Tour de France 2020

[Travs]

To give some balance, i also personally know a guy on the lap-racing circuit who is clean as a whistle and wouldn't dream of it...

[Gambatte]

Here is the list of doping cases in cycling from Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ses_in_cycling

If you look through it you will see some very big names in the past, (Merckx, Anquetil, Hinault, Gimondi - all Tour de France winners), but not anymore. In the last few years it has been lesser riders, presumably hoping to make the big time by whatever means available.

Marco, I agree with everything you wrote but not with your conclusion that cycling is now cleaner than ever. Remember, Lance Armstrong "never failed a drug test". Now we know 1) he "never failed" because it was easy to cheat, and 2) he did fail at least one test and he just paid hard cash to keep it under the radar. The organizers wanted it that way. Marion Jones never failed a drug test. My take is: I used to accept the official "clean" results. Now I don't.

[Stagger]

I like to think most are clean.

[Stagger]

I like to think most are clean.

But I'm so unsure.

[Derby Tup]

I assume the vast majority are juiced

[brett]

Cynical I thought

Then think Armstrong...

[MattPo]

But still no discussion of this years tour? Just endless rehashing of the drugs in sport debate.

[Graham Breeze]

The fact that Juan José Cobo was stripped of the 2011 Vuelta a España title in 2019 will have made it clear to the top riders that they will be caught eventually. For this reason I believe that, (at the top level of cycling anyway),this tour is probably the closest to a clean tour there has ever been.

I concur.

[Witton Park]

Great days racing yesterday. I think Sagan really wants that Green Jersey. He messed up the final sprint though trying to lean on another rider and came off worst unbalancing himself.

I was a bit gutted for Eddie Boss. He's getting on a bit now and was so close.

Not sure how the Pyrenees will work out without an uphill finish on either day.

I've only been over once to watch the TdF in 2014. It doesn't seem like 6 years ago. I was lucky enough to watch them go over today's HC and then follow the race down to Bagneres.
I'm not a cyclist at all, but the descent of the Port de Bales was an unbelievable surface and I loved it.

Those guys made it look so easy going up the climb.

[Witton Park]

I said last month that I thought Primož Roglič would win it, as he was on form and had a stronger team than Ineos. They've won 3 of the last 4 stages, and look dominant.

Today's stage is not too brutal. I've ridden the first climb, the col de Mente (where Luis Ocaña famously crashed in 1971 - they even have a plaque on the wall), and also the last one, the Col de Peyresourde. I'd describe them as fairly straightforward, as mountain climbs go.

I don't know the Port de Bales, but that looks like the hardest climb where the race will split. It's too far from the finish to make a winning move, however. Looks like a stage that would suit Alaphilipe, and Bardet and Roglič

The Bales was a pristine surface and fast decent. I reckon the decent might break things up.