except, it doesn’t
It makes it an arms race: nobody ever cracks, or has a bad day. It’s just the most juiced up who rolls away from the competition.
I don’t find this enjoyable.
To make history, you need great successes, but also great failures. You need to see someone gambling, pushing himself to his limits, conscious that a price will have to be paid the next day.
If there is no price, we go back to the glory days of USP, festina, etc.
Was THIS interesting, really?
1 Like
They allow you to train harder.
So, say you can do PED, increase your power across the board by 5%.
You lose other effects of the PEDs, but you retain much of the increase.
It’s like being able to train hard at very high altitude AND still recover.
The pass for the EPO era dopers: they were doing it, day in, day out, for years. They’ve completely altered their metabolism thanks to drugs, and are still reaping the rewards.
4 Likes
One of the great allures of cycling is that followers/fans can appreciate the performance. Why? Because in contrast to other sports most followers are cyclists themselves. We know the suffering. We appreciate the individual’s performance, nationalistic leanings and so are secondary. The best should win. There is no booing while the opponent’s national antheme is played or social media shitstorms/malice against a little girl crying when her team loses like in football.
However, I find it important that the performance in genuine. Otherwise I could not identify with it. Therefore, I do care if pros dope or not. And it has made racing much more exciting, the unpredictability if someone cracks or not.
Apart from this, my brother was with a certain German dev team in the early 1990s. When it came to moving up it was told him what was excpected of him. He refused and gave up his cycling career. I know several riders who gave up during the time because they were not willing to cheat. Therefore, I take the argument that everyone was doping not lightly. The honest folks were weeded out. And everyone had a choice.
10 Likes
One argument I can think of to support the idea Pog is clean is that if he was cheating he wouldn’t risk making it look so easy!
I’m reminded of the end of disney’s “the incredibles” when the speedster kid enters a race and his family are telling him not to go too fast so not to raise suspicion.
Well, yes it actually was. I stress I’m not for doping, quote the opposite. But as a spectacle, the 90s were wild. If you go watch videos from this era, it’s pretty arresting.
1 Like
thanks, i don’t need to watch videos - I watched the races back then. Even as a teenager it felt off.
I rewatched a few not long ago, with alternate comments. At least there was comic relief 
Let’s say i’d watch EPO-era cycling the same way i’d watch WWF 
Go back and watch the World Cycling Production video for the 92 Tour. There is a clip of Alan Peiper on the bike talking about how Chiapucci keeps coming up to him and showing him how low his heart rate is (like sub-100)……in hindsight, that clip is so completely damning.
2 Likes
Pog looking human right now. Maybe he got the memo to cool it and do a little acting? 
Or Jumbo got a shipment of the good drugs over the rest day?
4 Likes
Same with Ben O’Conner. Cracked today.
This fits well with the comparison to the LA era. Obviously they were fast on the big climbs, but it was also their ability to recover day in and out.
We don’t see that same thing right now.
6 Likes
It’s not like Pogacar performed poorly. He still performed as good or better than any GC contender.
1 Like
The other difference with the EPO era was that they had a train of big guys towing leaders up the mountain - guys like Hincapie.
If Pog’s team had the best drugs, then why can’t his team hold Ineos’ wheels?
2 Likes
BTW, I did happen to see a few posts around the internet about some “not currently prohibited” protocols that someone might consider “on the line”
Not going to post them here, but we might have some things that aren’t what people would consider normal, but also aren’t against the written rules which contribute to the performances.
4 Likes
I wouldn’t say “Pog looked human today”. I would say he executed his strategy perfectly.
3 Likes
I bet he cracked a little today cause of this thread… 
3 Likes
WvA is now a top climber, TTer and sprinter in Grand Tours. I like the guy, and I like MVP too, they seem like great guys… but this is all just getting a little ridiculous for my eyes.
6 Likes
Really wondering what the dude weighs rn. I doubt he is at 78kg.
Rohan last year…wild how that dude got up
2 Likes
In the LA era, it appears that LA pushed the whole team to dope. There was a “program” to ensure the whole team were monsters.
Now if Pog is cheating, then my theory holds. Only he is on the program, so he’s stronger than his team.
If he’s in the grey area of TUE’s and not illegal stuff, then that could also hold, as it seems Sky didnt roll out TUE’s for triamsimolone or tramodol for the whole team each TdF. Thomas has been very outspoken that he hasnt cheated or done grey area stuff.
If it’s just training and diet and better bikes or some other the theories, then why on earth wouldn’t they also roll that out to the rest of UAE?
His performances are right at the limit of believable to me, as an armchair follower of cycling for 20+ years.
The UCI never seem to have any money (unlike FiFa or the IOC etc), but I would really support them sending more money towards developing more and better tests for PED’s. Right now, we know LA passed 500 tests (yeah, old tests), but was cheating. Then we have icarus showing that micro dose EPO won’t fail a test. Fail a test, you cheated (unless you’re Froome), pass a test, and maybe you still cheated.
Apropos of Mount Ventoux and Cav’s gesture for Simpson’s memorial:
Commentator and Simpson’s close friend David Saunders stated in his 1971 book, Cycling in the Sixties , that although he did not condone Simpson’s use of drugs, he thought it was not the reason for his death. He said: “I am quite convinced that Simpson killed himself because he just did not know when to stop. All his racing life he had punished his frail body, pushing it to the limits of endurance with his tremendous will-power and single-mindedness and, on Mont Ventoux, he pushed it too far, perhaps the drug easing the pain of it all.” Saunders went on to say that Simpson was not alone in the taking of drugs in professional cycling and that the authorities ignored their use. His opinion was that Simpson did not take drugs to gain an unfair advantage, but because “he was not going to be beaten by a pill”
I’m pretty sure we can go back to 1900, 1800 and find stories like this. I doesn’t take one iota from my enjoyment of cycling or sports in general. Federations should take all the anti doping budget and put it into safety practices for the use of performance enhancing drugs.
Appears a lot more likely, when seeing him fly up such a steep climb