Floyd -- he wrote us a letter...

rick_chasey · May 2010

Dial a denial.

ratsbeyfus · May 2010

dennisn wrote:

ratsbeyfus wrote:

dennisn wrote:

afx237vi wrote:

dennisn wrote:

afx237vi wrote:

dennisn wrote:

Sounds like you're saying all Lance fans are idiots?? Could be, but I have my doubts.
There is an old saying about "fame is a fleeting thing" and Armstrong, like many others, will be pushed aside sooner than later. His fans will die out just like evey other "sporting hero". Don't worry, you guys are going to have your wishes granted. Sooner or later, in one way or another. I doubt it will be in the way you think or wish, but he, like everyone else will eventually be gone. Then you can all find some new distraction to obcess about.

We'll probably all go back to watching pro cycling. How about you?

So I have your assurance that cycling in the post Lance era will be pure as the driven snow? You guys are simply setting yourselves up for another let down. Good luck in you belief in the purity of "our sport".

Now I'd appreciate it if you answered the question I asked you. What will you do once Armstrong disappears from cycling? Because you clearly have no interest in pro cycling, unlike everyone else on this section of the forum. Once Armstrong goes there'll be a far bigger hole in your life than there will be in mine.

Well, I have been getting up and going to work before Lance was born, before he was a cyclist, before kids, after marriage, after kids, and I will probably do pretty much the same when his name stops appearing pretty much everywhere. He really doesn't interest me that much. What does interest me is the intense scrutiny, that the some people
on this forum seem to put forth, in some vain attempt to feel like they know him intimately.
Here's a question. Why does everyone think I'm a fanboy? i haven't read anything he's written or anything written about him(other than the standard sporting news stuff), I don't have a yellow wrist band, I haven't given money to his charities, I've never read his twitter(or anyone else's), I don't belong to his fan club(what 61 year old man does?). I'm thinking I'm being called a fanboy in some attempt to p*ss me off. Not because any of you actually believe it. I say things to p*ss people off, generate responce, so I'm guessing you all do the same.

As a 61 year old with all your years of experience you are genuinely surprised that on a cycling forum people are interested in discussing whether or not the highest profile cyclist of the last decade may have been a drugs cheat? Really? Or is this just an example of you trying to provoke a 'responce' (sic)? Either way, it seems as if your posts would be better ignored from now on... which is what I'm gonna do! See ya Fanboy!

I'll buy your arguement. You have made a good point. I shouldn't be so surprised. Point taken. Maybe it's more curiousity than suprise? :? :?

:shock: This is the internet - you weren't meant to respond to my post in a reasonable manner!

I shall no longer ignore your posts, and use my energy winding up Frenchie instead - Hey Frenchie, who's the bigger cheat - LA or Valverde?

dennisn · May 2010

ratsbeyfus wrote:

dennisn wrote:

ratsbeyfus wrote:

dennisn wrote:

afx237vi wrote:

dennisn wrote:

afx237vi wrote:

dennisn wrote:

Sounds like you're saying all Lance fans are idiots?? Could be, but I have my doubts.
There is an old saying about "fame is a fleeting thing" and Armstrong, like many others, will be pushed aside sooner than later. His fans will die out just like evey other "sporting hero". Don't worry, you guys are going to have your wishes granted. Sooner or later, in one way or another. I doubt it will be in the way you think or wish, but he, like everyone else will eventually be gone. Then you can all find some new distraction to obcess about.

We'll probably all go back to watching pro cycling. How about you?

So I have your assurance that cycling in the post Lance era will be pure as the driven snow? You guys are simply setting yourselves up for another let down. Good luck in you belief in the purity of "our sport".

Now I'd appreciate it if you answered the question I asked you. What will you do once Armstrong disappears from cycling? Because you clearly have no interest in pro cycling, unlike everyone else on this section of the forum. Once Armstrong goes there'll be a far bigger hole in your life than there will be in mine.

Well, I have been getting up and going to work before Lance was born, before he was a cyclist, before kids, after marriage, after kids, and I will probably do pretty much the same when his name stops appearing pretty much everywhere. He really doesn't interest me that much. What does interest me is the intense scrutiny, that the some people
on this forum seem to put forth, in some vain attempt to feel like they know him intimately.
Here's a question. Why does everyone think I'm a fanboy? i haven't read anything he's written or anything written about him(other than the standard sporting news stuff), I don't have a yellow wrist band, I haven't given money to his charities, I've never read his twitter(or anyone else's), I don't belong to his fan club(what 61 year old man does?). I'm thinking I'm being called a fanboy in some attempt to p*ss me off. Not because any of you actually believe it. I say things to p*ss people off, generate responce, so I'm guessing you all do the same.

As a 61 year old with all your years of experience you are genuinely surprised that on a cycling forum people are interested in discussing whether or not the highest profile cyclist of the last decade may have been a drugs cheat? Really? Or is this just an example of you trying to provoke a 'responce' (sic)? Either way, it seems as if your posts would be better ignored from now on... which is what I'm gonna do! See ya Fanboy!

I'll buy your arguement. You have made a good point. I shouldn't be so surprised. Point taken. Maybe it's more curiousity than suprise? :? :?

:shock: This is the internet - you weren't meant to respond to my post in a reasonable manner! I shall no longer ignore your posts, and use my energy winding up Frenchie instead - Hey Frenchie, who's the bigger cheat - LA or Valverde?

Sorry, my mistake. I'll try to be twice as big an idiot in the future.

paulcuthbert · May 2010

*bump*

Ahahaaaaa! Made you look, made you stare, made you crap your underwear

iainf72 · May 2010

Bonnie Ford interview

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/c ... id=5215959

I'm sure it'll be deleted from the internetz before long so get in there

BikingBernie · May 2010

paulcuthbert wrote:

*bump*

Ahahaaaaa! Made you look, made you stare, made you crap your underwear

Very witty... for an 8 year old. :roll:

rapid_uphill · May 2010

quote Floyd: "I told them they're welcome to have my training diaries" oooo0

BikingBernie · May 2010

I also have training diaries written out by Michele Ferrari which have also in code, indications of when I should use EPO and things like that. I'll give them that...

Q: How much would you say you spent, average, at the height of your career, in a season, on the substances and the advice?

A: The actual substances are not very expensive. The amount you would need for a season for a cyclist is probably $10,000.The advice -- depends who you want it from. If you want it from Ferrari, you pay him 10 percent of your salary. Then it's a matter of, if you want to do blood transfusions, figuring out the logistics and having people watching it and driving it around, and that gets expensive. I would say if you wanted to do it without making any huge mistakes and taking any huge risks, $30,000-40,000 wouldn't be too little to do it right.

Confirms what we already knew about Ferrari and the fact that blood-doping requires the back-up of a big budget team.

SpaceJunk · May 2010

iainf72 wrote:

Bonnie Ford interview

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/c ... id=5215959

I'm sure it'll be deleted from the internetz before long so get in there

Thanks Ian. Not sure what to make of it all.

I guess we all suspected/speculated on why his father in law ended his life. I couldn't imagine living with that on my conscience.

Landis speaks about his diaries being coded to the point of appearing to mean one thing, but in reality, meaning another.

Don't know how helpful that evidence will be then.

The stuff on Ferrari might be another matter though, especially if the doc wrote it himself. What type of charges could he face, if any?

In summary, I kind of think Landis is doing this for himself - not to bring anyone else down. Otherwise, why put yourself through all of this?

So, I guess if Landis feels better for speaking up, regardless of what happens next, he's achieved what he wanted by coming clean.

BTW - I don't think his thoughts or explanations are from an insane man, he seem quite balanced.

SpaceJunk · May 2010

BikingBernie wrote:

I also have training diaries written out by Michele Ferrari which have also in code, indications of when I should use EPO and things like that. I'll give them that...

Q: How much would you say you spent, average, at the height of your career, in a season, on the substances and the advice?

A: The actual substances are not very expensive. The amount you would need for a season for a cyclist is probably $10,000.The advice -- depends who you want it from. If you want it from Ferrari, you pay him 10 percent of your salary. Then it's a matter of, if you want to do blood transfusions, figuring out the logistics and having people watching it and driving it around, and that gets expensive. I would say if you wanted to do it without making any huge mistakes and taking any huge risks, $30,000-40,000 wouldn't be too little to do it right.

Confirms what we already knew about Ferrari and the fact that blood-doping requires the back-up of a big budget team.

Yeah, like isn't Landis annual salary now just over half of what he used to spend a year on doping alone?

iainf72 · May 2010

BikingBernie wrote:

Confirms what we already knew about Ferrari and the fact that blood-doping requires the back-up of a big budget team.

Explain Kohl then?

samb01 · May 2010

iainf72 wrote:

Bonnie Ford interview

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/c ... id=5215959

Good read, and I think Floyd comes off really well in this interview.

It's not easy reconciling this version of him with the crazy 'Floyd Fairness Fund'-guy.

BikingBernie · May 2010

iainf72 wrote:

BikingBernie wrote:

Confirms what we already knew about Ferrari and the fact that blood-doping requires the back-up of a big budget team.

Explain Kohl then?

But it sounds as though the 'logistical' issues Kohl had to address were the same, and as expensive to solve, as those USP /Discovery faced. For example:

Kohl said that his manager, Stefan Matschiner, flew to France three times during last year's Tour, providing half-litre bags of the cyclist's blood, which had been withdrawn prior to the race.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/ju ... -de-france

In USP / Postal is appears that everyone was on the 'program' so as to be able to help Armstrong as best they could, so there was a lot more blood to process and take care of. Perhaps on some teams only the top rider/s 'benefit' from the most expensive doping methods.

AidanR · May 2010

An excellent interview, thank you for posting. It certainly doesn't read like someone who is "crazy".

The following stood out for me:

Q: You've already thought about the fact that there might be some collateral damage here, on guys that you're very fond of, and rode with for a long time and were or are friends with. Is that a hard part of this for you?

A: Yeah, that's why it took so long. Part of the decision I made in the first place to fight the entire thing was, I have, and maybe it's a character flaw of mine, but I have a hard time telling a half-truth ... How would I go about saying that I, for example, had a program of performing blood transfusions in the race in the years I was on the Postal Service team, but no one else helped me or knew about it? I didn't know how to tell the story without incriminating the other people. So it might have looked like a simple thing from the outside to just tell the truth, but to tell the truth I was going to hurt a lot of people that I care about and that I don't feel like are any more guilty of anything than I myself am.

Why do we ever believe confessions of "yes, I doped, but nobody else knew about it"? Imagine whenever someone was caught doping there was a full investigation of the team. How much cleaner would the sport be if the UCI, the police, WADA or whoever took the time to bust the system behind each offence? This is what we need, and I hope where we might be headed.

DaveyL · May 2010

iainf72 wrote:

Bonnie Ford interview

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/c ... id=5215959

I'm sure it'll be deleted from the internetz before long so get in there

"It's all written in very complex code, whatever is incriminating. It would be easy to argue that it means something else, put it that way. I never kept anything else. I never kept any physical evidence, I never took any pictures, I was very careful about not leaving any other evidence behind."

Wait a minute. Hasn't he read the Vaughters/Andreu IM? Doesn't he know he's supposed to have pictures?

DaveyL · May 2010

BikingBernie wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

BikingBernie wrote:

Confirms what we already knew about Ferrari and the fact that blood-doping requires the back-up of a big budget team.

Explain Kohl then?

But it sounds as though the 'logistical' issues Kohl had to address were the same, and as expensive to solve, as those USP /Discovery faced. For example:

Kohl said that his manager, Stefan Matschiner, flew to France three times during last year's Tour, providing half-litre bags of the cyclist's blood, which had been withdrawn prior to the race.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/ju ... -de-france

In USP / Postal is appears that everyone was on the 'program' so as to be able to help Armstrong as best they could, so there was a lot more blood to process and take care of. Perhaps on some teams only the top rider/s 'benefit' from the most expensive doping methods.

So, to summarise, you can do it with the help of your manager, and not necessarily the back-up of a "big budget" team?

BikingBernie · May 2010

DaveyL wrote:

So, to summarise, you can do it with the help of your manager, and not necessarily the back-up of a "big budget" team?

Unless, of course, the whole team is blood-doped to the gills, as were USP/ Discovery, in which case the 'logistics' become a bigger problem to solve.

iainf72 · May 2010

DaveyL wrote:

So, to summarise, you can do it with the help of your manager, and not necessarily the back-up of a "big budget" team?

Or in the same Landis article, you can help you're little mate do it. Even if he's on a COMPLETELY different team

BikingBernie · May 2010

iainf72 wrote:

Or in the same Landis article, you can help you're little mate do it. Even if he's on a COMPLETELY different team

if you want to do blood transfusions, figuring out the logistics and having people watching it and driving it around, and that gets expensive. I would say if you wanted to do it without making any huge mistakes and taking any huge risks, $30,000-40,000 wouldn't be too little to do it right.

That a rider is prepared to help another rider dope doesn't mean that the cost involved disappear. Just look how many riders have defrayed their doping costs by supplying to other riders, for example.

Bottom line is that spending $30,000-40,000 to blood dope makes a lot more economic sense on a 'big budget' team that when doing so would cost half you annual salary, as would be the case for Landis now.

iainf72 · May 2010

BikingBernie wrote:

Bottom line is that spending $30,000-40,000 to blood dope makes a lot more economic sense on a 'big budget' team that when doing so would cost half you annual salary, as would be the case for Landis now.

Oh, I see. So what you're saying is it doesn't have to be the team involved really, just the rider needs to be paid a lot of money to afford the program. Storing blood in a fridge and then getting your manager to bring it into the room in his backpack isn't a massive logistical challenge I'd say.

dave_1 · May 2010

DaveyL wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Bonnie Ford interview

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/c ... id=5215959

I'm sure it'll be deleted from the internetz before long so get in there

"It's all written in very complex code, whatever is incriminating. It would be easy to argue that it means something else, put it that way. I never kept anything else. I never kept any physical evidence, I never took any pictures, I was very careful about not leaving any other evidence behind."

Wait a minute. Hasn't he read the Vaughters/Andreu IM? Doesn't he know he's supposed to have pictures?

the Instant Message that BB has pasted up seems incorrect now. FL has no pics of any motos and why was FL mad as hell about the doping at the 05 TDF when he was actually doped to the gills from 2002 himself? Anyone think this case is likely not going to end up in a court room?

skavanagh.bikeradar · May 2010

Thanks for the link Iain. I hope everyone reads that in full including links before posting anything else on this or any other thread regarding Landis. He really does seem to have cleared his conscience.

Interesting that - as many on here have said in the past - the decision to dope was an easy, natural one for a pro cyclist. It is institutionalised and the UCI helps rather than hinders in creating this situation.

Seems like Landis and probably a few people on this forum wait now to see if anyone else's conscience makes the speak out. If they do it could be chaos. If not it will be McQuaid style business as usual. We wait.

Cumulonimbus · May 2010

DaveyL wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Bonnie Ford interview

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/c ... id=5215959

I'm sure it'll be deleted from the internetz before long so get in there

"It's all written in very complex code, whatever is incriminating. It would be easy to argue that it means something else, put it that way. I never kept anything else. I never kept any physical evidence, I never took any pictures, I was very careful about not leaving any other evidence behind."

Wait a minute. Hasn't he read the Vaughters/Andreu IM? Doesn't he know he's supposed to have pictures?

But what does a photo of a motorcycle prove? Even if it is a big one, what proof would a motorcycle with some sort of storage prove at a race that people follow around? Maybe what he means is that he doesnt have photos of himself or other people injecting. Maybe we'll know some day.

skavanagh.bikeradar · May 2010

It could sound desperate couldn't it "But I've got a picture of a motorbike with panniers!!" erm, right and so have 1,000 other people that watched the tour that day mate. So that photo if it existed or not is probably irrelevant anyway. It reminds me of the old Mission Impossible series when the warehouse making the baddies chemical weapons would be empty or producing wolly hats when the police showed up........

DaveyL · May 2010

skavanagh.bikeradar wrote:

It could sound desperate couldn't it "But I've got a picture of a motorbike with panniers!!" erm, right and so have 1,000 other people that watched the tour that day mate. So that photo if it existed or not is probably irrelevant anyway. It reminds me of the old Mission Impossible series when the warehouse making the baddies chemical weapons would be empty or producing wolly hats when the police showed up........

Yes, my point is more to do with the veracity of the IM conversation - Vaughters claiming that Floyd has a photo - well, Floyd just said he never took any photos.

The IM also says that Ullrich never raced with a HCt over 42% from 2000 onwards. Right.

A lot of what they say in the IM may be correct but we ought to be objective and critical of it, rather than just accept everything because it's there.

skavanagh.bikeradar · May 2010

Quite. Hopefully for once there will be some proper due process by a law enforcement agency and we will actually find out what is true and what is not.

Cumulonimbus · May 2010

DaveyL wrote:

skavanagh.bikeradar wrote:

It could sound desperate couldn't it "But I've got a picture of a motorbike with panniers!!" erm, right and so have 1,000 other people that watched the tour that day mate. So that photo if it existed or not is probably irrelevant anyway. It reminds me of the old Mission Impossible series when the warehouse making the baddies chemical weapons would be empty or producing wolly hats when the police showed up........

Yes, my point is more to do with the veracity of the IM conversation - Vaughters claiming that Floyd has a photo - well, Floyd just said he never took any photos.

The IM also says that Ullrich never raced with a HCt over 42% from 2000 onwards. Right.

A lot of what they say in the IM may be correct but we ought to be objective and critical of it, rather than just accept everything because it's there.

Oh i agree that you shouldnt take every word of it as gospel, just as you shouldnt take every word that Landis has said recently as gospel either. For instance, how would Vaughters/Andreu know what Ulrich's HCT is anyway, sounds like rumours to me FWIW? However, a photo of a motorcycle might not be what Floyd meant when he said he didnt take any photos, he might mean injections, photos of drugs/blood bags etc. hopefully we'll find out.

le_patron · May 2010

skavanagh.bikeradar wrote:

Wait now to see if anyone else's conscience makes the speak out. If they do it could be chaos. If not it will be McQuaid style business as usual. We wait.

At the moment I predict business as usual. The sports shutters have slammed down pretty hard on this, as they do in all other sports (shutters don’t even rise in most).

There's no real evidence, so unless law enforcement gets involved quickly and puts proper serious pressure on the many individuals to share what they know and worms emerge from the can, then this will go nowhere, people in positions of power will make sure of that. Too much money to be made from the status quo, and certainly none to be made from raking over previous chapters.

It is going to crash down from an ever greater height if and when it does though.

iainf72 · May 2010

skavanagh.bikeradar wrote:

Quite. Hopefully for once there will be some proper due process by a law enforcement agency and we will actually find out what is true and what is not.

Exactly.

And as one of the other articles I posted pointed out, in a court of law, eye witness testimony is evidence. It's just plain old evidence. Not circumstantial. So if others step up....

dave_1 · May 2010

if there is no material evidence to prove guilt why would people just spontaneously confess when they can easily just say they can't remember or just deny. Who can prove they lied?

Floyd -- he wrote us a letter...

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