Indurain's physiology

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buckwheat

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blutto said:
you have to remember this was Indurain in 90 and not Greg LeMond in 85

...for some people loyalty and honour mattered...and dare I say these people probably sleep well at night while others haunted by the possibility of being hounded by their own projections disguised as nightmares not so much....

Cheers

blutto

:):):):)

What, did LeMond steal your girlfriend?

Jeez, get over it.
 
Mar 6, 2009
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I find it interesting when former team-mates say they never thought such and such a rider would be a Tour winner.

3 examples:

Laurent Fignon says Riis would never have been a Tour contender under normal circumstances.

Phils Anderson has said that he never imagined Lance winning a Tour

and fianally, Pedro Delgado once said he didnt think that Indurain was ever going to be the champions he became.

Hmmm, just mere coincidene these 3 guys were named, I think not.

I think when a rider say "I never though he would be a winner" it really means "he would never have been a contender without doping"
 
May 19, 2009
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pmcg76 said:
I find it interesting when former team-mates say they never thought such and such a rider would be a Tour winner.

3 examples:

Laurent Fignon says Riis would never have been a Tour contender under normal circumstances.

Phils Anderson has said that he never imagined Lance winning a Tour

and fianally, Pedro Delgado once said he didnt think that Indurain was ever going to be the champions he became.

Hmmm, just mere coincidene these 3 guys were named, I think not.

I think when a rider say "I never though he would be a winner" it really means "he would never have been a contender without doping"

very poor argument. It is typically of an older generation to say that from a younger. Then comparative in between riders doesn't work. It is clear right now that Indurain and Lance were above the rest, for years, the Riis case is a bit different. It just peaked once under specific circunstances.

Indurain physics were just awesome, the problem was to see a tall rider to climb as he did. And he even won Cauterets stage in 1989 Tour. He showed climb skills since he turned pro. A similar clase could be Ullrich. Fignon itself wasn't a superthin rider either. Right now I see EBH as a rider of that type, but we don't know what he will be.
 
Mar 10, 2009
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Indurain was the man in more ways than just on his bike. But evidence brought forward by Lemond suggests that EPO helps larger riders more than the smaller one's eg. Columbians. This is why during the EPO era you saw large riders like Olano, Indurain, Ullrich, etc come to the front in the mountains. The Columbians all but disappeared and Pantani had to be riding around with 60% Hemo to keep up. But all of these larger riders were fairly decent climbers when they were going well anyways. EPO won't make someone that can't climb keep up with the climbers.

Actually I take that back, it did miraculously work for Armstrong. He suddenly became the worlds best climber and timetriallist. He must of had some real special stuff.
 
Mar 8, 2010
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Indurain said:
Indurain was the man in more ways than just on his bike. But evidence brought forward by Lemond suggests that EPO helps larger riders more than the smaller one's eg. Columbians. This is why during the EPO era you saw large riders like Olano, Indurain, Ullrich, etc come to the front in the mountains. The Columbians all but disappeared and Pantani had to be riding around with 60% Hemo to keep up. But all of these larger riders were fairly decent climbers when they were going well anyways. EPO won't make someone that can't climb keep up with the climbers.

Actually I take that back, it did miraculously work for Armstrong. He suddenly became the worlds best climber and timetriallist. He must of had some real special stuff.

Yes. I think it is called cancer. Really special.
 
Apr 28, 2010
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Cracking interview with Indurain in this month's procycling. Love it. And him. Class personified. Eg. "you can't take merit from what nature has given you"* or "I never considered 1996 to be a humiliation as it was the best I could have done" or "Physically I might have been strong enough to beat Greg Lemond, but psychologically I wasn't ready to be a leader... ...I had to wait for Delgado, that's true, but that was my job in 1990".

Some other "Champions" could learn a great deal from him.



* yes, yes, I know.
 
Nov 10, 2009
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pmcg76 said:
I find it interesting when former team-mates say they never thought such and such a rider would be a Tour winner.

3 examples:

Laurent Fignon says Riis would never have been a Tour contender under normal circumstances.
..........
"

Where did you find that? And what exactly did he say.
Many many times Riis thanked Fignon for everything he taught him, presumably about losing weight and training and the latest on PEDs. At least that seemed to me to be the implications.
 
Jun 10, 2010
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Roland Rat said:
Cracking interview with Indurain in this month's procycling. Love it. And him. Class personified. Eg. "you can't take merit from what nature has given you"* or "I never considered 1996 to be a humiliation as it was the best I could have done" or "Physically I might have been strong enough to beat Greg Lemond, but psychologically I wasn't ready to be a leader... ...I had to wait for Delgado, that's true, but that was my job in 1990".

Some other "Champions" could learn a great deal from him.



* yes, yes, I know.
One thing I love about Indurain is that at first sight he seems to be very dull, and that's how most people see him, but he's actually pretty funny in a very subtle way. He's also the very definition of down-to-earth.
 
Mar 6, 2009
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Le breton said:
Where did you find that? And what exactly did he say.
Many many times Riis thanked Fignon for everything he taught him, presumably about losing weight and training and the latest on PEDs. At least that seemed to me to be the implications.

In his book, "We were young and carefree", picked it up a few weeks back. Decent read.

It was Fignon who advised Guimard to sign Riis or else he would have been a former cyclist as nobody wanted him. Fignon saved his career.
 
Jul 4, 2009
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acoggan said:
1. What was your lactate threshold relative to your VO2max? Your efficiency?

2. What sort of competitive opporuntities were available to you? (In some regards, being blessed with the physiology necessary to perform well in a Grand Tour mitigates against your chances of ever racing in one.)

...thanks for your response and sorry for the tardy reply ( I went looking for my old training diaries in hopes of jogging some memory cells )

...I guess the bottom line is I really didnt know much about testing at the time( so the notes I found were pretty sketchy ) and the testing that was done was the budget model ( more to find major issues than anything else and I was just went along for something the whole team did )...so it wasn't a full blown VO2max...it was called a sub maximal test ( I think...this was almost 30 years ago...sorry to be so imprecise... ) and from what I remember numbers were then extrapolated from that...the lactate threshold numbers seem to have been regarded as especially suspect( not mine specifically but all of the extrapolated numbers)...either way nothing untoward was found so I put the papers away and kinda ignored them (...in part because one of my friends, a very successful cyclist up to that point, scored very badly in those tests and became so psyched out that he soon quit the sport..and I didnt want to follow his example.)...

....anyway...other things got in the way of cycling...grad school...some serious non-cycling injuries and a long recovery timeline...and some serious asthma issues that I didnt deal with in the smartest way...

....but the question still at times tickles the back of my brain...especially after I finally did some testing to deal with my asthma...suddenly knowing that I had a lung capacity beyond Indurain got me thinking...maybe I could have been a contender ( hahahaha )...the feeling quickly passed...I'm happy with the hand that life dealt me and I still ride my bike ( I'm not a burnt out ex-racer )...

...I brought this up just to make the point that numbers dont tell the whole tale...or maybe its just that we are measuring the wrong things or maybe not understanding the relationship between parameters...which is my response to why was Indurain great...we will probably never know though his raw numbers are an interesting case...

...would love to hear any more thoughts you may have about this as it still intrigues me...intellectually... since as a racer I'm well past my best before date..

...again thank you for time and patience...

Cheers

blutto
 
Jul 6, 2010
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pmcg76 said:
In his book, "We were young and carefree", picked it up a few weeks back. Decent read.

It was Fignon who advised Guimard to sign Riis or else he would have been a former cyclist as nobody wanted him. Fignon saved his career.

Just loving the fact that your post jogged my memory re Guimard. Classic!
 
Jul 4, 2009
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Aguirre said:
Indurain vs Lemond, Luz Ardiden 1990. I was there... 2 km to go...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=702mu0o3xXY


classy riders will be always classy, both are here

...that changed pretty dramatically the following winter when LeMond in an interview went out of his way to trash Indurain who in his mind would be lucky to catch another stage in his career and certainly not someone who could ever win a Tour...it was LeMond at his venial and nasty best and it was wonderful to see Indurain crush LeMond in the ensuing Tour...

...LeMonds problem with Indurain was probably that stage to Luz Ardiden...LeMond had wheel-sucker issues...the projection kind that comes from being what Stephen Roche once described as a world championship wheel sucker...as the stage unfolded we were just waiting for the blow-back...it came and while it was quite late it was pretty much classic LeMond...petty...driving home the point he was real special ( way above pack-fill like Indurain )...

...the 91 Tour was so sweet...I wonder if Indurain had that interview tacked up somewhere for inspiration...

Cheers

blutto

....
 

buckwheat

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Sep 24, 2009
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blutto said:
...that changed pretty dramatically the following winter when LeMond in an interview went out of his way to trash Indurain who in his mind would be lucky to catch another stage in his career and certainly not someone who could ever win a Tour...it was LeMond at his venial and nasty best and it was wonderful to see Indurain crush LeMond in the ensuing Tour...

...LeMonds problem with Indurain was probably that stage to Luz Ardiden...LeMond had wheel-sucker issues...the projection kind that comes from being what Stephen Roche once described as a world championship wheel sucker...as the stage unfolded we were just waiting for the blow-back...it came and while it was quite late it was pretty much classic LeMond...petty...driving home the point he was real special ( way above pack-fill like Indurain )...

...the 91 Tour was so sweet...I wonder if Indurain had that interview tacked up somewhere for inspiration...

Cheers

blutto

....

Indurain's palmares were as genuine as Barry Bonds season, and all time HR records.

How do you get excited about this ****?
 
Jul 4, 2009
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buckwheat said:
Indurain's palmares were as genuine as Barry Bonds season, and all time HR records.

How do you get excited about this ****?

...whatever...

Cheers

blutto
 
Oct 20, 2009
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buckwheat said:
Indurain's palmares were as genuine as Barry Bonds season, and all time HR records.

How do you get excited about this ****?

the dope is important, probably moreso than roids in baseball (yawn.) you can't cheer for any clean champions at this level because there aren't any. as far as dirty champions go, big mig is a beast, and he seems like a nice person as well. if doping means i can't get excited about his palmares, which are among the most impressive ever, i might as well cheer for the strong guy in the local racing club - he *might* be clean, or at least not on the deluxe dope program.

505 watts before accumulation of lactate... what a freaking monster
 
Apr 19, 2010
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buckwheat said:
Indurain's palmares were as genuine as Barry Bonds season, and all time HR records.

How do you get excited about this ****?

Are there any riders you do get excited about?
 

buckwheat

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Sep 24, 2009
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forumlurker said:
the dope is important, probably moreso than roids in baseball (yawn.) you can't cheer for any clean champions at this level because there aren't any. as far as dirty champions go, big mig is a beast, and he seems like a nice person as well. if doping means i can't get excited about his palmares, which are among the most impressive ever, i might as well cheer for the strong guy in the local racing club - he *might* be clean, or at least not on the deluxe dope program.

505 watts before accumulation of lactate... what a freaking monster

Yay!:rolleyes:

I don't cheer for anyone. I don't believe in Santa Clause either.

Dorian Yates and Ronnie Coleman are monsters. Bench pressing 505lbs and squatting over 600lbs for reps is unbelievable!:rolleyes:

The "fans" realize that "Big Mig" and the other "champions" are the equivalent of Bodybuilders? Or, they don't?

I'm a fan of Little League baseball, that is, until they become aware of how "important" winning is.
 

buckwheat

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Sep 24, 2009
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andy1234 said:
Are there any riders you do get excited about?

LeMond, Mottet, Michael Creed, DeCanio, Richard Sachs. Myself....

I don't get excited about guys who I would kick the **** out of if they were clean. Guys like Pharmstrong, with his 18 minute 5k's and 3 hour marathons. Mediocre stuff indeed.

Guys like Manny Pacquio who are afraid to get drug tested because the loss of blood might weaken them. Pacquio would be like 130lbs if he wasn't jacked to the sky.
 
Apr 19, 2010
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buckwheat said:
Yay!:rolleyes:

I don't cheer for anyone. I don't believe in Santa Clause either.

Dorian Yates and Ronnie Coleman are monsters. Bench pressing 505lbs and squatting over 600lbs for reps is unbelievable!:rolleyes:

The "fans" realize that "Big Mig" and the other "champions" are the equivalent of Bodybuilders? Or, they don't?

I'm a fan of Little League baseball, that is, until they become aware of how "important" winning is.

Are you suggesting Santa Claus is on a doiping programme?

Seriously though, Im not sure why you take an interest in cycling if thats how you feel?