Max Van Heeswijk (Ex-Us Postal) admits to EPO use.

[mewmewmew13]

No that was 2005 where it got more silly. To think that winning was easy. The game was trying to make it look believable. Passing Ullrich didn't help. But you know Lance.

That p***** me off when he passed Ulle!

 

[Oldman]

One thing I don't understand, Lance supposedly had a 54% Hct in -95 (according to a team mate), so why couldn't he climb or TT then?

He was also gaining ridiculous amounts of weight at training camps before he contracted Cancer. 6 hour rides followed by weight training session...that was not the Motorola program and they couldn't understand what he was taking and who was his source. You can have a hemo of 60 but carrying extra pounds just doesn't work. Oh yeah, the cadence thing was smokescreen so that wasn't the answer.

 

[Oldman]

No that was 2005 where it got more silly. To think that winning was easy. The game was trying to make it look believable. Passing Ullrich didn't help. But you know Lance.

And the flacks were emphasizing the "cadence". Yeah, hell; if you can turn the 56X11 @ 10 rpm faster than anyone you will win. It wasn't like he was using smaller gears. Lance was deep into his God complex at that point and emasculating Jan was the whole game.

 

[hrotha]

One thing I don't understand, Lance supposedly had a 54% Hct in -95 (according to a team mate), so why couldn't he climb or TT then?

Again, he was a reasonably good time-trialist, and he could climb well enough to get a top 40 at the Tour (that means you're a decent climber). He was almost 24 back then. Once he got into a good (Ferrari) program (1996), he became more than decent, crushing people like Rominger at the Tour DuPont both in the climbs and in the ITT. His late 1998 level (i.e. his 4th place in the Vuelta GC) wasn't that surprising considering his 1996 level, cancer aside. I assume the reason why he got even better, to ridiculous lengths, in 1999, would be that he got into a specific GT GC-oriented program, plus the benefit of doing a proper winter preparation and having more racing miles in his legs. And a whole team on the hot sauce, of course; that always helps.

 

[ianfra]

I'm the biggest sceptic against all the ridiculous zealots on this forum. But that ride was reminiscent of Landis' recovery ride!

 

[thehog]

And the flacks were emphasizing the "cadence". Yeah, hell; if you can turn the 56X11 @ 10 rpm faster than anyone you will win. It wasn't like he was using smaller gears. Lance was deep into his God complex at that point and emasculating Jan was the whole game.

After the stage Verdruggin released the sysmex donation story to quell the rumbles in the press.

 

[Berzin]

He was also gaining ridiculous amounts of weight at training camps before he contracted Cancer. Six hour rides followed by weight training session...that was not the Motorola program and they couldn't understand what he was taking and who was his source.

Yes. I remember specifically when Armstrong won Fleche Wallone in 1996.

His torso was so bloated he looked like he weighed close to 180 pounds.

 

[JRTinMA]

Would it possible for all of you to take your Lance kit and lunchbox to the Lance thread?

 

[Barrus]

Does every thread need to come down to ****ing talking about armstrong instead of discussing the actual subject of the news

 

[RobbieCanuck]

Censorship

May I remind everyone this thread is about van Heeswijk and not Lance Armstrong...

Please stay on topic.

Get real. Van Heeswijk, US Postal, questions by Boers about the LA investigation, doping by US Postal, EPO, admissions about doping on USP, recantations, hypocracry, potential intimidation - what could not be more relevant about Lance Armstrong than this?

 

[MacRoadie]

Get real. Van Heeswijk, US Postal, questions by Boers about the LA investigation, doping by US Postal, EPO, admissions about doping on USP, recantations, hypocracry, potential intimidation - what could not be more relevant about Lance Armstrong than this?

Yeah, I'm having a hard time understanding how a thread about an Ex-Postal rider (it's even specifically referenced in the thread title), allegedly admitting to EPO use while being interviewed specifically as a result of the Armstrong investigation, isn't directly related to Armstrong.

Let's get real. Van Heeswijk's doping is only of any significance BECAUSE of his ties to Postal/Armstrong.

 

[Barrus]

Yeah, I'm having a hard time understanding how a thread about an Ex-Postal rider (it's even specifically referenced in the thread title), allegedly admitting to EPO use while being interviewed specifically as a result of the Armstrong investigation, isn't directly related to Armstrong.

Let's get real. Van Heeswijk's doping is only of any significance BECAUSE of his ties to Postal/Armstrong.

Yeah, but do we need to use this thread to rethread all the old debates again, none of which is linked in any real way to Van Heeswijk?

 

[Cimacoppi49]

Get real. Van Heeswijk, US Postal, questions by Boers about the LA investigation, doping by US Postal, EPO, admissions about doping on USP, recantations, hypocracry, potential intimidation - what could not be more relevant about Lance Armstrong than this?

The guys working the Fabiani pit aren't going to be happy with you. Open your mail carefully for a couple of months.

 

[MacRoadie]

Yeah, but do we need to use this thread to rethread all the old debates again, none of which is linked in any real way to Van Heeswijk?

Definitely agree on that. Just posting in here to take your 1,000th dig at LA isn't furthering the dialog.

However, insightful comments on the correlations and significance of this specific rider to US Postal / Armstrong should be welcomed.

 

[Bala Verde]

Get real. Van Heeswijk, US Postal, questions by Boers about the LA investigation, doping by US Postal, EPO, admissions about doping on USP, recantations, hypocracry, potential intimidation - what could not be more relevant about Lance Armstrong than this?

I determine what is on and off topic. If you don't like it, I would recommend you find yourself another forum. This thread is not intended to rehash what has been said a million times already. If you don't know what has been said before, feel free to use the search function and query everything Armstrong related.

Take the Armstrong discussion to the available Armstrong thread(s).

 

[pedaling squares]

I'm with the crowd who wants to see this get back on topic. RR and Barrus pointed out a couple of days ago that there is relevance to the Armstrong investigation, but we've really left that behind to discuss all things LA. On topic, someone said that the article was coming out in the past couple of days - is it out yet? Will be interesting to see what the journalist says about the admissions and Max taking the discs (I still find that incredible). Off topic, RobbieCanuck has by far the best avatar in the forum. Chapeau!

 

[Rouetheday]

You would have to be living in a cave not to have seen what happened to Betsy, Frankie, LeMond, Anderson, Basson, Walsh, Simeoni, Neil Browne, Landis, Tyler, Prentice Steffen, Levi, etc. etc.

Harassing people who dare to question the myth has been a Wonderboy tactic for well over a decade.

Bill Mitchell, the founder of Cyclingnews was a victim of particually agressive attack by Armstrong and his groupies back in 1999.

After he ran this story about Armstrong testing positive for Corticoids after Stage 1 The harassment began. Sponsors were urged to stop advertising. His employer was called by dozens of groupies. Typical bully stuff.

A few days later he wrote this


This only increased the harassment. Eventually he had to sell Cyclingnews, his life's passion. He sold it for almost nothing to Gerrard Knapp, who later sold it for $5,000,000 to Future Publishing. In his parting message, which Cyclingnews yanked off the site after yet more complaints from the Groupies, he wrote this.

In the summer of '99, Bill Mitchell posted an article about the PanAm Games in Canada. It concerned the Cuban Delegations complaints of mistreatment, including shoddy accommodations and the harassment of their athletes (of course this 'harassment' mainly came in the form of baseball scouts waving lucrative contracts at their players, so...). The article featured no input from the other side of the issue, so I e-mailed Bill to tell him I thought it was rather one-sided. He wrote back to say he had made repeated efforts to talk with a Games' spokesperson, but no one ever bothered to respond. Gee, I wished he'd thought to mention that in the original piece- I could have had no real complaint. He then shocked me by accusing me of wanting to stifle his free speech rights! It all seemed beneath a man of his intellect, but I didn't try to respond- heck, I know not to try to debate a university professor. Now, having read here about the abuse dished out to him by some of my compatriots, I can understand his reaction. As far as he was concerned, I was just another American trying to bully and intimidate him.

 

[Velodude]

In the summer of '99, Bill Mitchell posted an article about the PanAm Games in Canada. It concerned the Cuban Delegations complaints of mistreatment, including shoddy accommodations and the harassment of their athletes (of course this 'harassment' mainly came in the form of baseball scouts waving lucrative contracts at their players, so...). The article featured no input from the other side of the issue, so I e-mailed Bill to tell him I thought it was rather one-sided. He wrote back to say he had made repeated efforts to talk with a Games' spokesperson, but no one ever bothered to respond. Gee, I wished he'd thought to mention that in the original piece- I could have had no real complaint. He then shocked me by accusing me of wanting to stifle his free speech rights! It all seemed beneath a man of his intellect, but I didn't try to respond- heck, I know not to try to debate a university professor. Now, having read here about the abuse dished out to him by some of my compatriots, I can understand his reaction. As far as he was concerned, I was just another American trying to bully and intimidate him.

So both these events involving the stifling of Bill Mitchell's free speech rights occurred in "the summer of '99". A very vague 3 month period.

Why don't you be more precise and inform that Bill Mitchell's "offensive" article on LA that raised a furore amongst LA's US fans related to Stage 9 on 13 July 1999.

The 1999 Pan Am games in Canada did not commence until August 1999.

The vitriol against Bill Mitchell with threats against his livelihood caused him to immediately put CyclingNews up for sale prior to the Pan Am Games. It was sold to Knapp Communications in September 1999.

Your parochial contribution was a waste of bandwidth.

 

[Rouetheday]

Dearest Velodude, to provide background for my post I had tried to quote a previous post by Race Radio that related Bill Mitchell's troubles with rabid Lance fans, but it failed to appear in its entirety. I don't know what went wrong, my computer skills leave a lot to be desired. I think most of the people on this forum are up to speed on the events of that summer as pertains to the cyclingnews website. I'm grateful to you for pointing out the PanAm Games were held in August, as this helps make my point for me. You see, by the time I had sent my e-mail in response to Mr. Mitchell's article, he had already endured roughly a month of abusive and threatening correspondence from the LA mafia (none of which came from me, I assure you). As you point out, he had already resigned himself to selling his baby. Somehow, I really wasn't aware of all this at the time. I guess you could say I wasn't 'up to speed' back then. So, obviously I was shocked at his response, but in hindsight I can see it was an understandable reaction. An epiphany that's a dozen years in the making is something special, eh? By the way, last week I had a guy call one of my other posts 'possibly the worst I've ever seen on this board', so I find your 'waste of bandwidth' diss absolutely adorable.

 

[Stingray34]

Dearest Velodude, to provide background for my post I had tried to quote a previous post by Race Radio that related Bill Mitchell's troubles with rabid Lance fans, but it failed to appear in its entirety. I don't know what went wrong, my computer skills leave a lot to be desired. I think most of the people on this forum are up to speed on the events of that summer as pertains to the cyclingnews website. I'm grateful to you for pointing out the PanAm Games were held in August, as this helps make my point for me. You see, by the time I had sent my e-mail in response to Mr. Mitchell's article, he had already endured roughly a month of abusive and threatening correspondence from the LA mafia (none of which came from me, I assure you). As you point out, he had already resigned himself to selling his baby. Somehow, I really wasn't aware of all this at the time. I guess you could say I wasn't 'up to speed' back then. So, obviously I was shocked at his response, but in hindsight I can see it was an understandable reaction. An epiphany that's a dozen years in the making is something special, eh? By the way, last week I had a guy call one of my other posts 'possibly the worst I've ever seen on this board', so I find your 'waste of bandwidth' diss absolutely adorable.

As another one with deplorable PC skills and otherwise 'slow on the uptake', I can't see what was wrong with your post; as far as I can see, you were writing about how Bill's reaction to your email seemed logical in hindsight with all the abuse he suffered from others. It does put his reaction to your quite reasonable email into context. I don't see how your reflections are a waste of bandwith at all.

 

[Rouetheday]

As another one with deplorable PC skills and otherwise 'slow on the uptake', I can't see what was wrong with your post; as far as I can see, you were writing about how Bill's reaction to your email seemed logical in hindsight with all the abuse he suffered from others. It does put his reaction to your quite reasonable email into context. I don't see how your reflections are a waste of bandwith at all.

Thanks for the support, Stingray. I think our friend Velodude demonstrates there's a fine line between being, let's say 'snarky', and just being a ****. Oh, and I don't know that I'd call it 'love', but I do quite like The Smiths. I'm still a bit annoyed with Morrissey, though. I had tickets to a 2009 show in Asheville, NC, but he cancelled pretty much at the last minute due to illness. Two years later, and he's yet to re-schedule it.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

Thanks for the support, Stingray. I think our friend Velodude demonstrates there's a fine line between being, let's say 'snarky', and just being a ****. Oh, and I don't know that I'd call it 'love', but I do quite like The Smiths. I'm still a bit annoyed with Morrissey, though. I had tickets to a 2009 show in Asheville, NC, but he cancelled pretty much at the last minute due to illness. Two years later, and he's yet to re-schedule it.

Did you write to him saying 'Please, please, please let me get what I want'?

 

[Rouetheday]

Did you write to him saying 'Please, please, please let me get what I want'?

Nice one. Actually, I wrote him to let him know about the concert venue's strict 'No Chinese Allowed' policy. I'm hoping that might sway him.

 

[Oldman]

Thanks for the support, Stingray. I think our friend Velodude demonstrates there's a fine line between being, let's say 'snarky', and just being a ****. Oh, and I don't know that I'd call it 'love', but I do quite like The Smiths. I'm still a bit annoyed with Morrissey, though. I had tickets to a 2009 show in Asheville, NC, but he cancelled pretty much at the last minute due to illness. Two years later, and he's yet to re-schedule it.

Hasn't Morrissey always had the same "ill" attitude? I confess I like the Smiths, but not publicly as I'm not generally depressed.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

Hasn't Morrissey always had the same "ill" attitude? I confess I like the Smiths, but not publicly as I'm not generally depressed.

Maybe he's 'still ill'?

You just haven't earnt it yet, baby?