Photography by Simon Moody

The Secret Pro, post-Tour de France edition

by The Secret Pro

The last time we heard from The Secret Pro he was preparing for the Tour de France. Now that the Tour is finished TSP has found some time to bring us the latest from inside the peloton. In this edition The Secret Pro brings us his perspective on the world's biggest bike race, the latest doping revelations to come out of the French Senate report, post-Tour crits and more.

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve written but in races like the Tour de France it’s hard to find time to do anything but eat, sleep and race. You might think there’s 18 hours left in the day to do stuff while we’re not racing our bikes, but we’re constantly on the clock going from one place to another.

First up, let’s talk about the fans who run alongside us on the road during the big climbs of the TdF. I love their enthusiasm but seriously, when you’ve got a million people on Alpe d’Huez and many of them fuelled up with alcohol and running beside you waving a flag in a big superman costume, it’s just a matter of time before someone gets hurt.

It might look funny on TV, but when you have someone yelling obscenities (they’re not always cheering us on) then it’s not an easy thing to take. I think 90% of the fans are respectful and use their brains, but mix in a bit of alcohol and hate (yes, some of them actually seem to hate us for some reason), I’m genuinely worried for my safety sometimes. There are a lot of crazies out there and when you get hundreds of thousands of people on a hill, there’s bound to be a time when somebody tries to harm one of us.

We all think that at one time or another. There need to be more gendarmes controlling these guys. I feel like a circus animal getting poked just for laughs sometimes. It’s the last thing you need when climbing after 200km — even trying to stay in the groupetto is far from being easy.

But I do love the energy the fans bring to the race. Having them along the roadside is electric, and when I stop to think about it it’s quite humbling that they make the enormous effort to be there.

It seems that the media theme of this year’s Tour was all the commotion about the performance calculations and analysis of the top riders and the climbs. The whole thing about performance analysis and Froome not being clean was only a media driven story. I haven’t heard one guy in the peloton say a negative thing about Froome, and I haven’t heard a single person in the peloton suggest Froome isn’t clean. From the interactions I’ve had with him over the years he’s been a complete gentleman and his performances certainly haven’t come from nowhere.

Of course, somebody had to be the media whipping boy this Tour, and if it wasn’t Froome, it would have been someone else. I’m not sure anyone else would have done as good a job as him in handling it as he did.

In terms of this being a clean Tour, one thing I can say is that the style of racing has changed, even in the past five years. The previous generation of riders, who we all now know were dopers, would put in five or six attacks and then ride to the top of the HC mountain without even being out of breath. Now, you’ll only see a couple attacks and that’s it. Riders are coming past the finish line cross-eyed and completely destroyed now.

It’s important to keep this in mind when comparing this Tour to the ’90s and early 2000s. It’s much different to be riding a climb at threshold with only a couple attacks or responses in your legs versus what Armstrong and Pantani did. If you’ve ever ridden a bike and looked at your power meter to see what those types of efforts take out of your legs versus riding at constant threshold, you’ll know what I’m talking about. This is likely why some of the top climbers are setting times up the climbs that rival some of the fastest.

I’m no Team Sky fanboy but they sure copped it this Tour. They didn’t have the same Tour team as they did last year and we saw them $hit the bed on stage 9 trying to chase down everything that moved. They looked like a bunch of Labradors on a beach playing fetch with a tennis ball. That’s how they were riding it and they paid for it. Fortunately for them Froome was so strong or else they would have lost the Tour right then and there for being so impatient.

A lot of the stress and tactics at the Tour come from the politics of the peloton. If someone has a grudge from a previous race, that can affect how they race. For example the French teams don’t like to see Europcar doing well, others don’t like Garmin, some don’t like Sky and so on. And then there are the GC teams mixing it up in the sprints and the sprinters getting in the way at the base of the climbs. Grudges do carry on from one race to the next.

A good example during the Tour was Movistar and Belkin in the Vuelta. They were bashing team cars against each other during stage 13 after Valverde was dropped with the puncture and Mollema and Ten Dam were working the echelons in the crosswinds against him. That’ll be repaid with interest in coming races, so watch for that.

You could also see the Spanish Armada ganging up on Contador in the final stages. They’ve been living in the shadow of Contador for their whole careers and they finally had their chance to put the hurt on him.

The finish of this year’s Tour was quite the spectacle, even more so on TV from what I’m told. But let me tell you, hitting those cobbles at 50km/hr at dusk is not the “ceremonial parade” they make it out to be. It’s damn tough already and made even more difficult by barely being able to see in front of you with the sun going down.

However, after all the Grand Tours I’ve done it was the best atmosphere I’ve ever witnessed on the Champs-Élysées. Without a lap of honour this time it did seem a little anticlimactic though. After the podium presentations it was all done and everyone just seemed to leave abruptly without much of a celebration. Let me tell you though, we made up for it at the team dinner (which started at 1am because of the late finish) and party afterwards.

After spending over three weeks in the Tour de France bubble getting taken care of and sometimes treated like royalty (and not), I’m at home, picking up the mess I leave behind, mowing my lawn, doing the dishes and paying the bills. If those real-life things don’t bring you down to Earth straight after a Grand Tour, my wife certainly will. You have to change your attitude and habits quickly after coming out of that world!

Most of the riders headed directly to post-Tour crits the day after the Tour finished. Personally, the idea of spending another 10 days on the road after the Tour is the last thing I’d want. But I’ve done it before and it’s excellent start money — almost too good to say no to. Average riders get paid a couple thousand Euro for starting a race and someone like Chris Froome would be on €35,000 for a race start. Not bad for a couple hours of work.

These crits have a different vibe than the Tour and are obviously a lot less stressful. The organisers look after the riders quite well with good hotels, meals and go out of their way to make the riders feel welcome. We don’t travel with the team as such. Each of the riders usually go their own ways and do the crits that they’re invited to. Therefore there’s no team bus and entourage. Usually we just have one soigneur with us who gets our stuff ready and helps us get everything done so we just need to ride our bikes.

There are far fewer media requests at these crits but the fans are quite demanding — which is okay, because that’s the reason we’re being paid to be there. But having some drunk old man putting his arm around you with booze and cigarette breath and kids constantly stealing your bidons can get a little tiresome.

You’ll know this already but the post-Tour crits are completely fixed. That doesn’t mean they’re easy though. We still do our best to put on a show for the crowd. Part of the show is the fact that the organiser tells us before the race what the finishing order will be, who gets the sprint primes, who leads out who, who gets in breaks, and generally how the race will play out. But the day after Paris is always the funny one. Every last rider is hung over from the party on the Champs-Élysées and we always make a mess of it. It’s tough to get right even without a hangover!

In more recent matters, I was just reading about the French Senate report into the ’98 Tour doping that came out yesterday. I haven’t had a chance to completely digest it, but right now I think it’s a pointless exercise to be naming names. Everyone knows that most of the riders were on the gear back in the ’90s but the tests were far and few between and only a small portion of the riders were tested.

So what’s the use in digging this stuff out and naming names when all the riders weren’t tested? In saying that, I think it’s absolutely necessary to expose how widespread doping was in the 90s and early 2000s. Hopefully this information goes towards transforming the culture within cycling, which is why these investigations need to happen.

For you Australians, I see that Stuart O’Grady’s results from the 1998 Tour were labelled as suspicious and he promptly retired a year ahead of schedule. And now he’s admitted that he doped before that Tour. I don’t defend dopers, but I think you need to think about the times these guys were riding in before passing judgement. Is there any difference between him and Santambrogio? In a word, yes. Doing stuff like that nowadays is just not acceptable.

Speaking of past performance-enhancing methods, there are a lot of guys in the peloton who aren’t the riders they used to be only a few years ago. I won’t name names, but there’s a few elephants in the peloton who I’m sure you’re aware of. It astounds me that some are even Grand Tour winners. Should these guys be applauded for changing their ways now that we see they’re not the riders they once were? Well, I don’t think it was their choice really.

They’ve gained much of their success, money, and notoriety through doping, but now have a lot to lose if caught. Applauded — definitely not. I do find it interesting how the media were putting all the tough questions on Froome, who was winning, and no tough questions were being asked about some of the other riders who aren’t smashing the field like they used to. I guess that doesn’t make as good a headline for all those journalists who say they want to clean up cycling.

Of course we in the peloton suspect certain riders are doping. We see each other day in and day out, and when some unnamed French team who had some issues in the Dauphine takes the piss out of the rest of the peloton in previous years then is back to normal this Tour and riding with a little less panache, we have to ask the question.

We all 100% suspected Santambrogio and Mustafa Sayar (Tour of Turkey winner), but what are we going to do, call the UCI anti-doping hotline? Of course not. You might say that this means the omertà still exists, but where else do you see people dob each other in based on gut feel? How many of you have ever made a citizens arrest before, or even known someone who has?

Of course I want to compete on a level playing field, but I have confidence that the testing is doing its job when it catches guys like Contador and Schleck (Frank) for minute amounts of banned substances. These things don’t just happen by accident, and I trust that the testing is working.

It crushes me to to read the stuff anonymous commenters on forums write about me or my teammates, but I can see the irony of me hiding behind an anonymous pseudonym and talking about drug cheats. The difference is that I need this anonymity to have the freedom give you some insight into our world without repercussion. I hope you get that.

Until next time, thanks for reading. I’m going to have a few days off, enjoy my break, and then get back out on the bike. I hope you’re able to do the same this weekend.

Yours truly,

TSP

Tags: 2013 Tour de France, The Secret Pro

chickasmith

Thank you TSP. I dont read much columns nowadays but this one is a must read and I thank you for taking to time to write about your views in the peloton. How was Dutch Corner? Compare L’Alpe D’Huez 2013 to 1986 as you will see what the difference really is (plug: can see the footage on my YouTube website)

Thanks again and look forward to more great reading soon!
Tom W

Fruit & Oats…

Great read, let’s leave the ‘insert rider name/team’ to ponder personally. They’ll always, in all things in life, be someone who wants to gain an advantage. Putting in place systems to make it hard, and penalties that make them ponder whether a career lost is worth it, is a step in the right direction.
M Dingle

Another thanks to TSP - like everyone else, I could try figure out who you are (and hopefully not succeed) but I would much rather not even try and instead appreciate an insight into the real world you guys live in behind the TV screens we see - its both far more and far less glamorous that we viewers might think. thanks.
Dave

So Cadel was on the gear and is now clean then ;)
- Moe
  
  Contador!
  - Dave
    
    Hesjedal.
    
    (different Dave to the one two posts above)
    - Archie
      
      Not likely, I like Ryder but I only believe he won the 2012 Giro thanks to a weak field. He only beat J-Rod by a handful of seconds, and Thomas De Gendt managed to finish on the podium!
      - Samaway
        
        But Rodriguez almost always finishes second, regardless of the field, so that’s gotta be worth something! ;)
- Walter
  
  Cadel is just old dude. He became progressively worse over the last 3 years. Possibly guys like Contador, Andy Schleck, Voeckler, Zubeldia.
  - Setarkos
    
    Zubeldia is not even two months younger than Evans ;)
  - Johnson
    
    “Doing stuff like that nowadays is unacceptable”
    
    When does “nowadays” begin and end? Contador won a GT last year, to me that would still fall in “nowadays”. Love the articles but c’mon, this stuff is very much in the recent past.
    Contador, Schleck, Menchov….
  - Tjoeris
    
    Gilbert!
  - Alan
    
    Cadel was a fecking wreck the year before he won the tour. i assumed he was going to retire he was so bad.
- Howie
  
  Cunego is the main one that really comes to mind.
  - Switchyard O’Taylor
    
    How about Matt Goss? He went from always 2nd to not even being mentioned, but for hopeful Aussies.
    - TrollingForColumbine2.0
      
      A lot of that was down to poor tactical decisions he made during the race, as well as some bad luck (getting caught up in multiple crashes). Goss is definitely performing worse than last season, though. He used to be able to handle the hills better than Cavendish or Greipel; now he’s far worse.
      - Switchyard O’Taylor
        
        I just found it interesting that he had a really strong team in front of him this year and still managed to disappear. Maybe it says more about how strong the new kids are.
        
        TrollingForColumbine2.0
        
        There was certainly more competition in the sprints this year.
    - Dave
      
      True, he’s nowhere near as good as he was for HTC-Highroad aka Team Columbia aka T-Mobile aka Deutsch Telekom.
    - o11y217
      
      the sprinters gain a lot less from drug taking, and historically have been caught less. they dont want steroids cos they’ll have too much muscle to drag around and epo is not that useful in a sprint where you need to dump as much power in 20 seconds as possible rather than the 20-30 minutes for a climber. he wouldnt be one i would point the finger at.
      - Rob
        
        Sprinters still have to get over the climbs - as was mentioned before, Gossy used to be the superior climber out of the top sprinters (see his Milan San Remo win). Now he’s getting dropped on the climbs a lot more. Not saying he was on the juice, just saying that sprinters can fit the model of past EPO use.
- Daniel
  
  Cobo, Cunego would both provoke surprise if you pointed at the riders they are now and said that they are GT winners. Cobo being the blatant one, Cunego is involved in Mantova of course.
  
  Hesjedal and Wiggins too, but I don’t think enough time has passed since their wins to really get a grip on what their levels are.
  
  It isn’t astounding that Contador won GTs even though his performance has dropped somewhat. Evans is just aging/can’t handle Giro + Tour to perform well at both.
  - o11y217
    
    err wiggins won his first world championship in 2003, and was a junior world champ way back in 1998. since then hes won 4 golds, 1 silver and 2 bronze medals at the olympic games and several more world championships. he has always been one of the best cyclists in the world, and his transition to road was steady and believable, he gradually got better and better until he peaked last year. give him a break about the giro, perhaps it was lack of training or perhaps he was really really sick, either way wiggins is clean. he’s not made any sudden improvements or come from nowhere and his climbing is still a comparative weakness for him.
- Fredrik
  
  While this is not unlikely, Cadel is not the most obvious, since he is getting old and was on the podium in the Giro. And the Tour he won was far more “human” than the 2012 and 2013 editions.
- Tom
  
  Basso
  - Bidon
    
    Yeah, Basso, Cadel, not to mention that Indurain dude, where’s he these days? He was winning everything and now he’s not even in the starting orders…suspicious.
DanMan

As always a great read.

You are right about the fact it’s hard to speak out as a cyclist. A young dutchman did it after the Tour of Turkey about Sayar and he got grilled for it by the public. (yes the same ones that are negative about the sport and condemn (former)dope-users) Turns out he was right on the money, too bad he got so much flak that he deleted his tweet.

On another issue:

The Belkin-Movistar clash got some nice comment from Mollema after the stage. After being asked if he thought it was good conduct to keep riding in front after the mechanical of Valverde he said: “Wel he (Valverde) did some unsportsmanlike things too in the past, so he doesn’t has the right to point fingers”. With these “things” he does not only refer to the action Movistar pulled on him personally in de Tour de Suisse last year. ;-)

Already looking forward to your next installment.
- Tom
  
  One of the Belkin riders also said “He doesn’t wait for us in the mountains; we don’t wait for him in the wind.”
- RooBay
  
  Valverde deserves everything he gets as far as I am concerned. That man is not a symbol of the way forward in our sport. Good on Belkin.
  
  TSP - top drawer as usual. The best column on Cycling Tips.
ironinthesoul

Excellent comment about the media attention Froome got. I think it is understandable that fans and media are a little sceptical given the past, but I really hope witch-hunts don’t take away from the great riding being done. We should question Froome, it’s sad he pays the price for previous riders’ crimes but the old ways need flushing out. It’d be great if the questions weren’t constant and made respectfully too. But, more questions need to be asked of the other riders who are not quite the force the used to be since giving up the Argentinian steak diet.
stu

great read - thanks. Pretty shocking your French team point. I’ve joined the dots and would be stunned to think that the some time yellow jersey wearer was dodgy. Do the peloton think that?! wow… taking what?
- TrollingForColumbine2.0
  
  It was pretty obvious that Europcar were doping during that Tour. Their riders were performing *far* above their normal limitations on successive mountain stages.
  - Daniel
    
    That would be Europcar of ‘dodgy knees (cortisone)’ fame
My_Oath

Surely the hotline isn’t for ‘suspicion’ but more for a means of people to expose activities that directly effect them - like a team staffer trying to supply them?

Who am I kidding - the hotline is and always will be a pointless exercise.

Thanks for the piece. Loved the summary of the crit circuit!
- Switchyard O’Taylor
  
  I think the hotline should go to Paul Kimmage’s cellphone.
  
  The UCI has every reason to cover up doping, so they will.
Foxexpress

The Saxo team will be training on my island again this winter, so I’ll get a chance to get with them for a few days and see where they’re at in the new reality. You can come too of course “cyclegrancanaria” google me!
smiththelocksmith

Ryder had a bio black mark? How did they cover it up?
Notso Swift

You are doing it wrong
Your wife should be mowing the lawns
Kalash

Always a nice read.

As for the speculations, it is now confirmed that the secret pro for sure has raced TDU, Amstel and TDF. Given his first language is english, there is only two guys who have raced all these tree races this year: Simon Gerrans and Simon Clarke.
- Dave
  
  It’s not hard to rewrite other observations in the first person, or from another language into English for that matter. Notice the “for you Australians” and that Gerrans would be very wise to avoid commenting on O’Grady, having ridden on some of the same teams with histories of systematic doping (or of endorsing omerta, a la GreenEdge) and having had some very similar spectacular breakaway wins as O’GRady had through his career.
  
  Please stop guessing, it will only lead to the blog being stopped.
- Dane
  
  It would explain the “pro SKY” attitude ;) Anyway - this is still really good reading. No matter who TSP is.
- Joe Bloggs
  
  Everyone seems to assume that the Secret Pro one person. Hmm maybe, just maybe it’s the voice of the peloton, and several riders are contributing…
Pasdécart

Same soup wase served in 1999 for Lance. We now know the truth. It’s normal to think that Froome is not clean according states of doping in sport, that is rationality.
Robert Merkel

Thanks, TSP.

If you read the comments - or in a further post - I’d be really interested in your further comments on the tactics in stages 9 and 13 in the Tour, because they looked pretty strange to me.

Specifically, why, once he was isolated, do you have any idea why Froome was put under so little pressure on stage 9? He barely had his nose in the wind all day, despite having no teammates.

As far as stage 13 goes, why didn’t Froome stick his nose in the wind at all to bring the margin down a bit? Surely if he did his turn on the front he could have reduced the margin by 10-20 seconds. Of course, in the end it didn’t matter but why would you piss away margin?
- Chris
  
  Actually, the strange thing to me was that when Saxo attacked in stage 13, you could clearly see in the video that Froome was talking on the radio, most likely asking his DS for instructions on how to proceed, instead of making an effort to bridge up to the Saxo echelon, which was no more than 50 meters away. I think he could have bridged up to them…
  - allyc1987
    
    It was interesting to hear Cav’s interview after stage 13 - he was the last man onto the breakaway….he said his power to get across the split to the breakaway was greater than the watts he put out in the sprint to win the stage….not sure Froome had the firepower and therefore no choice in terms of bridging tbh.
    - Setarjis
      
      Most likely not and that’s what he was telling his DS on the radio, I’d say.
    - Tom
      
      And Froome mentioned that Cav “got a hand” getting up to the lead group. Cav is a former world champion at the madison, and Kwiatkowski ended up between Froome and Cav.
  - Ronin
    
    Fifty meters to a lead echelon of strong riders trying to blow a race apart in strong crosswinds might as well be a mile for a single rider. But, I get it. There was a point in that split where Froome was a lot closer than 50 meters and he just looked a bit unconcerned, didn’t he? What was that? Inexperience? Bewilderment? Or, maybe it was more calculated. Maybe he thought the effort needed to hold Cav’s wheel was too severe, and that in the long run he was better off losing the time. I too would like hear more about that split.
    - Sean Doyle
      
      Cav said he sprinted at full power to make the break and Froome said he tried but couldn’t hold Cav’s wheel so sat up and waited for the bunch. He didn’t really have a choice.
- Samaway
  
  Indeed, Movistar did too much work late in the Tour and especially when Froome’s teammates were in difficulty. Seems strange to me as well.
The secret WT staff member

Great read Mick and congrats on a very solid TDF.
Robert Olsen

Cadel, Europcar, Lil Prince all off the sauce. And Andy, but I feel he has talent and is starting to come back around.
Glacier

First off, thanks for a great blog. However I’m a little confused. When you write “I haven’t heard a single person in the peloton suggest Froome isn’t clean”, I’m under the impression that you think he is clean.
But then you write that cycling has become more clean, due to not seeing attack on attack on attack.

But wasn’t that what Froome (and quintana/Jrod) did this tour?
On Ax3 he did even bother with attacking he just rode away. On Ventoux he attacked 4 or 5 times and finally rode away from Quintana. On Alpe he attacked multiple times (yes he eventually bonked, due to not eating enough, but was still able to ride just as fast bonked as anyone else except Quin,Jrod and maybe Porte).

Just for the record im very sceptical about Quintana and JRods sudden ability to outclimb Froome after the restday (*Cough* Bloodbag *Cough*).

Alot of time when “experts”, DS’s and riders talk about Froome (and others) being clean, they also talk about cycling in general being more clean due to . However, usually these statements conflicts with how Froome (and other supposed clean riders) perform.
- Daniel
  
  “Just for the record im very sceptical about Quintana and JRods sudden ability to outclimb Froome after the restday (*Cough* Bloodbag *Cough*).”
  
  Could look at it as Froome finally tiring after peaking for five months.
  
  Also Quintana didn’t race between Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Tour, and his performances in France point towards him getting better as the race goes on, so he could have been riding into better form.
- Chris
  
  I think in Quintana’s case, his ability to outclimb Froome can be partly, if not wholly, attributed to him being more patient when it came to laying down his attacks. In the stage to Ax3 he attacked in the penultimate climb, and in Ventoux he attacked with ~12 km to go. Both times he eventually ran out of gas against Froome. He was more patient in Alpe D’Huez and particularly in Semnoz, the latter in which he did a Purito and attacked with less than 2 km to go
  Obviously, this doesn’t mean he’s clean (I hope he is), but it is more feasible to drop Froome that way
- Fredrik
  
  The comments on Froome reek of omertà.
- Andrew
  
  Excellent points fully agree. I am amazed at the lack of skepticism of the performances of the final GC podium. How do you complete 3 weeks of racing and then on the last mtn stage push out an incredible speed? I guess the secret pro is concerned with keeping sponsors, tv rights and fans in the sport and constant concerns about performances is not consistent with this. The entire English speaking media except for PK are complicit .
not a hypocrite

How can you say that what O’Grady did was not as bad as Santambrogio? They both cheated their fellow riders (the clean ones), and had great success cheating. There is no difference between them. Cheating is cheating.
- Switchyard O’Taylor
  
  I suspect the secret pro is not Italian but rather speaks English as a first language.
Switchyard O’Taylor

In all honesty “Secret Pro”, it is absolutely your responsibility to call in people you suspect of doping. Even if that means that you yourself will get tested more, overall it would be better for the sport would it not? In my industry I’m professionally responsible to report if a heavy equipment operator was acting as if he was “on drugs”. Considering the number of dead bodies that have fallen out of the back of the peloton, I find your point of view on this to be absolutely wrongheaded. Not saying anything is accepting the deaths of young riders trying to make it who dope to overcome the ghosts of your cowardice.

I don’t really see the upside to having a system where people keep their suspicions of impropriety to themselves other than the ability to participate in that impropriety yourself.
- Notso Swift
  
  Most major organisations have Whistleblower provisions, how often do people take them up?
  Answer is rarely because typically the Whistleblower is the one that loses anyway. I have seen CEO’s walked (or more usually managed dismissal) because of “alleged” fraud and it gets swept under the carpet and they pop up some where else smelling sweet.
  So $50k PA accounts person (or Neo-Pro vs senior rider or DS) get what reward for doing the right thing, usually ostracised at the best.
  It may not be right, but it just is.
Jo Ros

You can’t compare Cadel with Cunego, Voeckler or Andy Schleck ! He took third of the Giro ! Racing both Giro and Tour was just too tough for his own thirty-six-years-old good. He’s been one of the most talented rider throughout his career and should probably have won a few more GT, if everyone had been cleaner.
- RooBay
  
  …more like: “Cadel should have won a few more Tours if Telekom had actually selected him.” Those were clearly lost years for him. Granted there was one year where he kept breaking his collarbone but remember the year he won the Tour of Austria and still didn’t make the Telekom TdF team? Imagine if he had stepped into Lotto with a couple of Tours de France in his legs. Imagine if he had actually ridden for decent teams!
  
  Everyone needs to remember that In 2011 he was the oldest post-war TdF winner. Not really surprising then that in 2013 he didn’t have the legs to both podium in the Giro and then ride a good tour.
  
  As to whether he is/was clean - it is just too hard to say.
  - jules
    
    i would prefer to believe that T-Mepobile declined to select Cadel for the Tour, knowing that he had made choices which precluded his winning the race. i hope.
    - Todd!
      
      So the story I hear goes.
  - Todd!
    
    There was some atrocities… 2006 and 2007 Lotto selected a team to support both Cadel and Robbie McEwen that never worked as well as it could have if the full selection went towards GC. 2008 he wanted Chris Horner, but got Popovich who then tried to go in breaks… to no avail!
    
    2009 they lumped Jurgen Van den Broek on him and after going in the break on the first uphill finish, and Cadel finishing in the lead bunch of favorites, they said they would support JVDB for GC…. not to mention them putting him on a Canyon that needed a -12 degree stem to get it to fit him. Then he won his world championship… the rest, well, we have witnessed the greatest rider in Australian road cycling history and arguably one of the best of the modern era. Don’t list him as a doper, ask him sincerely next time you get a chance - his response is humble, human, full of logic and I hope truth.
rouleur

Great read as always, the most interesting cycling column these days.

The difference between this year’s and last year’s Europcar is indeed suspicious. Contador finds life a bit harder since he stopped eating beef. For those of you suspecting Hesjedal, don’t forget that he suffered a broken rib in the opening stage, so making accusations based on his poor Tour showing alone is far from proof.
ElBeeJay

As a journalist I can only regarding suspicions towards the yellow jersey: Blame it on Lance and all the other cheating champs. And though I am aware that you don’t read every hack, be sure that we are eyeing Clenbutador as well.

But honestly: Have noone in the peloton been suspicious towards Froome? Really? Sure? If that is the case cyclists still live in denial of some sort.
- Dane
  
  Perfect comment! I like reading this blog very much. Love the info, the insights, the “gossip”. But i agree. The yellow jersey is of course target for suspicion. It must be like that looking at the past. I dont want to hear any more about “the times has changed”, “The sport is much cleaner” and so on. I hope its better and i want to believe it.
  Clearly Contador doesnt eat steaks anymore, and he is more “human” than ever. Still lovely to watch on a bike!
  But Froome was massive strong and killed everybody. That makes my eyebrows go up. Also Quintana… Being away in the mountains for 2-3 months before the tour? It is - no matter how you look at it - suspicious. Purito gets better and better the older he gets. And climbs like no other now. Sorry but that does raise some eyebrows.
  So if no one in the peloton are suspicious abut Froome, Quintana, Purito you cyclist are naiv.
picko

Dave Millar
batchuba

A difference between O’Grady and Santambrogio? Only one - O’Grady is an Anglophone and so as usual brother Anglophones justify how their upstanding brothers had no choice while the nasty cheating foreigners are indefensible.

Santambrogio was still surrounded by doping culture and dopers recently, just as O’grady was back then. It is the same. And before anyone tries to say that the Italians fault - recall that Anglophones where at the absolute centre of cementing and enforcing this doping culture for a decade.

In fact, Europeans have tended to be almost charmingly chaotic and incompetent, or brazenly individualistic about their doping - its the Anglophones who meticulously industrialize it. Which, coupled with their unique capacity for delusion self- deception ( I’m not really cheating - just giving myself a chance ) makes them much harder to catch.

So if Sky are up to anything, it will be many years before we find out. Mr. Secret cyclist certainly doesn’t know. In fact, if there is anything nefarious going on, I doubt even the Sky riders fully understand.

Meanwhile the Anglophones can continue to have fun with this sort of crap:

“The difference between this year’s and last year’s Europcar is indeed
suspicious. Contador finds life a bit harder since he stopped eating
beef. For those of you suspecting Hesjedal, don’t forget that he
suffered a broken rib in the opening stage, so making accusations based
on his poor Tour showing alone is far from proof.”

Obviously clean Contador was not so far off. Hesjedal is not even GC relevant, but never was. More relevant - obviously clean Evans is not even competitive, as he has been since he won the Tour. Just like Wiggins.

This btw, is suggestive of the new Anglophone technique: - Dope your head off to win the the Tour. Stop instantly and live of it forever ( the Anglophone public doesn’t care about cycling, just the Tour ), safe in the knowledge the spotlight has moved on. If Froome does a Wiggins, and Porte does a Froome next year I am going to be very suspicious indeed.

Moral of the story: Anglophones have just as dismal a record as everybody else for doping - but yet still tend to put believe their linguistic background is a kind of evidence of purity. And that, is a load of crap.

If a guy suddenly starts crushing all before him imperiously it is rightly suspicious, regardless of nationality.

Cheers!
- Gowers
  
  That’s pretty poor form pulling the anglophone/foreigner card on this website. It’s about the most balanced one I’ve ever read and that goes for most of the commenters as well.
  - Dave
    
    Damn, you must read a pretty narrow bunch of websites. Cared to notice that this site has just defended O’Grady only a few weeks after a very unequivocal condemnation of a pair of Italians?
    - Gowers
      
      Wow, you got me. I really should find another more to read rather than the Clinic on CyclingNews.
- Denby
  
  Yeah, we Anglophones can tend to be self-righteous, especially we Australians, as we hold a nationalistic ideal of giving everyone a “fair go” and doping circumvents that ideal. So we get pretty disappointed when someone we look up to like Stuey lets down our ideals.
  
  But you are being a little bit harsh toward Anglophones, all the same.
  
  A doper is a doper in any nationality, so let’s stand together and condemn doping everywhere instead of forming factions.
  - batchuba
    
    For sure, I am being excessively harsh.
    
    There is however, an avalanche of nationalist, and even ethnocentric comment and insinuations on cycling at this time of year, almost entirely precipitated by anglophones. As an anglophone myself, I feel compelled to show what an opposing point of view could look like.
    
    It was also tremendous fun to compose.
    I don’t doubt many of my wild assertions and generalisations are as silly as those I take issue with.
    
    The point was though, much as you said: that their is no inherent virtue to a particular background, as many of my anglophone brethren still assume and constantly insinuate.
    
    Cheers!
- raphanatic
  
  this is a racist comment in my opinion.
  - batchuba
    
    Nah dude, I am anglophone myself. I was merely holding up a mirror.
    
    Though I will cheerfully admit my ludicrous generalisations. It was kinda the point.
- echidna_sg
  
  cadel’s podium in the giro THIS YEAR? he has done nothing since 2011? what planet are you on? call the race card, the language card all you like, but make a reasoned argument based on fact rather than a selective memory that seems to only include results from the tour…
- jules
  
  “Europeans have tended to be almost charmingly chaotic and incompetent, or brazenly individualistic about their doping - its the Anglophones who meticulously industrialize it.”
  
  nonsense. it was Ferrari and Fuentes, and Italian and Spaniard respectively, who industrialised the practice. their clients included Anglophones.
- Will Cannon
  
  “More relevant - obviously clean Evans is not even competitive, as he has been since he won the Tour. Just like Wiggins…..Dope your head off to win the the Tour. Stop instantly and live of it forever”
  
  So using your logic, anyone who wins a GT, must show consistent form for years before and after otherwise they must’ve been a doper who only doped in ONE race. When they win they bask in its glory forever, never tempted to have another crack by doping again…..this argument defies any basic logic/human psychology.
  - o11y217
    
    wiggins won a couple of medals at this crappy meet called the olympics before he won his tour….. dont suppose you’ve heard of the olympics?
glenC

TSP, I think I know who you are and following cycling tips on twitter is not wise my friend, but fear not, your secret is safe, I will watch you with more interest, I followed you so tweet me
CB

” Is there any difference between him and Santambrogio? In a word, yes. Doing stuff like that nowadays is just not acceptable” With all due respect, this is complete Bullshit. One reason that whilst I don’t mind watching the racing and respect you guys as athletes, I gloss over any interviews or columns that are written. Comments like this are just perplexing and illogical.
Adam Murchie

Easy…

Alberto Contador, Mick Rogers, Damiano Cunego and Yaroslav Popovych are riders who will be banned and the results voided within the next 12 months.

.
Steel

I’m so bored by doping talk.
- Tom W
  
  I agree mate… Maybe they all got banned from CyclingNews Clinic Forum…
  
  ‘Unless you stood in there shoes, don’t imagine you can understand there predicament’
Russell Williams

Of course, it has been staring me in the face all along. Shut up legs. The SP is Jensie!
Ryan Wendt

Thanks TSP. Despite all the haters, there are many of us that appreciate that you take the time to write this blog. It is a brilliant insight into a world that us hacks can only dream about! Hope you continue, it is an aspect of the CT site that I really love. Cheers!
http://www.markdempstercounselling.com/ Mark Dempster

Great points, I’m just starting to learn about cycling and don’t have the keen eye to pick out the nuances (although now they seem completely obvious!) of what I should have been seeing during the race. Thanks!