Yeah, this'll improve the TdF

[Robert Chung]

They want to toss Astana-Wurth but keep Bouygues.

[Robert Chung]

P.S.

Last year, Bouygues did so well that this year the DS said to himself,
"gee, is there any way that we could possibly improve this group? No? Hey,
let's just send them all back."

[Jonathan v.d. Sluis]

"Robert Chung" > wrote in news:4gbviqF1mbd3lU1
@individual.net:

> They want to toss Astana-Wurth but keep Bouygues.
>
>

Idiots. If bouygues ride one day, they're tired the next! What good is
that? The true pros from Astana don't have that, they're the real deal and
a bunch of class acts.

[WeaselPoopPower]

Robert Chung wrote:
> They want to toss Astana-Wurth but keep Bouygues.
>
>

Has team Amgen landed a spot yet?

[B. Lafferty]

"Jonathan v.d. Sluis" > wrote in message
...
> "Robert Chung" > wrote in news:4gbviqF1mbd3lU1
> @individual.net:
>
>> They want to toss Astana-Wurth but keep Bouygues.
>>
>>
>
> Idiots. If bouygues ride one day, they're tired the next! What good is
> that? The true pros from Astana don't have that, they're the real deal and
> a bunch of class acts.

If the French police keep all the team hotels under surveillance making it
difficult to bring in blood products (not that the blue coolers are the
method of transport) we may see a different Tour this year with many tired
teams. It would be possible to boost before the Prologue, but it might be
too risky to do it before the mountains. If you see real suffering in the
mountains, you'll know the police have affected the race.

[Curtis L. Russell]

On Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:42:16 +0200, "Jonathan v.d. Sluis"
> wrote:

>Idiots. If bouygues ride one day, they're tired the next!

Then you're suggesting that the mountains will separate the men from
the Bouygues?

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

[Tuschinski]

B. Lafferty wrote:

>
> If the French police keep all the team hotels under surveillance making it
> difficult to bring in blood products (not that the blue coolers are the
> method of transport) we may see a different Tour this year with many tired
> teams. It would be possible to boost before the Prologue, but it might be
> too risky to do it before the mountains. If you see real suffering in the
> mountains, you'll know the police have affected the race.

Blood transfusions are usually taken in the build up, so I'm not sure
if they are a big issue during the race. And there is always Epo (Yes,
I fear they can manage to take that without being caught)

[B. Lafferty]

"Tuschinski" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
> B. Lafferty wrote:
>
>>
>> If the French police keep all the team hotels under surveillance making
>> it
>> difficult to bring in blood products (not that the blue coolers are the
>> method of transport) we may see a different Tour this year with many
>> tired
>> teams. It would be possible to boost before the Prologue, but it might
>> be
>> too risky to do it before the mountains. If you see real suffering in
>> the
>> mountains, you'll know the police have affected the race.
>
> Blood transfusions are usually taken in the build up, so I'm not sure
> if they are a big issue during the race. And there is always Epo (Yes,
> I fear they can manage to take that without being caught)
>
But they apparently were sending blood over to Italy from Spain for infusion
the day before mountain stages.

[Tuschinski]

B. Lafferty wrote:
> "Tuschinski" > wrote in message
> oups.com...
> >
> > B. Lafferty wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> If the French police keep all the team hotels under surveillance making
> >> it
> >> difficult to bring in blood products (not that the blue coolers are the
> >> method of transport) we may see a different Tour this year with many
> >> tired
> >> teams. It would be possible to boost before the Prologue, but it might
> >> be
> >> too risky to do it before the mountains. If you see real suffering in
> >> the
> >> mountains, you'll know the police have affected the race.
> >
> > Blood transfusions are usually taken in the build up, so I'm not sure
> > if they are a big issue during the race. And there is always Epo (Yes,
> > I fear they can manage to take that without being caught)
> >
> But they apparently were sending blood over to Italy from Spain for infusion
> the day before mountain stages.

Then it will be interesting indeed... but I expect more "external"
spectacle than people dropping due to a lack of fresh blood.

I keep having visions of Transylvania^^

[[email protected]]

B. Lafferty wrote:
> If you see real suffering in the mountains, you'll know the police have affected the race.

^^^^ there's something to look forward to! ^^^^

[Jonathan v.d. Sluis]

Curtis L. Russell > wrote in
:

> On Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:42:16 +0200, "Jonathan v.d. Sluis"
> > wrote:
>
>>Idiots. If bouygues ride one day, they're tired the next!
>
> Then you're suggesting that the mountains will separate the men from
> the Bouygues?
>
> Curtis L. Russell
> Odenton, MD (USA)
> Just someone on two wheels...
>

No, as usual the mountains will separate the French from the Spaniards (or
those just living there for 'optimal training conditions').

[B. Lafferty]

> wrote in message
ups.com...
>
> B. Lafferty wrote:
>> If you see real suffering in the mountains, you'll know the police have
>> affected the race.
>
> ^^^^ there's something to look forward to! ^^^^

Amen! Sandy Casar may actually do the double. :-)

[Frank Drackman]

"B. Lafferty" > wrote in message
nk.net...
>
> "Tuschinski" > wrote in message
> oups.com...
>>
>> B. Lafferty wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> If the French police keep all the team hotels under surveillance making
>>> it
>>> difficult to bring in blood products (not that the blue coolers are the
>>> method of transport) we may see a different Tour this year with many
>>> tired
>>> teams. It would be possible to boost before the Prologue, but it might
>>> be
>>> too risky to do it before the mountains. If you see real suffering in
>>> the
>>> mountains, you'll know the police have affected the race.
>>
>> Blood transfusions are usually taken in the build up, so I'm not sure
>> if they are a big issue during the race. And there is always Epo (Yes,
>> I fear they can manage to take that without being caught)
>>
> But they apparently were sending blood over to Italy from Spain for
> infusion the day before mountain stages.

The blood never made it and the Buffalo didn't crack. I assume that they
had other products already on site.

I think it is really funny listening to announcers when someone like
Gutierrez or Rumsas suddenly is climbing with the best. The announcers are
extremely careful in what they say and never mention the possibility of
chemical enhancement but you know that they are thinking it.

[Jonathan v.d. Sluis]

"Frank Drackman" > wrote in
:

> I think it is really funny listening to announcers when someone like
> Gutierrez or Rumsas suddenly is climbing with the best. The
> announcers are extremely careful in what they say and never mention
> the possibility of chemical enhancement but you know that they are
> thinking it.
>
>

That's not always true - I have heard Belgian commentators speculate quite
openly about doping, like during last year's Vuelta, when Heras was
suddenly much better than he had been during the tour.

[[email protected]]

I'm sorry, you just reminded me how incredulous that sponsorship is to
me. What kind of moron do they have in charge of PR at Amgen?


WeaselPoopPower wrote:
> Robert Chung wrote:
> > They want to toss Astana-Wurth but keep Bouygues.
> >
> >
>
> Has team Amgen landed a spot yet?

[Kurgan Gringioni]

Jonathan v.d. Sluis wrote:
>
>
> No, as usual the mountains will separate the French from the Spaniards (or
> those just living there for 'optimal training conditions').





Dumbass -


I speculate that the roots of the French suckitude go beyond doping.


thanks,

K. Gringioni.

[[email protected]]

wrote:
> I'm sorry, you just reminded me how incredulous that sponsorship is to
> me. What kind of moron do they have in charge of PR at Amgen?

Amgen sponsors a club (of their own employees - maybe others too?).
Some of them are pretty good. What should they do, tell their
employees to sit on the couch and watch TV? Amgen does not
bear much moral responsibility for the fact that dopes abuse EPO
(assuming Amgen is not sneaking it onto the black market,
which is highly unlikely). This is like saying that Budweiser
shouldn't sponsor car racing because there are people out there
who abuse Bud and drive drunk. Don't flame the sponsors, people.
They're enough trouble to find as it is.

[[email protected]]

B. Lafferty wrote:

> If the French police keep all the team hotels under surveillance making it
> difficult to bring in blood products (not that the blue coolers are the
> method of transport) we may see a different Tour this year with many tired
> teams. It would be possible to boost before the Prologue, but it might be
> too risky to do it before the mountains. If you see real suffering in the
> mountains, you'll know the police have affected the race.

Or that the police have only intercepted half the blood bags.
It's easy to predict suffering in the mountains, since every year,
_somebody_ suffers in the mountains.
I thought dope was supposed to make the average speed higher.
So without dope, will the average speed be lower? And will that
make the mountains harder, or not?

[B. Lafferty]

> wrote in message
oups.com...
> B. Lafferty wrote:
>
>> If the French police keep all the team hotels under surveillance making
>> it
>> difficult to bring in blood products (not that the blue coolers are the
>> method of transport) we may see a different Tour this year with many
>> tired
>> teams. It would be possible to boost before the Prologue, but it might
>> be
>> too risky to do it before the mountains. If you see real suffering in
>> the
>> mountains, you'll know the police have affected the race.
>
> Or that the police have only intercepted half the blood bags.
> It's easy to predict suffering in the mountains, since every year,
> _somebody_ suffers in the mountains.
> I thought dope was supposed to make the average speed higher.
> So without dope, will the average speed be lower? And will that
> make the mountains harder, or not?

Daniel Baal noted that there is, in his opinion, a chasm between the riders
who can afford the more expensive preparation and the rest of the peloton.
There seem to be more "suffering" riders in the mountains but not among the
top riders. The teams will no doubt try to fake out the French drug police
by switching to green coolers this July.

[Robert Chung]

wrote:

> So without dope, will the average speed be lower? And will that
> make the mountains harder, or not?

The Vuelta has shorter stages than the Tour, with the idea that the strain
on the riders would be reduced. A side argument, though I'm not sure how
serious it was, was that less strain would decrease the incentive for
doping. Yeah, right. It appears that shortening the stages simply led to
increasing average speeds. Here's a paper that suggests that the total
physiological load of the Vuelta and the Tour are roughly the same even
though the Vuelta is shorter.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12750600&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum

Wasn't it Lemond who said of doping, "It doesn't get any easier -- you
just go faster" ?

[Mark Fennell]

wrote:
> Amgen sponsors a club (of their own employees - maybe others too?).

Yes, others too.

> Some of them are pretty good. What should they do, tell their
> employees to sit on the couch and watch TV? Amgen does not
> bear much moral responsibility for the fact that dopes abuse EPO
> (assuming Amgen is not sneaking it onto the black market,
> which is highly unlikely). This is like saying that Budweiser
> shouldn't sponsor car racing because there are people out there
> who abuse Bud and drive drunk. Don't flame the sponsors, people.
> They're enough trouble to find as it is.

100% agreement here. They have a great club/team with a lot of riders. They
put on a good local race this year. And of course, Amgen was key for the
Tour of California.

[[email protected]]

B. Lafferty wrote:

> Daniel Baal noted that there is, in his opinion, a chasm between the riders
> who can afford the more expensive preparation and the rest of the peloton.
> There seem to be more "suffering" riders in the mountains but not among the
> top riders. The teams will no doubt try to fake out the French drug police
> by switching to green coolers this July.

Okay. So, assuming the French police staff their TDF unit with
colorblind narcs and stop all the coolers, no matter what color, the
gap between the top ("prepared") riders and the rest should be
lessened. So then we should expect _less_ suffering in the mountains,
not more. Sure there will be some highly-touted rider who completely
fails to deliver - but that happens every year, and maybe sometimes
not because of dope or the lack thereof.

I have an actual point here, which is that although it will be tempting
to look at the results and infer the effect of doping raids, you can
make equally good (or equally bad) arguments either way. When
somebody comes out of the blue and starts riding really well,
suspicions go up (Hello, Francisco Perez). But when somebody starts
sucking all of a sudden, that's not evidence of doping. It's evidence
of sucking.

[B. Lafferty]

> wrote in message
ups.com...
> B. Lafferty wrote:
>
>> Daniel Baal noted that there is, in his opinion, a chasm between the
>> riders
>> who can afford the more expensive preparation and the rest of the
>> peloton.
>> There seem to be more "suffering" riders in the mountains but not among
>> the
>> top riders. The teams will no doubt try to fake out the French drug
>> police
>> by switching to green coolers this July.
>
> Okay. So, assuming the French police staff their TDF unit with
> colorblind narcs and stop all the coolers, no matter what color, the
> gap between the top ("prepared") riders and the rest should be
> lessened. So then we should expect _less_ suffering in the mountains,
> not more. Sure there will be some highly-touted rider who completely
> fails to deliver - but that happens every year, and maybe sometimes
> not because of dope or the lack thereof.

We'll see what happens. There are a number of factors at work here. When
the climbing wattage of the elite riders drops to something near what it was
in pre-1990, we'll have something to talk about.
>
> I have an actual point here, which is that although it will be tempting
> to look at the results and infer the effect of doping raids, you can
> make equally good (or equally bad) arguments either way. When
> somebody comes out of the blue and starts riding really well,
> suspicions go up (Hello, Francisco Perez). But when somebody starts
> sucking all of a sudden, that's not evidence of doping. It's evidence
> of sucking.

Or evidence of a transfusion reaction?

[Jonathan v.d. Sluis]

"Kurgan Gringioni" > wrote in
oups.com:

>
> Jonathan v.d. Sluis wrote:
>>
>>
>> No, as usual the mountains will separate the French from the
>> Spaniards (or those just living there for 'optimal training
>> conditions').
>
>
>
>
>
> Dumbass -
>
>
> I speculate that the roots of the French suckitude go beyond doping.
>
>
> thanks,
>
> K. Gringioni.
>
>

So do I.

[Frank Drackman]

"Jonathan v.d. Sluis" > wrote in message
...
> "Frank Drackman" > wrote in
> :
>
>> I think it is really funny listening to announcers when someone like
>> Gutierrez or Rumsas suddenly is climbing with the best. The
>> announcers are extremely careful in what they say and never mention
>> the possibility of chemical enhancement but you know that they are
>> thinking it.
>>
>>
>
> That's not always true - I have heard Belgian commentators speculate quite
> openly about doping, like during last year's Vuelta, when Heras was
> suddenly much better than he had been during the tour.

I guess that I should have qualified the statement to the announcers that I
have listened to. Do the Belgian commentators ever comment on the
possibility of Belgian riders using dope? I can't begin to imagine
commentary for the U.S. market speculating that "our boys' could be using.

[Michael Press]

In article
. com>,
"Kurgan Gringioni" > wrote:

> Jonathan v.d. Sluis wrote:
> >
> >
> > No, as usual the mountains will separate the French from the Spaniards (or
> > those just living there for 'optimal training conditions').
>
>
>
>
>
> Dumbass -
>
>
> I speculate that the roots of the French suckitude go beyond doping.

I think otherwise: that the Festina affair affects French
cycling to this day; that the civil authorities in France
are policing cycling.

--
Michael Press

[Michael Press]

In article <usgog.8020$Nv.2652@fed1read10>,
"Mark Fennell" > wrote:

> wrote:
> > Amgen sponsors a club (of their own employees - maybe others too?).
>
> Yes, others too.
>
> > Some of them are pretty good. What should they do, tell their
> > employees to sit on the couch and watch TV? Amgen does not
> > bear much moral responsibility for the fact that dopes abuse EPO
> > (assuming Amgen is not sneaking it onto the black market,
> > which is highly unlikely). This is like saying that Budweiser
> > shouldn't sponsor car racing because there are people out there
> > who abuse Bud and drive drunk. Don't flame the sponsors, people.
> > They're enough trouble to find as it is.
>
> 100% agreement here. They have a great club/team with a lot of riders. They
> put on a good local race this year. And of course, Amgen was key for the
> Tour of California.

They sponsored it. Governor Schwarzenegger was key. It
only happened because he said to make it happen.

--
Michael Press

[Donald Munro]

Kurgan Gringioni wrote:
> I speculate that the roots of the French suckitude go beyond doping.

France 3 Spain 1

Fred will probably knock them out of the next round though.

[Jonathan v.d. Sluis]

"Frank Drackman" > wrote in
:

>
> "Jonathan v.d. Sluis" > wrote in message
> ...
>> "Frank Drackman" > wrote in
>> :
>>
>>> I think it is really funny listening to announcers when someone like
>>> Gutierrez or Rumsas suddenly is climbing with the best. The
>>> announcers are extremely careful in what they say and never mention
>>> the possibility of chemical enhancement but you know that they are
>>> thinking it.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> That's not always true - I have heard Belgian commentators speculate
>> quite openly about doping, like during last year's Vuelta, when Heras
>> was suddenly much better than he had been during the tour.
>
> I guess that I should have qualified the statement to the announcers
> that I have listened to. Do the Belgian commentators ever comment on
> the possibility of Belgian riders using dope? I can't begin to
> imagine commentary for the U.S. market speculating that "our boys'
> could be using.

Good question. I cannot think of specific examples, but generally cases
like those of Museeuw or Bruylandts are taken as sad facts but not
emphasized.