How clean is Garmin?

[Hillavoider]

Apologies, I responded to a post by BYOP88 that "Or maybe without the gear, Armstrong is just an average Joe."

The point is that it is really weak to brand someone a doper because they are doing well. Is it "bizarre" to hold the opinion that a professional athlete might just be better than the rest on that particular day or race?

On this forum, evidently it is.

Ha Ha you are funny. If you are that green and new to cycling then its cute to see someone just learning everything now.

The fact that doping is absolutely massive and just about mandatory in elite cycling is an open secret to the cycling community. Everyone involved in the sport, even the commontators turn a blind eye to it. The status of Garmin is the same as all other teams, they would have a doping system tightly controlled and planned to bring riders to their peak for important races.

The questions about the sport are so numerous and so endless they have effectively obliterated themselves. How does someones Hematocrit level not change after 3 weeks of racing. How do people recover so fast. How can George Hincapie drive the front of the bunch up mountain passes and drop people who weigh half his weight only when the tour is on.

Doping is a part of the sport, a big part, and probably always will be. its like when you start drinking coffee and redbulls as a junior before crits.

 

[saganftw]

Apologies, I responded to a post by BYOP88 that "Or maybe without the gear, Armstrong is just an average Joe."

The point is that it is really weak to brand someone a doper because they are doing well. Is it "bizarre" to hold the opinion that a professional athlete might just be better than the rest on that particular day or race?

On this forum, evidently it is.

i agree with you,im surprised that nobody questions f.e. usain bolt because his WR on 100m is probably the best single sport performance of all time...i d think that hes not the only athlete in the world who is just that much gifted,you dont have to point the finger,hes freak of nature like Lemond or indurain with their natural gift for sport and i dont believe those freaks dissapear...they wiill always be there next one is probably contador with his VO2 max almost 100- its a rumour but you never know - now how much time does contador have before ppl will start to question his succes? he will win more GT than armstrong.does that mean hes doper? and who decide when is the time to say "ok hes winning too much,hes doper"

this forum is full of ppl who can tell you who is doper,who did doping in the past and is clean now and who was always clean...they dont presume,they know!
just like they have some radar or whatever,i d love to have their confidence

as far as garmin goes,everybody was surprised by wiggins performance last year,but if you think about it,he was always top TT guy that means he has power and endurance...losing that much weight as he did will really help you a lot in mountains,i know for myself when i lost 5-7 kg it was huuuuge difference,it felt so good...how much does it improve you as a pro we can only imagine

 

[timbat]

Wiggins was climbing with near the best of them at last years Tour and overnight lost 25 mins on the Zoncolan in the Giro ...

Different climbs perhaps in terms of grade but still ?

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

i agree with you,im surprised that nobody questions f.e. usain bolt because his WR on 100m is probably the best single sport performance of all time...i d think that hes not the only athlete in the world who is just that much gifted,you dont have to point the finger,hes freak of nature like Lemond or indurain with their natural gift for sport and i dont believe those freaks dissapear...they wiill always be there next one is probably contador with his VO2 max almost 100- its a rumour but you never know - now how much time does contador have before ppl will start to question his succes? he will win more GT than armstrong.does that mean hes doper? and who decide when is the time to say "ok hes winning too much,hes doper"

this forum is full of ppl who can tell you who is doper,who did doping in the past and is clean now and who was always clean...they dont presume,they know!
just like they have some radar or whatever,i d love to have their confidence

as far as garmin goes,everybody was surprised by wiggins performance last year,but if you think about it,he was always top TT guy that means he has power and endurance...losing that much weight as he did will really help you a lot in mountains,i know for myself when i lost 5-7 kg it was huuuuge difference,it felt so good...how much does it improve you as a pro we can only imagine

Not even Jim Henson has as many muppets as you do. Do you get tired of agreeing with yourself? It's not as though people don't know it.

 

[saganftw]

Wiggins was climbing with near the best of them at last years Tour and overnight lost 25 mins on the Zoncolan in the Giro ...

Different climbs perhaps in terms of grade but still ?

thats not suspicious, have you ever heard about some riders taking an easy ride,training for other races or simply being out of form?

cancellara lost almost 2 minutes to tony martin in ToC while beating him with ease in world championship...

 

[redtreviso]

Wiggins was climbing with near the best of them at last years Tour and overnight lost 25 mins on the Zoncolan in the Giro ...

Different climbs perhaps in terms of grade but still ?

Wiggins underscores the bad LA influence..Be something you are not..Miracles happen.*yea right).You can starve (or dope) yourself and be something else.

 

[Hillavoider]

thats gotta be shooped. his legs are too skinny.

different riders have different doping regimes. Cancellara peaked his regime for flanders and roubaix and then he will again for the tour.

wiggins will be trying to have his hematocrit peak for the tour.

basso and evans and vino have all planned to have their hematocrit peaking right now.

 

[saganftw]

Not even Jim Henson has as many muppets as you do. Do you get tired of agreeing with yourself? It's not as though people don't know it.

if you dont agree with me pls at least try to say something i can react to (thats what this forum is about i hope)...im sory,im not american so i dont enjoy any popculture references you do

 

[Polish]

speaking of bizarre theories

All the riders you mentioned are dopers .......... and 'clean' Lance beat them.

If you wish to discuss your bizarre theory bring it to an appropriate thread as your object of desire has nothing to do with Garmin.

To believe it was the "dope" that differentiated Lance from all those riders is even more bizarre.

Yes, Lance was an average Joe who beat all the dopers.
Some people actually believe that
Rocket Scientists.

 

[theswordsman]

I hope he does it, and other teams follow suit.

Jonathan Vaughters, team director of Garmin-Transitions and a former rider on the Postal Service team, said that the passport program has helped moved the sport in the right direction.

He said he was “100 percent sure” that his team was doping-free, and that he would release riders’ blood records to prove it. But he is aware that cycling’s dark past looms.

“I wanted this team to be a safe haven for those riders who don’t want to go down that path,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/sports/cycling/24cycling.html

 

[Cerberus]

To play the devil's advocate, there are a whole host of reasons as to why a rider would reach his potential later in a career. I'm not saying these guys are undoubtedly clean, as I have been known to defend Vande Velde in the past, but he was a guy who was left out to dry at USPS at a very early age, but when given the rare opportunity, had produced some good results in all types of races on occasion.

I won't swea rthat absolutely nothing save doping could account for the improvements, but doping provably could, and similar improvements seems to have been rare or nonexistant pre EPO. It is a good reason to be suspicious

I think Christan might have told the story himself. He heard it from Hincapie a couple of years ago when he was down. George told him that his VO2Max and things were higher than Armstrong's but no one told that to Christian or to Lance because it would **** him off. It's hard to believe that at some point he never saw his own numbers, but if that part is true, I wonder how his career might have been different if he knew he had an advantage over other guys. Last year at the Tour LA apologized to him and Sastre for what he'd written in a book, something along the lines of CVV in the top ten? Come on.

I read on TheScienceOfSports that the link between VO2MAX and sporting performance at the elite level is actually quite weak. All top athlete have high VO2MAX, but you can't amuse the highest VO2MAX makes for the best athlete (Tom Danielson). Certainly if CVV was a monster on the bike he should have noticed "Gee, I climb and TT really fast" regardless of whether anyone told him that his VO2MAX was 140 or not.

 

[Creatine Bob]

I believe Garmin is a very clean team

 

[HL2037]

I believe Garmin is a very clean team

You should check this out:

http://games.adultswim.com/robot-unicorn-attack-twitchy-online-game.html

 

[Maxiton]

thats gotta be shooped. his legs are too skinny.

Not shopped. Do a google image search for "bradley wiggins Roubaix 2009"

There was talk last year of a new drug that allowed riders to lose weight very quickly. It was said to be very popular. Anyone know the name of it?

 

[Cerberus]

Not shopped. Do a google image search for "bradley wiggins Roubaix 2009"

There was talk last year of a new drug that allowed riders to lose weight very quickly. It was said to be very popular. Anyone know the name of it?

AICAR It helps you loose weight and helps you do better in endurance sports. I'm thinking it's mainly the second that's a factor. Cyclist have been keeping a very low weight way before doping could help them there.

 

[Boeing]

They are only a little pregnant.

for birth control JV relies on his personality

 

[redtreviso]

AICAR It helps you loose weight and helps you do better in endurance sports. I'm thinking it's mainly the second that's a factor. Cyclist have been keeping a very low weight way before doping could help them there.

Trouble is Wiggins actually believes he can tear down his old body and turn into a premier climber...Lance did it..

 

[BroDeal]

Not shopped. Do a google image search for "bradley wiggins Roubaix 2009"

The photo is not technically Photoshopped, but it is distorted because of the camera. Check out the length of Wigans' lower legs. They are as long as his whole torso including his head.

In the past I have posted side shots of Wigans time trialing in the 2009 Tour and an earlier Tour when he was on Cofidis.

 

[Von Mises]

That is very true, some people are simply better. That's why between WW2 and 1990 (the start of the EPO era) no rider won the Tour de France who did not show very early promise as a GT rider, meaning top 15 placements during their 1st or 2nd GT and often podium placements. Now neither CVV nor Wigins have won the Tour and probably neither will but both made dramatic transformations from zeroes (in respect to the GC) to heroes at an age where such improvements aren't normally seen. I know of one thing and one thing only that can provably create such performance jumps, and it's not weight loss.

There are almost endless amount of scenarios, why CVV finisihed 85th (1999), 56th (2004), 24th (2006), 25th (2007), but 4th (2008) and 8th (2009).

For instance:
- he was clean until 2007 and started to dope in 2008.
- he doped all the time, but doped little until 2007 and started heavy doping in 2008 and 2009
- he has been clean all the time, but cyclists around him started to dope less in 2008 and 2009
- he has doped a little all the time, but cyclists around him started to dope less in 2008 and 2009.
... (and many other scenarios caused by factors what are not related to doping)

The point is, we do not know actually what has happened. You are right that EPO era have changed some career trends, but we dont know how doping practises have changed during "era" and what kind of implications they may have on CVV performance.

BTW, I dont think that CVV standings in TdF: 85, 56, 24, 25, 4, 8 are so unique never happened before 1990.

 

[Maxiton]

The photo is not technically Photoshopped, but it is distorted because of the camera. Check out the length of Wigans' lower legs. They are as long as his whole torso including his head.

Right, they look longer and bigger because of the perspective distortion caused by a wide-angle zoom; but as far as I know, no lens can make you look like a concentration camp victim, as Wiggins does here, not even a German lens.

If you do that Google image search I suggested, you'll see other photos of Wiggins at Roubaix in '09, shot with many different lenses. He looks way skinny in most of them. Roubaix '09 happened to coincide with the supposed popularity in the peloton of this rapid weight loss drug I mentioned - which may be AICA, that Cerberus so kindly linked to.

AICAR It helps you loose weight and helps you do better in endurance sports. I'm thinking it's mainly the second that's a factor. Cyclist have been keeping a very low weight way before doping could help them there.

Thanks. That may be it. The key thing about the drug that I remember reading is that it enabled one to lose a great deal of mass quickly.

 

[happychappy]

The photo is not technically Photoshopped, but it is distorted because of the camera. Check out the length of Wigans' lower legs. They are as long as his whole torso including his head.

In the past I have posted side shots of Wigans time trialing in the 2009 Tour and an earlier Tour when he was on Cofidis.

Pretty clear, his legs/flanks and even his shoulder muscles/arms are all slimmer, and the slimmer photo was taken in september.
I don't doubt he's on everything he can get his mitts on though, like the rest of them.

 

[BroDeal]

Right, they look longer and bigger because of the perspective distortion caused by a wide-angle zoom; but as far as I know, no lens can make you look like a concentration camp victim, as Wiggins does here, not even a German lens.

The dirt and the lens makes him look thinner than he actually is. The pics I posted above are both from the TdF. The one where he is in Garmin kit is from last year.

 

[pedaling squares]

There are almost endless amount of scenarios, why CVV finisihed 85th (1999), 56th (2004), 24th (2006), 25th (2007), but 4th (2008) and 8th (2009).

For instance:
- he was clean until 2007 and started to dope in 2008.
- he doped all the time, but doped little until 2007 and started heavy doping in 2008 and 2009
- he has been clean all the time, but cyclists around him started to dope less in 2008 and 2009
- he has doped a little all the time, but cyclists around him started to dope less in 2008 and 2009.
... (and many other scenarios caused by factors what are not related to doping)

The point is, we do not know actually what has happened. You are right that EPO era have changed some career trends, but we dont know how doping practises have changed during "era" and what kind of implications they may have on CVV performance.

BTW, I dont think that CVV standings in TdF: 85, 56, 24, 25, 4, 8 are so unique never happened before 1990.

True. I won't claim that CVV is riding or rode clean, but we have to remember that his role within the team was drastically different in 2008 and 2009 that it was in his USPS/CSC years. Previously, his tours were never about personal success. And, in 2008 he was 4th in a tour that had no Armstrong, no Landis, no Basso, no Ullrich, no Chicken, no Contador. All of whom would have been expected to finish ahead of him that year.

 

[Ninety5rpm]

I think they are clean... I mean, they hardly win sh!t

How could they come even close to ever winning if they are clean?

Folks, it's entertainment, and part of the entertainment is playing to the myth that cycling is tough on doping and the few dopers are the rare exception.

There are probably no exceptions. None. Nada. Nil.

 

[Ninety5rpm]

I think Vaughters has got too much to lose if his team is found to be dirty, and sooner or later - all the secrets come out.

He has more to lose if the team is clean. If the team is clean, he loses everything. Like for everyone else in pro cycling, there is no point for clean riders/teams to participate. No point whatsoever.