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What gear is Horner on to make such outrageous statements like this ?

whiteboytrash

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Now I know I really want to give away this sport..... some of the biggest krap I think ever spoken from a cyclist..... what break a collarbone, then your knee and then you can beat Sastre ?
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No one even got to see what I could do at the Giro,” Horner said. “We weren’t allowed to attack until after the (stage 12) time trial. My job was to save energy in case Levi won the TT and was in the (leader’s) jersey. I was there to lead him up last climbs, and I completely agreed with the team tactic.

“But up until I crashed, I was never under any real hurt where I was going to be dropped. What I saw was Sastre was ridden off my wheel. At that point, no one at the Giro was riding better than I was. Maybe later on during the race the form changes, but I normally get better during racing, not worse.”

and then this one: - yes you to can win the Giro if you give up junk food !


Asked why he is riding so well at an age when many riders have called it a career, Horner said his racing weight is lower than it’s ever been.

“At the Tour of California one of the team physio guys was laughing that I was too fat,” he said. “After California I had two weeks off with a broken knee, and I quit eating all fast foods and lost some weight. I am 139.5 pounds now, where in the past the lowest I’ve weighed is 145, and I’m usually racing at 148 or even 150 pounds. It makes quite a bit of difference.”
 
I like Horner and all but I'm guessing these are excerpts from a longer interview/conversation. If he is riding this well and his confidence in being competitive in grand tours is at a new high then I hope that he gets a chance to show what he's capable of soon. He's not exactly a spring chicken.
As far as his riding Sastre off of his wheel that's easy to say when you didn't ride the entire race, injury or not being the reason. Sastre also gets stronger as a grand tour progresses. If had to put my money on one of the two it would definitely be Sastre. I don't think Horner has been close to the podium in any of the major stage races in Europe, grand tour or week long. It would be interesting to see what he can do if he stays off the junk food but I doubt there's any room in the Astana strategy for individual goals in stage races other than with Contador, Armstrong, Kloden and Leipheimer.
 
whiteboytrash said:
No one even got to see what I could do at the Giro,” Horner said. “We weren’t allowed to attack until after the (stage 12) time trial. My job was to save energy in case Levi won the TT and was in the (leader’s) jersey."

When he signed on with Bruyneel, he must have known this would be his fate.
 
Mar 19, 2009
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ElChingon said:
Man don't say we lost Horner to the Omerta too... this is really stinking up big time :(
Uh...whatever Horner may be doing now didn't start when he signed on with Bruyneel. What he may not be doing is a different matter.
 
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Do you all know of his ride with Saturn at the Redlands Classic? He, Nathan O'Neill and Tommy D basically did a Team Time Trial away from the group. O'Neill has since been caught, Tommy D hasn't been the same, and Horner rides for Astana. Coincidence? You guys can make the call.

Edit: Looks like Epi beat me to it.
 
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Epicycle said:
Uh...whatever Horner may be doing now didn't start when he signed on with Bruyneel. What he may not be doing is a different matter.

Yea, that guy with the reverse 13, stolenunderground.com ? had written some stuff about Horner in the past, especially during his highlights of his time on Saturn. I wonder if the StolenUnderground dude is still around? Maybe time to have him peek around if possible, or is he already here ;)
 
Sucks that we all find this depressing (me too).

39 year old climbing domestique, improves like Barry Bonds in the twilight of his career, to drop the Tour winner and arguably best climber in the world, with confidence.

images
 

whiteboytrash

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ElChingon said:
Yea, that guy with the reverse 13, stolenunderground.com ? had written some stuff about Horner in the past, especially during his highlights of his time on Saturn. I wonder if the StolenUnderground dude is still around? Maybe time to have him peek around if possible, or is he already here ;)



I do remember Horner making comments some years back about USPS. He saying that it was stupid what they were doing. An entire team riding 100km on the front of the peleton to a base of a mountain then only losing 2 team-members in the up the climb for Lance to break away with 3km to go.
 
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ElChingon said:
Yea, that guy with the reverse 13, stolenunderground.com ? had written some stuff about Horner in the past, especially during his highlights of his time on Saturn. I wonder if the StolenUnderground dude is still around? Maybe time to have him peek around if possible, or is he already here ;)

Matt DeCanio is the guy, and StolenUnderground is not dedicated to the P90X MLM???!!! Um......that is really quite surreal to me.
 
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I recall that as well. Also read the entire Horner interview before judging wbt's conclusions and form your own...

http://velonews.com/article/93006/horner-healing-hopeful-for-tour

Its pretty amazing true for Horner to come into such good form at this age. I think he's always been one of the smarter riders in the peleton tactically, and almost single handedly dragged Evans to the TdF podium on Silence.

I don't think he is saying he could have won the Giro, he's just saying he had good form and would have liked to put it to the test but he had to ride for Levi. If anyone knows their job it is him. Whether he is a doper or not i don't know, but he seems like a great teammate and he's always fun to watch and to hear commentary from.
 
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While he did look solid in the early part of the Giro it is just his opinion of his form. Talk is cheap in my opinion, my take is he is trying to make sure of his tour spot in the first place and so he might as well say he was way strong.
 
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That's exactly the way I would take it as well. A guy who was feeling strong being happy to talk about how he was feeling in form.

You've never done that to your buddies in the bar after a ride where you felt good?

Now if he'd gone the whole Giro staying with DiLuca and Menchov, then maybe I'd be wondering what he's on.
 
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Thoughtforfood said:
Matt DeCanio is the guy, and StolenUnderground is now dedicated to the P90X MLM???!!! Um......that is really quite surreal to me.

Just took a peek at his site and wow what a change! All the doping accusations and propaganda are gone now. The site looks like similar but without the stuff he had before, I miss it :(
 
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ElChingon said:
Just took a peek at his site and wow what a change! All the doping accusations and propaganda are gone now. The site looks like similar but without the stuff he had before, I miss it :(

But if you sign up for the team and then get 3 more people to sign up, you get a 25% profit from any items they buy. In fact, if you just get them to get 3 more people and so on, and so on, and so on, you can make your living off of it. Some people have earned 6 and 7 figures...........

Really sad. I kept expecting it to be a joke, but the going further in still had the same message. Oh well, better people than him have been hooked.......
 
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Thoughtforfood said:
But if you sign up for the team and then get 3 more people to sign up, you get a 25% profit from any items they buy. In fact, if you just get them to get 3 more people and so on, and so on, and so on, you can make your living off of it. Some people have earned 6 and 7 figures...........

Really sad. I kept expecting it to be a joke, but the going further in still had the same message. Oh well, better people than him have been hooked.......

It looks like the Omerta got to him as well, he's off his soapbox and now onto his salesman/pyramid building phase in life. I wish I would of saved some of the stuff he posted, it was great, but he has so much junk on his site it would make myspace look like a one button website.
 
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Pity Horner worded it the way he did, but I just think he was trying to say he was in good form. I've always liked Horner and was amazed when I saw the photos of him giving a fallen rider a dink home, bike and all.

_MG_7721.jpg
 
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elapid said:
Pity Horner worded it the way he did, but I just think he was trying to say he was in good form. I've always liked Horner and was amazed when I saw the photos of him giving a fallen rider a dink home, bike and all.

_MG_7721.jpg

There was a caption contest for that photo on one of the cycling forums last year...
 
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Good (10) days

slcbiker said:
That's exactly the way I would take it as well. A guy who was feeling strong being happy to talk about how he was feeling in form.

You've never done that to your buddies in the bar after a ride where you felt good?

I agree at least this far. I think the guy just had the best 10 days of his cycling life. Unfortunately it wasn't his job as a good domestique to go for it on his own and he crashed out before it was finished. And I don't take it as whining either, just a bit of crowing. Unfortunately on this forum a whole lot of people assume a good performance automatically means juiced and that's where the discussion goes.
 
lookkg386 said:
While he did look solid in the early part of the Giro it is just his opinion of his form. Talk is cheap in my opinion, my take is he is trying to make sure of his tour spot in the first place and so he might as well say he was way strong.

Exactly. People are blowing it way out of proportion; it's just talk. Don't see any connection with Omerta, the guy just obviously felt really good and crowed about it a bit. I like Horner but no way would he have been able to beat Sastre, whether working for Levi or not.
 
Wtf?

Hey, the guy was on form at the Giro and he knows it. Anybody who was there knows it. Why shouldn't he talk with the press about it. If you were looking to get paid to ride for another season or two you'd talk about it too. Any athlete I've ever met who was at the top of his game certainly knew it when he was. If you're seriously kicking *** in a group that select, you tend to be one of the first to know.

As to the rampant speculation regarding the inspiration for his excellent form, chatter on... that's what Forum geeks do. Your preoccupation with this thought train is comical. Do you really think you know who is and who isn't? Wow!... that's hubris.

Here's a thought to speculate on... every cyclist hero you've ever had doped! All of them... By your own line of consistent logic espoused here daily, how could they ever have done what they did with out it. if Coppi or Merckx never did CERA well it wasn't available, but they would have. Do you think Tom Simpson was the only guy in the peloton on amphetamines. Every cycling generation made full use of any advantage, real or perceived, that they could. If the science and thus the advantage is better now, guess what?... today's riders have to deal with testing, and the likely prospect of expulsion and disgrace, most previous generations did not.

So now you have a new element of competition in cycling; Beat the Testers. Should they give a jersey for it, or should it be a team competition? If you are all correct, then the best teams in cycling have to have the best doping programs. How else could they do it?

The difference is that when you make statements like, "arguably the best climber in the world", that's based on actual performance and results, not speculation and opinion. When you accuse a rider of doping, until he's busted, you're just talking sh!t, which is what you all do here anyway. He may well be, and your speculation may be accurate, but he's winning over the Testers right now, because if it's there for everybody, they are not finding it like they should. Seems like the Testers need to up their game.

The stakes in this competition are high. Lose once and it can end a career. But high stakes don't mean riders won't compete... they'll just get really good at it,... or they won't.

It's all part of cycling and it always has been. If you love it, hate it, or don't give a sh!t, it's not going to change, and neither is Baseball, Football, Formula 1, Track and Field. But lest you think that parity in sport is dead, I am reminded of a quote by David Millar, "I took EPO and it didn't make me Lance Armstrong". So it would seem that the Boonen's and Basso's and Schleck's and yes, Armstrong's would still rise to their podiums either way.

The risk is theirs to take, the potential rewards justify it for many. The playing field in any competition will never be level, and competitors will never shy away from a possible advantage.
 

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