Bicycle Racing Thread 2013
- Thread starter The Boy
- Start date
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
And in the least surprising end to a career since Ricco's sudden hospital admission, Di Luca has managed to get popped for a third time.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
The Di Luca bust is actually hilarious. Here's a guy who has been caught repeatedly before, manages to get a spot on a team again just in time for the Giro, and is promptly popped for good old fashioned EPO. Nowadays, EPO positives are for the desperate or the extremely stupid.
It's still used, of course, taken in microdoses. As I understand it, even in microdoses it can help but its chief use in a more sophisticated modern doping programme is to stop blood transfusions from showing up in the passport. Di Luca either screwed up his dosages in an attempt to microdose or he was just rolling the dice and doping like its 1994. Given that this clown kept getting caught before, my money is on him being dim enough to just go all in.
This is the same guy whose piss sample turned out to have the hormone levels of a small child during the Giro he won. The brilliantly named "pipi delli angeli" (angel's piss) scandal.
It's still used, of course, taken in microdoses. As I understand it, even in microdoses it can help but its chief use in a more sophisticated modern doping programme is to stop blood transfusions from showing up in the passport. Di Luca either screwed up his dosages in an attempt to microdose or he was just rolling the dice and doping like its 1994. Given that this clown kept getting caught before, my money is on him being dim enough to just go all in.
This is the same guy whose piss sample turned out to have the hormone levels of a small child during the Giro he won. The brilliantly named "pipi delli angeli" (angel's piss) scandal.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Di Luca is such a tube. Given that he couldn't even get a ride for this year and, as far as I can tell, even his team didn't want him I'd tend to go for the charged-to-the-gills-and-hoping-he-wasn't-caught theory.
Probably. He had almost no racing before the Giro either, so he might have felt he had to go all in if he was going to show without having any race days in his legs. Thing is though, that's a huge risk for any rider but it's insanity if you are the highest profile doper in the sport. I mean it wouldn't take Miss Marple to work out that he should be a pretty high priority for OOC testing.
To be fair, he's never struck me as particularly bright. Not quite self-administered blood transfusions stupid, but not far off.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Armstrong's tweet seemed outraged at the sheer stupidity rather than at the doping, which I suppose shouldn't be a surprise.
I don't think that the Di Luca positive really tells us anything about the state of the peloton. We already knew that you couldn't dope old school and just load up on EPO without running a very high risk of getting caught. He performed very well for a 37 year old with no prep racing coming off a ban, which again we'd expect from someone with juice seeping from their eyeballs in a less doped field.
I was at work all day yesterday, and didn't twig when reading your comment that this was the result of an OOC test *prior* to the Giro. Why has it taken so long to come out then? George's positive was during the race and only took about three days. Am I missing something about they way positive tests are identified when looking for EPO?
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
A four week period from taking a sample to announcing a finding isn't particularly long for an OOC test. It's possible that IC tests at major races are fast-tracked, but getting a sample, sending it off, getting it tested, having the results checked by experts, getting the findings sent back and then notifying the rider is typically a process that takes weeks.
Yeah, that was what I was assuming would be a typical turnaround, just seemed a bit odd that there was such a difference between the two.
Anyway, best comment on the subject that I've seen so far come courtesy of Christopher Juul-Jensen's writing on twitter:
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Oddly, he's the only Pro Tour rider actually born in Ireland. So of course he rides for Denmark.
Yeah, but you get to cheer on
disclaimer: I may have deliberately overstated the hype around Roche in his early years and undersold his current status.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Great win by Nibali. Now a multiple GT winner, although it should be said that neither was won against notably strong competition. His strongest opponents were an Evans who kept saying he was riding the Giro as Tour preparation and a rider a couple of places down the Sky domestique hierarchy. The Vuelta he won had Peter Velits on the podium.
Great rides by Uran, Betancur, Majka. Also by Cavendish, who was untouchable in the sprints and worked hard to still be there for them. Pirazzi, the King of the Mountains, is hugely entertaining, but I bet other breakaway riders are less than fond of his anti-social antics.
Great rides by Uran, Betancur, Majka. Also by Cavendish, who was untouchable in the sprints and worked hard to still be there for them. Pirazzi, the King of the Mountains, is hugely entertaining, but I bet other breakaway riders are less than fond of his anti-social antics.
I fucking loves him
. It's like somebody took Thomas Voeckler and removed all the gurning and race smarts and tactical nous that he has built up over the years which has left this ridiculous creature just constantly riding off the front for no fucking reason. Reckon he would attack himself if such a thing were possible...Betancur is a legend. It's just a shame he didn't get a stage win. Shoe-in for the Vuelta team though.
He'll do the Vuelta as prep for the Worlds imo.
Full tour profiles released today. Disappointing, tbh. About 9 sprint stages in total, plus a couple of Sagan specials. Reckon even the Vuelta looks better atm.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Yes, I can't see him going near the Tour, and the Worlds and Vuelta come as kind of a package if the World's course suits a rider.
The Boy said:
I don't like the look of it at all. 8 or 9 stages that Cavendish is the favourite for, which is at least three too many. And while there are a couple of Sagan type stages (ie reduced bunch sprints) in addition, there are no short steep finishes and no real "classics" type stages. Bad news for whichever of Gilbert, Purito, Martin, Betancur etc show up.
Also, very few of those stages look like ones where a strong break would be hard to control. Almost all of the sprint stages, for instance, don't even have much difficulty along the way, which means that OPQS and Lotto have no reason to be discouraged. And some of the climbing stages are a bit Vuelta-ish, with a flat route followed by a single climb at the end.
On a positive note, I like that the longer ITT is hard.
Yup. The ITT actually looks better than expected. It's just a joke that almost half the stages are going to be sprint stages that aren't even asking the sprinters or their teams to work for the win.
Still, Dauphiné starts soon and that should be a decent race. As should Suisse.
Have you got Corsica stages, Marseille Lyon and saint malo down as sprints?
Not sure about them. Profile isn't everything these days (it was in epo days) , wind , echelons, windy roads , mild indulation, narrow roads all factors too.
Gap and Lyon stages look good imo.
Not sure about them. Profile isn't everything these days (it was in epo days) , wind , echelons, windy roads , mild indulation, narrow roads all factors too.
Gap and Lyon stages look good imo.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Continuing with the optimistic theme, at least it's better than last years parcours. And the toughness of the longer ITT means that specialist climbers are less likely to get massive lumps of time put into them. Stick in a couple of short, steep finishes in place of flat sprints and make some of the other stages tougher earlier while leaving the finishes alone and it would be a really good course. I worry though that there are few stages capable of tiring out the Sky train or the Saxo domestiques.
Also sticking with the optimistic theme, it looks quite a Wiggins friendly route, so possibility of intra-team dramatics to reduce the ease with which Sky might control the race. But really, the whole race looks like the big boys will be able to control everything - sprint stage and mountains alike.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
twistedAM
Left Of The Dial
2012 annus mirabilis
