Whoa. Great read/worth buying IMO.

99 tour: 80 samples retro-tested and only 10 were positive for EPO. Blows the ‘everyone was at it’ argument out of the water for me.

There really were honest riders there. Oh and Bassons 🙁 . **** why did I back the cheating ****?

Only 10 positives for EPO ….but they were on lots of other gear besides …..still juiced up ..

The synthetic blood 😯

The madness of trying to keep their Hematocrit below 50 and above 48 ……….it’s a good read though

I’ve got so little interest in bike racing of any kind, I was a bit disappointed when someone gave me this book for Crimbo..

I picked it up last week though, and pretty much didn’t put it down again until the end..

great read

99 tour: 80 samples retro-tested and only 10 were positive for EPO. Blows the ‘everyone was at it’ argument out of the water for me.

Until every rider that was riding then takes a lie detector/Sodium thiopental course it’s all up there for grabs.

I read David Millar’s book followed by Tyler Hamilton’s – and now have no desire to read either of Lance Armstrongs! Cheating feckers, but I can completely see the compulsion to do so, given the alternative (i.e. never winning). Made me wonder how rife doping is in other sports.

I remember the ‘leave Lance alone!’ days on here…. 😆

Cheeky request – if anyone is selling any cycling books I could be interested. 🙂

Made me wonder how rife doping is in other sports.

If they don’t test it’s the norm. If the do test, it’s the norm, but they’re more devious. It starts at very low levels in the sport too.

Is there somewhere i can download his book for free? Theft seems the only morally appropriate way to procure it.

Great book, I bought it for my son for xmas — so I could then read it
😀
Cinnamon girl I could post it to you if you promise to send it back when read – it’s not mine.

Nicole Cook in her retirement speech:

“Tyler Hamilton will make more money from his book describing how he cheated than I will make in all my years of honest labour,”

“I have been robbed by drug cheats, but I am fortunate, I am here before you with more in my basket than the 12-year-old dreamed of. But for many genuine people out there who do ride clean, people with morals, many of these people have had to leave the sport with nothing after a lifetime of hard work.”

Obviously effects those right across the sport who didn’t cheat.

Loved this book, Gold was good too, unlike the three armstrong books which are now only good for toilet paper

Re: Nicole Cook. Within all disciplines of cycling I wonder how many cheats there really are.

Made me wonder how rife doping is in other sports.

rife. Look at athletics.

http://news.sky.com/story/1115711/five-jamaican-athletes-fail-drug-tests

the majority of the 10 fastest men over 100m have failed tests, which probably puts them on a par with TdeF winners.

Only difference is the mainstream media buy track-and-field athletes BS sob stories about innocent contamination and report it apologetically. The BBC coverage of Gay/Powell was offensive in it’s sychophancy, whereas as cycling is the dirty whipping horse 🙄

Cinnamon-girl, do you have an e-reader?

Cinnamon girl I could post it to you if you promise to send it back when read – it’s not mine.

That’s very kind but will need to decline due to my bad habit of munching crisps when I’m reading. 😳 Thanks anyway. 😀

Cinnamon-girl, do you have an e-reader?

Not yet, am seriously thinking about one. 🙂

I’ve got a copy of The Secret Race and a copy of Boy Racer that you can have for a tenner posted cg…both are ubread as I’d got them already on kindle then someone bought me the hard copies for xmas.

where there’s money there’s cheating. I believe Marianne Vos said something to the effect that women’s racing is pretty clean because no-one makes enough to afford the drugs ! This makes the whole thing difficult because the women’s races are often brilliant and deserve more coverage, and they deserve more money.

I remember the ‘leave Lance alone!’ days on here….

Only difference is the mainstream media buy track-and-field athletes BS sob stories about innocent contamination and report it apologetically. The BBC coverage of Gay/Powell was offensive in it’s sychophancy, whereas as cycling is the dirty whipping horse

Cycling is the whipping boy of all sports and Lance is the whipping boy of cycling.

Doping didn’t start and end with Lance, he was no different to the hundreds of other riders over the decades who took whatever they thought would make them faster. Same in other sports – the rumours around doping in baseball, football and athletics aren’t going away. They’re just reported completely differently.

🙁

Someone bought it for me at Xmas. But I managed to download an eBook version from IsoHunt.
Not that I condone illegal downloads in any way.

But I managed to download an eBook version from IsoHunt.
Not that I condone illegal downloads in any way.

Well, Tyler H could hardly get too upset about it given his past.

One of the best books I’ve ever read. Just started David millers now.

One of the best books I’ve ever read. Just started David millers now.

I thought the Hamilton book was a much better read. Kind of obvious that it was ghosted and Millers not (I think this was the case anyway). I completely failed to warm to Miller. Anyone who can refer to themselves without irony as one of the big hitters of the peloton is clearly a twattwaffle.

Spin – me too. Millar’s book put me off of him tbh. Seems very self-regarding / self-pitying.

Glad it wasn’t just me. Lots of folks really rated it.

Read Hamiltons and am reading Millars now ,both good reads. Read David Walsh `s book Seven Deadly Sins about his 13 year pursuit of Armstrong .I think I know how to dope now ,EPO on a club 10 anyone?

EPO on a club 10 anyone?

I’m more into IPA than EPO really. The performance advantages are a moot point but it makes me think I’m f*cking awesome.

Watch ‘Overcoming’ not so you start to condone the drugs, but to see how battered they get. To hear their pleading for it to stop. It’s like war, they take themselves to a very special place.

I really enjoy reading it every now and again.
Just reading it again at the moment (iBooks on iPad) and every time he describes a stage. I’m finding it on YouTube and watching the clips to go with it- really brings it to life!

Just bought it based on this thread, so it best be good!

Noticed David Millar’s book is going very cheap for the Kindle on Amazon. £1.49. (I thought he came across a bit arrogant too, but it’s a good read)

Well I enjoyed Millars book but I got it when it came out. You have to place it in context, i.e. pre-investigation Lance. There’s a lot that (legally) could not be said back then without the excrement hitting the air movement device. I think it was quite out there for its time.

Hamiltons book blew the lid off. Plus he had all the verification vis-a-vis the reasoned decision if Lance decided to go gunning for him. Huge difference in my opinion. It’s a great read and feels true.

Oh, if you enjoyed the secret race then it’s worth reading Kimmages interview with Landis on NYVelocity.

See here:

Yeah I thought it was a great read and certainly an eye opener.

In his position – how many of you would have done the same? Me……I think I would have for sure….it’s dope or nothing.
The chapter where he describes being beaten by people he could easily have beaten previously……you can se how it all starts…

In sympathy for Cook, she’s right, even in his “outing” Tylor has sill made plenty of cash through doping even if it hasn’t come through race wins….

Great insight into professional sport though, even if you’re not into road racing as such…

I really enjoyed the book too and in a weird way warmed to him Hamilton a lot. As much as I don’t condone cheating can kind of see why they did it…pushed t in the early days and hen getting carried along with a huge surge of doping (yes I know they should have had a backbone etc). It doesn’t paint good picture of Lance.

I’d quite like to rad some of the others too although will buy them second hand. Firstly because I’m tight and secondly so no proceeds to go them! What Cook said is both true and very sad.

No. I wouldn’t. I’ve always said if I lied I’d make me rich

99 tour: 80 samples retro-tested and only 10 were positive for EPO. Blows the ‘everyone was at it’ argument out of the water for me.

Did you see the results of the French commission investigation into the 98 Tour last month?

When combining the EPO abuse confessions of the two riders testing negative with all the positive test results, it was indicated that 35 out of the 38 retrospectively tested riders (92%) had been using EPO in the 1998 Tour de France. A number, which came on top of the additional 9 out of 9 Festina riders and 2 out of 9 TVM riders, who already had confessed EPO abuse due to their implication in the prior police investigations.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Tour_de_France

Now of course they may have cleaned up their act in `99…

Thought Hamilton’s book was unputdownable. Wegelius’s book was also a good read, (expeletive deleted…. Would improve it). I found Millar’s too self-indugent, which is common to champions. Never finished it. He did sign both my son’s Team GB cycling jerseys last year, but took an age to come out of the bus.

Not read Cav’s book yet, but when we met him he was absolutely fantastic with the kids and I have a lot of time for him.

If anyone wonders/ed why any one would dope, Millars book explains why.

Hamiltons book pretty much explains what happened throught the LA years IMO

Cav can come across as hot headed and arrogant, but having attended an event he was guesting and seeing the time and patience he devoted to fans there that day, he comes across as a top bloke!

Currently working my way through the audiobook of this and finding it very enjoyable and enlightening to read.

Hamilton does come across as a very nice, humble guy but I’m left wondering how accurate that portrayal is. He almost comes across as too reasonable, too easy going. Perhaps I’m being too cynical here.

One thing that strikes me about the book is that I feel far less angry at Lance about the fact that he doped in the first place, more that he was just such a dick about it.

Now of course they may have cleaned up their act in `99…

The difference was that les Flics were busting and jailing people for dope. Kind of focused the mind a little I’d have thought. Not that they stopped doping, just holding EPO in France suddenly became, well, not such a good idea. In Tyler’s book he talks about the team(s?) ditching $$$$ worth of dope by the roadside in 98 in a panic. And then that stuff about Motoman.