Alpe d'Huez said:
I tend to agree and I'd like to think there are a lot of amateurs clean, and that we're getting cleaner, but like BroDeal the numbers and times of the guys at top, maybe even the vast majority of riders in the top 50 or so are nearly impossible to me, and every time I start to think someone up there may be clean, someone like Kohl comes along and brings me back to reality.
If the amateurs are top U-23 riders looking for a top Pro contract they probably are doped! If not then they probably are clean. If depends on the person really. Lots of masters 30+ like to dope. Why wouldnt they? Not only that but there's virtually no testing so they might as well be completely jacked on epo. I know the top cat 1 riders I raced with last weekend were jacked and admittedly so. I wasnt and I can tell you it sucked.
Clean riders on the Tour?....It depends on how many talented pros come in jacked. You see, if so much as 25 riders (not unrealistic considering they had Fuentes working with 38 Tour riders and the Vienna blood bank had many more) are blood doping the pace will be so incredible that nobody would even be able to keep up. If 5 riders were on EPO >> and the rest of the field was completely clean those 5 riders would win every single stage and finish 1-2-3-4-5 overall!! With 25 riders blood doping any totally clean rider (without recovery "help") would not be able to recover from the much much higher overall pace.
IT IS possible to do well clean in the Tour if the whole field is not jacked with a high crit. Lemond and Fingon (2 freaks that missed the epo boat in 91) finished 6th and 7th overall and this was against the first epo users on the Tour without epo. Lemond was in the best shape possible at 30 years old, and in all honesty most riders not on epo that year probably dropped out of the race. Now, as soon as everybody was jacked the next year Lemond didnt finish and Fingon declined further.
this is Professional sport were speaking of.
Its high calibre mountain climbing in Europe with multi million dollars at stake. When the top 25 guys all have over 6 watts per kilo and they hit a long climb sh$t hits the fan and the clean riders will be dropped immediately. TOTALLY CLEAN that is. They have to win because winning equals sponsorship money and contracts.
The top pro pack does not like it when somebody like Kohl comes out and says everybody is doped. They want the general public (and the average rider) to believe most are clean and its just "a few bad apples." The reason for this is that corporate sponsors will not associate with drug use. ITs simply bad public relations and it dirties their image.
If a Pro came out and spoke badly on Lance Armstrong (e.g. said he blood dopes and still works with Dr. Ferrari) that rider would be fired immediately and never be allowed back to top level racing again! What does that say about the system?
Is just being on HGH and Insulin doping to you Alpe? What about caffeine or just IGF-1? What about a corticoids for my saddle sores which I deal with every time I ride? What about some pain killers for my sore back? Leg, tendon? What about some 02 carrier "helpers" like Actovegin (calf hemoglobin.) Or just EPO?
Surely Alpe, if any Grand Tour rider was clean it would have been the last place finisher in the Tour, and 138th place finisher from 2006, that nice French man Jimmy Casper.