He still has one nut. That will produce the necessary testosterone.

Personally, I don't believe he dopes (illegal substances). Hope springs eternal.

Well, in his own words, he is one of the most tested athletes around. He gets tested around 40 times a year, he says. They have even showed up at his house at 7am for a random drug test. They do it all the time, and seem to be very rude about it.

So - no, I do not think that there is any chance in hell that he is.

I think any one who thinks Lance is Doping is crazy. Anyone who knows the sport knows that Lance is just one of the best there is. So if you couldn't tell... I voted that he was not doping.

From those I know that have doped, you can't produce results this far down the line. It takes a HUGE toll on your body in the long run - there's almost no way he could be juicing at a level sufficient to beat world class athletes for this many years.

NO!!!!! It's bull that everybody thinks he is on drugs.

It would depend on what you took and in what dose.

This thread is pointless. And that's because what we think doesn't count a bit.

I would contend that it depends on what you think the thread is for. If you think that by including your opinions here it will alter what is or isn't determined in the long run, then I would have to agree with you. If you wanted a place to discuss your feelings on the issue and to compare them to the opinions of others, then I think it's serving the purpose quite well.

Are you saying public opinion doesn't serve to influence what happens in the long run? Police, journalists, etc all investigate when there is public pressure or accepted opinion, or when it serves their interests (eg when there is a market for what journalists write). Our knowledge of the arguments and probabilities and our interest in the issue will influence the outcomes, even if that influence is difficult to track directly to an individual.

My view: if we want a clean sport we have to pull the wool out of our eyes. That doesn't mean LA or any other single athlete is doping, but it also means acknowledging the possibility that they might, and they could easily get away with it. The effort should be put into improving funding for researching tests, and improving the culture of cycling and sports in general.

Some ideas: a higher drug testing levy on licences; UCI provides more funding for developing tests; non-analytical negatives allowed - but they are part of a contractual term in the racing licence agreement that specifies they need to be proved beyond reasonable doubt, thus allowing for judicial review; whistleblowers fee paid where sanctions are secured as a result of a licensed coach, athlete or official providing information (as happens with insider trading and market manipulation offences in the stockmarket in the USA and UK); sanctions for team directors who employ doping riders; fines for teams as well as riders for doping offences.

I'm guessing you had to do a little creative thinking in order to play Devil's advocate on a post I felt was accurate and also fairly innocuous but as it often appears there is a deficiency of thinking in the world, I guess I can't find fault with that even if a few extremes were required to get there.

So, for starters, the comment I replied to spoke specifically of this thread. No, I don't think this thread will be brought into scrutiny by the UCI, the DEA, the CIA or even your local club as a tool to determine whether or not Armstrong is clean.

Whereas public pressure is a useful tool in prompting investigations where such are lacking and more in-depth investigations where investigations are fairly surface, I don't feel that the comments made by the few posters on this thread will do much more than provide some stimulating discussion. It's too small a segement of the public and I would guess there is too little political clout represented by the members to stir any real change in current drug testing methods or interest.

In applying pressure it is almost always the political force behind a few individuals rather than a combined political wave that causes officials to take notice. After more than two decades of working for a law enforcement agency I can tell you that an entire city block can enter pleas for change and see no results while one well placed phone call to the Chief or other high-ranking member of administration from a council member, friend of a judge or the Mayor's neighbor will have things rolling in a matter of hours if not minutes. This has been observed over a series of Chiefs and within several local agencies. Citizens make noise for a short time. Politicians in high places can make and break careers. They often receive "service" which would be denied to other citizens such as law enforcement officers being prompted to become involved in civil issues. In short, political power means a whole lot more than issues of legality.

I'm not so sure that the current drug problems in cycling, assuming they do exist to the degree many suggest, can ever truly be affected on a meaningful scale. Different tests can be devised and the long thread of red tape can be endured to have them accepted but there will always be another drug, another way to evade detection. Fines and punishment seem to be the primary tools to enforce any undesirable behavior but in reality, those tools rarely extract the intended results and as soon as you levy fines on anything, the revenue becomes someone's budget and the whole purpose of the punishment becomes lost in a lust for more money, more power, and more money to buy still more power.

Do you suppose that traffic tickets are utilized to make public thoroughfares safer to utilize? That was the way it started. Now they're a way to buy political power, political favors and political friends. Once you attach a monetary fine to anything, corruption is just around the corner. Want to know why local traffic enforcement jumped 300% in the past week? Talk to a certain judge about a certain understanding with a certain member of police administration. Fines don't work. The money is too attractive and everyone quickly loses sight of the original intent. Fines quickly become a method of selective taxation. That's why quotas for traffic citations have been met with so much resistance. But there are always ways around such things.

Perhaps we should accept cycling for what it is, try to keep the doping to a reasonable limit, (whatever that might be determined to be) and stop pretending that our muffled voices are really ever heard by those gaining in power and wealth.

...I could be wrong, but it's doubtful.

I basically agree with all of this. I do think though, that at a less observable level public opinion can have an effect. If you have the ability to 'put in a call' to the right person, you win. However, that won't always happen, and ultimately decision makers are friends socially and politically engaged with members of the public. Shifts in public mood and sentiment will ultimately result in shifts in the reasoning and values employed by decision makers. I think we're both right. You have put your finger on the kinds of exercise of power that we need to be conscious of in attempting to get good policy implemented, and, I hope, the opinions of the public at large will have a less observable but still real effect in the long term (although it will be shaped by decision makers as well as shaping their decisions).

I don't think he dopes, but I think he is a dope.

Anyone that would leave their wife and kids for Cheryl Crow needs to have their head examined.

Oh yeah 'cause it's that simple . . . .

__________________
Get out and ride

Why does it have to be more complicated? He went Hollywood. I think even the Lance worshipper's will admit that.

And before any of you start with that, "It's his personal business" crap. He wrote two books which I bought talking about how his family is everything to him and then before the second book even hits the stands, he splits on them.

So save your idol worship. He is a great cyclist. THAT IS IT.