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Jun 19, 2009
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flicker said:
Micheal Hall and the haters on this forum are quite clueless about pro-cycling.

He is right and wrong in the article. The bottom line is life and procycling are not fair. Hard to say and hard to accept but true irregardless.

To me the firemen who dashed into the flaming world trade center to rescue the victims of 911 are heroes. Pro cyclists and pro athletes are comic book heroes doped to the gills or clean and sober.

Time for the fan-boys and drug crusaders to get a job and a life. Mike Hall is a crybaby. Real heroes are doctors, firemen and cops and soldiers those who save lives. + school teachers who inspire children to greater heigths

Glad a good idea eventually grows...
 
Sep 5, 2009
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I will have to correct one myth perpetrated by Armstrong that Michael Hall supports in this article:

"Next, remind everyone of something we all know: Nobody trained harder than you. On a playing field leveled by so much doping, you were still the hardest-working cyclist in the peloton, training six, seven hours a day, even in the off-season, when so many others were sleeping in. “I wanted to be the best I could be,” you could say. “So I did what I had to do.” Doping was just one part, an inevitable part, of your intense drive to be the best."

Read Dan Coyle's "Lance Armstrong's War". Two observations can be drawn from that book:

1. Armstrong arrived at the USPS training camp in Girona in 2004 significant pounds overweight.

2. Many times while the team was training in earnest in Girona LA was travelling around Europe with Ferrari. They only knew where he was when he popped up on a television interview.

If Armstrong was training 6-7 hours a day he would have no weight problems. His problem would be taking in enough calories.

TdF riders with comparable daily stage lengths have to quadruple their calorie intake but still lose significant body fat over the three weeks.

Alan Peiper (Former TdF rider and now team DS) said that at the end of a TdF he had lost so much body fat that the veins on his abdomen were visible.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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Cycle Chic said:
the 'level playing field' is debatable also - surely it is the riders who can afford to pay for the best doping programs who succeed. i.e. Armstrong.

Yep.
However, that argument isn't applicable to his first victories, unless he entered pro-cycling already being richer than other cyclists.
On the other hand, it might explain at least part of his 7-year reign.
 
Sep 5, 2009
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sniper said:
Yep.
However, that argument isn't applicable to his first victories, unless he entered pro-cycling already being richer than other cyclists.
On the other hand, it might explain at least part of his 7-year reign.

His relationship started with Ferrari on the recommendation of Merckx pre cancer.

Ferrari's remuneration was claimed to be calculated on 10-20% of earnings not a fixed or time based fee. Armstrong was on an exclusive arrangement with Ferrari not to prepare other GC contenders (per Coyle's "Lance Armstrong's War").

On this basis Ferrari must have been well remunerated as his Swiss bank account being investigated has millions of dollars being deposited in recent years with some payments being identified as coming from the US.

If Ferrari agreed to prepare a potential high income earner, ie. Armstrong, then he would be rewarded in the coming years when his "preparations" proved fruitful.
 
Velodude said:
I will have to correct one myth perpetrated by Armstrong that Michael Hall supports in this article:



Read Dan Coyle's "Lance Armstrong's War". Two observations can be drawn from that book:

1. Armstrong arrived at the USPS training camp in Girona in 2004 significant pounds overweight.

2. Many times while the team was training in earnest in Girona LA was travelling around Europe with Ferrari. They only knew where he was when he popped up on a television interview.

If Armstrong was training 6-7 hours a day he would have no weight problems. His problem would be taking in enough calories.

TdF riders with comparable daily stage lengths have to quadruple their calorie intake but still lose significant body fat over the three weeks.

Alan Peiper (Former TdF rider and now team DS) said that at the end of a TdF he had lost so much body fat that the veins on his abdomen were visible.

Glad you posted this as I just read the article and this point gagged me.
He may be more meticulous and 'anal' about training than most but this is a disgusting myth that he has 'trained more' than anyone else!
 

Polish

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Mar 11, 2009
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mewmewmew13 said:
Glad you posted this as I just read the article and this point gagged me.
He may be more meticulous and 'anal' about training than most but this is a disgusting myth that he has 'trained more' than anyone else!

"Lance trains harder" is TRUE and very well documented.

Don't you remember those days?
Lance was a train-a-holic.

Surely you remember this David Millar whine:

Lance/David said:
This is his third hour on the bike today, and the Tour de France isn't for seven months. This is not natural. No other racer in the world is doing this. The other day, in fact, Armstrong was riding along when the cellphone rang. It was the young British bike star David Millar, two-time Tour de France stage winner, calling from London, "drunk on his ***," Armstrong reports.

ARMSTRONG: Hello?

MILLAR: Please tell me you're not on your bike.

ARMSTRONG: I'm on my bike.

MILLAR: Nooooo! You mother! It's December bloody first! How long have you been on it?

ARMSTRONG: Three and a half hours.

MILLAR: Nooooo!

Armstrong can't help it. "I gotta suffer a little every day or I'm not happy," he says. So he stays on his racing bike for as many as six hours some days. Or he takes his mountain bike through the gnarliest trails that Texas has to offer, swearing at himself because he's not going harder: "You *****, Lance!" Apparently some people are unclear about the meaning of the term off-season.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1115512/1/index.htm

I am mystified how bright & intelligent folks can live in such denial.
Especially those who actually watched it happen.
Maybe it is a type of PTSS or something?
 
Jun 19, 2009
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sniper said:
Yep.
However, that argument isn't applicable to his first victories, unless he entered pro-cycling already being richer than other cyclists.
On the other hand, it might explain at least part of his 7-year reign.

His early success wouldn't require as much cash and prior to his GT "emergence" he just took more & trained more for the one day events. His physique clearly mirrored that regime.
'99 was his game to seize, post-Festina and he just needed to do what some others were doing and have a decent team while racing at a lower weight. His physique mirrored that strategy as well. Again; he wasn't riding off the front of that entire Tour but had his strategically dramatic moments. Would you belive he was doctorin' himself, pre-Ferrari? I wouldn't because his earliest attempts didn't get him anywhere near the top 10.
 
Sep 5, 2009
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Polish said:
"Lance trains harder" is TRUE and very well documented.

Don't you remember those days?
Lance was a train-a-holic.

Surely you remember this David Millar whine:



http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1115512/1/index.htm

I am mystified how bright & intelligent folks can live in such denial.
Especially those who actually watched it happen.
Maybe it is a type of PTSS or something?

The quotes you have trawled up rely on the credibility of one Lance Armstrong and his bullying character and the cycling institution of omerta not to challenge his falsehoods.

Now with hindsight we know that Lance Armstrong has absolutely no credibility.

Lance Armstrong falsely promotes his hard training ethic to his gullible and uniformed flock as being the superior substitute to drugs.

“This is my body, and I can do whatever I want to it. I can push it. Study it. Tweak it. Listen to it. Everybody wants to know what I'm on. What am I on? I'm on my bike busting my a-s-s six hours a day. What are you on?

Finally, the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics: I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. But this is one hell of a race. This is a great sporting event and you should stand around and believe it. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets — this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it. So Vive le Tour forever!
.

If Mr. Armstrong was busting his derrière on a bike 6 hours a day he would not have a pre season overweight issue as documented by Dan Coyle in 2004.
 
I once posted about his 2005 prep. The year he was being photographed with Sheryl, hanging out at the Grammy's & dropping out of Paris Nice. 2005 he passed Ullrich on day 1 19km time trial! When he'd spent the entire year barely getting in a 4 day week on the bike. It was another press room groan moment as we used to call them. We'd all look at each other and say "how we going to write this one?"

Most of us just went with the story. It was so much easier.

Velodude said:
I will have to correct one myth perpetrated by Armstrong that Michael Hall supports in this article:



Read Dan Coyle's "Lance Armstrong's War". Two observations can be drawn from that book:

1. Armstrong arrived at the USPS training camp in Girona in 2004 significant pounds overweight.

2. Many times while the team was training in earnest in Girona LA was travelling around Europe with Ferrari. They only knew where he was when he popped up on a television interview.

If Armstrong was training 6-7 hours a day he would have no weight problems. His problem would be taking in enough calories.

TdF riders with comparable daily stage lengths have to quadruple their calorie intake but still lose significant body fat over the three weeks.

Alan Peiper (Former TdF rider and now team DS) said that at the end of a TdF he had lost so much body fat that the veins on his abdomen were visible.
 
Sep 5, 2009
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thehog said:
I once posted about his 2005 prep. The year he was being photographed with Sheryl, hanging out at the Grammy's & dropping out of Paris Nice. 2005 he passed Ullrich on day 1 19km time trial! When he'd spent the entire year barely getting in a 4 day week on the bike. It was another press room groan moment as we used to call them. We'd all look at each other and say "how we going to write this one?"

Most of us just went with the story. It was so much easier.

The absurdity of LA’s justifications that his excessive training trumps drug taking flies in the face of scientific fact.

LA claims to train his b-u-t-t off for 6 hours every day (30-40 hours per week?) to gain this clean advantage.

To absorb the adaptive benefits of hard training endurance athletes must alternate intensive training with periods of rest and recovery to improve performance. Adaption can only take place during rest and recovery.

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 the West became aware of the East German studies into the performance improving benefits of proper periods of rest and active recovery.

An athlete who trains hard without rest, recovery and periodisation will sooner rather than later dig a big over training hole for himself which can take months to recover or, at worst, can be life threatening.

Over training can lead to over-use injuries, sickness, weight loss, weakening to collapse of the immune system (can be responsible for contraction of cancer), plateauing to falling of athletic performances, etc..

One other drawback of excessive endurance training and competition is the negative effect on the heart through exercise induced heart disorders.

If LA truly trained hard every day for 6 hours then being a cancer survivor made him superhuman. Because pre cancer he was a mere mortal that could not produce results even though he trained hard.
 
http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/...01/michaelhall

This particular article, after re-reading it, has a lot of problems stemming from the author's perspective-

1) "Start with the position that virtually everyone you were competing against was doping. Remind them of the years you spent riding clean, the frustration you felt as you watched lesser riders pull away from you because they had doped."

This is a totally facetious, disingenuous and dishonest premise. It is highly unlikely that Armstrong ever "rode clean".

Also, with the amount of drugs he is alleged to have used to with the Tour 7 times he obviously had no moral qualms about doping either before or after cancer, so to say Lance was riding "in frustration" is a crock.



2) "Say something like “In order to compete in the sport I loved, I chose to enhance my body’s ability to process oxygen—with, by the way, the same drug that helped save me from cancer.” Emphasize that it wasn’t a moral decision, it was a tactical one. In football, offensive guards hold on almost every play; if they don’t, their quarterback gets creamed. It’s part of the game. It was the same with cyclists and EPO. It was part of the game."

This type of cynical spin is an insult to everyone's intelligence with the exception of Armstrong's diehard fanboys and apologists. This writer really thinks people will swallow this pathetic pig-swill of an excuse. EPO may have been part of the game, but not everything else like bullying, intimidation, corruption and fraud.


3) "Next, remind everyone of something we all know: Nobody trained harder than you. On a playing field leveled by so much doping, you were still the hardest-working cyclist in the peloton, training six, seven hours a day, even in the off-season, when so many others were sleeping in. “I wanted to be the best I could be,” you could say. “So I did what I had to do.” Doping was just one part, an inevitable part, of your intense drive to be the best."

Yes. In other words, keep lying to make it seem those 7 Tour wins were at all possible if no one in the peloton was doping, that it was the "intangibles" lime hard work and determination, those values that no one else in the peloton possessed except for Armstrong.


4) "Finally, remind everyone how, from the beginning of your comeback in 1999, you rode to inspire cancer survivors. “Everyone fights to be the best in his or her own way,” you might say. “I went too far, but that is my nature, to be ruthless against my enemies, whether in the peloton or the hospital bed.”

He didn't ride to inspire cancer survivors-he just used them to enrich himself on a message that is becoming transparently clear was built on a foundation of lies, fraud and deceit.


5) And then apologize. Sincerely.

There is no sincerity in Armstrong's achievements. They stink to high Heaven and will be exposed hopefully before the Chicago Cubs win a World Series.

But until then, at least we have garbage like this to entertain us.
 
Yeh it depends how you interpretate the article - whether Hall is advising him how to 'come clean' to the public and media. Or whether he believes Armstrongs career to have actually been a 'cant beat'em join'em'.

I think he is advising Armstrong to 'spin' his way out of it - and I think the public would actually forgive / accept him as they have Tiger Woods and David Millar....but he has left it too long now (like Landis) and the denials are just digging him deeper and deeper.....
 
Cycle Chic-the forgiveness factor isn't the same with Armstrong in comparison to Tiger Woods or any other athlete who's messed up.

You're talking about a cat who lied to some very vulnerable people-cancer victims and their families. That particular dynamic makes a public apology very difficult to grasp. If it were strictly cheating on the sporting front then I could see a bit of redemption for him down the road, but his lies go way deeper than that.

But he got a lot of people drinking the Kool-Aid of his absolute awesomeness, and they unquestioningly bought it hook, line and sinker. Now that it's apparent that he was not only a doper, but a fraudster and a liar? Forgiveness from these very same people he lied to will be difficult to digest.

The other thing is that, unlike other athletes, the very best moments of Armstrong's career were due solely to PED's. He would never be the rider he was if it weren't for Ferrari and his concoctions.

What, will cancer patients start dying by the thousands if he confesses? I doubt it. They'll just have to go out and find themselves a hero with a bit more credibility than this clown.
 
Well said Berzin. LA once instructed David Millar how to become a better cyclist. Now LA needs lessons from Millar on how to gracefully and humbly do the right thing by telling the truth. But it's true about the forgiveness factor is much greater with a guy like Millar. With Armstrong it's like former President Clinton telling the American public on national TV that he didn't splooge that other woman.

And I love this thread title.

EDIT: I think I'd actually be more forgiving of the Pres
 
Mar 8, 2010
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thehog said:
I once posted about his 2005 prep. The year he was being photographed with Sheryl, hanging out at the Grammy's & dropping out of Paris Nice. 2005 he passed Ullrich on day 1 19km time trial! When he'd spent the entire year barely getting in a 4 day week on the bike. It was another press room groan moment as we used to call them. We'd all look at each other and say "how we going to write this one?"

Most of us just went with the story. It was so much easier.

If Ullrich didn't crash into the back of his teamcar, leaving him a deep cut on neck and a hurting body, your post and assumption would be officially unsignificant. Is unsignificant.

Of course it was Lance's fault not to stay behind Ullrich. It's so much easier.
 

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