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Post by DBBN on Jul 25, 2007 19:15:05 GMT -5
Vinokorouv out, some random Italian guy out, now Rasmussen out. So two of the biggest favorites have been booted.
I think only people like us can enter the Tour. You cannot race unless you have a basket and a bell! DING DING!!
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Post by Grarliner on Jul 26, 2007 0:18:53 GMT -5
Why bother with the doping tests? Just let them all do what they want to do and let's see who wins.
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Fedex
Junior Member
Posts: 99
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Post by Fedex on Jul 26, 2007 5:55:55 GMT -5
Why bother with the doping tests? Just let them all do what they want to do and let's see who wins. You make a good point. Given the fact that so many of the cyclists are doping, it is probably pretty close to a level playing field.
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Post by sasha on Jul 26, 2007 15:57:09 GMT -5
Why bother with the doping tests? Just let them all do what they want to do and let's see who wins. So, be like the American sports? Probably would be for the best...
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Post by corswandt on Jul 28, 2007 12:26:45 GMT -5
In 1998 it was worse, and cycling survived.
There has been a lot of (feigned) indignation again this year, but all the TV stations and sponsors who loudly claim they'll have nothing more to do with pro cycling will be back next year as if nothing had happened.
Everyone is on the juice, everyone knows it and nobody cares. It's always been like this. Doping scandals rage on, yet the crowds in all major races have never been larger, and the media coverage the Tour gets in Yoorup is bigger than that for all 4 tennis slams put together.
Tennis has nothing like the problems pro cycling has experienced in recent years - yet the sport is dying, having lost its traditional constituency to golf and failed to acquire a new one. Go figure.
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Post by The Chloe on Jul 28, 2007 19:00:29 GMT -5
Why bother with the doping tests? Just let them all do what they want to do and let's see who wins. On one hand, I totally agree. On the other, this makes it impossible for those who want to participate, but stay clean, to compete.
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Post by sasha on Jul 28, 2007 21:10:17 GMT -5
No. Then they can just be scrubs on their team. Like 90% of the racers.
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Post by The Chloe on Aug 8, 2007 22:17:39 GMT -5
Oh, right. This event. I just looked up who won. I forgot that it had even ended or began. Apparently everybody else did too.
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Post by DBBN on Jul 9, 2009 12:40:59 GMT -5
Hey! It's happening again.
Everyone fell today.
Go Lance Go.
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Post by janie on Jul 9, 2009 14:17:19 GMT -5
That reminds me, I need to get a basket for my bike so I can bring home groceries in it!
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Post by DBBN on Jul 9, 2009 14:33:46 GMT -5
You sound like future TDF champion material.
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Post by The Chloe on Jul 12, 2009 23:52:01 GMT -5
I want a bike.
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Post by DBBN on Jul 14, 2009 20:58:25 GMT -5
How many miles do you think you could ride before dying?
I say 10, but it's probably more like 5.
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Post by leelee on Jul 14, 2009 21:04:52 GMT -5
I ride 10 miles every day on my exercise bike!
It's beyond me how those freaks can ride 6+ hours at such high speeds, for like 21 of 23 days. Anytime a tennis player bitches about their poor schedule, Lance should appear and smack them in the mug.
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Post by DBBN on Jul 14, 2009 21:18:39 GMT -5
I talked this out with my friend and decided that I cannot ride a bike near a car. Also I don't know how to change speeds. Whatever speed my bike was in when I got it was the speed I at which I rode it from age Whenever I Got A Ten-Speed to age My Friend Is Coming To Pick Me Up.
If both of these issues were rectified, I would go biking.
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Post by The Chloe on Jul 14, 2009 23:27:28 GMT -5
I used to bike all the time. 10 miles on a bike isn't hard, unless you're going uphill the entire time. That said, I'm not in biking shape at the moment, given that biking in the middle of a big Korean city is fucking suicide.
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Post by Iorix on Jul 15, 2009 5:02:26 GMT -5
It's beyond me how those freaks can ride 6+ hours at such high speeds, for like 21 of 23 days. Anytime a tennis player bitches about their poor schedule, Lance should appear and smack them in the mug. It's perhaps the most physically demanding sport there is. It's actually understandable that cyclists are all on the juice.
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Post by Denise49IQ on Jul 15, 2009 10:04:08 GMT -5
I used to do downhill mountain biking. It's fun. When you do it for a couple of years you can go for miles without feeling anything. My butt still has definition from it.
I now want a scooter. But have quickly realised that running a scooter in London is both expensive and dangerous. But it beats the fucking tube/anything run by TFL any day of the week.
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Post by Maeby Fünke on Jul 15, 2009 12:14:24 GMT -5
Did I ever mention that I was given a bicycle last year, on condition that I rode it from Camberwell to London Bridge station, despite not having ridden a bike for, ooh, 20 years. I still don't know how I survived. And I've only used it twice since.
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Post by DBBN on Jul 15, 2009 12:23:35 GMT -5
No. [Google maps] Eep! Not too far, but looks fairly treacherous. So many cars!
I love London.
Speaking of British people, Cavendish has won three sprint stages already. He isn't toooooo busted.
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Post by janie on Jul 15, 2009 14:14:20 GMT -5
In my tiny rural town, the big thing is electric bikes, because it so happens that there is a distributor of these nearby. It's fun to see people zipping by on them; and they're oh so green! And no, these people are the furthest thing from "hippies" on the planet. I've never seen a single one of these electric bikes down around Philly, which is a shame, because they'd be even more useful in an urban or suburban environment, though you'd have to figure out a way to prevent theft. They are possibly not allowed on the Tour de France, though. As for your gear problem, Hurley, you would like my old-timey bike -- it has no gears. I never learned how to use bike gears, either. My bike also has foot brakes that work only marginally. But I haven't put baseball cards in the spokes yet.
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Post by leelee on Jul 15, 2009 16:01:58 GMT -5
Any adults that rides a bike is a hippie. And everyone in Philly is a hippie.
One thing that bugs me about the TDF... these sprinters like Cavendish, Bonen, Zabel win all these stages, yet have no chance of winning overall and often don't finish the race. It's like 2 different sports in the same event. That's silly. Go have a Tour de Andorra that's all flat stages or something. They probably do.
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Post by DBBN on Jul 15, 2009 16:42:48 GMT -5
They probably do.
I think they want winners who are good at both flat and spiky. It appears that both the Sprint Dudes and the Mountain Kings are not factoring into the main standings.
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Post by leelee on Jul 15, 2009 17:13:43 GMT -5
The mountain guys usually finish near the top, and sometimes win like that bald midget Italian that died. The sprinters finish like last.
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Post by janie on Jul 15, 2009 18:44:40 GMT -5
everyone in Philly is a hippie. Good one! Actually it would be good if everyone in Philly would ride a bike or at least get off their butts somehow. Philly has more fat and obese people than just about anywhere outside West Virginia. I've heard that the name will soon be officially changed to Fatadelphia. At least the Phillies' Charlie Manuel has lost a bunch of weight and set a good example, unlike Eagles coach Andy Reid, who sports a typical Philadelphian shape and is a walking time bomb for a myocardial infarction.
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Post by Iorix on Jul 19, 2009 17:54:26 GMT -5
One thing that bugs me about the TDF... these sprinters like Cavendish, Bonen, Zabel win all these stages, yet have no chance of winning overall and often don't finish the race. It's like 2 different sports in the same event. That's silly. Go have a Tour de Andorra that's all flat stages or something. They probably do. Jalabert won the Vuelta in one of the most dominant performances by a cyclist in a major race ever (went to check - 1995), but I guess he was no longer a mere sprinter by then. Sprinters can become world champions if they have a national team that is willing to do the work required to set up their sprint. Many world champions are single-day race specialists, but sprinters have won several times. The mountain guys usually finish near the top, and sometimes win like that bald midget Italian that died. The sprinters finish like last. Pirata I actually like the way the cycling tour is structured, with 3 major 3-week races (which probably works better than tennis with its 4 majors), then 1-week or single day so called "classic" races held mostly in or around the cycling heartland of the Benelux. And since winning these different types of races requires different sets of skills (e.g. Valverde is superb at the 1-week races, but not consistent and resilient enough for the 3-week competitions), and winning more than one 3-week race in a year is highly unusual, everyone has a chance. Cycling also has rankings, but these are meaningless as they reward those who do well at the shorter competitions - the Gent-Wevelgem race, which nobody has ever heard about, is worth 80 points and the TDF 200. I only wanted to say that I find the name "Cavendish" really funny. Portuguese cyclists usually have exceedingly rural names ending in "ino" (Quintino, Zeferino, Vitorino), yet here is this British dude named like a 19th century Viceroy of India.
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Post by janie on Jul 20, 2009 7:24:02 GMT -5
Portuguese names come in rural and urban varieties?
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Post by Iorix on Jul 20, 2009 11:26:58 GMT -5
Both given and family names vary with social background. There's also regional variances in the case of family names.
Portuguese cyclists are overwhelmingly from rural backgrounds - hence the "ino" names. Back in the day (early 1990s) Joaquim Gomes was the only Volta a Portugal cyclist (150 participants IIRC) who came from Lisbon. Everybody else was from deep out in the sticks.
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Post by DBBN on Jul 22, 2009 15:31:15 GMT -5
I have a stupid question. Why is blood doping banned?
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Post by leelee on Jul 22, 2009 16:11:34 GMT -5
Because it increases your aerobic endurance, and there's always a risk with transfusing blood. Meanwhile, Lance's dreams of winning are just about dead after today.
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