Basso at 2010 Tour?

[sjbraun]

Will Ivan be riding for Liquigas at the Tour?

[johnnymossville]

yeah, he'll be there, unless he gets caught between now and then.

[MattTuck]

yeah, he'll be there, unless he gets caught between now and then.


ouch! seriously though, I'm sure he'll have amazingly consistent blood values between now and then... as in, TOO consistent.

[130R]

i actually think he probably won the giro clean.

[Polyglot]

If he goes, he won't have much of a team to help him and won't be able to return teh favor to Nibali.

My personal point of view is that there is a greater chance that Basso was clean in winning this Giro than any other grand tour winner in the last 10 years.

[Climb01742]

basso's coach has an interesting way of looking at who's (probably) clean:

"Despite Basso climbing the Passo del Mortirolo eight seconds faster than he did in 2006, before he was implicated in Operacion Puerto, Sassi insists that his performance was believable.

"I don’t think people should doubt Ivan's performance. He's changed a lot. I totally trust him, like I totally trust Cadel," Sassi told Cyclingnews.

"The power the lead riders put out on the Mortirolo yesterday was about 420 watts. That's about six watt/kg, at the limit of natural physical possibilities."

"The data people should reflect on were the times the riders set during the Plan de Corones time trial. The data showed that the strength to weight ratio of the best riders was somewhere between 5.1w/kg and 5.3w/kg. That's low. It's as if they all rode the 100 metre final in the Olympics in 13 seconds. I think that is enough to confirm that cycling has changed."

i like basso. i think/hope he's doing it clean now. he took his punishment. i like his attitude now. it would be nice to believe you can win a grand tour clean.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/sassi-convinced-basso-is-racing-clean

[Ray]

i like basso. i think/hope he's doing it clean now. he took his punishment. i like his attitude now. it would be nice to believe you can win a grand tour clean.

I like Basso too. I HOPE he's doing it clean now, but I won't be even the tiniest bit surprised if it turns out he's not. And I won't like him any less. He was a great rider then - he's a great rider now. I just don't believe cycling has changed that much. And I'm sure these "programs" are pretty much team efforts just like the racing. So if Pellizotti got dropped from the team because of an inconsistent "passport", I seriously doubt the rest of them are clean.

I too think it would be nice to believe you can win a grand tour clean. But I haven't seen any evidence of it and sooooo much to the contrary.

-Ray

[93legendti]

I like Basso more so now than in 2006. I have the '06 Giro DVD and never watch it -boring. I found Basso very compelling to watch in this Giro.

I wonder if he can recover in time for the TdF. If he does, the climbing stages would be chock full of top tier climbers duking it out for the GC.

[MattTuck]

I like Basso too. I HOPE he's doing it clean now, but I won't be even the tiniest bit surprised if it turns out he's not. And I won't like him any less. He was a great rider then - he's a great rider now.
-Ray

This pretty much sums up my feelings of pro cycling right now. It sucks if people are doping, but the racing is still exciting.

I think the only thing that needs to be guarded with more care is the hour record. Since that is, in many ways, a race against previous champions. For that reason, I think they have to be much more careful with it in terms of PEDs.

[Ray]

I think the only thing that needs to be guarded with more care is the hour record. Since that is, in many ways, a race against previous champions. For that reason, I think they have to be much more careful with it in terms of PEDs.
Like they were for all past hour record holders???? Being careful about PEDs with the hour record probably just puts today's riders attempting the record at a competitive disadvantage.

-Ray

[RADaines]

I also like Basso; have since 2004? I was disappointed when he was banned (OK, I am naive). I was really glad to see him win this year's Giro. I thought that Universal Sports did a decent job with coverage and I enjoyed the stages that I watched. It was refreshing not to have the usual Versus crew babbling on. Too bad it was not in HD. The climb up the Zoncolan was really great. Looking forward to the Tour, however if Contador is on form, everyone else may as well go home. I hope that I am wrong about that and it turns out to be exciting.

[Avispa]

it would be nice to believe you can win a grand tour clean.


Yeah... Maybe he will have one of these!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0NXGTKnwGY

Ha! How far is this going to go...

..A..