 - still maturing. In 2007 Evans was 30 - probably at his peak physiology for a GC rider.

 

[The Hitch]

I was watching Bloomberg tv today and I heard that there were "marginal gains" in the Asian market.

hmmm. Someone should tell @davidwalsh about this. Maybe he can write a book about how Brailsford's scientific revolution in Sky has spread to the world of financne and the world is recovering economically thanks to him.

 

[blackcat]

Plus also there is Cancellara listed but he was only 26 in 2007 - still maturing. In 2007 Evans was 30 - probably at his peak physiology for a GC rider.

Cancellara post those 3 World Champs from Rogers, when one was actually Dave Millars, Cancellara was still nigh unbeatable. A few years, and those years, he never performed inthe cobbles. But he did have a good result as a 20/21 yo i think, in Roubaix, well before he started killing chronos.

 

[42x16ss]

Kirchen could never tt in his first ten years out of the jnrs.

The TdF tt, is a decent opportunity for a rider like Segei Gonchar to peak for the Tour and the tt, and forget about the p/w to go up hill. Grabsch really never did anything til later in his career.

and Sebastian LAng and Michael Rich never could win a worlds or a TdF tt.

The stage race tts are different from one day specialist tts. And different from GT tts again. I always thought the TdF tt was the defacto World Champs tt.

And in the 90s, the GP des Nations which always was pretty long65km +/- 5 km, was the defacto worlds tt.

You need to go au bloc to win the tt. But the GC players, they need to be ready to ride the next day. A rider like Schumacher or Honchar, who does not have to worry about GC, can go au bloc, without worrying about the next day. And they can come in with the gruppetto in the preceding days.

... and it is impossible to neutralise it for these factors. But they can give a wider insight into the tt finishes in the stage!

Cancellara, Millar, Lang, Wigans, Kloden, Kaschechkin and a couple of others all targeted the two long ITT's that year (50km and 55km respectively) and Contador was right amongst them while out climbing Leipheimer and pressuring the Chicken in the mountains. Yet Evans thrashed them all, both days, to the point where he nearly stole the race.

 

[blackcat]

Cancellara, Millar, Lang, Wigans, Kloden, Kaschechkin and a couple of others all targeted the two long ITT's that year (50km and 55km respectively) and Contador was right amongst them while out climbing Leipheimer and pressuring the Chicken in the mountains. Yet Evans thrashed them all, both days, to the point where he nearly stole the race.

yep, yep, yep

 

[Escarabajo]

Cancellara, Millar, Lang, Wigans, Kloden, Kaschechkin and a couple of others all targeted the two long ITT's that year (50km and 55km respectively) and Contador was right amongst them while out climbing Leipheimer and pressuring the Chicken in the mountains. Yet Evans thrashed them all, both days, to the point where he nearly stole the race.

I want to play devil's advocate and say that Evans was a doped but very talented rider and that the list you provided are a bunch of doped to the gills riders. And some of them I have doubts about their true talent. So Millar, Lang, Autubus Wigans, Kloden, Whereaboubts Kaschechkin were supposed to beat Evans in the TT?????

Got it. The fact that you included Kaschechkin is very laughable.

He repeated his feat in 2011. Again you can start making an argument of who was supposed to truly challenge Evans in the TT in 2011? Only Cancellara or Martin. But why would the other guys challenge Evans on the TT??

I did not put Wiggans in that Category because he proved his worth on the Track but never repeated his success on the road. Not from the beginning like the great ones have done. Not until he started playing with the hot Sauce. So you have to question who really was up to the task of challenging Evans on the TT.

I guess I realize that by now that we agree on one thing. But we started the argument about the shootout and that argument that I made still stands. But Evans had every right to be up front in the time trial.

 

[Gung Ho Gun]

To be fair, Kloden may have beat him but he fell in the first TT and was out of the race by the second
In fact Kloden may have podiumed the Tour if Vinokourov hadn't been there

 

[blackcat]

I did not put Wiggans in that Category because he proved his worth on the Track but never repeated his success on the road. Not from the beginning like the great ones have done. Not until he started playing with the hot Sauce. So you have to question who really was up to the task of challenging Evans on the TT.

Wiggins always doped, you just dont flick the switch when you turn 30. He just did a different level of doping. They all still dope on the track. And you dont win Olympic gold as a clean athlete.

but there is doping, and then there is doping to win a GT on the road. Two far different things, the only thing in common is dope. But in the realm of doping, he did not do much before he thought his power would translate to some GC success with a wide berth in a British (quasi national team) Sky ProCycling and the backing of Brailsford.

It is all relative tho, is it possible to win a GT clean, even IF you are the most talented natural athlete on the planet, or is it merely possible to ride top 20 in a GT. Is recovery doping real doping? Is micro dosing epo to maintain a 43 crit, the same as moving your crit from 43 to 49, and then maintaining the 49 during the GT over 21 days?

Evans could be a full ret@rd doper, I dont dismiss this possibility. I dont believe it tho.

But no one can ever ascertain who is the best cyclist as a clean cyclist. We just cant know. It is a little like the Rumsfeld aphorism.

 

[Cookster15]

Well I think we can now discount the Pyrenees in 2007 as strong evidence of Evans doping. But his 2007 TT effort in relation to Cancellara still raises my eyebrows somewhat. But as I said, Evans had some pedigree in TT at that point of his career and at his peak age so if he doped I don't think it was 'full ***'.

But this then poses the ethical question: Does it matter if you dope big or small? Be it recovery or micro dosing it is still doping and once your name is in the press it matters for nought - hero to zero. Does it matter if you cross the line a little or a lot? If Evans doped this is the question he would have asked himself.

 

[Netserk]

Well I think we can now discount the Pyrenees in 2007 as strong evidence of Evans doping.

Why is that? You don't think his time on Aubisque counts as strong evidence?

5.96 W/kg for 44' after 6 hours in the saddle in a really hard stage where they already went full throttle on Marie-Blanque. Best climbing performance by Evans ever?

 

[Carstenbf]

Does it matter if you dope big or small?

I've come to believe it does. In the somewhat twisted minds of the 'old guard' a bit of T and cortisone coupled with rest day BBs could be conceived as 'clean'.

Whereas going full *** chicken-style with 6 BBs + epo/aicar + whatnot, was deemed unacceptable in the eyes of many. Honor amongst thieves etc.

In this light I'd probably count Evans among the 'old guard'. Dunno really, just speculating tbh.

 

[Escarabajo]

I've come to believe it does. In the somewhat twisted minds of the 'old guard' a bit of T and cortisone coupled with rest day BBs could be conceived as 'clean'.

Whereas going full *** chicken-style with 6 BBs + epo/aicar + whatnot, was deemed unacceptable in the eyes of many. Honor amongst thieves etc.

In this light I'd probably count Evans among the 'old guard'. Dunno really, just speculating tbh.

Rest day BBs is not clean. Anything related with O2 vectors is a big no-no.

 

[42x16ss]

I want to play devil's advocate and say that Evans was a doped but very talented rider and that the list you provided are a bunch of doped to the gills riders. And some of them I have doubts about their true talent.

This sums up how I've always felt about Evans, top tier talent who couldn't take full advantage of doping. Not unlike JV, but even better.

 

[observer]

I've come to believe it does. In the somewhat twisted minds of the 'old guard' a bit of T and cortisone coupled with rest day BBs could be conceived as 'clean'.

Whereas going full *** chicken-style with 6 BBs + epo/aicar + whatnot, was deemed unacceptable in the eyes of many. Honor amongst thieves etc.

In this light I'd probably count Evans among the 'old guard'. Dunno really, just speculating tbh.

I'd say no to blood bags, maybe some epo when it was in vogue.
these guys know what they need to go through to even get through a 3 week fast and hard race. Of course they dope. As long as you keep Omerta you'd be fine.

I would say, considering Evans is an odd ball, noone really knew what he was up to, and was not on the teamwide type setup. However did dope, and didn't allow anyone close enough to snitch on him. Keep omerta all the way and was rewarded with respect and a tdf win.

 

[The Hitch]

Well I think we can now discount the Pyrenees in 2007 as strong evidence of Evans doping. But his 2007 TT effort in relation to Cancellara still raises my eyebrows somewhat. But as I said, Evans had some pedigree in TT at that point of his career and at his peak age so if he doped I don't think it was 'full ***'.

A stage 13 or stage 20 tt performance has far more to do with doping than with tt ability.

ys also telling that Evans never really was the king of single tts like worlds Olympicsz or even prologues, early tts. It was in the final week tts of the tour de france when recovery (aka how much epo have you taken) is what matters, that he excelled at.

 

[blackcat]

This sums up how I've always felt about Evans, top tier talent who couldn't take full advantage of doping. Not unlike JV, but even better.

yep yep yep ^2