Scandals

My point is that If you're sitting in Spain or Italy I doubt it feels like cycle sport is in a ghetto. A lot of people over there do care about cheating, but equally I'm pretty sure that a lot don't, or they care in as much as they wish people would stop talking about it.

The "traditional" attitude will keep cycle sport in a ghetto - people who "get it" will follow it, and people who feel duped after cheering on rEPO fuelled attacks by the like of Ricco, and companies that don't want to be associated with a sport where PEDs are rife will stay away.

Talented riders who don't want to turn their blood to sludge will too.

Is there a downside to taking on the cheats head on, and chucking them out of the sport?

It's also the case that up until recently at least, and probably still I'd guess, cycling fans on the continent take a much more worldly view of drug taking.

Back when it all blew up at the 2006 Tour the Indy's man in Paris recounted a conversation with his Belgian grandmother, a lifelong cycling fan, when he mentioned the drugs scandals her response was a shrug of the shoulders and "'Pffff' it's a hard sport what do you expect?"

Historically there has been a difference between the Anglos Saxon world view and the Gallic or Latin we once ran an interview in C+ with Hein Verbruggen when he was head of the UCI where he said that against the Anglo Saxon stance on drugs in sport was unrealistic and insisted that the best policy was one of harm reduction. People dying, as the bikeboy points out, is worse than people cheating. It's not the fans of cycle sport who have forced any change it is multi-national sponsors.

One of the other problems with dopage though is that it drives sponsors from the sport.

Again, Masso's book charts this - his contention is that whilst sponsors came from the sport (bicycle makers, effectively) they were more content to look the other way. The "extra-sportif" sponsors that dominate the sport now are less likely to, and more likely to abandon cycling following a scandal.

Okay, that's the theoretical advantage, but there are lots of other variables to consider.

I remember talking to a coach a few years back who said that effectively the best riders got the best drugs - pro bike teams didn't waste expensive drugs on guys they didn't think would win, (effectively the old level playing field argument) and that on the inside there was no thought that this was cheating it was just what a good pro did which was why they got so pissed off with riders who wouldn't "take their beans" especially if they then talked about it

The evil of EPO was not that bike riders cheated, it was that so many of them died unnecessarily simply trying to be 'good pros'.

But in what era, up until possibly now, has the clean rider had a chance of competing with the doper, unless he also enjoyed some sort of natural physiological advantage that set him apart from his peers?

Anquetil pretty much came out and said that doping was the professional thing to do, and going back a generation earlier isn't the story that Coppi and Bartali(?) once decided to ride the mountain stage of a grand tour without taking drugs to see what it was like and then afterwards both vowed to one another never to do anything that stupid again!

One thing people often forget is that pre-1964 amphetamines weren't even illegal

Benjo Masso makes a similar point in "The Sweat of the Gods", arguing that focussing on catching dopers harms the sport more than their cheating.

I disagree, personally. I think one of the big things about the rEPO era is the way that (according to Kimmage et al) it all but robs the clean rider of any chance of competing with the doper - I don't think this was true of the days when amphetamines &c were the PED of choice.

I think the advent of more "professional" riders is also inevitable given the demands of the sport - I can't see another rider emerging who followed Anquetil's diet, for example...

I read this heading as 'Sandals' and was thinking "Oh an interesting discussion about flip-flops", i feel slightly let down now.

Sorry for the tangent, please continue....

I miss Jan… the two girls in a Porsche + his mate and bottles of champagne, you can't imagine Lance being that much fun. Erm and wasn't it a bike rack he ended up crashing into? BTW Shaun, hope you don't mind me asking, but how old are you? I had you pegged for a bloke in his 30s you must have a phenomenal memory if you can remember Anquetil's antics As for today's pros, well Wiggins is fairly interesting and Cav seems quite a character too and what about Svein Tuft - left home in his early teens cycled all round the Canadian wilderness and up into Alaska on an old bike pulling a homemade trailer with only his dog for company, or Chad Gerlach who raced against Armstrong as a kid and rode the Tour of California, but a little over a year before was living on the streets as a crack addict. I think there's still some interest left