You said a mouth full!



thoughtforfood said:
"Something must have changed in cycling: long lasting breakaways can now succeed."

Opening line from Cyclingnews' coverage of stage 3 of Paris-Nice. http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2008/mar08/parisnice08/?id=results/parisnice083

I love it!
Maybe being Finnish helped him in the cold. I was surprised that his team mate Kreuziger attacked from the peloton. I thought the team strategy would have been to block rather than attack? But I'm no pro obviously.
 
Crankyfeet said:
Maybe being Finnish helped him in the cold. I was surprised that his team mate Kreuziger attacked from the peloton. I thought the team strategy would have been to block rather than attack? But I'm no pro obviously.
Kreuzinger didn't attack but followed the attack from other riders. Perfect team strategy.

I loved that line.... cleaner peloton, bueller?
 
earth_dweller said:
Kreuzinger didn't attack but followed the attack from other riders. Perfect team strategy.

I loved that line.... cleaner peloton, bueller?
I hope so but Gesnick's cocky comments about the climb being relatively easy make me wonder.
 
hawkeye87 said:
I hope so but Gesnick's cocky comments about the climb being relatively easy make me wonder.
Dope is still legal in da Nedderlands... :D

Wait a minute, that's just Mary Jane that's legal. Anyway... maybe they have a different attitude towards chemical ingestion... :rolleyes:
 
Crankyfeet said:
I was surprised that his team mate Kreuziger attacked from the peloton. I thought the team strategy would have been to block rather than attack? But I'm no pro obviously.
Here's why: Carlström didn't help Lhôtellerie very much and admitted it. "I was informed that my team-mate Roman Kreuziger had attacked from the chasing group," he said, "so I stayed on the Frenchman's wheel."

Like ED said, he may have followed wheels, but if you've got a teammate coming, it often changes the strategy.

CF, how did Mason Lake go?
 
From Maxime Monfort, reported on velo-club.net:


Since last August, cycling has changed. Now we have the biological passport, and you can sense that some are scared. Two years ago, at a stage like this (wednesday's Paris-Nice stage), you had a 20-rider breakaway with 8 from the same team. I would crack on the climb when the big guns started. Now I can follow them. I now enjoy the mountains again. Cycling is becoming more human.



 
earth_dweller said:
From Maxime Monfort, reported on velo-club.net:


Since last August, cycling has changed. Now we have the biological passport, and you can sense that some are scared. Two years ago, at a stage like this (wednesday's Paris-Nice stage), you had a 20-rider breakaway with 8 from the same team. I would crack on the climb when the big guns started. Now I can follow them. I now enjoy the mountains again. Cycling is becoming more human.
This man does not believe in miracles. To hope is to dream!
 
hawkeye87 said:
I hope so but Gesnick's cocky comments about the climb being relatively easy make me wonder.
gesink no doubt a top talent (perhaps the), no doubt seeing a blood doctor too.
 
earth_dweller said:
From Maxime Monfort, reported on velo-club.net:


Since last August, cycling has changed. Now we have the biological passport, and you can sense that some are scared. Two years ago, at a stage like this (wednesday's Paris-Nice stage), you had a 20-rider breakaway with 8 from the same team. I would crack on the climb when the big guns started. Now I can follow them. I now enjoy the mountains again. Cycling is becoming more human.



So basically now that everyone is being subjected to the longitudinal controls that the French have been enduring for several years, we are finally back to one speed of professional cycling :)
 
Wayne666 said:
So basically now that everyone is being subjected to the longitudinal controls that the French have been enduring for several years, we are finally back to one speed of professional cycling :)
nope. Look at the top 10-20. I would be surprised if any are clean, or not seeing the effects of an off-season strength program.

I spoke to Robin Parissotto who did the EPO test back in 99. He said it is simple to keep your levels within normal variances.

Basso was studied in 2005. The anti-doping boffins found nothing wrong with Basso.

So, it means the program, if anything, must be more advanced.

Just cos CSC have their Damsgaard program, means little. Parissotto was alarmed with some of Cancellara's blood values. Simoni said he did not believe in Andy Schleck at last year's Giro.
 
thunder said:
nope. Look at the top 10-20. I would be surprised if any are clean, or not seeing the effects of an off-season strength program.

I spoke to Robin Parissotto who did the EPO test back in 99. He said it is simple to keep your levels within normal variances.

Basso was studied in 2005. The anti-doping boffins found nothing wrong with Basso.

So, it means the program, if anything, must be more advanced.

Just cos CSC have their Damsgaard program, means little. Parissotto was alarmed with some of Cancellara's blood values. Simoni said he did not believe in Andy Schleck at last year's Giro.
Well, the current results will suggest that the scale of doping has gone down, no? We aren't seeing any super-human performances by any one team. So, while the top dudes may still be doping, they may be doing it on a scale that makes it possible for clean riders to hang on rather than get blown away.
 
TheDarkLord said:
Well, the current results will suggest that the scale of doping has gone down, no? We aren't seeing any super-human performances by any one team. So, while the top dudes may still be doping, they may be doing it on a scale that makes it possible for clean riders to hang on rather than get blown away.
Exactly, no doubt many are still doping but the longitudinal controls make it far less likely that anyone is going to get a huge advantage, which basically results from significant manipulation of the blood in some manner.

There has yet this year to be some suspiciously strong largely out of the blue performances like we've been getting the last few years. Might be that the real important races haven't started yet so no one is risking it, but it might just be the the doping is really tightly constrained now.

I'm not sure it has been spelled out what exactly will happen with the biological passport? Maybe riders are simply afraid to try much because they don't no what kind of abnormal variation will lead to problems?
 
Wayne666 said:
Exactly, no doubt many are still doping but the longitudinal controls make it far less likely that anyone is going to get a huge advantage, which basically results from significant manipulation of the blood in some manner.

There has yet this year to be some suspiciously strong largely out of the blue performances like we've been getting the last few years. Might be that the real important races haven't started yet so no one is risking it, but it might just be the the doping is really tightly constrained now.

I'm not sure it has been spelled out what exactly will happen with the biological passport? Maybe riders are simply afraid to try much because they don't no what kind of abnormal variation will lead to problems?
Exactly...

The "UCI" longitudinal control should change along the year, and need to be completed with more health parameters monitored to build a data base which could be used in the future to do comparaison.
 
TheDarkLord said:
Well, the current results will suggest that the scale of doping has gone down, no? We aren't seeing any super-human performances by any one team. So, while the top dudes may still be doping, they may be doing it on a scale that makes it possible for clean riders to hang on rather than get blown away.
It's early in the season, so let's not get carried away.

Cancellara has been impressive, maybe too impressive. After his performance at the Eroica, I think Poulidor may have been correct when he said there could have been a deal between CSC and Astana at the ToC.

I am sure doping has gone down. April will be very interesting.