blackcat said:
red queen effect. jumping on the treadmill, and running whilst standing still.
cycling was more entertaining sans O2 vector push. or putsch.
badger v hinault. queen stage only seeing the heads of state mano a mano on the final ascent. no more hincapie hitting the bottom of the climb on the final climb riding "tempo" with 30+ still in the final group.
that was cycling.
like you say, a hypothetical clean peloton will find its own equilibrium. And this is there Verbruggen's view on the professional peloton, and blaming the fans for doping, breaks down. he says the fans want to see the leaders doing 30kmph up alpe d'huez.
this is bs. the fans would prefer a true contest, when the final climb has a true battle from the podium contenders, and the domestiques are jettisoned well before the final climb.
the speed up the final ascent, is irrelevant. because its the contest that matters, and the speed will be viewed thru a lens that discerns their relative speed versus their competitors.
This point can't be emphasized enough. The assertion so often made by doping apologists, that cycling is made entertaining by dope (in other words, "we do it for you") is just another cynical lie. Doping has nothing to do with making cycling more entertaining. It may seem counter-intuitive, but entertaining
you is the last thing on the minds of those inside doping circles.
Saying that dope is needed to make cycling more entertaining is another way of saying that cycling is a boring sport -- only dope can save cycling from its boring nature.
This shows the contempt doping facilitators have for cycling; but the truth is, they don't really care how entertaining it is, just like they don't care about we, the cycling fans, nor their own riders .
If doped-to-the-eyeballs riders have their careers cut short, not to mention their lives, it doesn't matter, just so long as they produce victories. And if in the process of getting those victories hyper-doped teams make a race, or a few decades worth of races, that bore drunken, stupid fans (who, after all, pay no money); none of that matters, either (besides which, the deadbeat fans are too stupid to know the difference -- so say the money makers -- and public memory is short).
The only thing that matters, to these doping meisters, is sponsorship, licensing deals, backroom financing, merchandising, and bribes; in other words, money. Money is the sport these guys play, and the only sport they care about.
We're probably not going to get the money out of cycling, so the solution to the doping problem is to make it cost more than it's worth. This means
1) Get the criminals, the major ones, out of the sport;
2) Start enforcing existing laws against doping, dope trafficking, conspiracy, and general corruption. Follow the money trail, and if it leads directly to the boardrooms of companies like Amgen and Nike, and organizations like the IOC, and investment firms, banks, etc. -- not to mention the various national organized crime families -- so much the better.
3) Further criminalize doping, and doping practices, in sport;
4) Reorganize the oversight organizations so that they are more transparent and democratic, controlled by elected representatives (subject to recall) of the various stakeholders, including fans.
If these things could be done cycling might regain its legitimacy (if regain is the right word for something you only ever had a tenuous hold on, long ago). People like Armstrong, Weisel, Riis, Saiz, etc -- the list is a long one -- would either not become corrupted, or never approach cycling in the first place, having found an easier way to make money. Do these things and cycling would have a chance to become a true sport, and thus bigger than any of us could ever hope, but in any case worth our time.
EDIT: But to answer the question asked by the OP, is it possible to win the Tour de France dope-free: it's possible to win the
sport, if we get the corruption out of it; without that, the race is already lost.