Lance's Legacy: How Lance Changed Cycling

[dancing on pedals]

We are all talking about the "train" that US postal had (everyone sacrificing for the greater leader). The clear predeccesor is once again Indurain. I vividly remember his teammates murdering everyone on the last two cols.

The leader+ his foremost helpers:

1991:

Big Mig
Pedro Delgado
De Las Cuevas
Abelardo Rondon (he was murderous)
Jeff Bernard
Julian Gorospe

Now that was by far the strongest team that year. Three great Time trialists (Perico, Jeff, Armand) and at least five above average climbers. And I bet the other domestiques could hold their own as well. In fact it was a big shock when Rondon jumped to Bugno, some thought he was a key to the Big Mig puzzle

.

I think your memory is playing tricks with you, the Banesto 1991 team was -
31. Pedro Delgado Espagne
32. Marino Alonso Espagne
33. Dominique Arnaud France
34. Jean-François Bernard France
35. Miguel Indurain Espagne
36. Luis-Javier Lukin Espagne
37. Fabrice Philipot France
38. Jesus Rodriguez-Magro Espagne
39. Abelardo Rondón Colombie
It did not include many good time trialists indeed the team finished 10th in the TTT over 1 minute behind the winners Ariostea
The team did win the Team prize, but this was more down to the overall high finishes of super domestique Delgado (9th) and the excellent, as you rightly say, Colombian climber Rondon (10th) and Bernard (14th)than the team being super strong in all areas.
As a matter of interest Luis Javier Lukin is one of the few riders to compete in all three major tours in on season.
It was essentially a climbers team which gambled on Indurains individual TT ability to get back the time the team lost him in the TTT (the plan worked)
as i have said in an earlier post on this thread
"I would say that a direct comparison between Astana 2010 team and Banesto 1991 would be fair (Contador/Indurain, Vinokourov/Delgado, Navarro/Bernard and Tiralongo/Rondon). Of course any comparison between eras and teams is pretty much subjective". The biggest difference being that there was no TTT in 2010 - so the comparison is not really fair.
Thanks

 

[the_kman]

i know u most people here loved lance at one stage or another but goddam... guessing you must feel pretty cool dissing the most popular cyclist in the history of the sport.

i was always a jan fan myself but i rekon half the anti lance comments in this forum are so full of it.

Biffiins: Would you like to explain to me why you have two accounts, and why I should not ban you permanently and delelte all of your postings?

Susan

wow...

 

[ericthesportsman6]

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I personally lost interest for a brief time in 2008 after the Tour it was so boring...no big names, no rivalries, no controversy, everyone just waiting for someone else to do somethin...

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So basically what your saying is-Without a bunch of pre-madonas *****ing each other out on twitter over pointless crap, you don't enjoy cycling. The 2008 race was close, un-predictable, and wide open. Your pretty much stating that you don't enjoy close and exciting racing, but would rather follow some overplayed controversy. Why are you even here?

On a side note, to all the people saying that LA has made the TDF popular in the US-Yes it gained a few fans because of him, but still, 99% of this country couldn't be less interested in the event.

 

[ericthesportsman6]

i know u most people here loved lance at one stage or another but goddam... guessing you must feel pretty cool dissing the most popular cyclist in the history of the sport.
\

Theres always going to be hate for teams/players at the center of attention of a sport. LA is like the Kobe Bryant of basketball, or the New York Yankees of baseball. Tons of hate and tons of love.

 

[LaBici]

1. Recon - myth. Already happening.

2. Wind Tunnel testing - myth. Already happening.

3. Training to specific goals - myth. Already happening.

4. Nutrition and recovery - Myth. Already happening.

5. Elevating the status of the Tour - Granted, in the US.

6. Monitoring - Myth, already happening.

7. Bike technology - myth, already happening.

Conclusion

The impact Lance has had on cycling has been enormous. Enormously negative. The sport was given a shot at redemption in 1999 but dramatically changed back and almost any team that wants to be competitive on the GC in the Tour these days has to follow Lance's programme for success. From recon, to specific team composition training to specific goals, to nutrition monitoring, to wind tunnel tweaking for time trialling and various other factors, all factors whose modernity over other major teams was overblown to feed the myth that Armstrong could beat the dopers, clean. Lance's true legacy will be written a year from now by Mr Novitzky and his colleagues.

damn straight. LA has not improved cycling one iota.

 

[Franklin]

I think your memory is playing tricks with you, the Banesto 1991 team was -

You are correct. I am confused with the 1992 when he did bring the TT specialists. And yet they still only manage 7th in the TT which is won by Panasonic which has no real specialists besides Ekimov.

But I disagree with the Astana-Banesto comparison. I would say that in the mountains it was much more comparable to US Postal in it's superiority. They might bomb a bit earlier, but they had a death grip on the mountain stages which wasn't seen the twenty years before (not even Gitane did have such preponderance in the mountains). It was the introduction of "motoring" over the first cols.

The biggest exploit in those years was Chiapucci to Sestriere, whereas the years before exploits like these were much, much more common. In the eighties it were relatively small select groups at the bottom of the last col.

 

[Martin318is]

LA was a cancer patient whose cancer went into remission because of medical treatments using "dope" that is legal for bonafide medical conditions (like cancer) but illegal for "performance enhancing"...problem for you idiots, is that the performance enhancing effects are permanent post-cancer

Sorry, I know I am coming into this quite late in the piece, but are you saying that there is firm scientific proof that cancer medications have a permanent performance enhancing benefit?

In that case, I wonder why it is that Lance's recovery is put forward as a type of miracle? Wouldn't it actually then be the case that pretty much the top person in EVERY sport is a cancer survivor?.....

hmm....