The Tour de France 2016

I know you are all looking forward to the race like me which starts on Saturday!

Three weeks of theatre ahead of us with those nasty Frenchmen no doubt trying to throw cups of piss and other little presents at favourite Chris Froome.

For those of you who don't follow cycling the latest doping story is not about any rider in particular but the bikes themselves!  Someone got caught with a motor in one (banned for life) and there are one or two very suspicious clips of Herculean achievements of riding away from some of the best cyclists in the world as though they were not there!

This video is a bit weirdly put together but it does explain fairly well what is going on (allegedly) and the effect it has on the race.  If you want to skip most of it - it is 6 minutes long - just click to about 5 mins 20 secs in and see how a well known cyclist simply blows away another very good cyclist going up a steep hill - note how he simply swans off after a very suspicious hand movement on his bike - whilst the other bloke works his bollocks off and gets dropped by a mile!  Indeed listen to what the commentator thinks after just a few seconds!



The next clip is from a mentalist aussie former cyclist - I think the bloke is still on some uppers or something but the clip (although repeated about ten times) - does make you think!




Anyway the opening stage is a very short ride designed to get someone into yellow for the next day - it makes teams defend and attack and animates the race from that point onwards.

It is the last realistic chance for Mark Cavendish to win a yellow jersey but his best days are now behind him so I would be surprised to see if he did - shame he's had a great career otherwise (Olymic medal aside).

If anybody is interested I'd be more than happy to try and keep you informed what is happing and what to look out for - don't be shy to ask - otherwise I'll just talk to myself on here like I usually do on Tours past!

You'll have even more of an interest this year.

Didn't know Bread was a member,did you?

It's astonishing how far people will go to cheat especially with trying to use a battery powered bicycle!

Right KP. But this is going too far.

I know what you mean KP, Chris Froome's new ride looks a bit dodgy to me too

karlypants wrote:It's astonishing how far people will go to cheat especially with trying to use a battery powered bicycle!

Another video from the mentalist aussie but if you can stick it out (it last 7 minutes and he is definitely on something!) he does have a point - in regards to ALL sports.

I quite like the bloke but I wouldn't want to spend more than a few minutes in his company!

Another thing I like about the Tour is the stunning scenery it travels through.

The Tour starts this year at Mont Saint-Michael in Normandy which is an island just of the coast but is accessible when the tide is out, and travels to Utah Beach where Allies landed in the second world war.

Sluffy wrote:It is the last realistic chance for Mark Cavendish to win a yellow jersey but his best days are now behind him so I would be surprised to see if he did - shame he's had a great career otherwise (Olympic medal aside).

Well I very pleased to say he proved me wrong!

An extremely iconic moment in the world of cycling.






It should be fun to see if he can cling on to it tomorrow, the course is not really suited to him but being in yellow does something special to riders and they often perform above their normal expectations.

Contador (Spain ex-druggy, one of the favourites) had a crash today but he is a tough rider and I expect him to tough the pain out for the next few days whilst the stages are quite flatish generally.



One to watch out for tomorrow is Valverde (Spanish ex-druggy) who is a class act on the climbs like the one at the end of this stage.

Is there anyone in the tour de France that isn't an ex druggie, actually on drugs presently or doesn't/hasn't cheated in some form or another? Unbelievable stuff.

Bwfc1958 wrote:Is there anyone in the tour de France that isn't an ex druggie, actually on drugs presently or doesn't/hasn't cheated in some form or another? Unbelievable stuff.

Depends on what your definition of drugs is and how you apply that to other sports to.

It is without question that drugs have helped EVERY professional sportsperson (not only cyclist) for the last twenty years - since doping got 'professional' itself.

Lasse Viren who won an Olympic gold medal in 1972 is regarded by many as the first 'blood' doper and that was over 40 years ago!

Gold medallist at the last two Olympics (including London) have been caught out recently because of the increases in science in detecting the cheats.  Those caught came from several sports other than cycling and athletics (being the two big sports tainted with drugs).

What are 'illegal' drugs though?

Basically anything you put in your body is tainted with 'chemicals' in someway or another, from stuff you put on crops to stop the bugs eating them to growth hormones they stick into animals to bulk them up, or stuff to keep them well.

Even things like asthma inhalers and medicine to keep you well are stuffed full of drugs.

Some of these drugs are used by people to dope directly (mainly to be able to train more and recover quicker away from competition) or 'mask' the drugs they have been taking 'illegally'.

Sports people like Maria Sharapova (tennis) and Simon Yates (cycling) have been banned for taking drugs they have been taking for most of their careers - in Sharapova's case the 'drug' rules changed and she 'did not know they had' and still used the drug without declaring it for medical exemption and in Yates case (asthma inhaler) his team forgot to apply for the exemption.

Even back in the day in football players used cortisone injections (which is basically 'steroids') to overcome injuries so they could carry on playing weekly rather than miss games recovering.

I guess what I'm saying is that drug taking in many sports requiring strength, speed or endurance (including football) is more or less a given, it is just that some drugs are banned whilst others have not yet been - and those that have been are replaced by those have yet not been (think illegal drugs being replaced by legal highs).

There is no doubt there is still drug taking in cycling but then again there is no doubt there is drug taking to a degree in most other physical sports to - the retrospective Olympic bans confirm that.

Do you really believe that top football clubs in an industry worth billions of pounds globally aren't on the cusp of 'medicating' their players to perform at their maximum for game after game season after season without being at the forefront of what drugs they can enhance their performances legally and which ones they can't (without being caught!) - I do.

Sport for me is just a GAME, an entertainment, an amusement.  I'm not naive enough to think people don't cheat or bend the rules.

Cycling is just that for me too.

It is pure theatre.

I find it fun and enthralling - it even makes it more so for me if some star or other IS caught cheating.

Cycling is now probably one of the cleanest sports ironically simply because the spotlight is on it.

The Olympics is only a few weeks away and I dare say there will be more drug cheats there than what you have in cycling now but one seems to be indelibly tainted with drug taking whilst the other Teflon coated where drug taking doesn't seem to diminish its appeal to most people.

I know I'm more or less on my own enjoying cycling on here but I do think most of you are missing out simply because all you see is the drugs and not the race itself.

Tbh Sluffy my knowledge of cycling could be written on the back of a postage stamp with a permanent marker. I'm just taking it all from your various posts above. 

I don't know to what extent Valverde and Contador used drugs or even what drugs they were but you described them both as ex druggies. 

As for being banned for using things like an asthma inhaler is just beyond ridiculous imo. Normal everyday prescription drugs should be exempt whether they've been declared or not providing the competitors can prove they need them.

It's got so that things have to be black and white when it comes to drugs in sport.

The rule is that the sportsman/woman is responsible for what they put in their body, so it is down to them to ensure their prescription drugs have been given a medical exemption.  Yates got the minimum ban - basically just long enough to miss competing in this years Tour.  The bigger problem though he has 'drug cheat' on his CV now and mud sticks.

Contador 'claimed' he got contaminated after eating some meat that had been fed growth hormones. A really, really small trace of that was found in his drug sample - but the chemical was also used by others to 'mask' other 'stronger' drug taking.

Contador and Valverde both Spanish, had blood stored in a Spanish doping doctors lab when it was raided in Spain - see a bit of a theme emerging here!

The blood came (or so it is alleged) from all sorts of sports people including football, and tennis players as well as cyclists who were either Spanish or lived, worked or played there.

Surprisingly (or not) the Spanish authority's took NO action and even wanted all the blood to be destroyed so DNA could not be identified.

It took TEN YEARS of court action to stop this - just long enough for all involved Tennis, footballers and cyclists to complete the best part of their sports careers.

Funny how Spanish tennis players, football teams and cyclist mainly dominated their respective sports during the last decade or so - just a coincidence I'm sure.

If your interested this wiki link gives a simple explanation of what occurred -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eufemiano_Fuentes

and this from the Telegraph explains how big it is -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/12092102/Blood-samples-in-a-Barcelona-freezer-could-spark-biggest-ever-doping-scandal-as-Operation-Puerto-resurfaces.html


Makes you think doesn't it!

I like the HGH drug, it works wonders, did you know when you reach 30 years of age, your testostrone levels drop one per cent a year, making you put weight on and not feeling so youthful any more, your doctor can put you on a testostrone treatment plan if you go to see him.

Performance drugs simply work wonders.

Fascinating stage developing right now for anybody who is interested.

A really good rider Van Avermeat (Belgium lad) as been allowed to break away and go 13 minutes in front of the main contenders.  A second group is between the two (a couple of minutes behind the leaders and around 10 in front of the main group and that includes another very good rider called Majka.

Both these two I've mentioned could well be in front of people like Froome by a big margin if this continues.

The stage will get steep and very hillier from now to the end and a chase will be on but both of those I've named have a decent chance of leading the race favourites by a big time amount at the end of todays race.

Must see VIDEO clip .

This actually happened in the Tour yesterday!

A cyclist Adam Yates (English) was racing at the end of the stage to gain just 7 seconds in order to go into second place overall when he passed under the inflatable marker that is positioned with only 1 kilometre to go at the end of every daily stage of the Tour.

It is so funny (although the poor bloke did get hurt) - so I do feel a little guilty about it.

It was an absolutely fantastic stage yesterday with so many things going on.

Stuff like that happened to me every week.

Sluffy wrote:Must see VIDEO clip .

This actually happened in the Tour yesterday!

A cyclist Adam Yates (English) was racing at the end of the stage to gain just 7 seconds in order to go into second place overall when he passed under the inflatable marker that is positioned with only 1 kilometre to go at the end of every daily stage of the Tour.

It is so funny (although the poor bloke did get hurt) - so I do feel a little guilty about it.

It was an absolutely fantastic stage yesterday with so many things going on.

You find it funny when someone gets hurt?

Boggersbelief wrote:You find it funny when someone gets hurt?

Mate I'm not playing your game.

Your trolling is getting personal now and as without question started to hurt the site.

If you don't like me or anyone else then please ignore them - people don't come here to read about you being argumentative or abusive to others.

Enjoy the site but at the same time please don't spoil it for others.

Nuts is for everybody's amusement and not that everybody is here just for your personal amusement.

Thank you.