I'll disagree with Boss saying he had little talent, but it seems that the elite of the era (Pantani, Ullrich, Beloki before his injury, Zulle, . . .) all were closer to cyborgs or NASCAR racers, and it was the "team" and the "engineering" in a perverse sense that ended up better than Ullrich/Telecom or Beloki/ONCE.
I never said he was a total scrub just that he wasn't someone you would expect to do what he did on his own without cheating and surrounding himself with a team of cheaters. There were at the time, and are now, a TON of riders in the world that are just as good if not better than him that aren't getting the breaks he got (i.e. team invites, endorsements, designer PEDs). My problem with LA is that if he had just acted like he didn't care about cheating (like Bonds or McGwire) I wouldn't give a crap. His sanctimonious "I never cheated" combined with his continued ruin of former teammates puts him in the "eat a dick for life" camp.
