if they were all clean during LAs 7 wins ?

[hfer07]

It is false. History and life are never so simple. This assumption bristles with simplicity. It is wrong just because a bike racer often finds himself in cycling (how a man does in in real life), explores himself and rarely finds himself to embody his potential completely. It is banal, but a rider becomes a GT rider. No one is born with that and not everyone can open himself up in this quality on young age. Honestly, I don't know whose that thought, perpaps Lemond's or just LA's haters' one. I just disagree. However, if Armstrong had been out of nowhere, I would probably been agreed. But he already was a great cyclist before the Tour, the world champion, the 1998 high place finisher, a rider with an excellent set of basic skills, a sportsman with mad ego and unhealthily huge ambitions. He had a pedigree for big deals.

Do you acknowledge that LA was already on "ferrari's treatment when he obtained those "great results?

As I stated before-History-& I suggest strongly to you to revise it, because is clear you're not "remember" certain facts

 

[Dr. Maserati]

It's possible Hincapie was lying, but I don't see why he would in a private conversation with Leipheimer. They are two calm guys not prone to bull****.

Not prone to bull****..... except when it comes to denying doping for years.

Hincapie may not even know what LAs intake was in 2005.

You're correct Hamilton didn't compete that year, though he tended to take the most blood transfusions of anyone according to Coyle at least. Landis, however, did take 3 BBs according to his interview with Kimmage.

Floyd, did 2 bags of 500ml in 2005. Which he said was the same volume as other years, except 2002, iirc.

Quite frankly, this is like trying to work out which girl who had breast augmentation has the most natural feeling boobs.

 

[Benotti69]

Dont we understand that Armstrongs method was to be ahead of the game? Maybe he only took one BB because he was taking something else that the others did not have access to? Maybe he told Hincapie that he only used one blood bag to f--- with him because thats the type of a-----e he is?

We dont know the full story, but what we know is bad and it does not get any better. Armstong would only take less of something if he was taking more of something esle that others did not have or know about - regardless of his claims he is not conservative in his approach - the only risk that he was adverse to was the risk of loosing.

Wasn't Ferarri worried that he doped Armstrong to cancer!

I wouldn't be surprised if Armstrong was the kind of guy told take 1 of these it gives you a 2% advantage and he takes 2 or 3 telling no one.

 

[Bat Man]

Not prone to bull****..... except when it comes to denying doping for years.

Hincapie may not even know what LAs intake was in 2005.


Floyd, did 2 bags of 500ml in 2005. Which he said was the same volume as other years, except 2002, iirc.

Quite frankly, this is like trying to work out which girl who had breast augmentation has the most natural feeling boobs.

Hincapie was the only guy there for all 7. I suspect he had a good idea.

Floyd did 1000ml split into three bags.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Hincapie was the only guy there for all 7. I suspect he had a good idea.

Floyd did 1000ml split into three bags.

From the Floyd/Kimmage interview:

How did you manage your doping in ’05? The Wall St Journal piece said: Mister Landis said he hired a Spanish doctor in Valencia to take transfusions and paid one person $10,000 to make two separate deliveries of half-litre bags of blood during the 2005 Tour de France.
....

From the WSJ:

Mr. Landis said he hired a Spanish doctor in Valencia to take transfusions, and paid one person $10,000 to make two separate deliveries of half-liter bags of blood during the 2005 Tour de France.

More pertinent, is that in that Kimmage interview Floyd explains why h was not as good in 05 as he was in 04 or 06:

Did it work? Yeah, the reason that I was not as good in 2005 as I was in 2004 or 2006 was because I had surgery that winter and wasn’t walking for weeks and it took a while to get back in shape. So drugs or no drugs weren’t going to change that. I did the same thing in 2004 and 2005 and 2006

 

[Bat Man]

From the Floyd/Kimmage interview:


From the WSJ:


More pertinent, is that in that Kimmage interview Floyd explains why h was not as good in 05 as he was in 04 or 06:

the first one I did one transfusion which is 500 millilitres and the next four I did 1000 militaries each, three separate times in 2006, because it was easier to maintain the continuous blood parameters that were being checked. But it ended up being the same total volume that I added so…yeah, Del Moral, in spite of denying that he ever saw any doping, like everybody does, that was all he really did.

http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2011/landiskimmage

Ok on returning to the interview I can see it was 2006 and not 2005. But that's still double the amount of blood Armstrong was taking to win the tour. That's why I believe Armstrong is one of the great riders and Floyd and Tyler are not quite. Armstrong's conservative doping program also meant it was harder to get caught.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2011/landiskimmage

Ok on returning to the interview I can see it was 2006 and not 2005. But that's still double the amount of blood Armstrong was taking to win the tour. That's why I believe Armstrong is one of the great riders and Floyd and Tyler are not quite. Armstrong's conservative doping program also meant it was harder to get caught.

So, again pretending that Hincapie is correct (which I would doubt).
Lance is better than Floyd because he used only half the blood (ignoring all the PEDs used in the buildup to the Tour) to beat an injured Landis.

 

[Bat Man]

So, again pretending that Hincapie is correct (which I would doubt).
Lance is better than Floyd because he used only half the blood (ignoring all the PEDs used in the buildup to the Tour) to beat an injured Landis.

That Floyd was injured that year is missing the point. He wasn't injured in 2006.

Yes I do tend to believe Hincapie would be truthful about this in a private conversation with Levi.

 

[airstream]

Do you acknowledge that LA was already on "ferrari's treatment when he obtained those "great results?

As I stated before-History-& I suggest strongly to you to revise it, because is clear you're not "remember" certain facts

Ferrari never was doping magician. True, his methods could be a little little bit more advanced than methods other riders used. But only desperate haters can explain Armstrong's success by Ferrari.

What facts?

...have the physiology of a GT contender, did not have the results pre-1998 as a GT contender, and did not have the climbing or TTing skills of a GT contender. Number 1 - no way would he have even been in the top 10 clean.

A guy sensationally hitting a GT top 5-10 is absolutely normal, otherwise we should burst from outrage very often because it happens not infrequently. Armstrong did it in the 1998 Vuelta. As to the 1999 Tour, by and large it was total anarchy and anarchy tends to end up with uprise of likes of Lance. And he gained all the features you've listed at once.

 

[spalco]

That Floyd was injured that year is missing the point. He wasn't injured in 2006.

Yes I do tend to believe Hincapie would be truthful about this in a private conversation with Levi.

He may well be truthful, but who's saying he knew everything? That Hincapie was there for all 7 "wins" doesn't mean Armstrong fully trusted him, or even if he did trust him, that he told him everything.

And again you're ignoring Maserati's point that you can't really judge a rider's natural talent by who doped more or who doped less, doped is doped. And no doubt Landis also was on a more intricate "program" than other riders even at Phonak.

Even if we're assuming in a clean peloton Armstrong would have beaten Landis, how can you say that there wouldn't have been dozens of other guys who were even better? We simply don't know. And in the absence of that evidence (which we'll never get) I don't see any reason to assume Armstrong would have won even one Tour.

 

[Benotti69]

Armstrong was not event he most talented on his own team.

Vaughters and VdV at leat we know were more talented, with higher Hct and larger Vo2maxs.

This thread is a waste of a discussion, trying to find out how talented the biggest fraud in the sport is a stupid exercise. he waived that right by doping.

 

[airstream]

You reason as though the most talented guy always succeeds whereas talent is only a good prerequisite. Talent itself guarantees nothing. Vaughters and VdV could be more talented than Lance, however their desire to win was zero compared to Lance's one.

 

[Benotti69]

You reason as though the most talented guy always succeeds whereas talent is only a good prerequisite. Talent itself guarantees nothing. Vaughters and VdV could be more talented than Lance, however their desire to win was zero compared to Lance's one.

That desire made him nothing apart from the biggest sporting fraud in the history of sport.

Others on Armstrong's team were not allowed their desires.

Any sport achievement Armstrong might have achieved has been washed away and only those of a similar mindset to Armstrong think he achieved anything positive in sport.

 

[spalco]

Willpower alone doesn't get you to the top anyway. How many Tours have Vino, Voigt and Voeckler won? Everybody in the peloton at the Tour de France trains hard, and has trained hard since they were teenagers, they all want it, but only one man gets it every year.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

Dont we understand that Armstrongs method was to be ahead of the game? Maybe he only took one BB because he was taking something else that the others did not have access to? Maybe he told Hincapie that he only used one blood bag to f--- with him because thats the type of a-----e he is?

We dont know the full story, but what we know is bad and it does not get any better. Armstong would only take less of something if he was taking more of something esle that others did not have or know about - regardless of his claims he is not conservative in his approach - the only risk that he was adverse to was the risk of loosing.

Here's where I think timing and resources matter. He got lucky in that when everyone was dialling down the doping in 1999, he was dialling up. He got lucky and won. From that the money started to roll in - more money than his rivals by virtue of the anglo-phone market and his 'story'. He was then able to 're-invest' that money back into doping and staying ahead of the curve and the doping by other team.

 

[Benotti69]

Here's where I think timing and resources matter. He got lucky in that when everyone was dialling down the doping in 1999, he was dialling up. He got lucky and won. From that the money started to roll in - more money than his rivals by virtue of the anglo-phone market and his 'story'. He was then able to 're-invest' that money back into doping and staying ahead of the curve and the doping by other team.

He was not ahead of the curve. He was out of the curve courtesy of UCI.

 

[Briant_Gumble]

Here's where I think timing and resources matter. He got lucky in that when everyone was dialling down the doping in 1999, he was dialling up. He got lucky and won. From that the money started to roll in - more money than his rivals by virtue of the anglo-phone market and his 'story'. He was then able to 're-invest' that money back into doping and staying ahead of the curve and the doping by other team.

Agreed, not to mention if he hadn't have been doping up to that if his career as well he could very well have been a domestique and not a star rider.

 

[doperhopper]

If we trust the testimonies of "little mountain eagles" about the "fat asses" that suddenly started to beat them in the mountains in the early 90s, any of the "classics rider", or "time trialist" types would have hard time to get to TOP5 without EPO/blood doping/etc (unless he is the new Eddy).

 

[VeloCity]

MORGAN: Would he have been the best anyway, Tyler? Was all this worth the torment he will now have to live with?

HAMILTON: Not one bit. Not one bit. If everybody else or the people who were doping and he wasn't, no, he wouldn't have won.

MORGAN: But if they hadn't been -- if no one had been doping --

HAMILTON: If everyone was 100 percent clean? It's tough to say. I don't think he would have won seven tours. He's a phenomenal athlete. He grew up being a triathlete. And his success when he learned to ride a bike and learned to ride it in road races, he was one of the best early on.

 

[Spank226]

Option 4 for me. Possibly Option 3.

 

[D-Queued]

He was not ahead of the curve. He was out of the curve courtesy of UCI.

Even with the faked TUE, and the 6 EPO positives, Lance could have been on Heroin and Crack and the UCI would have done everything it could have to avoid another doping scandal after Festina.

Lance may not have been alone in understanding that, but he had very little company - or competition.

Dave.

 

[Zweistein]

MORGAN: Would he have been the best anyway, Tyler? Was all this worth the torment he will now have to live with?

HAMILTON: Not one bit. Not one bit. If everybody else or the people who were doping and he wasn't, no, he wouldn't have won.

MORGAN: But if they hadn't been -- if no one had been doping --

HAMILTON: If everyone was 100 percent clean? It's tough to say. I don't think he would have won seven tours. He's a phenomenal athlete. He grew up being a triathlete. And his success when he learned to ride a bike and learned to ride it in road races, he was one of the best early on.

Funny. Hamilton never rode with a clean Lance. Lance was doped as a junior by Carmichael.

 

[Bat Man]

Funny. Hamilton never rode with a clean Lance. Lance was doped as a junior by Carmichael.

Hamilton doped before Armstrong joined the team, so maybe Lance never rode with a clean Hamilton?

In reality these riders trained with each other all year around, on and off cycles, share numbers, so will have a pretty good idea of their respective levels. Armstrong's former Postal teammates seem to rate him highly, even if they are now foes. In August, Jonathan Vaughters explained the continued respect he and others have for Armstrong's tour wins:

“It depends who you’re talking to but of course there certainly is respect. At the end of the day, Armstrong was a talented athlete. While what USADA is doing now is certainly necessary, his group of peers from the Tour de France at the time, myself included…. Look of course I’ve admitted to doping but nowhere in my mind do I feel that I would have been a better bike rider if I’d doped more. There was no amount of doping that was going to get me to win a Tour so for that generation of athletes there’s certainly going to be people that hold a certain amount of respect for him.”

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/the-united-states-of-omerta

 

[rata de sentina]

That desire made him nothing apart from the biggest sporting fraud in the history of sport.

Exactly, I wondered when the "laser-like focus" would rear its' ugly head.

 

[beowulf]

I cannot see him winning a Tour de France without PEDs.

I think he would have been in the mold of Phillipe Gilbert. He would have done well in one day races (like he did early in his career) and been a threat for stage victories on the tour, but he would never have contended for General Classification.

For me the more interesting hypothetical is Indurain. He was a fantastic TT, but could he have hauled his 80kg frame so quickly up a big mountain without EPO?