True, and its sad too. The UCI list is now stricter than the Olympics drug list. If we went back to the Lance Armstrong days, you' have to remove the top 10 or so riders.....it was that prevalent
Ullrich and Basso both said on more than one occasion, if no one in the Peloton had been doping, Armstrong still would have won all 7 times. The guy was completely obsessed with winning the TDF to the point of psychosis. They used to call him "Robocop", because he attacked that Tour like an unemotional and purely focused machine.
He training days were like this several days a week for months. Nobody worked harder not even close. Guy was a killer. The doping was actually limited to small windows to avoid testing so...I don’t really get what all the fuss is about.
I agree. Beside all the BS (I condemed him too) he was the best. he wanted it the most. He was the bast strategist with the ultimate focus. Lance himself said that if Ullrich just would have made an effort he would not have won al seven. Ullrich did not prepare well for the tour and that's on him. He was to heavy at the start. Which is funny caus he was the only contender for Lance.
I miss Paul Sherwin!! I have a feeling Phil will retire this year actually. It's been sad to see the amount of mistakes he's been making this past 2 years. 50 years and he's a legend. No shame in retiring now!!!
He looked Jan right in the eyes & basically said 'if you're coming then let's go' otherwise this tour is over for you. How epic would it have been if Jan had the legs to stay with him. It would've been the greatest stage duel of all time.
Actually Lance in a recent interview said he was really looking back for his teammate to see if he was going to attack with Lance!! But it was a great story he didn’t want to ruin it back when.
they need to silence the audio and come up with an appropriate over-dub focusing on "look what a top athlete can do to his world class competition, carefully doped by a doctor who knew exactly how much EPO and oxygenated blood to put into Armstrong, and not get caught." In consulting they call it "lessons learned." Keep the recording for posterity
@@kadecarthel5297 Yes they all doped but I wonder if they all doped as much and as often as Lance did? A few of his teamates have said that US Postal had the UCI in their pockets. Meaning they could ( & did) buy their way out of (+) test results. I don't think other teams had that much confidence or pull with the powers that ran the Tour.
Yes, the best CHEAT EVER! What about the few that weren't cheating ? Would he have been so dominant against ones that didn't cheat if he didn't dope? That's the point! We'll never know...... BECAUSE.....he . CHEATED!!!!!!!!!!!
At 0:30 you can see the devil. Behind him stomping his pedals you can also see the legendary El Diablo Didi Senft in his famous red devil costume running next to the side of the road. It is so poetic Armstrong attacked at that point!
Man I miss Paul Sherwin!! I have a feeling Phil will retire this year actually. It's been sad to see the amount of mistakes he's been making this past 2 years. 50 years and you're a legend Phil. No shame in retiring now mate!!!
It was interesting to hear Ligget., the one who infamously had the commentary about Armstong "going up the road like a motorcar" avoid instances in past Tours with Armstrong involved where racing was slowed for #1 or the Yellow Jersey. I understand why, but to say that's the 1st time he had seen the leader slow up while the #2 recovered from a crash was amusing.
Lovely to hear this old commentary, Armstrong was great in terms of entertainment and was one of the reasons I got into cycling, will always like him for that despite the doping
Having cheated death, Lance finally took his training seriously and lost 30 pounds. They all doped, but dropping that excess weight was the real difference. If he hadn’t treated people so badly I would have nothing but respect for the man.
Yea, the weight reduction before the Tour was a key pivotal point to getting an optimal w/kg. More important than the EPO boosts. It was clearly evident with Jan who ended up being visibly too fat (for a world class cyclist) while having more watts than Lance.
In those years everyone was doped, not only Lance Armstrong. Remember Ulrich, Pantani, Basso, etc.. So, between the doped guys, he still was the best..
For anyone who rides seriously or has ridden Alpe Du Huez , you know first hand that going up it like Lance does here almost totally out of the saddle is totally insane and super human.
@@haroldsmith7044 Read some of the books, his scheme was a multi million dollar doping scandal, no other riders had that attribute. Plus it's still cheating and he was rightfully banned for life.
Along with every other cyclist for the past 50-60 years. Singling Armstrong out as a cheater is stupid. Literally every single professional cyclist was and continues to do exactly the same things he did. Hell most of his biggest rivals during his run served suspensions at some point because they were caught. If you want to call out the entire sport because the entire thing is a sham that's legitimate. Trying to pretend everyeone else in those races wasn't doing the exact same things is not.
Rowgue51 agree with you and you just forgot that all of the sports are packed with ped's but there is a lot of money involved so everybofy keeps quiet,like soccer in eu perhaps or tennis or nba, you name it
A cheat is a cheat no matter how many others are cheating. Children look to champions for inspiration and copy them. We can do without Armstrong and all the rest because then real Champions will emerge. Almost every sport is now tarnished with drug abuse and doping but that’ll never make it acceptable. He’s a cheat end of story
What an EPIC stage this was. Who cares If they were doped? It was such a great Tour and this unbelievable stage. These two guys still were the Best of them all. And will ever be!
Right!! If they ALL doped doesnt that just level the field anyway. And the ones that werent, if there was any, didnt have what it takes to win anyway. Lance rode the miles, he changed every aspect to the Tour, he trained harder and using meds or not he was not going to lose because he was physically stronger than anyone, physically and mentally. The tactics were like no other sport!! The way he played possom, or the look at Ullrich to see if he was able to follow then launch like a mad man! He broke the will of everyone, and if someone tried Lance went harder until they gave up. Lance was the Tour. His team helped too but he was just better.
@@kingtungstenworldwide4472 He didn't train harder, he had a team of scientists making better drugs. That doesn't make him better - you can argue his suppliers were better, but he was not.
Lance had an extraordinary large heart however the most impressive thing he had was his lactate threshold. When guys lactates we're hitting 14 up the climbs Lance was only hitting 6 and 7 so he was no where near in the same pain as the others, plus he could recover so much faster.
@@OttoIncandenza Apparently they ALL doped so it was irrelevant. Unfortunately all we hear looking back was that Lance did and nobody else did but everyone did. And for the few that didnt, they didnt have what it took to win the GC anyway.
I was a huge Armstrong fan. He was the reason I got turned on to the TDF. It was so sad that he was found out to be cheating. Maybe they all were. But he was the guy that was winning. So they focused on him.
Actually Ullrich was perhaps the strongest but his penchant for grinding up the hills in a high gear hindered. His abiliyy to react quickly enough to Armstrongs high cadence and low gear style.
It did not matter, that was just the cadence he was generating the best output. He put down more torque vs less torque spinning faster to achieve the same. Recall his background was that of a short run time trialist and bunch sprinter during his youth. The main issue is that Jan was too fat. His extra heft lead to a lower w/kg rating that lead to major problems in the mountains over sustained lengths.
I love how the commentators immediately interpret "he looked straight into his eyes and said hey im going are u coming" . When lance later said he was just looking for his teammates incase this attack failed.
@@margusmikson794 I always have my eye on cadence. It's something I always look at ironically and I didn't notice any really high cadence. I am ALWAYS fascinated these guys push such big gears in the high mountains so I didn't see a really high cadence. Nothing like how Froomey rides. Thats a super high cadence. I did notice some lower gears being used on occasion but they were at an almost 20% incline. I just didn't notice a really high cadence. When I refer to "high cadence" I'm basing it from Froomeys style of cadence. Very high
@@starlitshadows I don't really know why I say this but a higher cadence is the exact style you would expect to see in dopers in many cases. The extra oxygen in the blood or the TUEs given for things like asthma that allow the bronchi to open up so one can breathe better helps them spin a higher cadence and gives them longer endurance. Really high cadence CAN be a sign of PEDs or abuse of TUE's
What did they say watts/kg was required to win this stage at 30 min threshold? 6.3 w/kg? At my wt of 87 kg, I would have to maintain 540+ watts/30min. I cant sustain that for more than a few minutes. Even with religious training, Im lucky to even sustain 340 watts for 15 minutes.
Most professional riders are 15-20 kg lighter than you are. They have around 400-450 watts. Plus, they spend 30+ hours a week training. Us normal humans have work and other obligations. I'm lucky to get 12 hours a week.
I'm not sure this stage was measured but on the Alpe' stage where it was a time trial they have Lance's time up the mountain at 6.97w/kg. Essentially 7w/kg for about a little over half an hour. And, that was near the end of the Tour so fatigue had already made its way in.
If you look closely this was the year and bike that Lance used an old school brake only on the left side instead of the STI intergrated shifter. Pretty sure he had a downtube shifter ( friction or SIS ) to control the RD. Phil and Paul mentioned this, don't know if it was just for the weight savings or what. Lance used the same on other climbs.
American's put the rear shifter/brake on the right. By that line of logic, the friction shifter would have control the FD for an American rider, ie Lance.
Steve Bullard Most pro riders switch to downtube shifters for climbing stages. When you are going uphill you do not want chain rub or sprocket rubbing noises. Down tube shifters allow for less chain rub on FD and RD because there is no indexing to reset. It is also much lighter as well. A big advantage of down tube shifter is also you can cross chain to gear combos not possible with sis or di setups. You can see here he is on the big ring but using a bigger sprocket due to the down tube shifters allowing those bigger combos.
@@floriank6521 ja they did it at different levels like the Festina team which had a trunk full (a trunk full of blood)..... Ja mmmmmmm they did it at different levels. The only level that was different was Lance was more shrewed.
Not all were raging psychopaths who had access to the best doping doctors and protection though. Don't get me wrong it was entertaining to watch but no way everyone else had access to the same stuff. On the other hand same could be said now aswell. Atleast he didn't use a motor, I guess, like some others after him.
Excellent climbing performance and poker face all day long (dope or not). Incredible to watch. Sorry if 90's and 00's cycling offends you. I'm sure most who complain never raced a bike.
It's not about certain decades of cycling being unpopular. It's about these riders being held up as equal or superior to the all-time greats who were not doping because it was not available to the level of med technology that Armstrong had or because they simply considered it wrong to use PED's. You gotta admit that Armstrong accelerating on Alpe DHuez like that at the end of a 6 hour day makes his use of drugs so obvious it's almost comical. After he was exposed and had to ride clean, he struggled up these tough mountain climbs.
@@tennsmoothie If you think that the all time great cyclists like Eddy Merckx didn’t use performance enhancing drugs then you’re seriously mental. They used mostly amphetamines before blood doping was a thing. The UCI just used to not have as strict of requirements for riders.
2023 and there's still nobody like Lance! They all doped so thats not the reason, he changed the game in every aspect. Not only that, nobody has the determination he had to the finish line because he knew every second mattered. Its never over until its over. Today so many celebrate before they finish like theyre doing something but your not doing anything until youre 110% to the end.
I don't think you can really appreciate watching sports like this unless you have done it yourself and experienced the pain and suffering, the mind games you play with yourself, the fatigue and exhaustion, the aching back and hands and neck etc. Forcing yourself to keep going despite your body screaming at you to stop. You can't appreciate what they are going through unless you have experienced it. Same as with any sport.
NOTE: Gotta love the earlier days, if you closely you will notice that lance has a friction shifter for his front derailleur and a non-sti lever at his left hand for weight savings. Used to save about 50g before the bikes could approach the uci legal limit by accident (technology!)
Despite all the doping drama, as many in the tour were, had been and probably still do…….Lance was the best there ever was. You can take away trophies, strip titles but any athlete who has ever competed on the world stage and gets owned not once, not twice but seven times, can tell you…..the dude was an animal. As a teen, like Lance, competed in triathlons in the early 90’s and he was beating everyone. He chose cycling only because it was more profitable and better sponsors. In 2010 I ran a lap of Bagram Airbase in AFG with him and he was still fast as hell. If anyone was the GOAT of the TDF, it is/was Lance. 🇺🇸
Para mi el mejor de todos los tiempos en la subida los largaba a todos digan lo que digan de el ciclista completo contra reloj subida bajada tenian que controlar a todos del dopin
jer terr Guy is cheating. he admitted he cheated, but your saying "pure class?" Makes no sense, seems like the opposite of class, cheating and then lying about it is class to you???
I remember this stage Lance was looking like he was just barley holding on at the back of the pack the commentators said he look finished but he was playing possum and fooled everyone that was one hell of an exciting stage.
He was a beast. It was a level playing field. Great era. What irritates me the most is he made many people millionaires and they threw him under the bus. I’m not justifying doping but I sure am tired of righteous Cat 4s throwing him under the bus. He was a phenomenon.
