xfimpg

Sorry about that... I saw the peloton go by and couldn't resist taking my pen out.

Fat Boy

So, in his own way, Pate has a poker face as well. The trick is consistency.

patentcad

Is it just me or does Cadel's team suck pretty hard? He's isolated on every friggin climb. No team mates within half a mile. If he wins the Tour it won't be because of his team. That guy needs a new team for sure.

FightingPanther

Does anybody know if both shlecks and sastre are under contract to stay with team csc next year?

dutret

saxobank next year but yes for the schlecks and maybe for sastre.

Brian Ratliff

There's a guy on my team that's like that, with the poker face and all. We'll be climbing, or actually, he'll be climbing amongst our true climbers (I cannot keep up with him up a hill), and he's got the smoothest form of the bunch. Just... smooth... like butter. You'd think that he were pedaling on level ground instead of up a 10% grade.

Then, as he and our best climber are battling it up the hill, about 3/4 of the way up he'll sit up and say "191" meaning his heartrate. Done. Two seconds before he blows you'd never tell. Our best climber is our best climber because he lives on a steady diet of hill repeats and when said teammate says "191", he attacks, even if he's in the red as well.

BananaTugger

Sastre is on until the end of this season.

patentcad

Not for nothing, but I wouldn't get my Pearl Izumis in a twist over most of these mopes putting 30 seconds or a minute into Cadel in the mountains. None of these dudes can TT within 2 minutes of Evans in a 53km TT, except for Denny Menchov. That's who Cadel really has to focus on.

I think that what Evans has to do is stay on Menchov's wheel and ride his typical TT, and he probably wins the Tour. Any of those other guys will do well to be within 2 minutes of a good Evans TT performance in a 53km TT.

dutret

So is that a definite no for next year?

BananaTugger

We'll see when we get there.

Riis and Sastre will likely start talking about contracts after the Vuelta.

carpediemracing 

I wonder what will happen with the (not-WADA but I don't know who) saying that there are a lot of positives that aren't positives. There are metabolites of EPO but because they don't match WADA's definition of EPO they aren't considered positives. Whoever this not-WADA is is claiming that WADA is sitting on a whole pile of EPO positives.

Also, I got into the nasty habit of using ...'s when using a corporate chat program. If I kept typing, even if I didn't know what to say, it kept the other person from interrupting. Also since some people had as many as 30-40 chat windows up (think a very busy sys admin who has set his phone on silent/private), to "call" someone you'd just type "..." and enter to get your chat window to flash on his screen. If it was really busy you'd repeat it a lot. Usually such people are not in demand until something blows up, then everyone wants to get ahold of them. However, in a static type place like BF, I have to agree that it is very distracting. It's like pausing... for... a... breath... between... each... phrase... or... semi... phrase.

Perhaps it's a TN thing? (I'm not from around there).

Finally, although there are some physiological signs of taking illegal performance enhancing products, most are not visible. Yeah, I've heard about the "yellow eye" of Ben Johnson, or the cro-mag forehead from HGH, but having seen a couple people I swear look like they're doping but they're not even athletes.... well, such stereotypes are just that, stereotypes. If such "symptoms" proved drug use then all the blood and urine tests are just a huge conspiracy to make a lot of money. Or is that what was implied?

cdr

merckxxx

Perhaps it's a TN thing? (I'm not from around there).



No its not a TN thing. I will try and keep my punctuation to acceptable forum standards in the future so everyone, regardless of where you are from, will be able to
fully enjoy my observations.

kraftwerk 

where can I get some of this dope everybody is talking about?