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Former Gerolsteiner manager Hans-Michael Holczer has revealed that he went close to suspending his team’s top rider Levi Leipheimer during the 2005 Tour de France, due to suspicions of doping.
The German has just released a book, entitled Garantiert Positiv, about his experiences in the pro peloton, and said that the American went extremely close to a UCI suspension during the race.
According to Holczer, he was told on the rest day in Grenoble that analysis of Leipheimer’s blood values had returned an off-score reading of 132.8, just 0.2 away from the threshold that would have seen him been automatically stopped by the UCI.
The off score is a calculation based on hematocrit and reticulocyte values and has a normal range of 70 to 100. Levels above 127 are deemed to be very suspect, and those above 133 are regarded as almost certain proof that someone has doped.
Read the rest: www.velonation.com.
Tick, tick, tick…
The revelation will put further pressure on Leipheimer, who was accused by Floyd Landis of having engaged in illegal doping practices during the 2005 Tour de France. According to Landis, both he and Leipheimer were given blood transfusions by Alan Lim during the race.
These and other claims by Landis are currently the subject of a federal investigation led by Jeff Novitzky. Holczer’s statement will increase the pressure on the RadioShack rider, who has always denied blood doping.
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Just becasue Landis has acted like a turd doesn’t mean thre is some truth to what he is saying now. Just look at MLB and the doping allegations of one Mr. Canseco…..
So Levi doped his way to the middle…BFD! And how, again, does this point fingers back to LA, seeing as the bald midget was on a different team?
LOL Holczer! Oooo the poor team manager that had no idea what his flock was up to, now the victim of evil doping cyclists. Should be interesting to see who starts pointing fingers next.
…once again, here’s the shit & here’s the fan…
…will ‘the shit hit the fan’…
…will the two ever really get together & splatter the involved or will it remain a loud threatening finger pointing fan dance choreographed by lawyers & has-beens…
…‘has-beens’ we’ve all admired…
…yawn…stay tuned…if it doesn’t already bore you to death…
The funny thing about Levi is that he doped and watching him race is like watching paint dry….bor- fucking- ring. At least Pharmstrong would light it up on the juice.
Holzer will be one of many to flip. Come on dude, Schumacher, Rebillin, and Levi and you had no idea…right…What the fuck ever.
Some where there is some doctors that will be (re)exposed and they will be givin deals to talk = all hell will break loose . Shit fan boom !
here at DC, we’ve been doping ourselves away from the podium since ‘oo.
It’s race to the bottom, ain’t it Snake Hawk old buddy?
I made it 13 miles from home and taco-chipped my rear wheel today. Yeah, I’m smoove like dat.
Don’t forget Bernard Kohl.
Dang, for some reason, Levi was the hardest for me to accept as a possible cheat. Some years back, I rode with the guy on a local fun ride and he was cool as shit…humble, approachable and all that…and his wife is awesome cool too.
Guess there’s enough pressure over there to turn anyone to the Empire.
at least I’m glad I never owned a yellow wristband.
Kilgore, he went from average domestic pro to fourth in the Vuelta as soon as he began on associate with Armstrong and Bruyneel. That should set of alarm bells.
Dwarves are not to be trusted.
KW@13,
However, gnomes are okay! At least on this site.
Nah, I hear you Johnny…it’s just that with all these other guys it’s abstract to me. Having shared a beer with Levi…well, you know, I guess I’ve just been shown the other side of the curtain, Wizard of Oz style.
I wanted to believe.
Oh well, at least there’s always tournament bass fishing for a clean sport.
wink wink
Postal Teamies are spilling the goods. The beginning of the end just happened.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/sports/cycling/05armstrong.html?hp
Dudes. I made it out to the boat docks on Lake Mary today. That’s like a hour of road. There, I got a flat. I pulled out the spare tube from my center jersey pocket only to realize it was a schrader valve. At that exact moment, I wish I had doped, because I would have been home already.
Postal Squad!… Aim!… Fire!
…hmmm…interesting…i wasn’t sure this could get to where it looks like it’s going…
…but then again the ‘capo di tutti capo’, john gotti had to pay the piper in the end…
…& while a certain peleton boss says he’ll deny it to the grave, that’s not to say a piper named novitsky will be denied payment himself…& we know what currency he deals in…
…“god dammit, bottle…you better not get convicted for your own shit ‘cuz my mouthpiece is making arrangements for you to serve “my time” when my shit hits the docket !!!…you got that ???…good, i knew you’s see it my way”…
Sounds like Someone has been reading ‘As the Toto turns’ in Velocity..
(Nnot that there’s anything wrong with that of cause, just saying…)
(Oohh, Elipsises)
…hey…194 installments & i’ve read every one of them…
…sometimes brilliant, they’re always funny & entertaining…
…who knew the pro peleton could offer such rich material for a laugh riot ???…
I fucken tacoed my rear today, pissed me off. Walk of shame. I had two cans of Rainier at my brother’s house. Is that so wrong?
@BGW,
Agreed, they are damn good.
…mikey, what the fuck did you do, amigo…you musta been on the cross bike, right ???…
…& rainier ale within sight of the mt itself…prob’ly cosmic…
…“something, something” about “bringing the mountain to mohhamad”, no ???…
@mikey,
to borrow from Chopper Reid, what you need is a Powerbar & a big steaming mug of “Harden the Fuck Up”.
…gnomer…two of ’em…
…what were ya doing with a shraeder for gods sake ???…i thought those were made illegal for real cyclists years ago…
…so, what the fuck did you do ???…
…ohhh whoops, & 3…no jokes from me about ‘lake mary’…all references earlier to a sissified sound to ‘mary-land’ were only to pull joetheelectrician’s chain…the one on the little cartoon “idea” lightbulb over his head…
Kid Wonder Says:
August 4th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Dwarves are not to be trusted.
Kid Wonder wins.
Why is a presta valve so much better than a schraeder valve? I hate fiddling with the little knobby thing on the presta valve-which also bends if you accidentally jam it in the pump fitting too far. Is it just a “I’m cool because I like to mess around with a little knobby thing on my valve stem” type of thing?
Does anyone else find it ironic that a blog called ‘drunkcyclist’ has a slant AGAINST doping?
I don’t know about you folks, but my morning commute is sure aided by the ingestion of coffee………
Oh, and those damn valves? Stupid, like sneetches.
What was I doing with a Schrader valve? No idea. It had been in the stash for the past decade. I knew a 27 inch schwinn flat tire was going to come along sometime. Then, an hour of thump, thump, thump. I rode the flat home.
There are no longer any Schraders in the house.
The goddamn Ksyrium SL-SSCs seem awfully fragile— I blew a drive-side rear spoke for the fourth time in 8K miles. I’m too old and slow to be shredding high-zoot equipment. The wheel potato-chipped enough that the bike wouldn’t roll, so I had to carry the damn thing and walk to my brother’s house. I was damn lucky I broke the wheel six blocks from my bro’s, instead of somewhere in South Seattle. And at least the Trophy Bike weighs only 16 pounds, so it’s easy to carry. I might go get a cell phone.
Race wheels are race wheels. Training wheels have 32 or 36 spokes, box sections rims, and take a beating like a redheaded step child.
Presta valves = smaller hole drilled into the rim which makes for less of a stress riser and allows the rim as a whole to be lighter (because it doesn’t have to be re-enforced to make up for the lack of material at that one point).
I think this is the same arguement for disc brake specific rims (no need to build up sidewals to counteract braking force).
Or so I’ve heard…
…‘schrader’ has left the building…
There’s a reason most teams use standard box section sew-ups in a race like Paris-Roubaix. For durability, few things will ever beat a Mavic Open Pro on Chris King hubs. Love that angry swarm of bees. Still reasonably light, too.
BJ @ 11:30, word. My race wheels (tubies) used to be in tire covers and in the closet till I put ’em on for a warm up pre-race. Now…I see guys ridin’ sick deep dish wheels sets around for “training”.
that was my first Scottsdale group ride experience….guys riding zipp 404’s, LEW’s and friggin Lightweight’s on a training ride.
Much prefer the wheel discussion to the doping discussion. Wheels and the money spent on them by weekend warriors is a joke. Watch any Cat 5 road race to watch really expensive wheels going really slow…
Kg— come on out and ride. I’ll bet I can hold your wheel all day. Enjoy the ride, sir.
Hey, never said I was fast… I’ll forever been a Cat 4 nobody on road and track, therefore, I’m not going to spend a grand (or two) on race wheels. I did get a deal (1/3 retail) on some carbon track tubos, but I’m not training on those….then again… I don’t really train either.
I think I heard someone say that cycling is the new golf and I tend to agree. Watching guys spend thousands on their first road bike then looking to upgrade the wheels makes wonder what’s going on with these guys…. marketing baby!
I know not a lot people don’t agree with me but I believe carbon bikes can’t have a soul… it escapes through the weave.
schraeders have a home in my back pocket. air that shit up at a gas station, if need you be to. chuck a little slime in it, if the want is in your heartbox. put a little bearing or two through the valve core-less stem of ‘er if you like the driving-your-manager-nuts part of working at a bike shop. shit, why wouldn’t you just fill one up with water if you like the idea of seeing your apey roommate blowing every corner on the trail.
no elitism here, just run a damn pneumatic setup atop your rimspans. prestone, slater valves, what ever. don’t even get me started on rear gorilla gear switches. i could talk circles around leotard zinn on that shit.
kg…I agree about the wheel talk being legit.
quick poll: who here has ever built a wheel?
not a snarky poll…an inclusive poll
Kg— I don’t race and I don’t train. I ride about 200 miles a week, and I prefer the Trophy Bike for most of it. If it doesn’t have a ‘soul,’ well I guess I’ve been cool with that for the last five years and 8000 miles.
Kilgore— I’ve never built a wheel, but I have “trued” one trail-side. Break a spoke on a K though, and yer done riding for the day. Boo hoo, I have such a rough life.
Keep the rubber side down, lads. See you out there.
I hear you Mikey. Low spoke count wheels suck when they pop one…but dayam are they sexy and nice riding. I’m recently conflicted myself.
anyone got thoughts?
@Kilgore, Hundreds, lost count years ago. ‘Bout 15 years of shop time. It will always be my favorite part of wrenching (not enough to keep me in the biz though…) Closest thing to being an artist as a bike mechanic. With the rise of the pre-built chi-chi wheel I fear it is a dying art…
I’m of the opinion that if equipment can’t be ridden day in day out, then I don’t (or *wouldn’t* as the case is of late) want to race on it. That opinion’s been developed via yrs of MTB though and I freely admit there’s lots about road gear that I don’t know, but until learned otherwise via experience or the gracious example / tutelage of thems’-what-knows-more I’ll run anything I own like its a daily driver.
So, the lowish spoke count, non j-bend spoke wheels on my new trophy bike will see every mile that bike sees until something pops.
Kilgore;
put me down for about 8 or 9 wheel builds over as many years. 6 are still rolling and have proven themselves with racing, training, loaded touring etc. two went with a bike I no longer have, and the first build (not sure if I should count it) wasn’t done so well. ..I learned a lot about wheel building during the weekend that rim survived.. lol.
@Kark…nice. My first took me 8 hours straight, and I copied another built wheel.
I think I was listening to “Parents Just don’t Understand” by Fresh Prince on the radio while I built it.
Ah, memories.
…snegg hogg…
…apologies, amigo…my inference that ‘real’ cyclists only ride presta valves was in relation to ‘skinny tyre & fancy ass mtb’s’ where them thangs are more practical (lighter, more ‘filling’ options, rim ‘stuff’ as indicated above, blah, blah, blah)…
…you sir, are a real cyclist & your most excellent ride is deserving of the old(er) school schraders…
…consider it as written…
I had minimal experience and had just been hired as a ‘workshop manager’ when my boss told me I was going to build a wheel. Between him and Sheldon Brown, I learned, probably built 20+ now. It took a bit of swearing and a few do-overs, but once you learn a few fundamentals it’s pretty easy to build your standard 3X.
The only one I own is the suicide drive piece of crap I built for my ‘who cares if it gets stolen’ bike. One of my friends thrashes one of the better MTB sets I’ve built and they seem to be going ok a couple of years down the track, pretty stoked. I’d like to build some 32h Open Pros to something cheap for my road bike before the cheesy low spoke count wheels start exploding, we’ll see. I’d also like to build wheels for my MTBs too, but the cheap shitty factory built wheels keep me rolling and I’d rather spend my limited cash on other stuff. When my studies are done and I have a real(ish) job, it’ll happen.
Built a few wheels over the years, rebuilding a Mavic Ksyrium now, but I don’t know if that really counts since it has a non J spoke connection to the hub and I’m reusing all the old spokes against Mavic recomondations.
I am that dood that has always drilled out his new mtn bike rims for a schrader.
Lazy BMX style…they hold air.
Love prestas on my skinny tires. Air pressure is everything and Maxxis refuse tires changed the game entirely.
yeah, dudes. bgw – no sweats, man. i was just checking the math over here. i’m with leif.