Originally Posted by Leinster

I first read A Rough Ride in, I think, 1991. I was 13 years old and on a cycling trip in the Netherlands at the time. I'm not 100% sure if it was a first edition, or if a chapter had been added in a reprint, but in a book published in 1990, Kimmage definitely had heard of this new drug EPO that was making its way into the peloton, and may or may not have already been responsible for the death of 2 young Dutch cyclists. It's entirely possible that, as has been said here before, in the early years it was really hard to come by, so it may well have been 92, 93 before we can say for sure that EPO had taken over the whole sport.

As a (then) young cycling fan, I have to claim a bit of foresight in that I named Indurain my favourite for the 91 Tour before the start, owing to his success in the mountains, his strong showing in the Vuelta earlier that year, the fact that he should have been placed higher in 1990 except for having to work for Delgado, and his obvious ability in the TT. In the years after, things did get a bit boring with him winning all the time, but there's no doubt in my mind that even before EPO became widespread, Indurain was a Tour Champ in the making.

Lemond, in Slaying the Badger, claimed that he was stronger going into the 91 Tour than any year before, and that he should have been able to compete but the race was too much faster, and he couldn't keep up. It's a bad metric obviously, but the 91 Tour winner's average speed was 38.747km/h, compared to 38.621 in 90. Indurain's 94 win averaged only 37.381! So I don't buy the "it was sooo much faster" line, as much as the point that was made by some at the time; Lemond brought a Z team full of climbers to the 91 Tour, but they had to defend the yellow for a lot of the flat stages in the first 11 days. By the time they got to the Pyrenees, Millar, Cornillet, Boyer etc were spent and couldn't offer Greg any help, so he was isolated right from the *** on the first day in the mountains.