Re: Re:
Nomad said:
Whose "they?" The UCI I presume? And what about Bardet & Aru yesterday - did they have fully charged batteries or was it possibly human effort when they attacked up the finish?
And what will happen today on the three major climbs? If Froome attacks on the last climb - motor on? If he appear to struggle on and can't respond to any attacks - motor not functioning or not allowed for this stage.
I read your narratives everyday and try to follow them applying your thesis as I watch the Tour. The problem is it's too perplexing to figure out, that "if" motors are being used, then who's using a motor or not, or whose motor is functional or not when attacks occur or riders get unhitched on the climbs. For example, yesterday when Little Nairo got dropped on the climb, I tried to decide based on your theory if whether his motor was not functional or he wasn't using one...or my thinking that Nairo is still toast from the Giro and consequently having a bad Tour...who could have imagined.
Cheers Nomad. Good to know you're at least pondering on these things. A high degree of scepticism is essential if we want anything to change, and it's quite alright if we end up disagreeing on certain issues as long as we keep an open mind.
First off, we seem to be in total agreement that at present there are much more questions than answers.
Bardet and Aru are both motorized in my view, but clearly there is still human effort involved.
Current procycling is a game of talent, PEDs, and motors. All three of them.
Which of those three factors has most weight, that will be different from one rider to another.
I am quite confident the UCI, teams, and bike brands are all involved in motordoping, but I honestly have no idea how they are keeping it all in check. I think they're trying to control it as much as possible, but obviously they can't control everything or everyone.
I don't doubt there is a lot of cash flowing behind the scenes, related to match fixing and motors. But I'm not pretending to know how exactly, or from which hands to which hands.
Quintana is an intriguing one. I have no idea, to be honest, why he's so bad atm.
Could be motor related, could be dope related, could be pure exhaustion, could be anything.
Do I generally think he uses motors? Yes I do.
Movistar are among the most motor-dodgy teams around (working with Simon Smart; the "hide it" incident; Valverde's performances). But at the same time I've never really seen any Quintana performance that screams MOTOR, except maybe his improvement in TTs.
Having said that, I think many are riding around with motordoping without it being very obvious.
Sastre 2008 TdF springs to mind. He is rumored by insiders to have been motorized that year.
But did you see anything out of the oridnary in his performance? He was so unspectacular in that year, that even here in the Clinic some have touted him as a clean winner.
Not so long ago I was in here myself defending Lance Armstrong against motor accusations.
I was adamant he couldn't have used a motor. After all, I had never seen him accellerate like Froome (in saddle, with superhigh cadence, superfast accelleration).
But since then I've come to realize that it was a mistake to use Froome (or Cancellara) as a yard stick to determine motor use. The vast majority of motorized performances will be much less obvious.
As some have suggested, it stands to reason that many riders only use motors on the flat parts of a stage, just to give their legs a break. So for some riders, flat stages in the TdF are simply extra rest days. And so we, as viewers, don't get to see anything suspicious in those cases.
I remember Dan Martin last year saying he's never been so fresh in week three as he was now in 2016.
Whether that was because of an extra blood bag or because of clever use of motors (or both), is anybody's guess.
Ventoux 2013, Froome made Contador look like a rooky. Yet Contador is himself very suspicious for motors. Goes to show that it is not a binary "motor vs. no motor" affair. It's much more complicated.
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