Garth,
With all due respect to your opinions, your interpretation of fact seems to be rooted more in the emotional wistfulness of misinformed nostalgia rather than anything based on reality.
You stated Teamwork seems different now than before. Corporate headquarters decides who is going to win, and the engines dutifully block from behind while others carry (XXX) up to the front, being careful that no team member accumulates as many points as dear (XXX). I would encourage you to sit down sometime and watch the race coverage movies and news reels from the post-WWII through the 1970s. Read a few of the daily sports papers, monthly magazines, or other periodicals of the time.
I was not aware of the inner workings of the peleton in the 1970s as I was born in 1963. My knowledge base has come from both independent research as well as spending quite a bit of time personally with the riders of the post-WWII era. I love to hear these guys relive their glory years. I try my best to take their individual stories and compare and contrast them with the stories I have been told by their rivals of the time.
One key area is the concept of teamwork. Do you honestly believe that each and every one of Merckxs victories came simply because he was so far superior to the rest of the field? If so, would it not have been a whole lot cheaper for Solo, Peugeot, Feama, Molteni, Fiat, and C&A to have a payroll that consisted of only one rider?
You stated that in todays racing Corporate headquarters decides who is going to win as though this is somehow a new concept to racing. You are completely misguided. Perhaps your areconfusing at USA Cat 4 club team with professional trade teams. Going back to even the very early days of road racing, pre-WWI, there were definitive teams with clear race leaders. There are plenty of images out there that show the Alcyon Tour de France team with their captain as well as the domestiques. Title sponsors have always had significant influence as to the direction and emphasis of a team. That is as true today as it was in the Merckx or for that matter, 80 years ago. Look beyond the scope of a local Cat 4 criterium. Real pro teams are just that: teams.
I would challenge you that the way you looked at Merckx when you were young is no different than a child growing up in the 1950s looked at Coppi. And you know what? The kid that grew up with Coppi was just as likely to whine as an adult about Merckx the way you now whine about Armstrong. It is what makes nostalgia so intoxicating.
Brett Horton
San Francisco, California
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original message:
Merckx is similar to the time in which he rode. Yes it is true that Armstrong has won more TDF, but at the expense of something very important. I feel that Armstrong won by the miracle of corporate control. Teamwork seems different now than before. Corporate headquarters decides who is going to win, and the engines dutifully block from behind while others carry Armstrong up to the front, being careful that no team member accumulates as many points as dear Lance. <snip> Armstrong is a good representative of that world, but I still prefer a time in bicycling history that reaches back to Merckx and the way he looked, and the way his bikes looked, and the way I looked at him when I was young.Garth Libre in Miami Fl.