Originally Posted by
chaadster
You keep saying that, but it is not true.
They'd been doing anti-doping testing of riders at the TdF since the 1960s. When Lance won in '99 and every subsequent year, doping was illegal and he was using illegal substances. His being stripped of the wins was not a retroactive application of new rules or new morality: he broke the rules as they were each time he won.
As far as what your twisted excuses are apologizing for, I really don't know, but it's something. It could be for Lance, it could be Trek, it could be for some family or friend of yours who was involved, it could be a gnawing sense of resentment knowing people out there might look down on you for riding a Trek even though you spent a lot of money on it...I dunno. What I do know is that whatever you're on about is irrelevant to my position, because I dislike Trek for what they did to Lemond.
The reality was that a large majority of the peloton was doping. It was pretty much considered standard operating procedure at the time, and it's been well documented. Was Lance on something that others weren't? Probably. Anyone believing that everyone else was clean is just willful ignorance, at this point. If you hate Lance for his doping use, that's fine. Personally, I have less issue with that aspect than I do with how he treated those around him during that time (including his influence in the Trek-Lemond situation). That said, during those years, I sure liked watching him race bicycles. I was quite disappointed to find out what an @$$hole he really was.