So Suddenly the Tour is clean. Where did this idea come from

[Walkman]

Let me see:

Greg had 5.9 watt per KG okay?

Laurent Fignon kept with him in 1989 while he had done a hard Giro.

Nowadays Contador does something similar (with similar times) and he's definitively charged? And really Id' say Fignon did a good deal better, but let's just keep this up for argument sake

Do you realize that this "indicator" has precedents in the pre-epo time? And no soft-pedalling anywhere.

I think Alberto matching numbers of Fignon and Greg is plausible.. he's a rather huge talent isn't he?

For all these years Greg has been the bar to which everyone is measured. But now that I do just that it's ridiculous?

Can we just say that it's impossible to please this crowd?

I am not, by any means, an expert but since he did climb at 6,6 watt/kg (Power climb thread) during the Giro and then comes to le Tour and hitting around 6 watt/kg I must say that I become suspicious. Look at Basso, Menchov and Evans. The barley could get over the mountains after doing the Giro, and not only that. Their courses were actually easier than this years edition, wich was just brutally hard. Add to that his knee problems wich seemed to affect his climbing.

 

[Cobblestones]

The media and Harmon always declare 'the tour now clean' it is something they have to repeat along with things like the fact that Wiggins is in with a real chance and Frodo is the greatest sprinter of all time.

Arguments for a cleaner tour:

Voeckler in Yellow finishing top 4
Cunego in top 10
Danielson top 10.
Poor performance from Petacchi in the sprints. ie he is riding like someone who is almost 40 should ride.
Frodo's hormones seem to be down a little bit.
Climbing/power numbers
No mountain trains.

Caveats

No Radioshack or Astana riders - rumours of Hog being scared and RS producing a performance akin to Disco 2006.

Astana getting blown out with loss of Vino, while RK knackered from Giro. Likewise, Sky lost Wiggins early on. JVDB crashing. A lot of major dopers crashing meant they weren't in the top 10

Key riders missing:

JVDB
Kloeden
Horner
Vino
RK
Menchov
Sastre
Nibs
Wacky
Wiggums
Ricco

In a normal tour we would expect most of those riders plus the riders currently involved to be prominent and to fill a top 10-15.

The point would be that a lot of the 'dirty' riders have for various reasons gone missing.

The Tour is as dirty as ever

HCT's performance
Gilbert/Vanendert performances
Evans - 195 doses of EPO hmmm - his performance contrasted with the DL.
Dertie - while everyone else who rode the Giro ie RK is an hour+ or so back Dertie is less than 4 minutes down despite crashing, getting caught in a crash and a poorish Suxo TTT. Basically, Galibier was the only day when he lost a large amount of time and even then it was only with 1.5km to go, not at the foot of the climb. Contrast to the likes of Basso etc who went out early on.
Schlecks performance.
Hoogerland
Hushovd in the mountains.

+1, that's pretty much how I see it. You could specify 'Tony Martin winning the ITT', but you do mention the HTC performance in general.

ETA: I also think the worst excesses of blood doping are probably behind us. So: cleaner, but definitely not clean.

 

[Franklin]

+1, that's pretty much how I see it. You could specify 'Tony Martin winning the ITT', but you do mention the HTC performance in general.

LMAO... so Tony Martin winning the GT is also proofing The Tour is as dirty as ever.... shouldn't we just add every stage winner?

Ok, this settles it. Everyone who does remotely well is by default indicated as a charger. There is just nothing that can be done about it.

 

[sniper]

what I don't get is how the 195 ampuls of EPO landing in the backtrunk of a BMC soigneur are suddenly lost in the discussion.
Thanks to those ampuls, at least we know for sure that the winner of this year's tour as well as his entire team was (micro)doped to the gills. And indeed, Evans was stronger than ever before.

Also, we know that the French have reinvented doping.
Just look at the crap Europcar's teammanager is spouting.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/europcar-to-strengthen-squad-after-success-at-the-tour-de-france

So overall, the tour might be cleaner, but the big winners (Evans and Europcar) sure as hell aren't.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

I think a lot of the problems with the discussion lie's with 'The Hitches' poorly worded thread title and the OP (Sorry Hitch) which confuses what people said (who?where).

Today, i heard the ES studio say they thought the Tour is now cleaner.

Then Harmonn, who often declares people clean because he likes them, said, with so much excitement in his voice, that people were now saying the Tour is clean, and then went on with joy about how great this news was.

A lot of people on the forum, preumably but not all, Cadel fanboys, have said Cadel is the first clean winner. One asks if there is something more than xenophobia preventing them from saying that Sastre was also clean.
<snipped for brevity>

Did people say clean or cleaner?
Because if anyone said clean - then one word dismisses that theory, Kolobnev - and of course we still have to wait before all the samples have gone through there first round of testing.

So - in short, cleaner - it certainly looks better than previous years - clean, no, no Tour ever will be.

 

[JMBeaushrimp]

what I don't get is how the 195 ampuls of EPO landing in the backtrunk of a BMC soigneur are suddenly lost in the discussion.
Thanks to those ampuls, at least we know for sure that the winner of this year's tour as well as his entire team was (micro)doped to the gills. And indeed, Evans was stronger than ever before.

Also, we know that the French have reinvented doping.
Just look at the crap Europcar's teammanager is spouting.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/europcar-to-strengthen-squad-after-success-at-the-tour-de-france

So overall, the tour might be cleaner, but the big winners (Evans and Europcar) sure as hell aren't.

Right... 'cause the police allowed him to leave with his stash...

I try to play nice, but I can't help but call you a 'tard...

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

I think a lot of the problems with the discussion lie's with 'The Hitches' poorly worded thread title and the OP (Sorry Hitch) which confuses what people said (who?where).



Did people say clean or cleaner?
Because if anyone said clean - then one word dismisses that theory, Kolobnev - and of course we still have to wait before all the samples have gone through there first round of testing.

So - in short, cleaner - it certainly looks better than previous years - clean, no, no Tour ever will be.

I think the interesting follow up to this is - if we assume that the tour is 'cleaner' then is it because fear of the French testers, police, biopassport etc is having an impact on teams and their doping strategies, or is it simply that with the likes of Geox missing, RS/Astana/JVDB crashing etc etc, produced a situation where the stars aligned and enabled 'cleaner' riders like Cunego, Voeckler, Rolland etc to rise into positions they would not have normally found themselves in.

The other question is what does the return of long range attacks signify? We're so used to trains and then a sprint up the final mountain. The last guys I saw making moves like that were Rasmussen and Sella.

 

[Franklin]

what I don't get is how the 195 ampuls of EPO landing in the backtrunk of a BMC soigneur are suddenly lost in the discussion.
Thanks to those ampuls, at least we know for sure that the winner of this year's tour as well as his entire team was (micro)doped to the gills. And indeed, Evans was stronger than ever before.

Did you check the date stamp? That is years ago...

And yes, BMC has a deservedly dark reputation, so it seems rather likely that he's dirty. But there is a surprising lack of proof.

 

[JMBeaushrimp]

I think the interesting follow up to this is - if we assume that the tour is 'cleaner' then is it because fear of the French testers, police, biopassport etc is having an impact on teams and their doping strategies, or is it simply that with the likes of Geox missing, RS/Astana/JVDB crashing etc etc, produced a situation where the stars aligned and enabled 'cleaner' riders like Cunego, Voeckler, Rolland etc to rise into positions they would not have normally found themselves in.

The other question is what does the return of long range attacks signify? We're so used to trains and then a sprint up the final mountain. The last guys I saw making moves like that were Rasmussen and Sella.

I think it's a whole lotta variables that happened to fall into place...

Gianetti's squad not being there, tonnes of crashing (which hit the main contenders more than usual), Tommy V's group getting some extra time after the Vino crash, the Shleckers being pussies, and the peloton suffering from puckered *ssholes due to the various (and seriously heavy) investigations going on.

Whatever it was, I liked it. If I imagine what would have happened had the other grimpeurs not hit the pavement, then I'm filled with the fear of another boring tempo ride up the alps.

At least this was some good racing.

 

[Cobblestones]

LMAO... so Tony Martin winning the GT is also proofing The Tour is as dirty as ever.... shouldn't we just add every stage winner?

Ok, this settles it. Everyone who does remotely well is by default indicated as a charger. There is just nothing that can be done about it.

Please remind us what the 'doping index' of Martin was on the leaked UCI list.

 

[Franklin]

I think the interesting follow up to this is - if we assume that the tour is 'cleaner' then is it because fear of the French testers, police, biopassport etc is having an impact on teams and their doping strategies, or is it simply that with the likes of Geox missing, RS/Astana/JVDB crashing etc etc, produced a situation where the stars aligned and enabled 'cleaner' riders like Cunego, Voeckler, Rolland etc to rise into positions they would not have normally found themselves in.

Perhaps, though it seems so farfetched to have Cunego who did well in the LA era ranked as cleaner. But once again we have little against him.

About the why.. I think sponsors are getting tired of the troubles also count. For example Rabo (hardly angels, I know) did start to manage the team themselves after Rasmussen. This surely will have hindered team-wide doping and made it the riders responsibility. .

But this is all conjecture.

The other question is what does the return of long range attacks signify? We're so used to trains and then a sprint up the final mountain. The last guys I saw making moves like that were Rasmussen and Sella.

I'm having a hard time deducing anything from that one. We have very dirty examples (Chiapucci, Virenque, Rasmussen) and clean ones (Winnen, Breu, van Impe). Clean as in pre-epo

I guess the most we can say there isn't a train with super domestiques anymore.


* And yes I'm an arrogant snot-face... I guess I should apologize publicly for that. Still doesn't make me budge though

 

[Dr. Maserati]

I think the interesting follow up to this is - if we assume that the tour is 'cleaner' then is it because fear of the French testers, police, biopassport etc is having an impact on teams and their doping strategies, or is it simply that with the likes of Geox missing, RS/Astana/JVDB crashing etc etc, produced a situation where the stars aligned and enabled 'cleaner' riders like Cunego, Voeckler, Rolland etc to rise into positions they would not have normally found themselves in.

I said it earlier, but yes it is more from fear of the French authorities (AFLD, OCLESP, Police) than the actual testing.

Obviously if Radioshack or Astana were 'dirty' then them falling off their bikes does not mean a 'cleaner Tour' - it just means that those contenders are not there.

The other question is what does the return of long range attacks signify? We're so used to trains and then a sprint up the final mountain. The last guys I saw making moves like that were Rasmussen and Sella.

Not sure about long range attacks - that was more a result of riders (A.Schleck, Contador) already having lost time and this being the only strategy available.

However, what was noticeable was that there was no dominant team controlling the race - it was often just the GC contenders left.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

I think it's a whole lotta variables that happened to fall into place...

Gianetti's squad not being there, tonnes of crashing (which hit the main contenders more than usual), Tommy V's group getting some extra time after the Vino crash, the Shleckers being pussies, and the peloton suffering from puckered *ssholes due to the various (and seriously heavy) investigations going on.

Whatever it was, I liked it. If I imagine what would have happened had the other grimpeurs not hit the pavement, then I'm filled with the fear of another boring tempo ride up the alps.

At least this was some good racing.

I tend to agree. I tend to suspect that for various reasons the doping has been dialed back in some races - we can see in the Giro and TOC that there are still plenty of eyebrow raising performances. But even so I wonder what would have happened if say RS had made it to stages 18 and 19 with Horner, LL, Kloeden, Brankovic, Popovych and HZ all healthy if we would have ended up with a super-train. What would have been the effect if we had had JVDB and Jelle in the mountains together. Likewise, if Ricco hadn't botched up his DIY transfusion he would have probably been there for Vac, alongside BL and Hoogerland.

We could easily have had a top ten with Horner, Kloeden, Levi, Ricco, Wiggums, JVDB, Vino + Dertie and the Schlecks in but for mishaps.

This is why I would be a little bit hesitant to say 'cleaner tour' for one, and why I would also be a bit careful about viewing it as a success for the biopassport and investigations.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

or is it simply that with the likes of Geox missing, RS/Astana/JVDB crashing etc etc, produced a situation where the stars aligned and enabled 'cleaner' riders like Cunego, Voeckler, Rolland etc to rise into positions they would not have normally found themselves in.

That would be a very strange conclusion to reach because you wouldn't expect any of the pavement crew to outclimb the Schlecks, Sanchez, Contador or Evans. Furthermore, those "cleaner" riders did not just take advantage of a serious lack of depth, they actually stayed close to the stars. There is only 3 plausible explanations for this.

A) The stars were slower than in previous years.
B) The "cleans" were faster than in previous years.
C) Combination of A and B.

 

[JMBeaushrimp]

I tend to agree. I tend to suspect that for various reasons the doping has been dialed back in some races - we can see in the Giro and TOC that there are still plenty of eyebrow raising performances. But even so I wonder what would have happened if say RS had made it to stages 18 and 19 with Horner, LL, Kloeden, Brankovic, Popovych and HZ all healthy if we would have ended up with a super-train. What would have been the effect if we had had JVDB and Jelle in the mountains together. Likewise, if Ricco hadn't botched up his DIY transfusion he would have probably been there for Vac, alongside BL and Hoogerland.

We could easily have had a top ten with Horner, Kloeden, Levi, Ricco, Wiggums, JVDB, Vino + Dertie and the Schlecks in but for mishaps.

This is why I would be a little bit hesitant to say 'cleaner tour' for one, and why I would also be a bit careful about viewing it as a success for the biopassport and investigations.

The bolded makes me want to puke...

Maybe they should mandate a first week of strong-man contests and fist-fights at the Tour. Weed out the scrawny climbers (save for a few), and then have at 'er...

We shall see at the Vuelta who's really on the gas. I'm betting on Contador doing a fair bit of ***-handing after this one. Giro all over again...

 

[TourOfSardinia]

I wonder if any of the GC contenders will fail the biopassport for the same reason as Franco Pelizzotti was caught: rising, rather than falling, HGB (hemoglobin concentration) over the 3 weeks of the tour

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=10780&page=27

 

[sniper]

Did you check the date stamp? That is years ago...

And yes, BMC has a deservedly dark reputation, so it seems rather likely that he's dirty. But there is a surprising lack of proof.

we're not discussing proof here, we're discussing indications.

 

[sniper]

Right... 'cause the police allowed him to leave with his stash...

I try to play nice, but I can't help but call you a 'tard...

if it wasn't so darn obvious, i'd call you a shrimp.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

That would be a very strange conclusion to reach because you wouldn't expect any of the pavement crew to outclimb the Schlecks, Sanchez, Contador or Evans. Furthermore, those "cleaner" riders did not just take advantage of a serious lack of depth, they actually stayed close to the stars. There is only 3 plausible explanations for this.

A) The stars were slower than in previous years.
B) The "cleans" were faster than in previous years.
C) Combination of A and B.

Depends which Horner/LL/Kloeden were going to turn up. If the Horner/LL from TOC had turned up then who knows. Lotto look so charged they are glowing, if JVDB is on the same mix as Gilbert and JV then I would have expected a very strong performance. The same goes for Wiggins. I think we would have had a different style of race and a different GC with them in and I would have expected those riders to be prominent.

For example, if there hadn't been the crashes that took out Vino, JVDB etc then the race wouldn't have slowed down, the break might well have been caught, or TV might not have moved into Yellow, etc etc.

If you re-ran this race I suspect you would not have a GC top ten with Cunego, Voeckler, Rolland in it and I suspect we might not be saying 'cleaner'.

 

[RdBiker]

One train of though I've been pondering with:

The French riders underperforming from 2000
-> French sponsors scaling down their team budgets
-> 2009 Bouygues Telecom & Cofidis drop out of ProTour due to poor results
-> It gets increasingly hard to get new French sponsors
-> 2010 At the very last minute Bouygues gets Europcar as a new (low budget) sponsor
-> 2011 Europcar produces best performances by French riders since 1998

I find it extremely fascinating that when French sponsors are finally starting to lose their belief on their riders performing one team with a new sponsor produces great results. I'm not pointing any fingers but to me it looks like Europcar finally brought major doping back to French teams

 

[Winterfold]

The Tour may or may not be getting cleaner but I think we will always be able to rely on The Clinic overdosing on FAIL.

Do you any of you take any pleasure from cycling?

I'm not addressing that at peeps who think they all dope and dont care and enjoy it for what it is - but the ones who think they all dope and think it is a sin

Why are times significantly slower? bikes are a ****load lighter and a gazillion times stiffer and the riders are going slower. they cant be training hard enough.

 

[Cloxxki]

Then, the notorious dopers, have had cases before or just declared such by The Clinic, seem to have had a really hard time to stay on their bikes. Like HWSNBN in his last Tour. Lots of scrutiny with regards to doping. Falling performances throughout. Very, VERY strong prologue for an old guy, and then just fading, holding back his $$$ domestiques.
Contador had hard times and recovered mostly on class. Basso, well into the game again after doing time, is still but a shadow of the rider he was pre-Puerto. He "should" be winning tours easily now, HWSNBN out of the way.
The presumed supertalents or superdopers may have for a significant part have been top responders to their optimal programs, and now taking it a bit more easy, are losing a lot of their edge over the also rans.

I would have hated to see the RS train make up half the top-10 though. It would not have sped up the climbs much, but the sport does well without them. Better to doubt the front runners than to knwo they are dirty.

 

[9000ft]

Why do you hate cycling and all that that is good, wholesome and pure? Don't you know the clinic is were the real cycling fans hang out and offer expert insight?

 

[RdBiker]

The Tour may or may not be getting cleaner but I think we will always be able to rely on The Clinic overdosing on FAIL.

Do you any of you take any pleasure from cycling?

I'm not addressing that at peeps who think they all dope and dont care and enjoy it for what it is - but the ones who think they all dope and think it is a sin

Why are times significantly slower? bikes are a ****load lighter and a gazillion times stiffer and the riders are going slower. they cant be training hard enough.

I'm not contending the fact that times are slower than in the first years of 2000. I just find it funny that people bring it up now when the times have been slower for nearly five years I agree: cycling is probably cleaner now than ten years ago. I define cleaner as: doping having less affect on performances.

To say that people have suddenly stopped doping in a single year is ridiculous and can be explained only (IMO) by the French needing an excuse as to why their riders are suddenly able to keep up with the so called dopers. But why on earth would cyclists have suddenly stopped doping? There's no one new doping test announced, the blood passport is a few years old and known doping methods are still impossible to test for. Cyclists may dope less than before but they certainly haven't stopped.

 

[skippy]

I agree with " winterfold " , the only bikes you guys see are those in magazines !

Asked for a moratorium on " Doping of the TDF racers " and "dr m. " pipes up with spurious comments and gets the thread locked !

Family name is real and "resting " is that i am doing little on the bike after several months of giving my " doctors advice ( embolisms ! ) a wide berth ".

Reading my blogs could put you in the picture but then there is nothing other than "sinitron" to THIN the blood for you to pick over !

UCI will over the next couple of weeks give you plenty to speculate about if you need to exercise .

Perhaps i will find time to read the efforts you people made on the results for 2009 & 2010 , could be there are the same sort of behaviour patterns ?