UKC

Browsing iplayer last night and came across this.  I cycle a lot for pleasure and commuting and of course have been aware of the rise and fall of Lance Armstrong, but I'd never given the professional racers or the Tour any of my attention.  This has now changed!  Fascinating and compelling stuff, well worth a watch if you haven't seen it.  Clocks in at about 3 hours total and I am about an hour of the way through so far.

Lance was wrongly vilified. Everyone was on the gas.

Change my mind. 

That's pretty much what it says!  You have a choice to make either you start doping or you don't, but if you don't you need to accept you'll never win anything.  Anyway sure this topic has been done to death by many more knowledgeable than me on UKC, but of as much fascination for me is the world of the Tour. 

That's pretty much what it says!  You have a choice to make either you start doping or you don't, but if you don't you need to accept you'll never win anything.  Anyway sure this topic has been done to death by many more knowledgeable than me on UKC, but of as much fascination for me is the world of the Tour. 

I've watched it and some other documentaries about him....I also raced bikes in my early days and really fell for the whole Lance and Livestrong stuff in the past.

He's a very interesting character.....lots that I like and respect about him but he's also been an absolute bastard to people and ruined their careers, hopes etc...

He's very believable.....then again I once worked in a special hospital and I found people there very believable too....

As an athlete he was so good and his mentality is something to admire....drugs or not....I'd actually really like to meet him...

Other riders of the time doped but they mostly weren't vindictive, bullying, controlling narcissists. That's the real issue in the LA case, not the doping and it's why I'm quite content to see him with his reputation in tatters.

In fact, I reckon that if he hadn't been such a colossal arsehole he might even have got away with the doping.

I'd agree that he was wrongly vilified for doping if we treat that as a standalone issue, almost every GC top 10 finisher in the 90s and early 2000s was juicing. What I think sets Lance apart from other such as Ullrich, Basso, Hamilton etc is his behaviour off the bike. Just look at his treatment of those who questioned him while he was at the height of his powers. Three key incidents standout for me:

Emma O'Reilly - tried to discredit her accusation by publicly referring to her as an alcoholic and a whore

Christophe Bassons - Lance orchestrated the shunning of him by the entire peloton and forced him into early retirement for daring to accuse him of doping

Betsy & Frankie Andreu - public shamed and discredited Betsy for years and made sure Frankie's contract wasn't renewed when he refused to continue using EPO

Many others may have doped but I think few, if any other pro cyclists had the same bullying attitude to those who were questioning if their performances were clean. 

My sentiments exactly. I suspect that if he'd not have been a cyclist he'd be top flight in something else and ruining people elsewhere, it's his character.

Slight tangent: I feel you'd be hard pushed to find a sport that is clean with the money that you can earn as an athlete or club tbh you'd be stupid not to supplement. The good money is always a step or two ahead of the testing, and it turns into an IQ test.

You need to be a colossal arsehole bullying narcissist in order to be a winner. Or in other professions, your parents need to be ... (Yehudi Menuhin, Lang Lang, Paco de Lucia, any number of tennis players, etc).

Armstrong did take it to a whole new level, but livestrong was a good thing.

That's quite obviously and demonstrably untrue. 

Worth checking out what Livestrong actually did during LA's tenure if you haven't already. Whilst some good certainly came of it it wasn't unequivocally a good thing.

I admit to a little 'late night hyperbole'  

Bullying by coaches and parents is making media news however. Succeeding at an international level requires an astonishing commitment. Both Lang Lang and Paco de Lucia have spoken about their awful childhoods (while not being too sad about their success).

Switching the attention off of Lance is there any lore I need to read up on to expand my knowledge of the Tour?  Is there an equivalent must read like 'The White Spider'?

Ned Boulting books are funny but I don't know any 'lore' books.

There's general history like Chris Sidwell's A Race for Madmen or more first-person accounts like The Secret Race by Tyler Hamilton or Domestique by Charlie Wegelius. Etape by the late Richard Moore is possibly closest to what you're looking for, at least from the stuff I've read. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Etape-Untold-Stories-Frances-Defining/dp/000750013... 

Brad's book Icons is full of amazing jerseys/stories, lots of history and beautifully produced.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Icons-My-Inspiration-Motivation-Obsession/dp/00083...

For a first-person accounts of doping in the peloton, there's David Millar's Racing Through the Dark, or from an earlier generation Rough Ride by Paul Kimmage

+1 for Racing through the Dark. 

Another +1 for Racing Through the Dark, it gives a real insight into the pressures that top level racers were under during that time.

Some years ago we were riding in a group up the Petite St Bernard, a couple of weeks before the Tour, when one of our group looked up and said “Oh it’s you” and Lance replied “ yep it’s me.” We all had a laugh as he and his team disappeared up the hill. 

I do understand this point of view, but if you've got the option of going after Al Capone or some backstreet small-time criminal...you go for Al Capone.

I simultaneously hate how we went about those Tour wins while admiring his ruthless competitiveness, athleticism and the spectacular racing that we saw in those years. 2003 is one of the great tours, even though we all know how it was fuelled.

It's a good documentary and just further confirms in my mind that he's a f***ing nutter who simply saw all the orchestrated doping as one necessary ingredient in all the things he did to win.