Re: OT was Re: [CR] Fred Rodriquez

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From: "jerrymoos" <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net>
To: <tsaleh@rocketmail.com>, <Cushdelmar@aol.com>, <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
References: <20030729031809.79637.qmail@web41107.mail.yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: OT was Re: [CR] Fred Rodriquez
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 21:10:32 -0500


I beg to differ. Merckx has a record of wins that that makes Lance seem like a joke by comparison. Lance has won 5 Tours de France by concentrating exclusively on the Tour, only really riding seriously hard in a handful of other events to tune up for the Tour. Merckx rode everything, from early spring to late fall, and a fair amount of indoor track events in the winter. And he won everything worth mentioning, many events multiple times, including Milan-San Remo 5 times. Very few pros today even attempt to ride all season. Lance is wise to concentrate on the Tour, but he does so because he knows full well he does not have Merckx's strength.

Read about the brutal stage lengths and attrocious roads of the early days of the Tour, then try to imagine one of today's pampered athletes even having the courage to start, let alone the strength to finish. Modern training methods may have given today's riders better physical strength, but modern society has made them soft and weak mentally compared to the riders of the first Tours. We still have a few sights like Tyler Hamilton riding the Tour with a cracked collar bone, but we also have the disgusting spectacle of Alessandro Petacchi, with the green jersey still on his shoulders, abandoning with absolutely no injury or illness, simply because he is too damn lazy to even try to climb any mountains. Merckx would have had to be on his death bed with illness or suffer two broken legs to have abaindoned the Tour while wearing a leader's jersey. Petacchi disgraced the jersey, his team, his nation, and if he had any sense of honor, would have disgraced himself. I hope he is banned from the Tour forever. He's the perfect product of modern training, a physical wonder and a moral cripple.

I wish someone would ask Merckx publicly what he thinks of Petacchi. I think I can guess the answer.

Regards,

Jerry Moos
Houston, TX


----- Original Message -----
From: tarik saleh
To: Cushdelmar@aol.com
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 10:18 PM
Subject: OT was Re: [CR] Fred Rodriquez



> --- Cushdelmar@aol.com wrote:
> > Fred abandoned three or four stages from the end.
> > Never heard what
> > happened.
>
>
> F-rod was beat by a stomach virus.
> http://tinyurl.com/icmp
>
> Was lemond anquetiel coppi indurain etc. ever this
> skinny?:
> http://tinyurl.com/hlk5
> I can't believe anyone could be that skinny and still
> finish an event like the tour without modern nutrition
> and medicine propping them up, not a slam on tyler but
> an observation on the modern possibilities of power to
> weight ratio that were not possible 25 years ago. I
> think the merckx, hinault and indurain would get their
> asses handed to them by modern riders,
>
>
> especially considering how fat and old they are:
> http://tinyurl.com/icni
>
> I'll be here all week.
>
> Tarik
>
>
> =====
> Tarik Saleh
> PO box 1433, Los Alamos, NM 87544, til 1/04
> tsaleh at rocketmail dot com
> Bicycles, bicycles, bicycles:
> http://www.engr.utk.edu/~tsaleh/bike.html
>
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