Kimmage on Armstrong
Comments
-
ademort wrote:
How could he ever be considered the greatest cyclist who ever rode a bike,Have you ever heard of EDDY MERCKX. If Armstrong was clean his record compared to Merckx is a joke. Oh, and Merckx rode the full season not just when he felt like it. Greetings AdemortSteve Tcp wrote:dennisn wrote:Without a "dirty" Lance you guys wouldn't know what to talk about.
Dennis Noward
If Lance wasn't in any way "dirty" we'd probably still be talking about him today, but possibly as the greatest cyclist who ever rode a bike.
Woah, steady on there Ademort, don't blow a gasket. Yes I've heard of Eddy Merckx and, like many others, he would be my choice of greatest ever even over a CLEAN Lance. The key word in my previous post was POSSIBLY. javascript:emoticon(':wink:')Take care,
Steve.0 -
ciocc1 wrote:It's funny, you often here references by pro riders stating the few pros that we're actually 'clean'. i don't think i have ever seen, read, or heard out and out confirmation concerning Lance being clean (by his peers etc). I'm a massive Pantani fan, but it was obvious to me he was well charged. Lance, no doubt along with his well selected henchmen was and still is one of the biggest frauds in modern sport. History proves time and time again that justice is defined by wealth and power. If lance turns up in the UK i certainly would not encourage my children to support such a 'product' from the side of the road.
Fair play to Kimmage, lemond etc for their deeply moral stance!!
Reply deleted.
Dennis Noward0 -
What has child molesting got to do with a 'human being' riding up mountains demolishing very higly charged up riders? Why should one have any faith in that? And how on earth is that naturally possible? We can draw on various metaphors and personal takes on whether we believe in 'drug testing and Lance being a fraud' but hey, leave child molesting out, please....0
-
andyp wrote:
Really? That's quite some achievement given there wasn't a credible test for it until 2000.leguape wrote:Incidentally, the first cyclist who tested positive for EPO was in 1988.
source: http://www.cyclingnews.com/results/arch ... /25_1.html I'm as surprised as the next man but it's there in print and I'd consider them reliable otherwise. unless it's a typo that's never been corrected.0 -
leguape, theres no doubt LA is repsonsible for shifting more Treks, but your argument is that he's shifting more bikes, not just Treks.
So what you're saying is that he's shifting more Specialized and Giants too then? And that he's responsbile for the growth in the hybird market and folders? And obviosuly the growth in triathlon and even cyclocross is down to LA too - obviosuly because we all saw him ride a TT bike and thought we'd buy one just to be like Lance...
Off for the weekend so see you all on Monday 8)\'You Come At the King,You Best Not Miss\'0 -
ciocc1 wrote:What has child molesting got to do with a 'human being' riding up mountains demolishing very higly charged up riders? Why should one have any faith in that? And how on earth is that naturally possible? We can draw on various metaphors and personal takes on whether we believe in 'drug testing and Lance being a fraud' but hey, leave child molesting out, please....
I'll grant you that was not the right thing to compare all this with. I was trying to say
that writing in and slandering someone is not right. What if someone slandered you
and it wasn't true? How would you feel? Something happens to you that makes the papers and somehow it gets twisted and you become the talk of the town, in a not so
nice way. Pretty soon "outraged" citizens are demanding your head on a stake(so to speak). All because of misinformation and unproven allegations. Don't think something
like this could happen??? Guess again.
I'll delete that post.
Dennis Noward0 -
Croxted Avenger wrote:leguape, theres no doubt LA is repsonsible for shifting more Treks, but your argument is that he's shifting more bikes, not just Treks.
So what you're saying is that he's shifting more Specialized and Giants too then? And that he's responsbile for the growth in the hybird market and folders? And obviosuly the growth in triathlon and even cyclocross is down to LA too - obviosuly because we all saw him ride a TT bike and thought we'd buy one just to be like Lance...
Off for the weekend so see you all on Monday 8)
you started with
"LA ... isn't going to inspire newbies like some lycra pied piper (explain why more people are cycling now then when he was at his zenith?). "
The fact is that he did inspire a heck of a lot of newbies into the sport of cycling, see Trek's road bike sale uplift stats. I never suggested he was responsible for the entire market, you did.
You then confused cycling as a hobby/sport with functional and recreational use two distinct modes of cycle use which generally don't correlate anyway. You conflated your argument into all cycle use, not me.0 -
Once again, Treks sales hike in one year proves nothing other than they sold more bikes.
You have no proof that a single one of these bikes was sold to an newbie 'inspired' by LA.
Not a shred.
They could equally have sold more that year because they came in a range of fetching colours or came with a free vial of EPO.
Its largely a fanboy fantasy of your own making you seem intent on defending at all costs
You continue to completely ignore all other stimuli to cycling (both sporting and otherwise) as potential reasons for any increase.
I didn't confused cyclesport with 'cycling', you did - by blathering on about what type of bike Cav rides and how much market share Nike have yadda yadda.
I suspect this is now as equally boring for everyone as it is for me.
Good luck to you leguape.\'You Come At the King,You Best Not Miss\'0 -
Leguape, I'm afraid that all your argument proves is that Lance Armstrong got interviewed by Vanity Fair (what a delightful fit that is) about Lance Armstrong's concerns and that Lance Armstrong is setting out to prove he's clean by employing the man who worked out what was in the 'Clear' (froma sample submitted to him). This is all about Lance Armstrong - the fact that he's a cyclist is purely incidental. What do you think, does he make his carefully calculated PR moves: a) for the good of the sport as whole or b) to promote the brand 'Lance Armstrong'. A smart guy like you really wouldn't answer a) now, would you? Incidentally, cycling gets a higher profile and more bikes get sold, but this is very much a by product of the selling of 'Lance Armstrong: Cancer Survivor' not the main purpose of Armstrong's return to cycling.
CA good stuff0 -
Croxted Avenger wrote:Once again, Treks sales hike in one year proves nothing other than they sold more bikes.
You have no proof that a single one of these bikes was sold to an newbie 'inspired' by LA.
Not a shred.
They could equally have sold more that year because they came in a range of fetching colours or came with a free vial of EPO.
Its largely a fanboy fantasy of your own making you seem intent on defending at all costs
You continue to completely ignore all other stimuli to cycling (both sporting and otherwise) as potential reasons for any increase.
I didn't confused cyclesport with 'cycling', you did - by blathering on about what type of bike Cav rides and how much market share Nike have yadda yadda.
I suspect this is now as equally boring for everyone as it is for me.
Good luck to you leguape.
First to the accusation of "Lance fanboy". It's cycling's equivalent of Godwin's law. Second only to "being bored" in the most
I thought this was about cycling the sport. Which part of a global sporting brand signing Armstrong is so difficult to understand as being something which put cycling out there to a much wider audience in the guise of the Lance Armstrong story? How does that not encourage more people to be interested in cycling?
"You're wrong" is not a rebuttal, it's a contradiction.
Micron, you know what? It could well be all about Lance Armstrong's ego. It probably is. That doesn't mean cycling doesn't benefit. the two aren't mutually exclusive.0 -
All I can say is that I got interested in cycling - when I never was before - because of Lance Armstrong. My world used to be athletics and school. I didn't even know what the Tour De France was until I heard about a guy called Armstrong winning this obscure race in France. Since then, I have come to love cycling, follow it, read about it, value the Tour De France as the hardest sporting event in the world and on top of that, clock up lots and lots of miles training on my bike. And remember, that is all because of one thing, nothing else, Lance Armstrong.
If he gets found out for doping, no big deal, he introduced me to the sport years and years ago and nothing can change my opinion of it now. I am sure there are countless others who, if they were not frightened of comments they'd recieve, would be able to account for the same thing.
It's not Lance Armstrong himself, it's the fact that Nike put him everywhere as a figurehead for cycling. Who is the figurehead now? Alberto Contador? Ask somebody on the street who Alberto Contador is. Just knock on somebody's window at a set of lights and say: "Hey, you've heard of Lance Armstrong right?"
"Ye..."
"Ever heard of Alberto Contador?"
*perplexed look*
OK, I tell a slight lie, I knew what the Tour was before LA, I have just remembered that I saw highlights of Pantani and Ullrich one year when I was about 7 or 8. But you get the point. He brought into the spotlight and got people like me interested.0 -
But that story doesn't actually say that the rider was banned after a positive test! Other evidence of use can also lead to a ban.leguape wrote:
source: http://www.cyclingnews.com/results/arch ... /25_1.html I'm as surprised as the next man but it's there in print and I'd consider them reliable otherwise. unless it's a typo that's never been corrected.andyp wrote:
Really? That's quite some achievement given there wasn't a credible test for it until 2000.leguape wrote:Incidentally, the first cyclist who tested positive for EPO was in 1988.
The story clearly states that as recently as 1997 a litre of urine was needed to do an Epo test and, as andyp points out, the urine test for Epo was not approved for use until 2000. (The test was first approved for use at the Sydney Olympics and was first applied to pro cycling on a widespread basis in 2001).
Also back in 1988 blood tests had not yet been introduced for drug testing purposes. Given this I would suggest that the rider banned in 1988 was almost certainly not penalised due to a positive test result!
Still, that report is interesting, highlighting as it does the true provenance of Ferrari, Armstrong`s `trainer`.
The cycling doctors are the sorcerers of the peloton. Last year racing saw the team doctor as an important part of the team. The success of Italian cycling is also the success of the Italian doctor Conconi and his former righthand man Ferrari.
Anyway, that is said in the medical world. They are the top specialists of erythropoetine (EPO), the forbidden drug that the peleton is caught in the grip off.0 -
I’ll join in, in casting doubt on some of Legaupe’s statements - with respect to a resurgence in cycling during the LA era, and resultant higher bike sales. If at all valid, it can only in the English-speaking world, not elsewhere.
On continental Europe, it was riders like Zulle, Dufaux, Totschnig, Ullrich, Bolts, Moreau, Virenque, Casar, Voekler, Jalabert, Boogerd, Vinokourov, Salvodelli, Pantani, Garzelli, Gotti, and Cipollini who held the public interest, and more likely brought newcomers to the sport and helped sales, not Armstrong. In Europe, LA only managed a sympathetic interest in his first 2-3 Tour wins; after then most of continental Europe had grown wise to what sort of person he was, and also bored by his team’s dominance. During 2003, most continental Europeans were only interested to see if he could be defeated.
70% of bikes worldwide are sold in Europe, most of the rest in India and China. In Europe almost 50% of the market nowadays is mountain bikes, constantly increasing, so nothing to do with LA. Road racing bikes of all price ranges and quality don’t manage 30% of the market and the sales percentage of such started falling during the LA era, not afterwards – one might even conjecture LA contributed to this decrease in sales.0 -
I believe the 'Hoy Effect' is responsible for an upturn in road bike sales in this country at the moment.
Good post knedlicky0 -
Actually i have been slandered and falsely accused in my life, and usually very corrupt people hiding behind the veneer of respectablity.....0
-
knedlicky wrote:I’ll join in, in casting doubt on some of Legaupe’s statements - with respect to a resurgence in cycling during the LA era, and resultant higher bike sales. If at all valid, it can only in the English-speaking world, not elsewhere.
On continental Europe, it was riders like Zulle, Dufaux, Totschnig, Ullrich, Bolts, Moreau, Virenque, Casar, Voekler, Jalabert, Boogerd, Vinokourov, Salvodelli, Pantani, Garzelli, Gotti, and Cipollini who held the public interest, and more likely brought newcomers to the sport and helped sales, not Armstrong. In Europe, LA only managed a sympathetic interest in his first 2-3 Tour wins; after then most of continental Europe had grown wise to what sort of person he was, and also bored by his team’s dominance. During 2003, most continental Europeans were only interested to see if he could be defeated.
70% of bikes worldwide are sold in Europe, most of the rest in India and China. In Europe almost 50% of the market nowadays is mountain bikes, constantly increasing, so nothing to do with LA. Road racing bikes of all price ranges and quality don’t manage 30% of the market and the sales percentage of such started falling during the LA era, not afterwards – one might even conjecture LA contributed to this decrease in sales.
You know what? Cycling won't get record audiences next year then in the English-speaking world. Every broadcaster or journalist that I've talked to is wrong. Let's wait another ten years for a chance like this to come along and then rubbish it because we don't like one guy.0 -
idaviesmoore wrote:I've always felt Kimmage was a touch bitter and twisted. He smacks of a man with mediocre talent who got battered in the peloton and could barely make the grade.
Rough Ride seemed to be very much a 'Me Vs Them' thesis. I can't say I've ever taken to him as a pundit
Here here0 -
Rough Ride is not a great book, and Kimmage's journalism is often excruciating and never less than corny. But its basic point- that even a journeyman pro was expected to use peds regardless of the long term effects, and all for a pittance- was well worth making.
Armstrong is mad to come back, but then, he always was.0 -
Remember, it was written almost 20 years ago. He had good enough results to make a decent domestique, not a big winner.idaviesmoore wrote:I've always felt Kimmage was a touch bitter and twisted. He smacks of a man with mediocre talent who got battered in the peloton and could barely make the grade.
Rough Ride seemed to be very much a 'Me Vs Them' thesis. I can't say I've ever taken to him as a pundit
But I bet you'd be bitter and twisted if you tried your hardest to get into the job of your dreams, only to find you have to cheat, lie and risk your health just in order to perform.0 -
Its also worth remembering that when Kimmage wrote Rough Ride, by his own admission he wasn't a jouralist, but a cyclist writing a book. He fell into his career as a journalist almost by accident.
I also think its worth remebering why he isn't working for the irish paper that he spent nearly 20 years working for. I don't think that Kimmage's problem is being twisted. Without a doubt he turned against the sport for quite a period of time, but the obvious question needs to be asked....how many of us contributing to this forum have first hand experience of what Kimmage was talking about....how many of us contributing to this forum have ever ridden at a high enough level to see what he was discussing first hand.
I know that I certainly havent.
For me one of the major reasons people dislike Kimmage's style of journalism is that he speaks what he feels, not necessarily what he thinks will sell papers.0 -
Kléber wrote:idaviesmoore wrote:But I bet you'd be bitter and twisted if you tried your hardest to get into the job of your dreams, only to find you have to cheat, lie and risk your health just in order to perform.
Granted, Kleber and yet I'm not quite buying that it was 'the job of his dreams'. The book (and I'm aware that it was 20 years ago)left me feeling that he found it all too much for him, even from the start. That he wasn't 'up for it', after all it was no harder for him than for anyone else. He never sounded happy and he never looked happy.
That was how his book came across to me. I always got the impression that he felt beaten before he really got going (even before the pressures of doping took hold)
Shame actually.'How can an opinion be bullsh1t?' High Fidelity0 -
Wasn't the alternative job working as an apprentice mechanic repairing milk floats in Dublin? Or was that Roche? It depends on your interest but a YTS scheme fixing milk vans or riding the biggest bike races in the world, take your pick...idaviesmoore wrote:Granted, Kleber and yet I'm not quite buying that it was 'the job of his dreams'.0 -
Roche was an apprentice fitter/mechanic in what was at the time the state bus company....not sure what Kimmage was at before going to France as an amateur0
-
notanotherhill wrote:..how many of us contributing to this forum have ever ridden at a high enough level to see what he was discussing first hand.
Again, this is a fair point. But if ever someone wanted to be put of professional cycling they should read 'Rough Ride'.
Maybe that was his point 'How can an opinion be bullsh1t?' High Fidelity0 -
" The death of Marco Pantani".....now theres a way to put people off the sport
I re-read Rough ride a while ago and if you look at it for what it was, I actually found it refreshing in a strange way. Its an honest book. Warts an all I belive is the term used....
Maybe one of the reasons that it works as a book for me is that Kimmage was so naive going to France. It made me realise that I was every bit as naive about the whole thing as he was...I was just naive at a much lower competitive level0 -
"70% of bikes worldwide are sold in Europe,....."
Interesting! Global stats seem a bit thin, but given ".... the number of utilitarian/transportation cyclists around the world has grown to over 1 billion (of which China now represents about half the total)...." (plus India and the rest of Asia?) that percentage seems on the high side. How do new sales in USA compare with total European sales?.
Is the rest of this thread as well sourced?d.j.
"Cancel my subscription to the resurrection."0 -
Sorry, my figures were a bit flawed. When I wrote ’70% of bikes worldwide are sold in Europe’, I should have added the word ‘quality’ in front of ‘bikes’.meagain wrote:"70% of bikes worldwide are sold in Europe,....."
Interesting! Global stats seem a bit thin, but given ".... the number of utilitarian/transportation cyclists around the world has grown to over 1 billion (of which China now represents about half the total)...." (plus India and the rest of Asia?) that percentage seems on the high side. How do new sales in USA compare with total European sales?.
China produces about 80 million bikes a year, Japan and Korea about 7 million and India about 12 million. About 2/3 of Far East products are higher quality and are sent to Europe and the USA, while practically no bikes from India reach either the European or USA market because they are low quality and meant more for the India and Africa markets. Europe produces about 15 million bikes (the UK about 1 million of which) but the USA only 0.3 million.
Added together, of the better quality bikes, Europe sells 44 million of the total 73 million = okay 60%, not 70%. But even with 60%, the above argument still stands.
Outside of China, bike production was at its peak worldwide between 1997-2000. In the USA, peak production was in the years 1992-1996, at about 8 million. During the LA years, production was only 1.7 mllion in 1999 and only 0.2 million in 2005.
I know production and sales don’t equate, especially if the USA is buying a lot of bikes from China, but if Armstrong were really convincing, he’d have boosted the home production and sales figures too.0 -
What a strange argument. I bought a Trek, an American brand, ridden by Armstrong, and made in Taiwan. I'm sure one reason Trek buy Taiwan-made frames is because the economies of scale involved enable them to become more competitive in the market, and therefore selling more bikes, etc. etc. There is an absolute relation ship between the success of an industry and the migration of that industry to cheaper manufacturing bases. I think you're actually arguing for the other side!0
-
My figures weren’t an argument, just a correction, with breakdown. And some other figures to finish off with.biondino wrote:What a strange argument. I bought a Trek, an American brand, ridden by Armstrong, and made in Taiwan. I'm sure one reason Trek buy Taiwan-made frames is because the economies of scale involved ...
The argument was in a post higher up, a counter to the idea that LA helped bike sales, namely ….…. LA makes little difference to bike sales, since most bikes sold in the West are MTBs, and since he carries little influence outside the English-speaking world.
He also is irrelevant with respect to the next expected market booms – of hybrid/trekking/city bikes and of electric bikes. Buyers of those often know little of road racing, they are looking for fitness or at economy, or want ease or novelty.
I understand the economics you mention, but actually you would have been better off had Trek set up somewhere else because of the EU anti-dumping duty imposed on bikes imported from China, Taiwan, etc. and eventually passed on you, the buyer.
With increased labour costs in Taiwan and the high duty, Trek were looking for ways to keep their prices in the European market down, so there was talk of opening a factory in India - labour is cheaper and bike imports to the EU from India pay little duty.0
