Are there any clean riders?

steve said:

Do you think any of the current top riders are clean? who?

Short answer:NO!

steve said:

Do you think any of the current top riders are clean? who?

It's an irrelevant question. Pro cycling is a show with some ground rules and doping has never been forbidden within the brethren, it's being imposed by outer authorities. Enjoy the show and flick off dope stories every time they come up. I really don't like outcomes of disqualifications because they spoil protocols and bring in bad aftertaste. Last year's Giro was a good show with Di Luca and Menshov, look what they did to it after it ended! Disgrace, but not for Di Luca. Organizers have to reshuffle resulting protocols and I don't think they like it.

steve said:

Do you think any of the current top riders are clean? who?

You're risking hygenic type of answers with this kind of question, steve😉.

Any of the current top? I suppose you're refering to those who are winning stages and races with highest marks.
No, I don't think.

But, I do think there are some clean proffesional riders. But they all aren't off the doping from same reasons. Some of them are principled. Others know their limits, know that doping won't make champions of them and don't want to risk. Some of them are living in illusion that highest results can be achieved without doping. And some simply don't have funds and/or knowledge to do it.

I've underlined proffesional to emphasize following, doping is very present in amateur sport as well. Results and wish to progress to professional sport can be obvious explanation. But I firmly believe that it (doping) has become part of cycling culture (cycling as a sport). First, general opinion is that highest result can't be achieved without doping; second, history of doping in cycling is so rich that it became part of it. That history gives excuse to modern athletes (moral excuse to themselves, not to us - public); and the goal (the result) justifies the means, or to moderate it - the goal determins the means. To make it simple - if they did it in the past and they did it that way, then - that's the way to do it and why shouldn't I do it.
People inside the sport know lot more than we do regarding history and methods. So this subject (if it's a subject at all) has totaly different dimension there.
I'm sure they've developed their own ethics from defensive mechanisms which they used to resolve intrapersonal conflicts regarding moral dillemas about doping.

I think that cycling authorities too are exaggrating lately. Targeted testing is that exaggeration. Doping control became hunt, not what it should be - control. It became sport discipline itself. So, maybe, they should be controled too. Where are the borders of privacy and proffesion could be one question. Question of privacy and personal freedome is much more wider than the cycling authorities are interpreting it. It's fundamental.
I'm sure that targeted testing and this question are part of the ethics mentioned earlier.

steve said:

Do you think any of the current top riders are clean? who?

If you make it black and white, then no. But then, even the old guys (e.g. Merckx et al.) were not clean by that standard. Shades of grey? I think most riders today are pretty clean relative to most riders 5-10 years ago.

Even amateur athletics have doping going on and this includes cycling.
The easy way has become the accepted way these days.

I can't remember where I read it but apparently word within the peloton is that everyone accepts that there about 20 riders who are 'specially prepared' and the rest of the guys are pretty much clean.

So odds are that 8 of the top 10 in any particular classic or stage race GC are doped. After all doping gives such a big advantage. But it does leave the possibility that the winner is clean and lucky.

Number of people getting caught does seem to have gone up lately so there is hope we'll only have a few people cheating in the near future.

So yes, there are plenty of clean riders but most of the clean riders are domestiques, not the people you see winning the races.

Eddy Merckx may have failed a few drugs tests but he does have his name on one of the shower stalls in Roubaix! He MUST be clean - even his name plaque is clean!!!!

Why does this become of such importance.

I am very new to this sport... and one of the teams I "ride" with, The Weston Flyers. Well i don't really ride with them, they just always seem to find me let me pull while they are warming up, I am up there doing my own thing.

After they warm up they take over, and I always get in the back and see how far I can stick with them... it only takes them 1-2 miles to hit 84th street and begin climbing in speed... 24,25,26,27,28,29.... And I am dropped as if my brakes where applied.

Whenever i tell this to someones else who has ridden with them or heard of that team... they always say the same thing: "Weston Flyers, pfffttt if I doped I too would be able to keep those averages and sprint speeds".

So the conclusion I have come to is one of two:

1) most people cannot beleive these types of results are possible assuming we are all created very equally and need to blame it to doping to make sense out of it. Which is the case with most pro's, I mean 3 weeks of non stop peddling in the tour is insane.

2) If there is doping why is it such a big deal... its an advantage to your body, no different than running lighter components, or more aerodynamic parts, etc...And if EVERYONE is doing it, it stops being an advantage to anyone, so who cares.

Are there clean riders I think so, I really do hope so, its the motivation that I have knowing that one of these days I will be able to not only pull the warmup round with the flyers but actually then stick to the back of them for the ride.

I have to say that I have become even more sceptical in the last two years about what I see.
Unfortunately.

I know that a lot of riders have been caught and I welcome that fact that the sport appears to be
catching more and more cheaters.
However, looking at the average speed of races, times and speeds these days are increasing if
anything.

If we’re to believe that Heras, Vino, Millar, Hamilton, Valverde, Armstrong, Gaumont, Camezind,
Basso…………….and the million and one other riders named and shamed were doping, how come
average speeds and times have not started to become slower if we have a clean peloton?

It is difficult not to be cynical about the sport at the highest levels given what we see today.

I’ve started to concur with those who have said that the problem is so deep in our sport as to be practically endemic.

The fallout from this is that a punter like me, who used by the publications and videos, doesn’t do so anymore.
There are probably thousands like me who have ceased to contribute to the industry by buying books,
magazines and DVD’s.
In fact, I would go so far as not to purchase a product from a company who has been named in the doping scandals.

Bastiani said:

Why does this become of such importance.

I am very new to this sport... and one of the teams I "ride" with, The Weston Flyers. Well i don't really ride with them, they just always seem to find me let me pull while they are warming up, I am up there doing my own thing.

After they warm up they take over, and I always get in the back and see how far I can stick with them... it only takes them 1-2 miles to hit 84th street and begin climbing in speed... 24,25,26,27,28,29.... And I am dropped as if my brakes where applied.

Whenever i tell this to someones else who has ridden with them or heard of that team... they always say the same thing: "Weston Flyers, pfffttt if I doped I too would be able to keep those averages and sprint speeds".

So the conclusion I have come to is one of two:

1) most people cannot beleive these types of results are possible assuming we are all created very equally and need to blame it to doping to make sense out of it. Which is the case with most pro's, I mean 3 weeks of non stop peddling in the tour is insane.

2) If there is doping why is it such a big deal... its an advantage to your body, no different than running lighter components, or more aerodynamic parts, etc...And if EVERYONE is doing it, it stops being an advantage to anyone, so who cares.

Are there clean riders I think so, I really do hope so, its the motivation that I have knowing that one of these days I will be able to not only pull the warmup round with the flyers but actually then stick to the back of them for the ride.

We humans need boundaries and standards to prevent chaos. At this point doping is illegal and until that changes I must believe that all should go by the rules.
I am also in the belief that this won't happen but you got to try to hold to your own stsndards or lose yourself .

What is not known of course is the long term affects of doping on the riders themselves.

It will be interesting to see the longevity of the 1998-2008 generation in terms of the riders natural lives.

Even if a rider disintegrated while crossing the finish line on the Champs Elyssee, the authorities would still deny that there was anything amiss.

limerickman said:

What is not known of course is the long term affects of doping on the riders themselves.

Pro cyclists die young. You don't need me to tell you it's a brutal sport.

I remember seeing the Columbia Team getting in their coach after the Verbier stage last year & thinking how strange (& in a funny way how 'unhealthy'😉 they looked - a cross between maltreated whippets & badly tanned leather.

limerickman said:

I have to say that I have become even more sceptical in the last two years about what I see.
Unfortunately.

I know that a lot of riders have been caught and I welcome that fact that the sport appears to be
catching more and more cheaters.
However, looking at the average speed of races, times and speeds these days are increasing if
anything.

If we’re to believe that Heras, Vino, Millar, Hamilton, Valverde, Armstrong, Gaumont, Camezind,
Basso…………….and the million and one other riders named and shamed were doping, how come
average speeds and times have not started to become slower if we have a clean peloton?

It is difficult not to be cynical about the sport at the highest levels given what we see today.

I’ve started to concur with those who have said that the problem is so deep in our sport as to be practically endemic.

The fallout from this is that a punter like me, who used by the publications and videos, doesn’t do so anymore.
There are probably thousands like me who have ceased to contribute to the industry by buying books,
magazines and DVD’s.
In fact, I would go so far as not to purchase a product from a company who has been named in the doping scandals.

Todays stuff is almost chump change in comparison... those who are doing 'stuff' can't simply jab EPO in their backside and measure hematicrit to ensure that there's a good probability that they were going to croak in the middle of the night like they did back when "you liked cycling".

You can tell riders are still taking 'things' - cause people are still being caught - but it's "probably" not at the same level as they were 10 to 15 years ago.

swampy1970 said:

Todays stuff is almost chump change in comparison... those who are doing 'stuff' can't simply jab EPO in their backside and measure hematicrit to ensure that there's a good probability that they were going to croak in the middle of the night like they did back when "you liked cycling".

You can tell riders are still taking 'things' - cause people are still being caught - but it's "probably" not at the same level as they were 10 to 15 years ago.

You miss the point again.

The Festina affair should have been the line in the sand.
We were told this at the time.
The UCI said we'd have zero tolerance.
The sport was going to turn over a new leaf.

That's what the blurb said.

Instead since 1998, we have had nothing but riders taking dopage and subsequently being caught.
Zero tolerance?
Self regulating sport?

It's incapable of regulating itself.

limerickman said:

You miss the point again.

The Festina affair should have been the line in the sand.
We were told this at the time.
The UCI said we'd have zero tolerance.
The sport was going to turn over a new leaf.

That's what the blurb said.

Instead since 1998, we have had nothing but riders taking dopage and subsequently being caught.
Zero tolerance?
Self regulating sport?

It's incapable of regulating itself.

You choose to miss the point.

Having up and coming amateur riders dropping dead like flies at the end of the 80's and early 90's should have been that line. The PDM affair should have been the end of that line. Having all the Italian teams fcuk off up the road at Mach 2 in 94 should have proven that the line had been crossed further and that more needed to be done. Many of those victorys by Gewiss were just taking the p1ss.

It should never have got as far as 98. Not even close... The late 80's and 90's were a PED suppliers heaven.

Well, the UCI made a definitive statement in the aftermath of Festina in 1998 and it has been proven that the statement and the UCI's intent to stamp out doping, failed.

Race speeds increased etc.

It has been widely stated that rEPO brought the performance levels on to a different level.
Read the editorials written by Robert Millar in Cycle Sport in 1990's where he wrote about riders climbing like sprinters.
Look at the footage of mountain stages from T'DF in the 1980's (or earlier) and compare the footage to 1990 and 2000's.

Look at the amount of drugs found in the carboot of [censored] Voets
car.
So we know that rEPO was used widely in 1990 and the performance enhancing capabilities of rEPO are far greater than what passed for performance enhancing drugs previously.

But let's get back to what Landis has said : did USPS/Discovery bribe the UCI to coverup positive test results?

It's frightening because Thomas Frei (BMC) reckons that all you need to do is drink a litre of water the evening after a microdose of EPO and you'll pass the test.
I reckon Wiggins is clean though, also Sastre, he's not known as "Don Limpio" for nothing!!

jamie72 said:

It's frightening because Thomas Frei (BMC) reckons that all you need to do is drink a litre of water the evening after a microdose of EPO and you'll pass the test.
I reckon Wiggins is clean though, also Sastre, he's not known as "Don Limpio" for nothing!!

Thanks for reminding me on Wiggins. I have impression that at Sky their approach is more mechanical (scientific as they like to say). What I want to say is - they treat man like a part of machine. They're making models (functions) where man's component will be maximally used. Cadence, power, aerodynamics... Everything regarding man is under strict control. Track cycling kind of approach.
Machine component is constant. They all are, pretty much, equal at it.
The only question about Wiggins is - how he manages to achieve optimal (lowest possible) weight? You can create a diet, but it takes more than Spartan character to resist temptation these days. Specific hunger is hell! And it's not for a day or two it takes week to achieve the weight and resist the hunger.
I would be cautious about Sastre. He rode for teams with problematic reputation (that's the lightest remark).

@ http://www.cyclingforums.com/professional-cycling/475762-there-any-clean-riders-new-post.html

Quoted post said:

^^Hey I've got no evidence either way!! I'm totally open minded!

Neither do I... Just wondering.
His impressions about Ventoux and "Simpson's ghost" are very interesting. If it's not some kind of identification, what can cause bizarre paranoid thoughts. Amphetamines do suppress the appetite.
I don't want to take anything from the Sky - their modeling looks very advanced.