Hezz

With the advent of a cleaner peloton eventually someone will win a grand tour clean. Parhaps it was Wiggins. However, what interest's me is the continuing probability of someone winning multiple grand tours clean. From what I am starting to see. A pattern is starting to emerge of possible clean riders having a super high peak perhaps once in a lifetime which can not be regained. Witness Wiggins and Gilbert, and a few others.

Of course with doping this trend of a lifetime peak still existed but it seems less dramatic. A rider could be more consistent from year to year. Look at Contador who is probably riding cleaner now due to the possibility of a lifetime ban. He does not seem to be able to reach the same level of fitness.

Caretaker

Perhaps it was Cadel Evans also. Evans has had multiple top five finishes in GTs and finished 3rd in this years Giro. He will be a contender in this years TdF.

Wiggins when fit and motivated will be a contender for any GT he enters.

Lifetime peak? The two riders you use as examples are still racing so who's to say they won't have another "lifetime peak".

Edit: Don't forget Vincenzo Nibali, won the Giro in 2013 but also won the Vuelta in 2010. A multiple GT winner.

xuwol7

Hard to believe they don't take some kind of performance enhancement, It seems like they are always 1 step ahead.

cthenn

I laughed when I read the first sentence "with the advent of a cleaner peloton". LOL based on what, because Armstrong is no longer around? What gives anyone any belief that the peloton is any cleaner? No one in the 90's and and early 2000's knew about or how to test for EPO, so what makes anyone think the cheats aren't simply ahead of the game again? Is anyone going to be surprised if in 10 years, there's a whole slew of guys who get busted for some substance that today the testers have no clue about? We got track cyclists winning the Tour de France and 39 year old guys winning road championships. SEEMS LEGIT. LMFAO please.

Kind of Blued

You make it sound like cyclists themselves are getting PhDs to develop their own homebrewed pharmaceuticals. That new GW-something drug was never even manufactured or approved, but hit the black market and riders have already been tested for, popped, and banned for using it. I first heard about it a couple of months ago. How exactly might an extremely effective performace-enhancing drug exist about which an anti-doping organization "have no clue about"?

txags92

Having a clue about it and being able to reliably test for it are two totally different topics. Just because WADA may know about a drug and suspect riders are using it doesn't mean they have a means to catch them doing so.

I just have a really hard time believing anybody is clean these days, and it has nothing to do with Lance getting caught. Because of all of the revelations that have come out and the success in identifying doctors and trainers who were linked to doping, just about anybody who wins anything these days has somebody working for the team who has some past tie to doping. With the number of times we later find out the winner was dirty, it is almost to the point when I am surprised to not hear about them later being busted. I can't totally convince myself that Wiggins poor showing this spring is totally unrelated to Leinders no longer working with Sky. Sad state of affairs for the sport, but I won't quit watching.

Hezz

I can understand your lack of faith in the current peloton and it is well warranted. I do not think that there will ever be completely clean racing. But we know that the big contender guys are at least not pumped up with much EPO because there climbing rates are significantly slower compared to previous years.

xuwol7

They are not taking that much peds? Thats like saying I am only a little pregnant.

I don't care,
I know it is a fact of life.
Back in the day I asked my personal Dr in Anaheim Ca about drugs in Athletics because I saw alot of famous athletes/stars come and go into his office, and he told me
that he legally gave players drugs and anti drugs to mask the tests.
They came in 1-4x's per week to get checked and that drugs were a part of the game.

I told him that if he got caught he may go to jail, but he reminded me that
I was there to get anti-anxiety/beta blockers because I was a Nationally ranked IPSC Champion.
I got my B-12 shots,GG and prednazone etc.
They didn't test National and World Class IPSC shooters....

Zinger

I think they are making progress with the blood/oxygen PEDs which is what really blows the race out. I think post #7 makes a point that the ETs are down some.
I think it more fair to the underdog less financed teams that they do.

gsteinb

ipsc?

dahoss2002

Evans is the first name I thought too!! But heck, only God knows.

Zinger

Says here that Leinders wasn't actually working for Sky during last year's TDF

That wouldn't prove anything either way but you'd think that Wiggins wouldn't have had his sights set so high this year if there were any self doubts about doing it clean. Injuries certainly happen.

txags92

Wiggins didnt win the tour in july...he won it with the training he did over the preceding 6 months...when Leinders was working with the team. I really am not trying to say Wiggins was dirty...because I really have no idea. My point was that all the past dopers getting caught has raised my cynicism level to the point that anytime you see a guy who is so dominant one year come back the next much weaker, you cant help but wonder about it. Injury or illness is obviously what you would have thought...but lack of doping cant be automatically ruled out either.

Caretaker

So if they hadn't been caught you wouldn't be so cynical, right?

xuwol7

The guys at the top of any sport are gifted with God given genetics (please let's not digress into a theology debate), hard work, commitment etc. but there will always be PED's to gain that extra edge.

They just don't sit around and take a magic drug and then they win, me thinks they really have to love pain (I may be S/M because I embrace the pain as it makes me feel alive, then gives me a reason to recover as I recover with as much passion as I ride, and to eat a lot of icecream).

My Dr. told me that they need to gain that extra edge because everyone was, which don't make it fair, but life is not fair and that was reality.

The best of the best are always going to go for that extra .00005 %, placebo perhaps but who am I to question this.
My IPSC winnings were helped by beta blockers, anti anxiety meds and vitamin B12 and GG shots etc.
Coffee and sometimes a nip of whiskey to level things out, esp at the World Level.
No real money in this sport, I think Olympic curling makes more...lol

Sorry for the rant but it seems like PED's and cycling are a part of this sport we love so much.

Zinger

I find that 2 cups of coffee and a glazed donut makes me hammer .

Maybe I should spike my peaches with No-Doze for a century finish like Grewal used to do.