is it fair to consider Eddy Merckx, who was caught doping three times in his career

[rain dogs]

Originally Posted by gibbo

If Lance was not American history would remember him much differently....


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If Lance was not American he wouldn't be remembered at all.

Originally Posted by gibbo

Was anyone high octane doping in Mercks’s days??? Don’t think so....


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Exactly. Which is why Merckx is the G.O.A.T.

[mcteague]

Originally Posted by e-RICHIE

Are you for real?
You get paid to write about cycling?!!

Lance bullied Simeoni.
Lance screwed Lemond’s deal with TREK.
Lance fukced over Landis.
Lance hung Hamilton out to dry.
Lance screwed Contador while on ASTANA.
Lance publicly humiliated Kimmage at the TOC press conference.
Lance spent years in court trying to minimize his losses.
And Lance kinda sorta mislead his cancer followers with the Livestrong crap.
And Lance has spent the last decade rewriting his own narrative.

Merckx has done nothing to be “...as ruthless as Lance” except dominate in the era he was born into.

Thanks Richard, nice summation.

Tim

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by Charles M

ONLY IF YOU ALSO CONSIDER LANCE THE GREATEST TDF RIDER IN HISTORY AS WELL...

They both did EXACTLY the same thing relative to their compatriots AND were both as ruthless.

My aunt matila's mustache..this is ignorant. And how about making it proper size, we hear ya...

[jamesdak]

Originally Posted by bikinchris

@carepdiemracing
Really! You think blood doping wasn't a thing during the Lemond era? The 84 Olympics had bunches of riders blood doping and it was well established already; Eastern Block countries had been doing it long before that.

Well I'm with @carpediemracing on this. Lemond was clean it's pretty obvious by how things played out at the end of his career when others were juicing up. Find me some reputable riders from then to claim otherwise.

[colker]

Originally Posted by jamesdak

Well I'm with @carpediemracing on this. Lemond was clean it's pretty obvious by how things played out at the end of his career when others were juicing up. Find me some reputable riders from then to claim otherwise.

Lemond is brave. Merckx is boss. Lance is a bully.

[vespasianus]

Originally Posted by e-RICHIE

Are you for real?
You get paid to write about cycling?!!

Lance bullied Simeoni.
Lance screwed Lemond’s deal with TREK.
Lance fukced over Landis.
Lance hung Hamilton out to dry.
Lance screwed Contador while on ASTANA.
Lance publicly humiliated Kimmage at the TOC press conference.
Lance spent years in court trying to minimize his losses.
And Lance kinda sorta mislead his cancer followers with the Livestrong crap.
And Lance has spent the last decade rewriting his own narrative.

Merckx has done nothing to be “...as ruthless as Lance” except dominate in the era he was born into.

Lance was a funny guy. His 1999 bike was raffled off at a cancer center (in 2000) and as you could expect, nobody outside of cycling thinks bikes should cost more than $200 and because of that, the auction price was very low. So my friend bought it. He had mentioned that he might not get a chance to ride it because most of his riding is done by commuting and since the bike had no rack mounts or such, it would most likely never get used. Lance found out about it, called him and about 2 months later, a custom titanium merlin paid for by Lance was delivered to him - complete with rack mounts and accessories.

In the early mid 2000's we had him back in Philadelphia for a cancer survivors fund raiser/gala dinner. Although I had no interaction with him, everybody that did was absolutely blown away and how much on an entitled asshol he was. People at the table wanted out, servers complained and he made some demands that were just down right crazy. If I remember correctly, one issue was that we PAID him and not his foundation an honorarium. Not unheard of, but still unusual in that situation given the amount.

[54ny77]

Little sidenote to this thread: years ago in our group of riding buddies was an ex-eastern bloc pro. The blood stuff was coming out in late 70's, early 80's, he didn't talk about it much but said yep it happened. Experimental stuff, athletes were literally test dummies. Crazy.

Our buddy was a freight train and I do mean freight train. He could park it at 30mph on the flats literally all day, and despite being a big guy, could go uphill with the best in the area. And that was just natural talent, years after retiring.

The level of skill of top amateur vs. run-of-the-mill euro pro is just so astounding. I can only fathom the decision tree some guys must have to make today just to be even slightly relevant to a pro team. Especially kids who don't have any sort of cushion to fall back on with education or family/money.

[makoti]

Originally Posted by Charles M

ONLY IF YOU ALSO CONSIDER LANCE THE GREATEST TDF RIDER IN HISTORY AS WELL...

They both did EXACTLY the same thing relative to their compatriots AND were both as ruthless.

Originally Posted by e-RICHIE

Are you for real?
You get paid to write about cycling?!!

Lance bullied Simeoni.
Lance screwed Lemond’s deal with TREK.
Lance fukced over Landis.
Lance hung Hamilton out to dry.
Lance screwed Contador while on ASTANA.
Lance publicly humiliated Kimmage at the TOC press conference.
Lance spent years in court trying to minimize his losses.
And Lance kinda sorta mislead his cancer followers with the Livestrong crap.
And Lance has spent the last decade rewriting his own narrative.

Merckx has done nothing to be “...as ruthless as Lance” except dominate in the era he was born into.

Maybe we should sticky this as "Please don't say stupid stuff trying to defend Lance".
Charles, I'd love to hear the things that EM did that you think rival the things Lance did.

[jlwdm]

Not a fan of Lemond. Too big a whiner for me. Having watched the tour back in his days I was surprised how many extra pounds he was carrying starting the Tour in his later years. I can understand peaking for mountain stages, but I never understood the extra pounds.

Hinault and the top riders before him were the "Boss" of the peloton. They decided who got to go on breaks - lots of bullying.

Jeff

[paredown]

I wish we could have had the media access in North America we have now when Merckx was at his peak. We were racing, gleaning a little here and there, saw the occasional clip on Wide World of Sports--but it was fragmentary.

Even the Tour--we knew it was big--but not THAT BIG. And having watched more racing in the past ten years than in the previous thirty--for me, what Merckx managed to do gets more, rather than less amazing.

And one tidbit sticks out--how often he raced in pain. By his own account, the derny crash that he was involved in (his pacer was killed) left him with persistent problems from then on--somewhere he says that after than he could never get comfortable on a bike. From Wikipedia:

Merckx remained unconscious for 45 minutes and awoke in the operating room.[80] He sustained a concussion, whiplash, trapped nerves in his back, a displaced pelvis, and several other cuts and bruises.[81] He remained at the hospital for a week before returning to Belgium.[81] He spent six weeks in bed before beginning to race again in October.[81] Merckx later stated that he "was never the same again" after the crash.[81][82] He would constantly adjust his seat during races to help ease the pain.[83] Merckx stopped racing on 26 October to recuperate.[84]

And then look at what he did after this. Seriously--one of a kind.

OTOH, LA was lucky, never had to race for cash on the track in the winter, never competed in the classics, was able to focus all of his attention on entering the TdF etc etc etc

[nachetetm]

Originally Posted by carpediemracing

Lemond was racing at a top level before the oxygen boosting drugs came into effect, and before blood boosting was a thing. It was when those things started coming into play, especially EPO, that he started getting beaten, and quite badly. I think the 84-85-86 Tours were clear of EPO as the hierarchy didn't change much. Even 1989 didn't seem crazy - the riders were well matched, the team leaders rode away at times (that one stage where the top 6 in GC rode away from everyone else), etc. There were selections made on the road, and the same riders were in the mix over and over. 1990 saw probably the first signs of EPO, as some otherwise unknown riders were making an impression, and some previous non-contenders were suddenly contenders. And 1991 those previous non-contenders were suddenly at the front of the action

Are you saying than Indurain was a non-contender years before his tours? Because the big question in his early years was "when will he be mature to win the tour". There's plenty of people believing that if he weren't domestic for Delgado in 1990 he could have score the tour that year. We are talking about probably the most physiologically gifted person for cyclism in history. Even many years after retirement, his numbers where comparing favorably to active professional cyclists:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22868823/

I had the opportunity to have a couple of long chats with pro tour mechanics that were active in the late 80s, 90s and early 00. Both of them said that Indurain was a gentleman and really gifted. Both said that Armstrong was an asshole, one said that he was evidently a cheater, everyone knew during his years. I also talked about Lemond with one of them and he said vehemently that there's no chance he didn't dope. At this level everyone dopes, since the conception of competitive cyclism. The difference is that before 1995 the most gifted was winning, and after that year the winners were the most/best doped.

[ceya]

Originally Posted by jlwdm

Not a fan of Lemond. Too big a whiner for me. Having watched the tour back in his days I was surprised how many extra pounds he was carrying starting the Tour in his later years. I can understand peaking for mountain stages, but I never understood the extra pounds.

Hinault and the top riders before him were the "Boss" of the peloton. They decided who got to go on breaks - lots of bullying.

Jeff

LeMond may have been a whiner but he rode all the races even did 6 day with Tony Doyle as his partner

Sean Kelly spoke highly of how LeMond rode races .

Being shot with a shot gun can cause you later to carry some extra weight.

[johnmdesigner]

This thread is just stupid.
I realize there is a movement to take all of history and burn it to the ground.
And you hope that something good will sprout out of the ashes.
Eddy Merckx was no Jeb Stuart. He didn't kill anyone.
Lots and lots of cheaters and wife beaters and guys who gave girlfriend black eyes in the peloton.
Ullrich , Pantini, are you going to deny that you enjoyed their performances?
Please, it's just stupid entertainment. Save your soul searching for more important things.

[Germany_chris]

Nothing I’ve read has advocated tearing anything down. There has been a lot of drug use in cycling since the beginning of racing. Bike tech and drug tech has improved over the decades and I see no reason for one to be banned and the other not the problem comes with nostalgia and it rampant everywhere not just in cycling

[buddybikes]

Don't forget this advantage to open lungs...