Vandevelde interview - hope for a clean peloton

[The Hitch]

2000 had far less positive tests and doping scandals than 1998.

Must have been a clean year

 

[Libertine Seguros]

di Luca and Bosisio weren't 2008 either. Valverde's actual offences that he was sanctioned for date back to 2004, and he wasn't sanctioned until 2009 by CONI anyhow. Casper was cleared. Rebellin wasn't caught until after April 2009, though his 2008 sample turned out positive in the end. You missed off Priamo though. He didn't test positive for anything, but Sella turned him in.

Oh yea, that's an important factor. In 2008, you had at least one high profile rider who was caught, and told investigators everything, which led to further catches - Emanuele Sella. People were still being caught from that for quite some time - to the point where busts were occurring in Italy and Sella was having to come out and declare he was nothing to do with it because he was becoming a hate figure among the péloton there. You also had the ongoing investigations based on Sinkewitz's testimonies. You also had a test for something that riders thought was undetectable - but that stayed in the system for a LONG time, meaning that they couldn't avoid being caught if they were tested. Things that leave the system quicker are harder to pick up that way.

Fewer positive tests does not necessarily mean a cleaner péloton. It depends on what the substances of choice are, how easy they are to test for, and how moderated they are.

 

[Race Radio]

My point: I suspect the pool of lurkers is far larger than you think.

The pool is much larger.

I have only used the Race Radio username here and seldom read other forums. I signed up on twitter as a lark and within weeks had over 1,000 followers. Now it is over 6,000. I have posted some links to some files here that have received well over 2,000 views.

Of course some of the groupies would prefer everyone to think it is just a couple of haters.

 

[JRTinMA]

The pool is much larger.

I have only used the Race Radio username here and seldom read other forums. I signed up on twitter as a lark and within weeks had over 1,000 followers. Now it is over 6,000. I have posted some links to some files here that have received well over 2,000 views.

Of course some of the groupies would prefer everyone to think it is just a couple of haters.

12, even JV agrees.

 

[thehog]

12, even JV agrees.

Begs the question if it really was only 12 why a DS would even bother posting here. I mean surely he has better things to do - like cleaning bikes and working on the internal anti-doping program that doesn't exist

Seriously why bother if you're running a 10m dollar per year team with 262 race days around the world? If you got some spare time would you reply back to a readership of 12 users? Not likely. You'd have a rest or post elsewhere. It's a lot more than 12 and they know it.

Maybe one day then CyclingNews team will give us the stats on page views etc.

 

[Race Radio]

Maybe one day then CyclingNews team will give us the stats on page views etc.

They already do it. The clinic has multiple threads that have over 100,000 views. One even has over 1,000,000

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/forumdisplay.php?f=20&daysprune=-1&order=desc&sort=views

Those 12 guys sure are busy

 

[blackcat]

JV was pretty quick to say



We push for Garmin to embed some kind of monitor because they are perhaps the only team that would do such a thing. Far more interesting would be inserting someone in RSNT or SKY. I wonder how open they would be to the idea?

yeah.

They are held to a different standard. But they to follow thru for credibility eh?

 

[blackcat]

If I am in JV's position I would do the exact, same thing. Anytime you have a chance to open the kimono with the top rider you do it. You also have to show publicly you are in the game, everyone does it. If we listened to Lefevre we would think he is about to signed every rider who wins a race.

I respectfully disagree, I don think that the position can be reconciled with advancing a clean ethic

 

[Boeing]

The pool is much larger.

I have only used the Race Radio username here and seldom read other forums. I signed up on twitter as a lark and within weeks had over 1,000 followers. Now it is over 6,000. I have posted some links to some files here that have received well over 2,000 views.

Of course some of the groupies would prefer everyone to think it is just a couple of haters.

now you allegedly have gorupies. righteous rock n roll lad for what its worth I m not counting you personal pronouns on twitter

 

[online-rider]

Really? I barely heard that untill 4 years or so ago. I certainly can't remember anyone claiming cycling was practically clean in the early 00's.

No you're right. In that era, if there was no talk of doping, people believed there was none. Well I did anyway.

 

[hiero2]

Begs the question if it really was only 12 why a DS would even bother posting here. I mean surely he has better things to do - like cleaning bikes and working on the internal anti-doping program that doesn't exist
...

They already do it. The clinic has multiple threads that have over 100,000 views. One even has over 1,000,000
. . .
Those 12 guys sure are busy

Would you guys knock it off? You are intentionally misreading and misrepresenting the original intent. And, thehog, you are making personal attacks while you are at it. NOT cool.

JV meant that the participants in this forum are a small group - and everything I see says that is true. All those views? Ask any online advertiser how many views they get compared to how many click-thru's compared THEN to how many ppl actually spend some time on the target site! It goes from millions do single digits in no time. How many people have POSTED in this thread? We have 296 replies. I will use 200 as probably a grossly exaggerated number of different responders. We have about 18K views of the thread at this point. We have about a dozen, maybe 20, posters with multiple answers in the thread - so I think the actual number of posters would be smaller than 200. A lot of those views are from those multiple posters, too. Every time I reply I increase the "views" count by about 5, since it takes me long enough to write this that I have to go back to the page again. And, I blip back and forth a bit, trying to make sure I am responding to what I thought I read.

We are not a large group. We might be considered a tiny bit influential, if you assume that we have 10 readers of the thread for every poster. Put that together with the original topic - which was a Vandevelde interview - and I can see why JV might have thought it worthwhile to jump in. But his point was that this is a small group. You aren't making the case otherwise by trying to discredit JV.

 

[hiero2]

I wonder about this. Take my example: I've been reading this forum with various stages of obsessiveness going back to 2006 (with some overlap early with the RoadBikeReview version). Only recently did something push me over the edge to actually post. I find it hard to believe I'm the only one.

My point: I suspect the pool of lurkers is far larger than you think.

I would strongly disagree - on two counts. I am aware that there is a large pool of "lurkers" - readers who do not post. I am usually one of them. But, it is not an astronomical pool. So, I disagree that it is larger than "you think", and I disagree that it is "far larger".

This thread, as I just stated in my last post, has under 300 posts at this time. Just guessing, but if we assume that 15 of us frequent posters have posted 6 times each, that cuts the number of people actually posting down to about 200. With 18K views, if we assume that the thread gets 5 "views" per actual person reading at least one post, that would cut the lurkers down to 3-4K.

Your average big-box church gets more people inside every Sunday than that. And how many of those lurkers read more than one or two posts?

 

[hrotha]

Honestly I don't see why the size and influence of the Clinic is relevant at all. And this goes both ways - not sure why Hog would believe JV wouldn't post here if he didn't think the Clinic is important in the grand scheme of things, and not sure why our being a minority matters when discussing the issues at hand.

 

[thehog]

Would you guys knock it off? You are intentionally misreading and misrepresenting the original intent. And, thehog, you are making personal attacks while you are at it. NOT cool.

JV meant that the participants in this forum are a small group - and everything I see says that is true. All those views? Ask any online advertiser how many views they get compared to how many click-thru's compared THEN to how many ppl actually spend some time on the target site! It goes from millions do single digits in no time. How many people have POSTED in this thread? We have 296 replies. I will use 200 as probably a grossly exaggerated number of different responders. We have about 18K views of the thread at this point. We have about a dozen, maybe 20, posters with multiple answers in the thread - so I think the actual number of posters would be smaller than 200. A lot of those views are from those multiple posters, too. Every time I reply I increase the "views" count by about 5, since it takes me long enough to write this that I have to go back to the page again. And, I blip back and forth a bit, trying to make sure I am responding to what I thought I read.

We are not a large group. We might be considered a tiny bit influential, if you assume that we have 10 readers of the thread for every poster. Put that together with the original topic - which was a Vandevelde interview - and I can see why JV might have thought it worthwhile to jump in. But his point was that this is a small group. You aren't making the case otherwise by trying to discredit JV.

Calm down.

Its British humor. We call it p1ss taking.

The same way JV thought it was funny to label the Clinic as a small group of "fanatics" of 12 posters.

No one was getting hurt, no one was being rude. All good fun.

 

[Polish]

Calm down.

Its British humor. We call it p1ss taking.

The same way JV thought it was funny to label the Clinic as a small group of "fanatics" of 12 posters.

No one was getting hurt, no one was being rude. All good fun.

I certainly agree with the "calm down". There's been a lot of nasty name calling in this thread. But not funny like "your father is a hamster". Nasty stuff.

But getting back to the "12 or so" forumites who think everybody dopes. Or almost everbody. Why does JV pick on them? That is biting the pinkie on the hand that feeds you. "Hamster dont bite me - this sunflower seed is for you fcol".

JV should be MUCH more concerned about fans who DO NOT CARE about the doping. Or worse, those fans who would prefer doping - either for excitement value or rider health value. There are thousands and thousands of those fans. "Cycling is like Kielbasa" fans.

"Oh, but they are not really fans". Ok, whatever.

And it is very difficult to differentiate yourself as "clean" without having "dirty". If you want to be successful as a "clean team", earn your bucks that way - there HAS to be dirty teams too. Also, its important to point out those dirty teams..."see, we are better than them...we deserve your sponsor money". That's cool. Good marketing. MBA's would approve.
So let the haters chant "cycling is dirty, cycling is dirty". At least to a certain extent. It can be overdone I suppose. Backfire. Is that why JV is giving them a slapdown here in the forum? Could be.


"We are loud and proud so people follow our example. Someday maybe the whole sport will be clean thanks to us". Maybe, maybe. Lol maybe.

I can't help imagining JV sitting at the pub with WADA. And with a very serious straight face saying "WADA, we are going to put you out of business. Someday the peloton will be clean. No more positives. Waste of time testing"

WADA looks back at JV with a serious WTF? face. Then they both break up laughing. Maybe then some fish slapping too.

 

[MarkvW]

Seems like good news to me. Cycling is still a filthy sport riddled with dopers, but presently a clean rider can succeed.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

Vaughters is ridiculous.

festinagirl ‏@festinagirl
@vaughters Zorxoli's statement that Drugs now “have a lower impact on the riders’ performance” seems key - not eradicated but controlled?

Jonathan Vaughters ‏@Vaughters
@festinagirl I would say controlled to the point that it's almost irrelevant, from a pure performance perspective.

http://twitter.com/Vaughters/status/218735807463297024

 

[Kiara is a rational girl]

Vaughters is ridiculous.



http://twitter.com/Vaughters/status/218735807463297024

Seems like a reasonable statement to me. But I assume you have evidence to the contrary.

 

[Cavalier]

This is the same Vaughters who also linked an article claiming more crashes in the tour were partial evidence of less doping. Take it with a large grain of salt.

 

[Runitout]

I don't know whether it gives JV less credit to think:

A) he is a naïf, blind to the actions and effects of those he trusts; or
B) he takes us all for chumps.

If half of what I've heard is true, JV should spend less time on Twitter and more time having honest talk with his riders.

 

[Climeon]

This is the same Vaughters who also linked an article claiming more crashes in the tour were partial evidence of less doping. Take it with a large grain of salt.

Who then said "sorry, but I see absolutely no historical/statistical correlation between crashes and doping/not doping."

 

[Cavalier]

Who then said "sorry, but I see absolutely no historical/statistical correlation between crashes and doping/not doping."

Well either he's trolling or there's some fairly odd schizophrenic behaviour going on there then as he introduced said article with: "Good news for the open minded and objective amongst you guys."

 

[Climeon]

Well either he's trolling or there's some fairly odd schizophrenic behaviour going on there then as he introduced said article with: "Good news for the open minded and objective amongst you guys."

I believe that he said it for the part of the article which talked about how dope use was on the decrease and not as effective as it used to be.

 

[Ferminal]

Vaughters is ridiculous.



http://twitter.com/Vaughters/status/218735807463297024

What else is JV supposed to say? He's got a GT winner now...

 

[will10]

What else is JV supposed to say? He's got a GT winner now...

Exactly. Omerta strikes again