As most of you all know doping threads, Lance threads and similar almost always go to Pro (the 217). Since the news and the TV shows are all current and relevant I don't see any reason why one thread discussing this topic can't stay here in Road. However new spinoff threads will be moved.

I know that might seem arbitrary and you all might even think I'm being a jerk. OTOH I might get upset and wallow in despair you all don't praise me for being so kind and benevolent about this thread.

We seldom get what we want.
Let's enjoy what we have.

In other words, sitting on your butt watching other people work is a sport.

With that attitude, nobody would ever blow their dough on pointless pricey bike crap, and half the reason for the existence of BF would vanish.

On the other hand you'd be left with the Pcad Blog aspect of this stupid place, so that's something.

often, when youre investigating corruption and looking for inside info, you dont get choirboys as witnesses, you get people who were complicit in that corruption at some point. thats the nature of corruption.

Only in a strip club...

Sure, but if they can't get people who are actually in the game now to come forward, business will just continue as usual.

i didnt say this was a magic bullet.

what i said was if these proceedings, if accountability for this pattern of intimidation and bullying, demonstrates even a token suggestion that whistleblowers have protection from retribution if they speak out, that is a step in the right direction.

Not necessarily. We'll see how this plays out. Whenever the Feds are involved the clusterfark potential cannot be overstated.

I was referring to a particular circumstance not the universal need to acquire more schwag.

If someone as close to a UCI golden boy as Lance gets taken down and the rot within the UCI is exposed, then there is hope that the current culture of secrecy and lack of transparency might change. This sport needs a thorough shakedown in order to be cleaned up - busting individuals isnt working. b/c the only way they get caught is if they screw up. And this investigation looks like it is providing that shakedown.

Don't piss off the Pope of BF again you sniveling Fred peon.

The UCI of today isn't the UCI of ten years ago. That blood profile program they have is essential. Because even if you don't get popped for doping, if you have WTF blood profile changes, they put on the old 'hey, we have our EYE on you' notification list and they know to test those guys more. In the profiles that leaked recently, it looked like maybe 25 riders were in those categories (not Lance). But that means 90% of the UCI riders are NOT. I think the sport is cleaning up for real.

This doesn't mean the UCI aren't idiots. But this is Europe for crissake. If they get less dumb, that's all we can hope for. Now all we have to do is work on the pinheads that organize the Giro and the Tour de France who seem hell bent on killing the pro riders that are the heart of the sport.

I sure hope you're right. I was watching TOC interviews with Chris Horner and I'm thinking "This guy has got the personality that could get Johnny Q. Public interested in bike racing! I sure hope he's clean."

+100. I think Chris might have it in him to podium @ this year's Tour. He finished 10th in the GC last year, he thinks if he had free reign he might have ridden as high as 5th place overall (interview the other day). This year Horner will have free reign as a GC contender. If Chris can drop Levi then it's sayonara fatso, who's the domestique now beyatch?

Or it means that the riders are, as always, a few steps ahead of the process. Assuming that Contador has been doping - let's say - then why has nothing shown up in the passport? Why did it take a likely error with clenbuterol for him to be busted?

What I think is more likely is that riders still dope but in a greatly reduced level. They may dope to realize small gains in training or in recovery, as opposed to massive gains in performance.

And quite frankly, I have stopped bothering about it as far as individual riders - be it Lance, AC, Vino or whoever - go. I think the focus needs to be on systematic/cultural change, as opposed to busting individuals. So from that PoV, I dont so much care about Lance getting stripped or whatever - but I would like the truth about systemic doping programs exposed and I would like those who institutionalized the doping culture (as opposed to those who did what they were told) to be busted for it.

As for the UCI - Inrng.com had it right. When McQuaid's first response is to lash out at anyone who dares speak out against doping and Lance (first Landis, now Tyler), when he says things to the effect that *in hindsight* it was a bad idea to take money from one of the people they were supposed to monitor (in hindsight? Really), when he issues non-denials that sound like they were crafted by Lance's lawyers ("Lance did not test positive" - both the A and B sample are required for a positive test, and he knows as well as anyone that this is not what Tyler alleged), I dont think the UCI is any better.

I think the UCI is corrupt, biased organization that is trying to conceal past mistakes with more lies - and that unless these lies are revealed and the concerned people face the consequences, this crap will continue.

McQuaid is a frigging worthless sack of sh*t.

Hah. What a silly remark.

Correct, correcter.

Times on some of the climbs in the Giro slowed considerably last year from 2007/2008, which dovetails nicely with David Millar's recent comments observing that this year's Giro felt easier than the 2008 edition despite a harder course, because it would appear they have eliminated CERA from the peloton.

All they can do is get the sport MOSTLY clean. Or try. I don't see other sports doing 1/10 of what pro cycling is trying to do here. And there is evidence that is is mostly working. Credit where it's due.

Don't feel too bad Hans, take it from where it comes, a country with a $1.4 trillion + deficit. We're dumber than you guys are. Man it must piss you off when some stupid American beats the Euro pros in a bicycle race. That would drive me crazy if I were Euro trash.

I come from a long line of Euro trash, Greek and German (both sides of the EU fiscal coin right there). But no summer trip to Greece to this year. Austerity measures. I do always take my bicycle to Greece (my family has a house on the water there). In three trips to the Greek island of Evia since 2006, I've logged about 1500 miles on the local roads there. Europe rocks. But the gas is a bit pricey.

Obviously.

Incorrect. Because if this were broadly the case, you wouldn't have < 10% of the riders with out of whack blood profiles. You'd have 50%++. You can mask PED's and come up with tactics to avoid positive dope tests. You can't fake out of nominal range changes to blood chemistry however.

You can artificially inflate the levels of a "natural" substance to the point where things get dangerous. Too much EPO can thicken the blood and a few guys died from heart attacks in the early days. True, guys have learned more about how to take EPO without dropping dead and there's not a whole lot of risk with a good doctor on hand, but what kind of effect does pumping artificially thickened blood have over a 10-15 year career?

It's just not a good idea to basically force young guys to either take drugs or quit the sport. There are going to be side effects for any drug. What happens to the kids who aren't under a doctor's supervision? Just look what happened to Ricco.

I dont know that. Neither do you. Perhaps there are ways to beat that system as well.

And maybe you should go back to your compound in northern Idaho and shoot at the Feds.

One response to the Lance Scandal from the Earth People:

Yeah, OK, so he doped, but he's bigger than that stupid sport now anyway.