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I hadn't realised how cross I was about this whole thing until I sat down to write a short blog about it, and ended up writing 1000+ words.

I've always considered that 3 weeks riding an average of 150km a day up and down fuck off mountains just not humanly possible on "bread and water" alone, even given a certain amount of freak natural ability. Pro cyclist have doped since day one.

Seriously, if what you acutally mean is 'I can't ride for 3 weeks...' you need to person up. I am a cyclist of extremely mediocre talents, and I managed to ride from London to Basel in 5 days with luggage. I have met french cyclo-touristes well into their fifties, sixties & seventies who have done several of the diagonals (e.g. Menton - Brest) non-stop, and there's a AUKer who has done the Great Triangle (2100 MILES) in 9 days and 50 mins.

Pro road racing is much, much more sane than it was in the early days. They no longer have to ride 500k on unmade roads on bikes that weigh 20kgs and have two gears. There's also an argument that people are a lot softer now than they were then. Anyone that doubts that should read an account of Eugene Christophe's Milan - San Remo win.

Shit, people make a big fuss about road races that use unmade roads in the mountains. It's not so long ago that the majority of the mountain roads were unmade, and Hainault famously went off the side of a hill in the 1977 Dauphine on an unmade road.

so if its not possible to ride a Grand Tour without drugs, are you saying David Moncoutie took drugs, while winning 4 KOM in the Vuelta, despite all pro riders saying he is clean.

+1

Of course & you are entitled to your opinion. Charly Mottet one of the great French riders of the 80"s & early 90"s was famous for being clean. He has quite an impressive Palmares showing you can do it clean.

+1 - a big shout to Monsieur Mottet, one of the classiest riders EVER. For a master-class in descending watch his [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PP9ZSQVOyk"]1988
Lombardy win[/ame].

Are you not calling Beryl Burton a road cyclist, then? But yes, Ms Cooke and Ms Burton, whatever we call them.

Sorry, Beryl's palmares do not compare, speculation about what she might have won had there been more races for her to win is just speculation.

Come on guys, aren't you being a little too hard on the man? At least he's finally coming clean, and I for one think we should respect him for that.

He hasn't come clean. He hasn't told all about the organisation of the doping, and not many people believe his claim to have been clean during his 2008 comeback (his 2nd, 3rd or 4th comeback, depending on how you are counting).

And that's a load of cash for cancer regardless... still feel for the young riders who got binned for saying no.

Whether he has also done good things is irrelevant. He cheated (including cheating other people of winnings, employment etc), perjured, lied, bullied, threatened, blackmailed, conspired in illegality (doping was a crime in France at the time he was doing it).

Hm ... Voigt has surely got it wrong here, seeing as the case is still in full swing and a lot of loose ends remain

Jens is wrong, but lots of people in pro-cycling have the same attitude. They want the whole mess to go away so they can get on with their jobs. I understand why they feel that, and I sympathise, but the sporting public are now COMPLETELY disillusioned with mens pro cycling, and will take a long, long time to have their confidence restored. Everyone, the administrators, race organisers, team managers, sponsors, sycophantic 'journalists' (yes, Phil & Paul, I mean you) have conspired in this, or can be considered to have conspired, seeing as they were silent whilst all this was going on, so they need to speak up now, and tell us what they knew & when, or they won't be trusted ever again.

Indurain for 2nd place?

Look again at the 1996 Hautacam stage. Everyone in the leading group has been busted, or tainted by association. Except the Big Mig. Mig wasn't as obnoxious as Lance, he just won a lot of Grand Tours without feeling the need to grind everyone else into the dust, but he was unquestionably doped. Just because he's a humble man, and everyone likes him, doesn't mean he wasn't doping.

Nicole Cooke on Breakfast giving him a good shoeing. Hurray for Nicole, Britain's best ever road cyclist.

Claims not have doped during his comeback??????????????????????

This thread is hilarious, best in ages. Thanks everyone, I haven't laughed so hard at this forum EVER.

I noticed that Cooke didn't mention Armistead at all, and name-checked a few other young female riders. Not a coincidence, I think. Didn't they fall out at the 2011 Worlds?

Creative Couriers are looking for cargo bike riders.

020 7612 4040, ask for Rego.

If anyone's interested, Creative Couriers are looking for cargo bike riders.

020 7612 4040, ask for Rego.

football clubs need to start living within their means.
and Sneijder could possibly be the start of players seeing that if you take the big money and run you'll sooner or later find yourself pushed to the margins and have to do a bogarde, or be sent off to some foreign land, too foreign for you to play football..

I'm looking at you Anelka, Drogba, possibly E'to as well (though there hasn't been any talk of him being unsettled and wanting to return from Anzhi)

The Anzhi players all live in Moscow, so it's not exactly the back-end of nowhere.

Likewise Istanbul.

Pleased to see that N1 hasn't got Arsenal as top side (pity it's Tottenham). Also pleased to see post code where I was brought up is still Chelsea.

All those people in Islington pretending to be Spuds fans are nasty malicious internet TROLLS. < True FACT.

Trolls nul points.

Do I have to explain my flounce and deletion of day-moe again?

You're Damo? (Or should that be 'you were'?) Really? My memory really isn't what it used to be.

Obvious troll missed the obvious troll bait laid out by the other obvious troll.

Unless obvious troll is trolling obvious troll.

Alias trolls troll trolling alias?

Areas of poverty will have lower uptake of mobile phones. It's alsotemporally biased as well.

Doubtful, there's 2 mob phs per capita in the UK.

Email from Sue Coles- ride full, my entry has been turned down.

You can do the ride anyway, just follow someone - you just won't get a card.

I was going to use my 28c Maxxis ReFuse, other option would be my studded tyres, but that strikes me as massive overkill

If the roads are so bad that you need to use studded tyres, then the organisers will probably cancel the event on safety grounds.

FWIW I don't expect to finish particularly quickly as I'm riding fixed and am also too fat for cycling up hills. You won't need to hang about at controls for very long, but I don't think anybody would really want to as it'll be too cold for fannying about waiting.

IIRC, there's only one manned control, the other 2 (or was it 3?) were info controls (you write down the answer to the question on the sheet (what is the name of such and such house, or how far is such & such village on the sign in the green).

If the forecast is correct, I would be very careful on the descents, esp from Chute Causeway, as there is likely to be a lot of ice around. 2 years ago it was cold, and there was a heavy frost, but I was okish on 32c tyres, but some people did come off quite badly.

For me, it's been the 1st longish ride of the year when I have done it, so it's always taken a bit longer than 6 hours, hence closer to dusk than 1pm. If you're in decent shape and know the route (or are following someone that does) then 4 or 5 probably isn't wildly optimistic, but it is very lumpy, as well as being really in the lanes.

Just reading through that thread, people are talking about finishing at dusk- this is a 60 mile ride?

What have I missed here- you set off at half nine, surely you'd be back at the start by around 1pm?

This is a repost, but here's some stuff Anna wrote last year about yoga:

http://letsbustsomeshapes.wordpress.com/

Clive you say you should be able to breeze games like this against the quality of opposition like Swansea. You say you are a big team, yet against Barca you played like a small team, looking to snatch a goal against superior opponents which puts a lie to the thought that you are a big team.

Be fair, there are few teams that are as big as Barcelona have become since 1990. Only Man Ure & Real Madrid could be considered as big. A large wage bill does not a big club make.

On a manager related note, am watching the Villa Bradford game highlights and wonder whether Lambert is being slightly too revolutionary in wanting to change the philosophy of the club. They look like they had plenty of chances to score, Benteke alone has had five or six.

But maybe some of those players he'd discarded would have meant he scraped a draw here, a win there, and allowed him a bit more time to implement his new youth orientated programme. Too much, too soon?

Got to say Villa look like they can create enough chances at home to score the brace they need. Its whether they can keep 'em out at the other end..

I'd like to see Lambert given time, whether they stay up or are relegated to change things around..

Lambert had to do something drastic. I saw Villa at the Emirates last season and they were truly abject.

But Bill, I thought you were a working class hero courier?

And a hip young gunslinger as well. Who the fuck is this "any fule kno"?

Aliases are for losers. As any fule kno, I haven't been young for nearly 20 years, and I can't remember whether I was ever hip, but I doubt it.

Bill mocks me for my middle class origins and then quotes the demi god of the middle classes.

Bill is Fotherington-Thomas.

Well, I am saying hello to the Sky Blues on Saturday.

Pisti reps?

I don't believe it either.

Can anyone translate this for me?

Here's a crib for you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Molesworth#Quotes

^
Check out the big brain on Bill.

Do people still bother having aliases? I hadn't realised.