What would you do: team bike or replica?

Slightly OT but yesterday Major League Baseball banned 13 players for doping, which is a bit of a vindication for cyclists like myself who had to endure years of questions like "How can you be a fan of that sport with all of the cheating?" Baseball had its dopers in the past (Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire) but this was the first sweeping indictment.


BTW McGwire grew up here in Claremont, my home town.
 
Montello":19cx6qcr said:
My carbon bike is a LeMond, great rider and probably the only clean winner in a very wide date range.

judging by hinault's legs and his rage i would say that he was one of the few guys other than lemond that were clean....let's face it, some riders are just born better!!



:cool: :cool:
 
rusty bodie":jty8refk said:
Montello":jty8refk said:
My carbon bike is a LeMond, great rider and probably the only clean winner in a very wide date range.

judging by hinault's legs and his rage i would say that he was one of the few guys other than lemond that were clean....let's face it, some riders are just born better!!



:cool: :cool:

That stage & that tour were the best ever ... probably my first memories of watching the tour ...
 
Montello":1hkax3ig said:
That stage & that tour were the best ever ... probably my first memories of watching the tour ...

yup, and my third or so, i think. grandstand or world of sport (i can't remember which) would show some of the tour in 1984 and earlier on their saturday shows but it was when channel four and the incomparable phil liggett got hold of it, well that was really when it sparked my interest!

you're right about the '86 tour - it's still my favourite too, although i'm sure that greg lemond would disagree with me on that one! saying that tho', it's like having an apprentice - you don't want a young buck taking the piss and i'm glad that hinault toyed with him all the way to the finish - as hinault said, he didn't want to hand it to greg on a plate, he wanted him to prove he was worthy of winning and that he did most admirably :cool:

i especially love this compilation - the music goes with it perfectly!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je1v0E_e7QQ

:twisted:
 
Hinault never tested positive during his career. Not once. I'd say he was a clean rider, and he was most certainly a great rider. I would say second only to Merckx.

I deliberately use the phrase "never tested positive" because we heard it constantly being uttered from 1999 - 2008 ad nauseam. But Hinault raced during a period when amphetamines were pretty widely used and a positive test normally led to a two-week suspension - basically being sent to sit on the silly step. Nobody went to any great lengths to avoid positives because testing was far less complex and frequent than it now so the likelihood of getting caught was slim. Joop Zoetemelk tested positive after the 1979 Tour and got a 10 minute penalty retrospectively - but he kept his second place result! Imagine that these days!

So you were unlikely to get caught and if you did then it wasn't such a big deal. Given that Hinault would have been tested more frequently than most back then, I'd say that there's a strong chance he raced, and won, clean.

The famous duel in the photo shown below didn't even get close to the record for the ascent time for l'Alpe d'Huez at the time - it was a relatively leisurely 48 mins. The likes of Pantani and Armstrong managed it 10 minutes faster, and subsequently we know how and why it was possible to take 20% off the ascent times of two great past champions.

I appreciate that the battle that day was rather tactical and Hinault was getting towards the end of his career, but if he was doping and going all out for the win then you'd expect him to be faster.

(I also appreciate that using performance on one single climb on one day as evidence for a clean career is rather simplistic, to say the least!)

rusty bodie":10jtrcbt said:
Montello":10jtrcbt said:
My carbon bike is a LeMond, great rider and probably the only clean winner in a very wide date range.

judging by hinault's legs and his rage i would say that he was one of the few guys other than lemond that were clean....let's face it, some riders are just born better!!



:cool: :cool:
 
Incidentally, there's a book written about this very race, for those who haven't seen it.

"Slaying the Badger" by Richard Moore is subtitled "Lemond, Hinault and the Greatest Tour de France" and I think a fair number on this thread would agree with that sentiment (though there's also 1989 to consider ... )

http://slayingthebadger.com/

I bought a copy but haven't yet read it, and a friend has just pinched it! Hope to get it back in a few weeks.
 

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