Originally Posted by
gsteinb
Those statements aren't even remotely contradictory. In fact they're comparing two different eras.
For example: Even if you could prove that taking uppers had some effect on race performance, their use did not preclude clean riders from winning. The same can not be said of EPO and modern blood manipulation techniques. Their ability to increase watts/kg made it so that clean riders simply couldn't not be competitive.
Since my Wayback machine is broken, I cannot return to 1967 and test all the riders. We do know that there was a fair percentage of the riders doping, and that some riders who have confessed to or been caught dping were dominant (for one - the most dominant rider in professional road racing ever - Eddy). So what evidence do you have that the drugs were not effective, or that those who were pure of heart and of blood could win?
Have you ever tried to circumnavigate France on a bicycle in 3 weeks without drugs? I assure you it would not be easy.
I think it is time we all look at professional cycling (all disciplines) as having been heavily tainted by drugs or other forms of cheating since the very early days (since it was professional). Then we draw a line across the calender and try and make it clean from here on out.
Perhapds the end of the Mayan calender was supposed to be the end of drugs in professional cycling... hard to say what they were thinking as they were all chewwing coca leaves when it was written.