July 01, 2006

• I don't believe in Peter Pan ! Mickey Mouse or Superman ! Operacion Peurto ! Dope me up baby ! Dope me right ! Yeah tonight
• The Tour de France has been a joke for decades.
• I'm very excited since this opens up the field a lot. This should be a good year for the tour.
• Frankly, without the possibility of #8 for Lance, I'll be watching Wimbledon instead. I suspect much of the U.S. is similar in that regard.
• On the one hand, this really, really pisses me off. Not one of the newly-banned riders has ever failed a drug test. None of them have been indicted or arrested. They're suspects, just names on a list, and the Guardia hasn't seen fit to share the evidence. Let them race and take back their titles later if they're found guilty. On the other hand, maybe this provide enough impetus for the big money to abandon the sport and turn it back into a reasonable competition. I'd like to see the whole sport get back to the point where it's the riders who matter. The guy I really feel sorry for is Vinokourov. He's fucked, and not even for anything he did-- he's fucked because he's on a team with some guys who talked to the wrong guy.
• I feel badly for Vinokourov, too. I wish another team that had lost a rider could pick him up, but I guess it just doesn't work that way. I enjoyed seeing Lance get his 7, but now I'm equally happy to see a new person win. Lance got me into the sport, now I want someone new to capture my interest :) What these guys can do is amazing. The farthest I've ever ridden on my bike is 35 miles in a day, on (really, really) flat roads. I'd like to see this (and every other) sport clean up. I like to see what human bodies -- not chemistry -- can do.
• Oh, and anybody who's unfortunate enough to have the official Tour site blocked at work, Velonews has by-the-minute updates available here while the race is underway. It's text, so it's not blocked by most net-nanny software.
• I missed the early coverage on OLN, but it seems like they're avoiding the controversy. Are they? (I'll catch the replay, hopefully.) Also, now I'm all excited, and I'm going on a long roadtrip where I won't have internet or tv for a couple of days starting tomorrow. Darnit :)
• if anyone thinks any competitive cyclist is performance-enhancing-drug-free, i've got a fabulous bridge over the river thames i'd like to sell you. folks, all of the cyclists are taking drugs*. and so are all the other top athletes. the better the athlete == the better the obfuscation. *and yes, lance armstrong took a shitload of performance-enhancers (all the time). note that this does not undermine his achievement, except in the eyes of the hypocritical.
• And the proof of that wild observation would be??? Professional cycling is drug tested more than any other sport. As soon as they get off the bike they test them. If these guys can get away with being tested incessantly, then baseball players are bigger morons than I thought they were.
• I felt that bicycling was a sport that would be improved by the introduction of firearms. Of course, I feel that way about most sports.
• > And the proof of that wild observation would be??? the statistics derived from the drug tests.
• the statistics derived from the drug tests. Not the stats I've seen. In 2005, less than 4% of over 12,000 cyclists tested for drugs. That is quite bad, true, but how that translates to "all", I don't see. And where's the evidence that Lance took drugs? I haven't seen anything conclusive of that. I think he's just a freak of nature.
• > And the proof of that wild observation would be??? The fact that the human body is simply not capable of enduring this kind of strain and pace for such a long time? The fact that, without hyperbole, he race is inhuman? > And where's the evidence that Lance took drugs? The evidence will come out sooner or later. There was simply too much of a change before and after the cancer. Before, he was a nobody. After, he was the best of the best. So what changed? Riders are traditionally one of three things -- a climber, a sprinter, or a time trial guy. You're usually good at one. You may be good at two. But for someone to be good at all three is unheard of (and so, suspect). Lance went from being a nobody to beating everyone in all three areas. And not just beating them by slim margins, no, the guy was cruising through this field of highly-skilled athletes that were grunting and groaning their way up mountains. Of course, a sport's best althete is going to beat the others, but when you're pushing up against the limits of human physiology, the margin of difference is going to be very small. With Lance it never was. So there's two possibilities -- he's either a world-class freak, or he's on drugs. If he was simply a freak, then he was that same freak before the cancer. Lance was on drugs, but everyone is on drugs. A human being simply cannot do this race without drugs. Which is fine, whatever, but let's drop the hypocrisy, and see this thing as what it is -- a race just as dependent on tooled machines as Formula 1.
• A human being simply cannot do this race without drugs. Horse puckey. Consider the Tarahumara, who are godlike endurance runners. And the only drug they take is massive amounts of homemade corn-beer. The human body is capable of astounding feats of endurance, without drugs. Also, I believe I've read that the Tour de France is not the most demanding endurance race, but that historically, long before performance drugs, there have been far more demanding races. Can't find a good reference at the moment, but if I do I'll post it.
• I'd love to know what these mysterious drugs are, that can turn one into a superhuman but yet remain completely undetectable. I want to know because I want some! I think the whole drug testing thing in cycling has pretty much reached the level of witch hunting. Screening for steroids and amphetamines are one thing, but EPO? Cathine? Ephedrine? Come on. And as for Lance being superhuman? Hello? Come back and talk to me after you return to competitive athletics after recovering from metastatic cancer. He is superhuman.
• > but let's drop the hypocrisy, my sentiments exactly. let people take what risks they want, with full information and openness concerning what the long-term effects could be. the current situation is bad for everyone, including the athletes.
• > In 2005, less than 4% of over 12,000 cyclists tested for drugs. note that these cyclists knew in advance when they would be tested and still they were caught. dope testing by the uci remains much more lax than testing performed by other athletic bodies.
• The fact that the human body is simply not capable of enduring this kind of strain and pace for such a long time? I'm not a sports fanatic but even I know that this is horsehockey. A few hundred years ago they would have said that the performances that today's athletes routinely reach were impossible. /Still imagining Tout de Frogs with firearms. //50 caliber bicycle mounted ///Hey! Bicycle mounted would be a great porno title!
• Let's face it, if the seven-time winner had been Russian, even the Amerians would all be accusing him of scoffing some undetectable wunder-drug in huge quantities.
• Armstrong had been world champion before he went away. Of course he uses lots of drugs - he has dispensation because he needs them because of the cancer. when you're pushing up against the limits of human physiology, the margin of difference is going to be very small This is of course why marathons always end in a 100 man sprint. Some people are simply better than others. And every now and then there's a Michael Jordan/Tiger Woods/etc. who is even further ahead. And to suggest that Armstrong whistled his way to the finish is also horsesockets. Sometimes his opponents defeated themselves (Ullrich and his 'preparation' for the Tour), sometimes he got lucky (that fall with Beloki a few years ago), sometimes he was simply more clever, sometimes he just had the better team around him and sometimes he was simply better.
• So there's two possibilities -- he's either a world-class freak, or he's on drugs. He's a world-class freak. His heart is a third larger than average. His resting heart rate is about 32 beats per minute. He has over twice as much aerobic lung capacity as the average man. He's got longer thigh bones which give him better pedaling torque. He started competing in (and winning) triathalons as a teenager. He won both the Tour and the World Championships in the same year, well before he was diagnosed with cancer. And he's won the Tour seven times, more than anyone else on the planet, despite being tested for drugs more often than any other rider. Link to New Yorker article from 2002. Link to Discovery Channel show on Lance that you really should watch if you still think he's doping.
• The fact that the human body is simply not capable of enduring this kind of strain and pace for such a long time? The fact that, without hyperbole, he race is inhuman? Now I'm not going to say that anyone takes drugs or doesn't take drugs, but this statement just doesn't hold up. The first tour, in 1903, was completed in 94 hours, compared to last year's in 86 hours. The distance was 2428 km, compared to last year's 3607 km. Now, Lance finished a longer race in shorter time but, that 1903 race was only divided into 6 stages instead of the modern 20. The longest one was 467 km (290 mi) and took 27 hours and 47 minutes to complete. They didn't have tech like bikes made of ultralight materials, synthetic clothing and sports drinks. And they did it without performance enhancing drugs. Early drug scandals involved accusations of cyclists using alcohol and ether to dull the pain. wikipedia
• I'm surprised and flattered that people are taking my off-the-cuff bullshit seriously. Thanks, guys! Seriously, though, I have no idea what I'm talking about. But if I were a betting man, I'd still put money on Lance's being on the juice. Along with everybody else.