It certainly is surprising. This admission strikes a blow against everything I have learned about the wisdom of cycling forums during the last year.
Back in the day when Schumacher was smashing the field in breaks day after day and had a huge boost in time trialing capability to boot, there were a few--some say as little as twelve--nutters on cycling forums who laughed about how obvious the doping was. In forums in the Fatherland there were the German equivalents of del1962 and martinvickers who knew Schumachers's sudden rise and surprising performance relative to other pros was the result of good clean living and a Deutschland work ethic. There was probably even a German Krebs Cycle who proved with geometric logic that Schumacher was not doping and that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox containing the strawberries did exist. Since most English speakers don't sprechte da German, English speaking cycling forum dwellers were deprived of guidance from Schumacher's countrymen, who were the ones best able to give unbiased and, more importantly, undeluded guidance on whether their man was doping. The suspicion and accusations were a tragic example of cynicism brought about by a lack of communication.
Luckily that situation does not exist today. The riders smashing the field now are English speakers, so pathetic forum types get the benefit of being told in a language they understand which unnatural cycling performance should be ignored because they are actually the result of working in ways that no one else in the history of the sport has ever considered. The situation has improved dramatically, and I think we should all be thankful of that.
But this admission has caused some bit of doubt. Maybe, just maybe, those forum nutters were on to something back then.