Tour de France thread

It's more like if Rossi was found out to be riding an illegal bike, but so was Stoner, Biaggi, and Gibernau. Rossi just happened to to have the best cheater build, but was also a tremendous asshole to anyone who ever even hinted that his bike could be illegal.

 

What Lance did was wrong and indefensible re: destroying people's lives, but I still admire him for securing 7 tour wins in a damn row. For him to execute the plan perfectly 7 goddamn times, avoid crashing out or serious injury or illness, is just insane.

He also had some amazing performances, like the descent vs. Vino.

 

Not all were doping. The guys that didn't dope were screwed out of their chances to be on the top step.

Fuck Lance. Fuck the dopers.

 

You're right, but the stats on doping use during this time period are pretty staggering. Given the stats, I still think what Lance did was impressive (winning 7 tours), but how he treated people in the sport is not defensible.

Doping is a cultural issue when it comes to bike racing. Lance is the ugly byproduct of that culture.

https://fansided.com/2018/07/07/tour-de-france-2018-big-problem-doping-cycling/

 

Lance / group also paid guys to loose along with bringing the whole doping thing up a big level. They masterminded the whole damn pelotons doping at one point. Yes he pedaled but it makes you go hmmmm an awful lot.

 

Not saying it's right, but it happens. Cash to the 2nd place (or deeper) from the winner isn't unusual depending on the points on offer (world cup) or overall prizes ($1m triple crown).

Hypothetically:
If i'm sitting in 3rd overall in world cup, and I'm about to go head to head with 3 other guys for the win, you can bet your ass I'll hand over 75% of the money to those three so I can win and move up or take the subsequent WC lead. The combination of contract incentives, sponsor incentives and increased value of my worth based on WC placing come contract re-negotiation time far exceeds the 'lost' prize money in a payout for a 1-day race.

As far as Lance and Doping, it's been pretty well covered here, but for clarity on my point of view: Fuck that guy.

 

I've honestly never heard any accusation that Lance rigged the tour. He's a lot of things, but I don't think his ego would allow him to pay guys off for the win.

Edit: Interesting.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...aid-competitor-100-000-fix-1993-race-win.html

 

There were some pretty significant accusations about Lance and the $1m payout for the Thrift Drug Triple Crown of Cycling. @ton may remember...
Link below. Don't get me wrong, Gaggioli is a dodgy guy but it happened.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/arm...-dollar-triple-crown-victory-claims-gaggioli/

The other payola I was talking about was more along what happens in the 1-day races and smaller national races.

 

What a minute! So are you for, or against Lance Armstrong?

 

Fuck that guy!
Hope thats clear.

 

Damn! Last year it wasn’t spelled like that. It was just T. J.
Not to take away from the new era of American cyclist but there are no stand outs like a decade or two ago.

 

Getting back on track here, bad day for Tejay. He is over 7 minutes back overall and 6 minutes behind two of his own teammates. So he is likely now going to go into helper role for his two teammates. On the plus side he might be far enough back, that they would let him go in a breakaway. If it looks like the breakaway will fail, he can just drop back to help his teammates at that point.

 

never get in a car with Gaggioli driving.

that Triple Crown thing was bought and paid for before the racing even started. everyone knew it was Lance's. Fuck that guy.

i miss having the time to watch every stage in full.

 

Catch the nightly recap at night where the covering network can provide detailed coverage after the breaking events have happened.

 

Was T. J. the lead rider for his team?

 

Bicycles or motorcycle riders?

 

holy shit, is that how sports highlight shows work?

what i love about watching the tour is watching every damn moment of how a bike race develops. i know, i'm not normal.

 

The recap version usually cuts to those portions of the race but you got this.

 

Pretty normal, actually.
Then again, we had the same affliction.

 

for 30 damn years now...

and i'm still slow.