OMG, 105 for the win, being cheap is now' retro

[hamster]

You're probably/possibly right. BUT .... your French pro friend is no different to that office gossip where a woman gets promoted and everyone says she only got the job cos she slept with the boss. Maybe she'd did, but maybe she's just damn capable. But as an outsider the 'good authority ' says what it says.
I'll stick my neck out and say I'm happy to bury my head in the sand and watch the entertainment. Why? Because it affects all sports - tennis, athletics, football, American football, basketball maybe even snooker and darts ??
And then there's the fact even if they're 'clean' in the sense that they'll pass any drug test, they're so far away from what I am and do, it's irrelevant anyway. World's best talent using the best equipment, riding every day, responsibilities pushed aside (no 'proper' job, families left at home), medical treatments I have no access to (doctor on tap, massages, remedies). If I'm being entertained by an alien world, I don't really dwell on how far they've gone

Definitely snooker and darts - except it's beta-blockers there.

I laughingly said to a physio friend who has done work for endurance racing (Le Mans etc) that he must be working in the only clean sport and he said that it's amphetamines instead.

 

[legrandefromage]

I get giddy just fitting Ultegra

 

[Jonny69]

It reminds me of when a ToB stage finished in Sheffield in 2006. I had a look round at some of the team bikes that had already been mounted onto roof racks. Some of the carbon forks had big chunks missing out of them, as if they'd been bashed with a hammer. And these weren't fresh damage caused be a crash on the stage, the weather had dulled the holes over time
Compare this to the internet warriors express concern that they need new frames because the lacquer has started to peel and weathering will cause a failure

Your story reminded me of my colleague at work who is a long-term racer and has been racing since the 70s. He’s clocked up around 350,000 miles or something. He looks after everything mechanically but strictly doesn’t stop using anything until it’s completely dead. Tyres only get changed when there are threads showing, cranks get replaced when his (wide) shoes have worn about 5mm out the sides of them and those occasions when you go over a bump and your SKS Raceblades make contact with the tyre - well his ones have done it so many times they have slots worn through them.

Anyway, he got his first carbon frame quite late on when the Cycle to Work Scheme opened in 2009-ish? We all worked in the same composites department and for whatever reason the more senior composites scientists had identified that this particular higher-end Planet X frame I think it was, represented better value than its price because it was particularly well put together and not likely to make you die. Well he rode that thing every day for years with the inevitable spills associated with daily use, usually locking it up with a bare metal chain, until it was completely hanging and we were BEGGING him to PLEASE buy a new frame! It was scary. I have never seen such a banged up carbon frame in my life!