[averageweather]

Lance Armstrong was just on Howard Stern and he brought up how in the very early cycling days, riders would run fishing line to a cork...hide the cork in their mouth while the other end was hooked up to their team/pace car. Old school blood doping.

Before judging him, I'd listen to the interview and his interview on Joe Rogan.

Point being, especially in cycling, people are always finding new ways to cheat and get an edge.

[lern_too_spel]

One rider used fishing line in 1904. He was caught, and he didn't try to deny it and smear anybody who pointed out his cheating or coerce his teammates into cheating under threat of losing their livelihood.

[jdietrich]

Cyclists hate Armstrong and always will. Some won't even mention his name.

Armstrong was the chief enforcer of the Omerta, the code of silence that allowed doping to continue unabated. Other riders might be able to claim that they simply went along with the culture of doping, that they were coerced by team bosses, that they had no choice but to dope if they wanted to pay their bills.

Armstrong has no such excuses. He personally oversaw the USPS doping programme, he personally ensured that anyone who spoke about doping was made a pariah in the sport. He intimidated members of his own team. He libelled reporters whilst falsely suing them for libel. He exploited the goodwill of cancer survivors to protect his own deceit.

Armstrong tore the heart out of our sport and left a litany of ruined lives in his wake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVbrTNX7w1I

[oxide]

That's what I got out of those interviews, too. They were very informative.

I felt like I had more of a perspective on the entire situation: biking/race culture, the proliferation of cheating becoming an arms race of sorts, etc.

I had no idea that cheating in bike racing was so prevalent, I suppose that makes me a bit naive.