LeMond III

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

Lemond never used EPO. His power wattage on the climbs were well within the clean parameters of human performance.

Of course.

People think that someone doped is goint to win lemond...and it is not that way, a good rider with low hematocric values talking epois going to beat Lemond if we talk about a GT, not a 1 week race, but not for a big difference.

A good rider (not a big champion as Lemond) with high hematocric is not going to beat Lemond despite all the EPO he can take.

This is basic for all the people who want to write in the clinic. if they dont have that clear they could read Hamilton s book. People has a very wrong idea about doping and performances compared to clean people. Some people think that if Lemond is clean againts doped he cant be on a top ten of TdF. Wrong, he can win a lot of thing that way as Evans or Sastre did in the doping era. (but they got his better results in the transitional and clean era, despite his age)

But anyway at the begining of 90s EPO doping and doping in general wanst at the level the end of 90, just before Festina affair.

...what about Riis ( Mr 60%) vs Indurain....?....

Cheers

indurian wasn't a lemond...he was a heavier Riis...presumably at 55%

 

[hrotha]

Re: Re:

indurian wasn't a lemond...he was a heavier Riis...

That's taking it way too far. Waaaay too far. Since you seem to be arguing that EPO changed things from 1990 onwards (correct me if I'm wrong), check Indurain's results up to 1989.

A GT rider he wasn't, but he was very good.

 

[Stingray34]

Re: LeMond

Gillian is right: comparing perennially world-class Lemond to can't keep up with Gerrans while swerving all over the road and holding onto cars Froome is a wee-bit specious.

Sniper, thank you for you lovely post in response to mine - that was great and I count you as a forum pal now - but your pursuit of Lemond and his performances smacks of a logical fallacy - the fallacy of affirming the consequent.

It goes like this: If A then B; B therefore A..

It's an inversion of modus ponens, which is valid as long as the premises are sound, ie, true. It's form is 'If A then B, A therefore B.'

The problem for the former lies in there being many causes for the consequent, especially if the proposition A is not sound, ie, if Lemond is a big-time doper(A) then he will win the Tour(B).

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

indurian wasn't a lemond...he was a heavier Riis...

That's taking it way too far. Waaaay too far. Since you seem to be arguing that EPO changed things from 1990 onwards (correct me if I'm wrong), check Indurain's results up to 1989.

A GT rider he wasn't, but he was very good.

a fair point..I remember him at avenir and I remember drunkenly telling a friend to put money on him in the '91 tour after his 89 and 90 performances... (he never did btw)

still if you want a comparison...check out his Avenir GC performance (and that of a certain Mr Riis in the same race) and then compare and contrast with a certain Mr lemond...

what is it the french say...future

 

[GJB123]

Re: Re:

...
Really most Belgians were on EPO in 87/88/89/90? And where did you get that information? I think the consensus in the EPO-thread was certainly nothing like that.

granted, not "most". But still, plenty.
And Vanmol, again, is fingered by Donati as one of the early epo facilitators.
He even helped amateur cyclists like Halupczok.

And again, anemia would have been the 'TUE' for EPO. See that 88 interview with Vanmol I linked earlier.
It doesn't prove Lemond used EPO, but at least, in light of the evidence, it's fully normal to entertain the thought, don't you agree?

That's all fine with me. As stated I can't say with certainty that you are wrong but considering all that is currently known I will stick with my view that it remains highly speculative and highly unlikely that LeMond ever used EPO and probably is quite certainly the last GT-winner for whom we can at least entertain the thought that he did it clean. Quite frankly nothing you have brought up so far made me change my mind on that.

On another note, EPO didn't really require a TUE back then (nor did most of the other stuff) and if anemia was a bogus claim to begin with, it was almost certainly made to get LeMond to agree to what he then thought were iron shots. If anything else I fail to see the logic why he would have told a journalist about his anemia and iron shot in the first place, because as the times were back then, even a "miraculous" turnaround in GT-fortunes didn't ring alarm bells as they would now. Heck alarm bells didn't even ring loudly when Armstrong did his remarkable cancer survivor thingee in the TdF 99 and that was after the Festina-case and the Tour du Dopage and when basically everybody knew the peloton was rife with EPO (enter Mr. Soixante).

 

[sniper]

remember how esafosfina described Vanmol's doping program for ADR 1989?

this is from 2005, an anonymous rider spilling the beans on doping practices in Quick Step.

The source described the procedures within the team, "You have the riders who must work only 100 km, who take nothing. Then there are the domestiques who must go longer, they regularly get something extra. Finally, you have the top riders who get the big resources." According to the source, the riders make a yearly payment to the team doctor Yvan Van Mol and receive recommendations to use certain products.http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/van-mol-lefevere-boonen-react-to-anonymous-rider-doping-comments/

Sounds remarkably familiar doesn't it.
*** me. That's 16 years between adr and quick step. unbelievable.

On the topic of Vanmol, the following from the Donati files is interesting:
Before going to ADR, Vanmol was the doctor of Del Tongo. Now, he was thrown off that team for screwing up Saronni's doping program. He doped Saronni with cortisone but the treatment didn't go well, Saronni ended up with adrenal insufficiency and blamed Vanmol, and so Saronni saw to it that Vanmol was thrown off the team.
De Cauwer (about whom Lemond said he was one of the best managers he ever worked with "I would go with him again if I could") seemed happy to take Vanmol on board. Vanmol who was also in the business of drugging horses, according to Donati.

btw, according to dopeology, ADR had at least three positives in 1988, Kuum, Planckaert and Cocquyt.
For real, what was Lemond thinking when he signed for that team?
Let alone when he allowed Vanmol to inject him?

 

[blutto]

Re: LeMond

Greg LeMond Professional Cycling's Talented Revolutionary By Chairman Bill McGann

http://bikeraceinfo.com/oralhistory/lemond.html

GL: What wattage was he doing? I would look more at wattage because the rate of vertical ascent could vary so much depending on the pavement. Wattage is the ultimate truth. You know I'm very controversial because I think that you have to look at numbers.

My wattage, relative to VO2 Max...a VO2 Max of 92 or 93 in a fully recovered way...I think I was capable of producing 450 to 460 watts. The truth is, even at the Tour de France, my Tour de France climb times up l'Alpe d'Huez yielded a wattage of around 380 and 390. That was the historic norm for Hinault and myself. You've got times going back many, many years. But what was learned recently, in the last 5 years, was that when you start the Tour de France, you start with a normal hematocrit of, say, 45 percent. By the time you finish, it's probably down 10 or 15 percent. Which means my VO2 Max dropped 10 or 15 percent. So that's why I was never producing the same wattage. And then there a lot of other factors that help performance if you've recovered. My last time trial in '89, I averaged about 420, 430 watts, which would match or be slightly down from what my real VO2 Max was.

Of course, in the '90s drugs came on the scene, so the wattages have gone out. There are some things that are just not explainable, people with VO2 Maxs in the low 80s producing 500 watts. A physiologist friend of my said that for a person to do that, 500 watts, he has to have to have nearly 100 milliliters of Oxygen. There are a lot of questions there for me.

When I start seeing wattage down to the historic norm, I'll know that the battle of the drugs is starting to get back in place.

....strange how that VO2 number gets tossed around like some sort of medal that would explain things...like I have the greatest VO2 therefore I am the only one probably capable of winning the Tour clean kinda thing....and sure a huge VO2 max is an asset but look at when that number was produced, after the hunting accident when he was admittedly not quite the same rider and by a rider who did have kidney issues and who had grave bouts of anemia ( so on face value not the most likely candidate to be the rider with the highest VO2 of all time )...

....and if you look at his record before the tragic shooting incident not really the dominant rider the VO2 numbers would suggest...not a dominant TT'er where one would think the greatest VO2 would really shine...and really not a potential candidate for the Polka Dot jersey either...

...read there seems to be a disconnect with that number and results and its timeline....could someone explain please...

Cheers

Can we presume blutto, like spire, you didn’t actually live through lemond’s career…it looked exactly like that of an athlete who was remarkable…he raced the classics well and the raced the grand tours very well…great results as junior, as senior, at avernir, at dauphine, then 3rd, 2nd, 1st at tour……then 1st, 1st then the demise………..

The bell curve of a top cyclist athlete (with the obvious dip for getting shot)…lets normalise those three years it I think the statisticians would say…with a sharper decline than most…

A decline which coincided with epo….an opposite effect of what you might expect if he was a beneficiary of epo

And spire has the temerity to try and compare with Froome and and Wiggis…they ain’t no bell curves (I restrained myself on the obvious joke )

....wrong, very wrong...and its because "I lived thru his career" as you put it that I have reservations about believing in miracles, all miracles in case you're wondering....and while we are on this topic wonder how many of the "defenders" here actually lived thru his entire career...as opposed, to say, getting involved as cycling fans during the 89 Tour ( while this is by no means conclusive but have found that in the several threads that have over the last little while asked when posters here got more seriously involved as cycling fans there was a heavy lean towards becoming involved around the time of that 89 Tour...)...

...now my rather informal reading of who lived and didn't live thru LeMond's career ( and this goes back to his earliest time as a junior ) leads to this....those who didn't live thru his career cannot understand the history of that early period because the record of that period is now very spotty and what is left is in most cases in highly editorialized form ( there are for instance no comprehensive archives and what remains is generally already assembled into stories/narratives that support a certain reading of events and the place of certain people within those events and btw reporters often make lousy historians, they were in many cases writing fanzines for established fans ....thus the official LeMond story has a very high prominence because in many cases it is the only story that survives, and other views of events and the facts that support them are now for all intents and purposes lost...as an example who here has access to the articles that Ian Austen wrote about cycling ( probably very very few but he was an important counterpoint to the fanciful story that CBS was fabricating around their American hero Greg LeMond...like the idea they kept banging that LeMond was a lone warrior fighting everyone, including his own team, to get his much deserved results...)....

...soooo....did you live thru his entire career ?....and if you didn't please level the implication you leveled against me directly at yourself, that is only fair isn't it....

Cheers

edit....btw you will probably find that the further back cycling fans have "lived" along the LeMond timeline the less rabid they are, many in fact are downright cynical about events...the rabidness tends to cluster around the 89 and beyond fans...and among the most cynical were a couple of guys, now long "lost", who came up with LeMond as juniors...

 

[GJB123]

I got into following cycling around '75 when Van Impe won the TdF (I was aged 7 at the time and had a father who was an avid follower of all sports including cycling). My most vivid early memories are of Hennie Kuiper trying to beat Bernard Thevenet, for what it's worth.

 

[blutto]

Re:

I got into following cycling around '75 when Van Impe won the TdF (I was aged 7 at the time and had a father who was an avid follower of all sports including cycling). My most vivid early memories are of Hennie Kuiper trying to beat Bernard Thevenet, for what it's worth.

...mine go back to Merckx for what that is worth as bona-fides...

Cheers

 

[gillan1969]

Re: LeMond

blutto...

if you lived through his career what is the miracle you are referring to?

yours confused

 

[blutto]

Re: Re:

Lemond never used EPO. His power wattage on the climbs were well within the clean parameters of human performance.

Of course.

People think that someone doped is goint to win lemond...and it is not that way, a good rider with low hematocric values talking epois going to beat Lemond if we talk about a GT, not a 1 week race, but not for a big difference.

A good rider (not a big champion as Lemond) with high hematocric is not going to beat Lemond despite all the EPO he can take.

This is basic for all the people who want to write in the clinic. if they dont have that clear they could read Hamilton s book. People has a very wrong idea about doping and performances compared to clean people. Some people think that if Lemond is clean againts doped he cant be on a top ten of TdF. Wrong, he can win a lot of thing that way as Evans or Sastre did in the doping era. (but they got his better results in the transitional and clean era, despite his age)

But anyway at the begining of 90s EPO doping and doping in general wanst at the level the end of 90, just before Festina affair.

...what about Riis ( Mr 60%) vs Indurain....?....

Cheers

indurian wasn't a lemond...he was a heavier Riis...presumably at 55%

...so Indurain can beat LeMond in important time trials pre EPO ( weight and VO2 are very important considerations ) and you trot that out....here is something to consider Indurain was, if weight were run across height, more or less the same lbs/in as this guy named Merckx, you have heard of Merckx have you not?...

Cheers

 

[blutto]

Re: LeMond

blutto...

if you lived through his career what is the miracle you are referring to?

yours confused

...if you don't have a clue about that one you may want to think what you are doing here...

Cheers

 

[blutto]

Re: Re:

indurian wasn't a lemond...he was a heavier Riis...

That's taking it way too far. Waaaay too far. Since you seem to be arguing that EPO changed things from 1990 onwards (correct me if I'm wrong), check Indurain's results up to 1989.

A GT rider he wasn't, but he was very good.

a fair point..I remember him at avenir and I remember drunkenly telling a friend to put money on him in the '91 tour after his 89 and 90 performances... (he never did btw)

still if you want a comparison...check out his Avenir GC performance (and that of a certain Mr Riis in the same race) and then compare and contrast with a certain Mr lemond...

what is it the french say...future

...and as long as we are on Avenir check out a certain Indurain fellow ( when btw he was running about 195 lbs at that time )...

Cheers

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

Lemond never used EPO. His power wattage on the climbs were well within the clean parameters of human performance.

Of course.

People think that someone doped is goint to win lemond...and it is not that way, a good rider with low hematocric values talking epois going to beat Lemond if we talk about a GT, not a 1 week race, but not for a big difference.

A good rider (not a big champion as Lemond) with high hematocric is not going to beat Lemond despite all the EPO he can take.

This is basic for all the people who want to write in the clinic. if they dont have that clear they could read Hamilton s book. People has a very wrong idea about doping and performances compared to clean people. Some people think that if Lemond is clean againts doped he cant be on a top ten of TdF. Wrong, he can win a lot of thing that way as Evans or Sastre did in the doping era. (but they got his better results in the transitional and clean era, despite his age)

But anyway at the begining of 90s EPO doping and doping in general wanst at the level the end of 90, just before Festina affair.

...what about Riis ( Mr 60%) vs Indurain....?....

Cheers

indurian wasn't a lemond...he was a heavier Riis...presumably at 55%

...so Indurain can beat LeMond in important time trials pre EPO ( weight and VO2 are very important considerations ) and you trot that out....here is something to consider Indurain was, if weight were run across height, more or less the same lbs/in as this guy named Merckx, you have heard of Merckx have you not?...

Cheers

lighten up...there was a smiley...i was being somewhat tongue in cheek...I'm not sure the TTs you refer to but so what...he wasn't junior world champ, he didn't win avenir at first attempt and didn't have the early GT success of lemond...I think I can quite happily state he was no lemond

Edward wasn't it? I didn't watch merckx and don't know enough about contemporay doping, races or riders to comment and so I won't...

 

[gillan1969]

Re: LeMond

blutto...

if you lived through his career what is the miracle you are referring to?

yours confused

...if you don't have a clue about that one you may want to think what you are doing here...

Cheers

well you either mean his whole career or his return from injury...neither of which I see as miracles

if so which one?

 

[blutto]

Re: Re:

Lemond never used EPO. His power wattage on the climbs were well within the clean parameters of human performance.

Of course.

People think that someone doped is goint to win lemond...and it is not that way, a good rider with low hematocric values talking epois going to beat Lemond if we talk about a GT, not a 1 week race, but not for a big difference.

A good rider (not a big champion as Lemond) with high hematocric is not going to beat Lemond despite all the EPO he can take.

This is basic for all the people who want to write in the clinic. if they dont have that clear they could read Hamilton s book. People has a very wrong idea about doping and performances compared to clean people. Some people think that if Lemond is clean againts doped he cant be on a top ten of TdF. Wrong, he can win a lot of thing that way as Evans or Sastre did in the doping era. (but they got his better results in the transitional and clean era, despite his age)

But anyway at the begining of 90s EPO doping and doping in general wanst at the level the end of 90, just before Festina affair.

...what about Riis ( Mr 60%) vs Indurain....?....

Cheers

indurian wasn't a lemond...he was a heavier Riis...presumably at 55%

....a presumption ?...to what end ?....saw your post upstream ok we can include a smiley or two ...we cool ?....

Cheers

 

[sniper]

Re:

remember how esafosfina described Vanmol's doping program for ADR 1989?

this is from 2005, an anonymous rider spilling the beans on doping practices in Quick Step.

The source described the procedures within the team, "You have the riders who must work only 100 km, who take nothing. Then there are the domestiques who must go longer, they regularly get something extra. Finally, you have the top riders who get the big resources." According to the source, the riders make a yearly payment to the team doctor Yvan Van Mol and receive recommendations to use certain products.http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/van-mol-lefevere-boonen-react-to-anonymous-rider-doping-comments/

Sounds remarkably familiar doesn't it.
**** me. That's 16 years between adr and quick step. unbelievable.

On the topic of Vanmol, the following from the Donati files is interesting:
Before going to ADR, Vanmol was the doctor of Del Tongo. Now, he was thrown off that team for screwing up Saronni's doping program. He doped Saronni with cortisone but the treatment didn't go well, Saronni ended up with adrenal insufficiency and blamed Vanmol, and so Saronni saw to it that Vanmol was thrown off the team.
De Cauwer (about whom Lemond said he was one of the best managers he ever worked with "I would go with him again if I could") seemed happy to take Vanmol on board. Vanmol who was also in the business of drugging horses, according to Donati.

btw, according to dopeology, ADR had at least three positives in 1988, Kuum, Planckaert and Cocquyt.
For real, what was Lemond thinking when he signed for that team?
Let alone when he allowed Vanmol to inject him?

to finish this one off.
They had a positive in 1987, too. So four positives in two years, when Lemond signs for them.
On a side, Freddy "pot belge" Sergeant was soigneur at ADR.

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

Lemond never used EPO. His power wattage on the climbs were well within the clean parameters of human performance.

Of course.

People think that someone doped is goint to win lemond...and it is not that way, a good rider with low hematocric values talking epois going to beat Lemond if we talk about a GT, not a 1 week race, but not for a big difference.

A good rider (not a big champion as Lemond) with high hematocric is not going to beat Lemond despite all the EPO he can take.

This is basic for all the people who want to write in the clinic. if they dont have that clear they could read Hamilton s book. People has a very wrong idea about doping and performances compared to clean people. Some people think that if Lemond is clean againts doped he cant be on a top ten of TdF. Wrong, he can win a lot of thing that way as Evans or Sastre did in the doping era. (but they got his better results in the transitional and clean era, despite his age)

But anyway at the begining of 90s EPO doping and doping in general wanst at the level the end of 90, just before Festina affair.

...what about Riis ( Mr 60%) vs Indurain....?....

Cheers

indurian wasn't a lemond...he was a heavier Riis...presumably at 55%

....a presumption ?...to what end ?....

Cheers

bloomin 'eck.....it was a joke i.e. it was under the more successful 60%

admittedly I will not be giving up the day job...

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

Lemond never used EPO. His power wattage on the climbs were well within the clean parameters of human performance.

Of course.

People think that someone doped is goint to win lemond...and it is not that way, a good rider with low hematocric values talking epois going to beat Lemond if we talk about a GT, not a 1 week race, but not for a big difference.

A good rider (not a big champion as Lemond) with high hematocric is not going to beat Lemond despite all the EPO he can take.

This is basic for all the people who want to write in the clinic. if they dont have that clear they could read Hamilton s book. People has a very wrong idea about doping and performances compared to clean people. Some people think that if Lemond is clean againts doped he cant be on a top ten of TdF. Wrong, he can win a lot of thing that way as Evans or Sastre did in the doping era. (but they got his better results in the transitional and clean era, despite his age)

But anyway at the begining of 90s EPO doping and doping in general wanst at the level the end of 90, just before Festina affair.

...what about Riis ( Mr 60%) vs Indurain....?....

Cheers

indurian wasn't a lemond...he was a heavier Riis...presumably at 55%

....a presumption ?...to what end ?....saw your post upstream ok we can include a smiley or two ...we cool ?....

Cheers

we can and indeed we are

 

[blutto]

Re: LeMond

blutto...

if you lived through his career what is the miracle you are referring to?

yours confused

...if you don't have a clue about that one you may want to think what you are doing here...

Cheers

well you either mean his whole career or his return from injury...neither of which I see as miracles

if so which one?

....The Most Holy Miracle of the Iron Shots of course ....and made possible by the equally miraculous diagnosis by St. Otto, the patron saint of amateur doctors...that those miracles there...

Cheers

 

[gillan1969]

Re: LeMond

blutto...

if you lived through his career what is the miracle you are referring to?

yours confused

...if you don't have a clue about that one you may want to think what you are doing here...

Cheers

well you either mean his whole career or his return from injury...neither of which I see as miracles

if so which one?

....The Most Holy Miracle of the Iron Shots of course....and made possible by the equally miraculous diagnosis by St. Otto, the patron saint of amateur doctors...that those miracles there...

Cheers

on the micro level that may be the case..

looking at the macro level I remember the 88 season and early 89 and whilst the late giro tt was a surprise...i was definitely seen as a surprise and not a 'miracle'...I know the narrative post Tour victory may have been miracle but that's journo's...they need to shift copy

All I ever saw was a remarkable athlete (regardless of how achieved that) returning to something of his previous level......he had done the miles (i know that is not very scientific )

 

[sniper]

^"regardless of how he achieved that"
isn't "how" the crucial question when we ask if it was a miracle or not?

clean cyclist from a non-cycling country sweeps the floor with doped-to-the-gills cyclists from traditional cycling countries.
starting at age 19.
miracle.
hunting accident, comeback, 24-hour speed transformation.
miracle
Even Lance thought it was a miracle.

"Your comeback in '89 was so spectacular. Mine was a miracle, yours was a miracle. You couldn't have been as strong as you were in '89 without EPO."

And he wasn't trying to shift copy.

 

[djpbaltimore]

Re:

it was a 24-hour radical improvement.
in the press it was described as miraculous/magical, etc.
It is highly doubtful that intravenous iron shots alone could achieve that kind of a 24-hour transformation. Do we even have a precedent for that?
Intravenous iron shots plus EPO on the other hand...can do magic:

GJB123:
isn't it about time you reacted all the nonsense you have spouted about LeMond's medical condition? Or do you still think you are on to something?

i've addressed this point ad nauseum in the previous pages, go back and read if you can be bothered. Either way, it really is time for you to move on from this, because your clogging the thread and you're making it personal again.

EPO doesn't cause a 24 h improvement even with iron supplementation. New cells have to be made in the bone marrow and mature, so it doesn't work nearly that quickly. IMO, a radical change would be more consistent with a nutrient deficiency or a placebo effect.

 

[blutto]

....there is one more thing that should be considered here ( and this comment is concerned with Indurain and how his "reign" is supposed to prove something )......the following from Hinault....

Bernard Hinault, who said: "Indurain is the best rider of his generation but he has won this Tour quietly, without great opposition. If the opposition continues to let him get away with it, his reign looks like lasting a long time".[

....this sorta corresponds to my recollection of the period....Indurain's reign came at a time when the racing really played to his strengths ( both in terms of courses which had relatively huge miles of TT, and fields which was not really that blessed with over-the-top talent who btw also did make some critical tactical errors....and lets not forget the monster team that was assembled to support Indurain ...)....

....or another way to see things...once LeMond's aero advantage was neutralized he did not have the 200 sec or so head start he enjoyed in 89 and things became very different ( and do remember that in the one 89 TT where there was no significant aero advantage, it was uphill, Indurain beat LeMond, and this after doing tons of donkey work for Delgado ...)....

Cheers

 

[GJB123]

Re:

^"regardless of how he achieved that"
isn't "how" the crucial question when we ask if it was a miracle or not?

clean cyclist from a non-cycling country sweeps the floor with doped-to-the-gills cyclists from traditional cycling countries.
starting at age 19.
miracle.
hunting accident, comeback, 24-hour speed transformation.
miracle
Even Lance thought it was a miracle.

"Your comeback in '89 was so spectacular. Mine was a miracle, yours was a miracle. You couldn't have been as strong as you were in '89 without EPO."

And he wasn't trying to shift copy.

No, Lance was not trying to shift copy he was trying to shift around the blame.

As gillian1969 said the Giro ITT was more seen as a surprise return to form and was definitely not portrayed as a miracle in this days. Given the 1969 in the name, my guess is that gillian and myself or more or less of the same bill year and I strongly remember that for the Belgians it was no more than a reason to put LeMond back amongst the outsiders. It was only Mart Smeets of the NOS who was really surprised when LeMond did so well in the first ITT i the TdF (leave it up to good ole Mart not to be informed of the Giro ITT).

As t LeMond joining ADR, I don't think he actually had much choice post 1988. He had had the hunting accident and a Highly unsuccessful year at PDM where he left more or less acrimonious. He went to ADR for a very small fixed salary with bonuses if he managed some results and I think (not know) that he more or less accepted the small pay check (they he didn't even get paid in full) if he could just ride some GT's and be left more or less to his own devices. As with PDM LeMond didn't care that much that other riders accepted they were doped just as long as he could go his own way.

Now you can explain the above in more than 1 way. If you are a guy who thinks glasses are always half empty you can see the low pay + bonuses as a strong incentive to bend the rules to get the results and you could also say that wanting to be left to his own devices meant no more than being left to his own doping program. If you are the glass is half full kind of guy, you see a cyclist who in line with his PDM years made sure he compete in his own right without being forced to follow team rules or team doctors and who was willing to take a gamble that some his old form might actually return.

Please also note that ADR was a very small team with very little or no team organization and densely nothing we have gotten used these days with regards to team organization. It was more haphazard and that certainly applied to ADR. Do not look at that time and that team through 2016 glasses.