Tour de France 2012

[Tazz Dan]

Does anybody else here watch/follow cycling, or at least the greatest bike race on earth? What are your predictions, can Cadel Evans go back to back, or will Bradley Wiggins be the first British Tour winner?

[LoDownM]

With Andy Schleck and Contador out, I think Evans has a pretty good chance too. I don't really think Ryder Hesjedal will be able to do the Giro/Tour Double, but I'll be pulling for him since there really isn't an American with a chance to win.

[Tazz Dan]

Gesink is probably a dark horse too, he can time trial and climb well. The sprint stages are what I'm looking forward to, Goss, Cavendish, Greipel, Sagen, Renshaw, Kittel, Petacchi, and I'm probably still forgetting someone. Lots of quick men.

[LoDownM]

Does Cavendish have a good "lead out train" with his new team? I really haven't payed attention to him/his new team since I prefer the mountain and time trial stages.

[Tazz Dan]

He's got Edvald Boasson Hagan and Bernhard Eisel to lead him out, the rest of the team is there for Wiggins. Although I see Richie Porte, Michael Rogers and Chris Froome helping out a bit. If he's smart he'll jump onto the GreenEdge train.

[Tazz Dan]

Garmin-Sharp have David Zabriskie, Christian Vande Velde and Tom Danielson riding for them, any one of those could finish podium or top 10 for America :y:

[Tazz Dan]

Chris Horner for RadioShack too.

[LoDownM]

The only way Horner is going to be in a position to get on the podium is if F. Schleck and Kloden blow it. And I'd bet Garmin is going to push Ryder for the Giro/Tour double and use the team for that.

The only American that really has any kind of shot is Levi and he isn't even a pre-race favorite.

[Tazz Dan]

Frank won't have the legs to get a podium finish, so hopefully he'll work for Kloden and Horner. Prologue starts in about 12 hours, I'm getting a bit pumped for it.

[Tazz Dan]

Sagan with the win on stage 1. I can see Cancellara holding yellow for a while.

[LoDownM]

He usually does when there's a prologue. Just noticed today no Thor Hushvod this year :-\

[Tazz Dan]

Yeah I was a bit bummed about Thor missing it, but he's been ill most of the season. Hopefully he'll be in full swing by London though. Was pretty stoked for him when he won the Worlds here a couple of years back, seems like a great bloke.

[Nicky Fives]

I hope the Canadian guy wins..... That's about all I know or care to know about it :(

[Tazz Dan]

He pulled out of the race today, one of the 17 casualties so far. Been a pretty brutal race with all the crashes so far.

[LoDownM]

Since the Tours basically over, baring some kinda insane crash or doping result, this Tour has been pretty boring. Hopefully next year will be a bit better with Andy Schleck and Contador back. Like him or not, Contador is one of the few riders who can actually attack over and over.

[Moonax]

Wiggins is every bit as dirty as Armstrong or Cuntador.

[Mooияakeя™]

No.

[Moonax]

Hiring Sean Yates, EPO Erik Zabel, Neil Stephens, Michael Barry and the abandoned promises of transparency say otherwise.

Hiring Gert Leinders who ran Michael Rasmussen's doping program at Rabobank says otherwise.

Produced w/kg at a rate which is above physically possible (anything about 6.2 w/kg is impossible to achieve without doping) says otherwise.

If you want to believe that Wiggins is clean then that is fine by me. You are also free to believe in unicorns and santa. We'll see in 5 years time what history says about Sky and Brailsford.

[Mooияakeя™]

True that. Things go around, Sky have been around for some time, so has Wiggins. Staying ahead of the anti-doping routine, yes, of course, but to do it and risk so much considering what has tarnished others and has clearly shown most riders to not want to go that way.. no. Something would of been picked up within the Olympics or outside by WADA.

Anyway, I thought some riders could sustain around 20 W/KG at points of sprinting? Taking into effect many things, without sprinting, 6 W/KG+ would be possible if an amateur is around 3-4.5 / 5.

[Moonax]

The w/kg output relates to climbing and is significant because it has to be sustained over a long period of time. This is why Wiggins claimed weight loss (he hasn't lost the weight he claimed he has) is a red herring. His output has increased at a rate above what we would expect as normal. Froome was producing over 7 in the Vuelta last year. Consider that the last people to produce over 7 were Rasmussen and Dertie Cont.

Sky have only been around 3 years, but most of the backroom staff are old dopers who know their way around the syringe.

WADA doesn't do the testing the UCI does. The year in which most dopers were caught (2008) was the year when the AFLD did the testing in the TDF. The UCI have actively sought to prevent the AFLD from being involved in dope testing.

Most riders and teams are dirty, the way in which omerta is enforced shows that there is no room for clean riders.

The tests are pretty ineffective. Only the dumb get caught. With a good programme you can micro-dose very effectively. For example a T:E ratio of 4:1 is allowable, that is not what occurs naturally (in real life it is 1:1), but you can of course manage your doping so you don't trigger a positive test. The same goes with EPO, if you set the benchmark at 50 then as long as you never cross the 50 threshold you will never fail a test (normal people have a hematocrit of c40). This was how Armstrong doped. HGH has a very short life which is why it is so popular.

Brailsford thinks he's the smartest man in the room so he doesn't think he will get caught. When his riders do get caught ie Hayles, then he throws them under the bus.

Sorry, but Wiggins and British cycling is as dirty as they come. History and the evidence surrounding the team shows that to be the case.