Is that what they're taking these days?

Considering your usual stance on religion threads, you are making some remarkably sweeping statements, in the absence of very much evidence, and in the face of loads.

I tend not to have much of a stance on religion threads to be honest, and steer clear of them.

I'm not sure what evidence I'm in the face of, either.

I'd love the Tour to be clean I really really would, but after years of cheating and teams and riders and doctors working out ways of beating the tests, I really don;t believe for a moment that the tests have suddenly caught up with those trying to beat them. Occasionally riders make a mistake, and get caught. Most of the time they stay ahead of the tests. The race is still a fantastic spectacle, and gripping viewing, but I cannot for second imagine its remotely clean. Since I believe everyone is cheating I think it's all more or less competitive, so it's still enjoyable viewing. But, really, do you really think they're clean? Honestly?

I remember last year's Tour de France, when Toro tried to argue that the fact that what seemed like half the field had been thrown out of the competition after getting caught, was actually proof that the sport was now cleaner than ever before. This is a bit like saying that if you catch your wife repeatedly cheating on you, and each time she comes clean about it and doesn't deny it, then it shows that she's an honest person.

Of course they're on fucking drugs.

With the greatest of respect, HoH, that is one of the dumbest analogies I've ever heard. Sorry.

If in a large population, all the wives that people thought were fucking around got caught doing so, we might reasonably conclude that not too many others were, since it's evidently so easy to get caught. That's an infinitely better analogy to the argument I made, and still a gross simplification.

Look, Ricardo Ricco was using state of the art stuff, that had been on the market less than six months, and got done. Because they have a test. And even that was one of the only ways it seemed technically possible to get past the longitudinal testing which no other sport implements.

Cycling has by orders of magnitude the most stringent testing measures of any sport. And partly as a result, it has a very high comparative detection rate. Yet people extrapolate from this to the claim that it's in worse shape than any other sport, for no other reason than that "of course" it is.

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I really don;t believe for a moment that the tests have suddenly caught up with those trying to beat them.

Who said anything about "sudden"? It's taken painful decades of false start after false start, and almsot wrecked the sport commercially in the process.

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Occasionally riders make a mistake, and get caught. Most of the time they stay ahead of the tests.

On what possible basis do you claim this? What mistake do you think Ricco made, for instance? How do you think that somebody can "stay ahead of" longitudinal testing, if not the way he tried?

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The race is still a fantastic spectacle, and gripping viewing, but I cannot for second imagine its remotely clean.

"Argument from personal incredulity". See Dawkins threads passim.

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Since I believe everyone is cheating I think it's all more or less competitive, so it's still enjoyable viewing.

Well, this is one of the fallacious ways of thinking that allowed doping to be tolerated for so long. Of course, richer and more successful guys like Ricco, Armstrong, and Pantani can afford better and less easily detectable stuff. One of Tom Simpson's roommates told the story of seeing Simpson's drug chest one day - they both spent about ten percent of their income on drugs, but Simpson made ten times what he did, and had correspondingly better stuff.

Do I think they're clean? Most of them now, yes, even if they haven't always been. I think those that aren't are getting caught in increasing numbers and with increasing publicity, coming out of it financially ruined, and I think the riders themselves are more and more seeing that.

Toro De France wrote:

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If in a large population, all the wives that people thought were fucking around got caught doing so, we might reasonably conclude that not too many others were, since it's evidently so easy to get caught. That's an infinitely better analogy to the argument I made, and still a gross simplification.

Hahaha, I knew you were going to respond with something like that.

Toro De France wrote:

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I think those that aren't are getting caught in increasing numbers and with increasing publicity, coming out of it financially ruined, and I think the riders themselves are more and more seeing that.

But if this was the case, surely they would have all stopped after seeing what happened to Marco Pantani. Instead, as we saw in the 2007 Tour, they went at it in greater numbers than ever before.

So you were aware of the problems with your analogy and posted it anyway. Great.

And classic use of "surely" to plaster over a patent non sequitur. For one guy to get caught in comparative isolation allows the "occasionally someone messes up and gets caught" way of thinking, particularly when the testing regime is as comparatively lax as it was a decade ago. My whole point was to demonstrate how that has changed, how the testing and catching is now systematic, and how "occasionally someone messes up, but if I'm smart I'll be fine" is no longer a rationally viable mindset to adopt.

Top 20 on drugs? Horseshit indeed. Top 100 I'd say. The "clean" ones are clean in the sense that they are drugged up to just under the test limits.

Cycling is the only sport that would hold up Bjarne Riis and David Millar as forces of good.

Go on, evidence please. Or reasoning from evidence. Or, you know, anything at all other than bald assertion. Jesus, you guys make AIATL look like the model of reasoned deduction.

Toro De France wrote:

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So you were aware of the problems with your analogy and posted it anyway. Great.

Shane, you well know the point I'm making, and saying stuff like "your analogy only applies if it's other people's wives" is just linguistically pirouetting around it.

It's a question of trust. Everyone knows that the Tour de France has a massive credibility problem -- but, more than that, it has been killed by something slightly different: a massive believability problem. Given what has happened in the event over the past few years -- indeed, the past decade if you include Lance Armstrong, which I certainly would -- the average onlooker simply cannot place their faith in it any more. That's the sad fact of the matter.

Let's take Sastre. Why do you think he's doped. He didn't do anything super human. He performed within the limits of his ability. He had one outstanding stage, the rest of the time his team protected him or knocked lumps off his opponents.
There were very few eye-brow raising performances. Ricco's was one, Schumacher's time trialling was a bit and perhaps the Saunier Duval dominance in Italy. Every other performance was Gerdeman like. By that I mean, if you remember Linus Gerdeman last year won a mountain stage and was dying by the time he got to the end. He was foaming at the mouth and hanging off his bike. It took him about 4 days to recover. This year you could look at stage wins by Simon Gerrans. A great stage win but then he was nowhere. There were no Floyd Landis stages, no riders who made huge efforts followed by great recoveries.
I understand why people (usually people who don't follow cycling) say that drug-use is still rife, but I'm not sure what else cycling can do. Also cycling deserves this reputation, but the argument here is pretty futile, how can each side prove their case?

I feel that most if not all of the top 20 are clean. The testing is more rigorous than any other sport and I believe that the rides this year support that. As for Riis and Millar being held up for forces of good. Are you seriously suggesting that other sports aren't hypocritical? Don't start me.

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There were no Floyd Landis stages, no riders who made huge efforts followed by great recoveries.

I dunno, Sastre demolished the peloton on the Alpe d'Huez all by himself and then put in the greatest time trial performance of his career a couple of days later.

It would be a shame if he's on anything, because I've always liked the guy and always thought he was clean. I always thought the same about Vinokourov too...

Cycling has fucked up it's credibility so much that anybody who achieves anything has a hint of suspicion about them.

He did demolish the field, but he's got a great track record as a climber. He had his team blasting away all day for them and he launched one great attack. The only one of the tour. It was less than one hour of riding for a proven climber and it was decisive. He rode a good time trial. Not a great one.
Great team + Great tactics + Proven Climber + Limited Opposition = Maillot Jaune

Why is there no jersey for 'Most Combative Rider' (the one that spends most time on breakaways)?

Given that they add spice to what might otherwise be a very dull race, don't they deserve some recognition?

I know there used to be a multicoloured 'combined jerseys' jersey, but I'm not sure if that included combativity.

UCI rules limit the number of jerseys to four. That's why they had to give special numbers for the Lanterne Rouge (the last guy on GC) when they reintroduced it. I think the leader of the prix combatif gets special numbers too.

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Shane, you well know the point I'm making, and saying stuff like "your analogy only applies if it's other people's wives" is just linguistically pirouetting around it.

I know perfectly well the point you're making, and I've pointed out why it's flawed, but if you think that - or anything like it - was my response then I'd ask you read what I wrote again.

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It's a question of trust. Everyone knows that the Tour de France has a massive credibility problem -- but, more than that, it has been killed by something slightly different: a massive believability problem. Given what has happened in the event over the past few years -- indeed, the past decade if you include Lance Armstrong, which I certainly would -- the average onlooker simply cannot place their faith in it any more. That's the sad fact of the matter.

Woah, just a minute, I sense shifting goalposts here. Before, you were saying that they were all on drugs. Now you're saying that the man in the street thinks they're all on drugs. That's quite a retreat.

I wouldn't deny that the average onlooker thinks that, and it's a serious problem for the sport. But the average onlooker doesn't know what he's on about. And quoting the view of the average onlooker as evidence for the truth of his beliefs suggests that neither do you.

Bryan - they climbed the Alpe on Wednesday, he was carried by his team for another two days, and then put in a perfectly solid TT. That is not remotely a superhuman recovery, particularly for a guy who it's been long known is comparatively better at recovering at the back end of a Grand Tour, but can suffer the first time they do consecutive days in the mountains.