Lance Armstrong. The Cheat.

#77
#77
Its not about the dope its the people he destroyed that got in his way, then in the end he was using and admits it.
 
#78
#78
doozer said:
Sorry you couldn't back up you're plenty of riders claim. What 'you think' isn't going to cut it in a sport full of cheating (see also: baseball). No need to get personal.
Click to expand...

The riders I listed have never been linked or even accused of cheating. There are many more at the ProTour and Continental stages that don't cheat. Cyclists through all disciplines.

There were undoubtedly a lot of cheaters, but in no way was it a level playing field. He could have exposed the corruption and cheating, but instead he cheated himself and once outed he left a trail of destruction.
 
#80
#80
It's awesome how guys who sneer at cycling and have probably never watched a minute of the sport live in their lives think they know more than a poster who actually competes in the sport. Ah, the internet.
 
#82
#82
Vercingetorix said:
It's awesome how guys who sneer at cycling and have probably never watched a minute of the sport live in their lives think they know more than a poster who actually competes in the sport. Ah, the internet.
Click to expand...

I didn't know anybody on this forum had a yellow jersey. I'm sure a doper. Seriously though I'm sure anybody can appreciate how grueling it is but as a spectator it holds little if any entertainment value.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
#83
#83
govols/cc said:
I didn't know anybody on this forum had a yellow jersey. I'm sure a doper. Seriously though I'm sure anybody can appreciate how grueling it is but as a spectator it holds little if any entertainment value.
Click to expand...

If you're the sort of person who cares about sports at all -- not just rooting for your teams but the actual theater of sports -- you owe it to yourself to give the Tour a shot once. You can skip most of it, because most days are flat stages and irrelevant to the guys gunning for the yellow jersey. Out of three weeks, you can watch five days and read the ESPN summary the rest. But two or three times per Tour, the teammates and the extraneous stuff all falls away and the human drama of man against man in the most extreme physical conditions imaginable on the side of mountain is unbelievably compelling stuff. If you care about sports, you're missing out.
 
#84
#84
Vercingetorix said:
If you're the sort of person who cares about sports at all -- not just rooting for your teams but the actual theater of sports -- you owe it to yourself to give the Tour a shot once. You can skip most of it, because most days are flat stages and irrelevant to the guys gunning for the yellow jersey. Out of three weeks, you can watch five days and read the ESPN summary the rest. But two or three times per Tour, the teammates and the extraneous stuff all falls away and the human drama of man against man in the most extreme physical conditions imaginable on the side of mountain is unbelievably compelling stuff. If you care about sports, you're missing out.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the final few kms of a sprint stage are almost always spectacular. Mountain top finishes and attacks. The only boring stages are ITTs. Even TTTs are fun to watch. So much teamwork goes into winning a yellow jersey. The Spring Classics and cyclocross racing are also fun to watch. My favorite race to watch is Paris-Roubaix. It's insane.
 
#85
#85
VOLatile said:
Not to mention the final few kms of a sprint stage are almost always spectacular. Mountain top finishes and attacks. The only boring stages are ITTs. Even TTTs are fun to watch. So much teamwork goes into winning a yellow jersey. The Spring Classics and cyclocross racing are also fun to watch. My favorite race to watch is Paris-Roubaix. It's insane.
Click to expand...

The sprints are interesting once you've seen enough to know who the guys are and the team dynamics and so on. The stuff in the mountains is what gets you hooked to begin with, when you don't know a damn thing about any of it. Here are three or four or five guys pedaling their asses off up an incredibly steep mountain, all in agony, and there goes one guy, and can the other guy respond? And eventually somebody can't. You don't have to know anything much about it to look at their faces and understand the drama.

The rest of (watching) pro cycling is fun and interesting, but it's not exactly stuff I would say that people are missing out on. Attacks on the Alpe d'Huez are something they're missing out on.
 
#86
#86
this isnt about the technical side of racing.
it is about fundamental questions of giving everyone who competes a level playing field.
the argument that everyone is doing it, is so fundamentally flawed.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
#90
#90
Vercingetorix said:
Greg LeMond used to have his own brand of bicycles. He questioned Armstrong. The sponsors destroyed LeMond's brand. It isn't just Armstrong's doping, it's the big train of carnage Armstrong left in his wake while denying the doping.
Click to expand...

True story most people fail to realize.
 
#91
#91
In a sport where you dope and win or don't dope and lose, what would you do. If you choose the later you better be independently wealthy because you won't have the first sponsor if you don't win and win consistently. The US Government should back off. It pisses me off that the "Postal Service" was actually sponsoring that team and then want's to piss and moan about being broke. I would put forth that over 90% of that sport is doping on the pro level and I really could care less. He was the best of the supermen and I still think he was awesome when he raced. Now, the thing that bothers me is that there is conjecture that his cancer was caused by his doping. To me that is the biggest issue.
 
#92
#92
Toujours Pret said:
Can I get a quick rundown of what purpose teammates serve?
Click to expand...

Pacing, drafting, marking on climbs, going back to team car to get water and bringing it back to GC contenders, leading out sprints, attacking on climbs, getting into and controlling breakaways, or controlling the peloton when a break with another teammate is away and the rest want to catch, and generally just keeping the GC contender safe from crashing.
 
#93
#93
AirVol said:
Same as nascar, for drafting, blocking and causing wrecks. Hell, idk....sounds good though.:)
Click to expand...

Swing and a miss. It's nothing like 'Neck-car other than drafting. Even then drafting in cycling is more complicated than a car racing. Riders are smaller and a lot less predictable.
 
#94
#94
VOLatile said:
Pacing, drafting, marking on climbs, going back to team car to get water and bringing it back to GC contenders, leading out sprints, attacking on climbs, getting into and controlling breakaways, or controlling the peloton when a break with another teammate is away and the rest want to catch, and generally just keeping the GC contender safe from crashing.
Click to expand...

I know none of what you talked about, but more or less they're just aides
 
#95
#95
Toujours Pret said:
I know none of what you talked about, but more or less they're just aides
Click to expand...

More. They're there to win, too. If their team wins, they get a portion of the prize money. They get chances to win stages or to be designated as contenders for other races.

Domestiques are aides. They get the water or help pace a rider back to the peloton after a flat. Climbers pace the GC contender up mountains and do the dirty work of marking other GC contenders on the mountains. They also compete for the mountain classification points jersey. Sprinters get the flat stages. Everyone else, including the GC contenders, form a lead out train which sets up the sprint. Watching the lead outs form near the end of a stage is magnificent.

Then there's Thor Hushovd, who is one of the best sprinters. Sprinters generally finish last on mountain stages because they're not climbers and want to save their legs for sprints. However, Thor has solo'd to win multiple mountain stages of the TdF while also winning sprint stages and the green, sprinter's classification jersey.
 
Last edited:
#96
#96
What does holding somebody accountable have to do w pussification of America?

The dude ruined people's lives and should have to pay the price.
 
#97
#97
Lance got me interested in cycling. I bought a bike because of him and I could care less if he took Roids! I'm sure all bike companies made mega tons of money too from people that got interested in bikes from him. He may have ruined some live, but also made a lot more lives better!
 
Last edited:
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top