History : before the LA revisionism !

Dude, he was 20 pounds heavier.

Why don't you compare Steven Roche's time in 1997 vs what he could do today? The fact that he probably couldn't even make it today makes his win in '97 unauthentic.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by limerickman
I have been just re-reading some of my older stuff : here is an interesting article about LA in Cycle Sport July 199 (before he won the TDF).

1999 : July Cycle Sport : Lance on a Mission

"Rominger used it, Axel Merckx uses it, I use it"
LA is standing at the top of the Col de la Madone in France.
Just 10 miles south-west is Monaco and 30 miles west is LA's home.
But here at 3000 feet what dominates is the silence and the savage landscape.
CS is privileged to with LA testing his form on the Madone which rises 800 metres in just 14 kilometres.
It is a special ride for the american and one, which he will do when the TDF beckons.
Every three months, comparing results, Armstrong guages how his fitness level is.
The day begins at 9.30.Armstrong arrives to meet his training partners F.Andreu and K Livingston.
The trio set off after agreeing a suitable route for them.
They roll through dozens of village resorts - through Monaco - and down toward the sea front.
F Andreu eases off as KL and LA are riding a tougher profile.
In Menton, LA and KL take a left bringing them in to the hills surrounding Menton.
The road moves upward. Their rythmn is barely perceptible.
The road rises slightly round every corner.
The villas and potted plants gradually disapear as they continue climbing.
The road by now is a singletrack affair, going from 1 in 10 to one in seven.
The riders soon separate.
KL drops back on another steep righthander.
LA pushing himself to the limit and the difference shows between the two.
LA head over the bars, is gasping for air.Sweats rolls down his face.
He drives himself unremmittingly.
The road continues to go skyward.
LA is now on the limit.
His face is a mask of concentration and pain as he passes some walkers.
With the Cime de Blance looming overhead, the climb begins to ease.
The top of the Madone comes in to sight within 100 metres.
LA has climbed the Madone 12 times in 1999 : he knows every
inch of this road.

He swings over the top of the climb.
The stillness is only broken by the gasps of his trying to get air
in to his lungs.
Putting on his jacket as he waits for KL : he presses his monitors.

"LA says Rominger climbed this in 31-36. KL's done it in 31-58.
My best before the 1998 Vuelta was 33-30 (Limerickman - this
would correlate to LA's climbing ability vis-a-vis Rominger and Indurain : he could never stay with the best riders pre cancer).
Today I did it in 34-58" (again this is indicative of LA's real
climbing ability - Limerickman)
"MHR 191 beats per minute with an average 185. Gears 39x19,
39x21"

Curious that LA wasn't even near Romingers time for this climb.

A classic case of assuming that one particular event correlates to an effect. Yes pre cancer he was not the rider he has been for the last 5 tours, but you seem to imply that cancer itself is responsible for the change. Instead of looking at the cancer you have to go deeper and see how he changed.

As mentioned one major factor is his weight loss. Another big factor is his riding style. Comming back into cycling after cancer LA and Carmichael adjusted his riding style from one of pushing large gears at low cadence to pushing much lighter gears at higher cadence. Since he has one of the highest ever recorded VO2 max values (this is pre-cancer by the way), a high cadence style is much more suited to maximize his abilities. Carmichael and LA use power meters to figure out what his optimal power output is based on cadence for particular climbs / stages etc.

Then you have the mental and physical torture that cancer put him through teaching him maturity and building character improving his mental toughness and pain threshold. Combine all of this together and you have a man who is far different than the man pre cancer. To say that all of these changes would not have an effect on the quality of his cycling is naive. In fact if that were the case then we all can stop reading this forum, researching, training and striving to become better cyclist as according to you were not going to get any better as a result.

Folks - if you look at the date of the article, it says JULY 1999.
1999.
1999 is after he recovered from cancer and had lost weight.

Excepted that it is an isolated article in this instance but I have numerous articles showing that LA still couldn't climb after his recovery from cancer.
Look at what he says - Rominger could climb that same climb two minutes quicker.
LA says this himself in July 1999.

If you want me to transcribe further articles from that period - I will be happy to do so.

By the way do any of you have the video "LA lust for Life" produced in conjunction with Pro Cycling ?
If you do have this video - it tells much the same story of how LA
was literally dying on climbs.
LA Lust for life was shot between February and June 1999.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by limerickman
Folks - if you look at the date of the article, it says JULY 1999.
1999.
1999 is after he recovered from cancer and had lost weight.

Excepted that it is an isolated article in this instance but I have numerous articles showing that LA still couldn't climb after his recovery from cancer.
Look at what he says - Rominger could climb that same climb two minutes quicker.
LA says this himself in July 1999.

If you want me to transcribe further articles from that period - I will be happy to do so.

By the way do any of you have the video "LA lust for Life" produced in conjunction with Pro Cycling ?
If you do have this video - it tells much the same story of how LA
was literally dying on climbs.
LA Lust for life was shot between February and June 1999.

Not sure where your getting your snippets, but here is some text word for word from another 'Cycling News' article. This indicates that in the Spring of 99' Lance shattered Romingers record by 40-45 seconds up the Madone:

In spring '98, Lance had a crisis at [Stage 3 of] Paris-Nice but he wasn't going badly; he was in the top 10 on GC, I think, but his character as a "winner" couldn't accept that he would have a bad day. Lance overcame this and from that point on, we were in contact more often; always with Chris Carmichael as well. Lance would come to see me in Ferrara, he would do his tests here and worked on his performance on his time trial bike too. We worked very closely during 1998 with Lance and Chris Carmichael to develop this new approach with a higher cadence; it's become part of the story of Lance.

After his cancer, Lance didn't have the same level of power that he had before, the prior level of muscular force. That was the reality so I proposed to Lance and Carmichael to work with a higher pedaling cadence and they agreed 100 percent.

At the end of 1998, Lance had gotten fourth in the Vuelta and fourth in the World championships, which were encouraging results. The next winter, we refined this approach with a higher cadence for Lance. It worked so well that in the spring of 1999, [Armstrong] beat Rominger's record for the climb of the Col de la Madone in Menton [near Nice, France] that [Rominger] had set five years before. Lance beat the best time by 40 or 45 seconds and from that time on, we realized that Lance had made a 'salto di qualità' (jump of quality) in his cycling performance.

When I told Tony, who has a character similar to that of Lance that Armstrong had beaten his record on Col de la Madone, he was surprised and disappointed. Tony told me "Well, I never won the Tour, but I'm really sorry to lose this record!" As for the rest, there is all the success Lance has had in the Tour but this is recent history; I've invested a lot of time to work with Lance and his group; Chris Carmichael, Johan Bruyneel and others. I've expanded my collaboration with Lance and as of today, this is continuing.

Here's more from Pez Cycling news:

”We thought we’d be close”

PEZ: After you did so well in the ’98 Vuelta after coming back from cancer, with a 4th place finish and I think you also had a 4th place in the worlds that year…Lance jumps in “Yeah - two 4ths, two 4ths” he says for emphasis, again showing the attention to detail necessary in preparing for a 21 day bike race that is often won by mere seconds.

PEZ: In ’99, to be honest with you, I was at the tour and I was a little bit surprised – I mean Ullrich wasn’t there and Pantani wasn’t there. I knew you had a good year in ’98 and I knew you had a great record as a cyclist but, were you surprised that you won the tour initially or did you think that you would win the ’99 tour?

LA: We thought we’d be close. We thought we’d be close. Because I, umm…, I had obviously been feeling good. The tests that I had been doing were off the charts. The tests that I was doing - at the time I was living in Nice – doing this testing on the col de la Madone down there in the south of France. You know, Rominger was always close to beating Indurain and my times were 45 seconds faster than Romingers.

The Madone is a 12 km climb from sea level to 927 metres. Lance established the record on the climb in 1999 with a time of 30:47. Lance continues, recalling the events leading up to his first tour win like it was yesterday…

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by davidbod
Not sure where your getting your snippets, but here is some text word for word from another 'Cycling News' article. This indicates that in the Spring of 99' Lance shattered Romingers record by 40-45 seconds up the Madone:

In spring '98, Lance had a crisis at [Stage 3 of] Paris-Nice but he wasn't going badly; he was in the top 10 on GC, I think, but his character as a "winner" couldn't accept that he would have a bad day. Lance overcame this and from that point on, we were in contact more often; always with Chris Carmichael as well. Lance would come to see me in Ferrara, he would do his tests here and worked on his performance on his time trial bike too. We worked very closely during 1998 with Lance and Chris Carmichael to develop this new approach with a higher cadence; it's become part of the story of Lance.

After his cancer, Lance didn't have the same level of power that he had before, the prior level of muscular force. That was the reality so I proposed to Lance and Carmichael to work with a higher pedaling cadence and they agreed 100 percent.

At the end of 1998, Lance had gotten fourth in the Vuelta and fourth in the World championships, which were encouraging results. The next winter, we refined this approach with a higher cadence for Lance. It worked so well that in the spring of 1999, [Armstrong] beat Rominger's record for the climb of the Col de la Madone in Menton [near Nice, France] that [Rominger] had set five years before. Lance beat the best time by 40 or 45 seconds and from that time on, we realized that Lance had made a 'salto di qualità' (jump of quality) in his cycling performance.

When I told Tony, who has a character similar to that of Lance that Armstrong had beaten his record on Col de la Madone, he was surprised and disappointed. Tony told me "Well, I never won the Tour, but I'm really sorry to lose this record!" As for the rest, there is all the success Lance has had in the Tour but this is recent history; I've invested a lot of time to work with Lance and his group; Chris Carmichael, Johan Bruyneel and others. I've expanded my collaboration with Lance and as of today, this is continuing.

The article that I quoted from is a magazine called Cycle Sport.
Cycle Sport is an authorative source on the sport of cycling has
been edited in thr past by disntiguished sports journalists such as Phil Liggett.

The article in question appears on page 42 of the July 1999 edition.
On page 45 of the article LA states and I quote "Romingers best is
31-36. Kevin's (Livingston) done 31-58 and my best was before the Vuelta (1998) last year was 33-30. Today I did 34-58, but it was windy at the top".
This article was written by Alasdair Fotheringham with accompanying phots by Graeme Watson.

The video of LA dying as he climbs the Col de la Madone is The Lance Armstrong Story : LA lust for life issued by ProCycling in
June 1999.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by davidbod
Here's more from Pez Cycling news:

”We thought we’d be close”

PEZ: After you did so well in the ’98 Vuelta after coming back from cancer, with a 4th place finish and I think you also had a 4th place in the worlds that year…Lance jumps in “Yeah - two 4ths, two 4ths” he says for emphasis, again showing the attention to detail necessary in preparing for a 21 day bike race that is often won by mere seconds.

PEZ: In ’99, to be honest with you, I was at the tour and I was a little bit surprised – I mean Ullrich wasn’t there and Pantani wasn’t there. I knew you had a good year in ’98 and I knew you had a great record as a cyclist but, were you surprised that you won the tour initially or did you think that you would win the ’99 tour?

LA: We thought we’d be close. We thought we’d be close. Because I, umm…, I had obviously been feeling good. The tests that I had been doing were off the charts. The tests that I was doing - at the time I was living in Nice – doing this testing on the col de la Madone down there in the south of France. You know, Rominger was always close to beating Indurain and my times were 45 seconds faster than Romingers.

The Madone is a 12 km climb from sea level to 927 metres. Lance established the record on the climb in 1999 with a time of 30:47. Lance continues, recalling the events leading up to his first tour win like it was yesterday…

I'll gladly photocopy the article which I refer to and I will send you a copy of the tape - should you not believe me !

If you want to send me a private message with a forwarding address, I will send these on to you.

Yes I know what 'Cycle Sport' is, I read it as well. So you have a single article that shows on a windy day he didn't do well, big surprise. Did it state when the actual climb took place?

Do you have any comment on the other 2 articles showing he broke Rominger's record by 45 seconds in the Spring of 99'?

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by davidbod
Yes I know what 'Cycle Sport' is, I read it as well. So you have a single article that shows on a windy day he didn't do well, big surprise. Did it state when the actual climb took place?

Do you have any comment on the other 2 articles showing he broke Rominger's record by 45 seconds in the Spring of 99'?

hey, I wasn't being facetious when I explained to you what Cycle Sport magazine is - how was I to know that you get copies of it
in Houston ??

The article is not dated but it appears in July 1999.
I think that it is reasonable to assume it is approximate to the start of the TDF - as the title of the CS July edition is called
"132 Page 1999 TDF Special"

I read what you posted per Carmichael and Pez.
What can I say ?
Like everything pertaining to Armstrong, it is hard to know what
"facts" are reliable.

My offer to you is open - should you wish to verify what I've posted here.

Do you have the actual date of the climb in question? Just because it appears in a "July" edition of Cycle sport, it is not reasonable to presume that it is approximate to the start of the TDF. In the same article you keep harping on, it mentions that LA climbed the Madone 12 times in 1999, and also, he guaged the results of his fitness level every three months. That could mean it might have even been back as far as the first of the year. Or do you know the actual date of the climb?

Also, on one hand you tell us that "Like everything pertaining to Armstrong, it is hard to know what"facts" are reliable.", yet you keep mentioning one article in cycle sport like it was gospel, something straight out of the bible. /shrug

Clearly, Armstrong started doping after the CycleSport interview and before the Pez interview... right Lim? That's the only explanation.

Also, thanks everyone for not picking at my brain fart, Roche's win was '87 of course, not '97... they both seem like yesterday.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by limerickman
hey, I wasn't being facetious when I explained to you what Cycle Sport magazine is - how was I to know that you get copies of it
in Houston ??

The article is not dated but it appears in July 1999.
I think that it is reasonable to assume it is approximate to the start of the TDF - as the title of the CS July edition is called
"132 Page 1999 TDF Special"

I read what you posted per Carmichael and Pez.
What can I say ?
Like everything pertaining to Armstrong, it is hard to know what
"facts" are reliable.

My offer to you is open - should you wish to verify what I've posted here.

I recall reading about Romingers record in Lances first book, which where along similiar lines to what Davidbod is saying. He definatly stated that he broke that before the 99 TDF. Unfortunatly I dont have my copy of that book or I could ref pages.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Fixey
I recall reading about Romingers record in Lances first book, which where along similiar lines to what Davidbod is saying. He definatly stated that he broke that before the 99 TDF. Unfortunatly I dont have my copy of that book or I could ref pages.

Fixey,
HIS BOOK - and that's the pertinent point.
LA's books are HIS point of view.