It's always weird to read the transcripts of others discussing your contribution - or lack thereof - to cycling...

UPDATED (Sept. 15): Great DISCUSSION of Allen Lim's "Pop-Psychology" approach to Exercise Physiology Here.

Just recently read this exchange was between Allen Lim (AL) and VelocityNation (AS):

"...AS: It makes me wonder, because I assume there are riders on your team who have first hand knowledge of riders who have cheated and benefited from it.

AL: Or vice versa. They maybe have known riders who have tried to cheat and totally failed. How much did ___ (Lim mentions a 2nd tier pro busted for doping [Ed. note: apparently me]) actually accomplish in the sport?

AS: Yeah, but that might actually be a case of starting out as a donkey, right? He wasn't that good to begin with... BUT, you have to say, doping has ruined his life.

AL: Yeah, right? It's a sad sad situation. You don't want that to play out for anybody. We're driven driven people, it goes without saying that we work very hard and sacrifice a lot, often to the detriment of our own selves and our relationships, that's the other side that people don't often understand. So our drive to win is definitely there. But what distinguishes our riders is that they really are well balanced people, they have the big picture in mind and they're intelligent people. Jonathan always envisioned this team as a group of guys that have those common traits, so as much as you want to pick a team based on palmares, we also want to assemble a team based on character. I think that's where Jonathan has done a great job..."

It's definitely surreal when the guy who was Floyd's physiologist in 2006 at the Tour de France, who mad-dogged me as intensely as anyone in Malibu, is goaded into manifesting something approaching empathy for me now. I'm not sure how Garmin is able to perpetuate this mythology that it is somehow a uniquely-"clean" team, representative of a new-era in cycling, while at the same time its principal implied having doped while on Postal, its physiologist worked intimately with convicted-doper Floyd Landis during the Tour he won using synthetic testosterone, and its team captain served a two-year ban for EPO abuse. Nothing against Millar, who has leveraged his confession into status as *The Voice* of the new, "clean" cycling, but Jesus Cristo. How much did I accomplish in the sport compared to whom? LeMond? Not much, obviously. But Landis and I both have our own two-year bans compliments of USADA.

Here's the thing - I never said that I wasn't a "donkey" (or whatever) in comparison to Armstrong or Landis. In fact, I never said anything about my talent, lack thereof or contributions to cycling relative to anyone else. Rather, certain elements have attempted to belittle or discredit me to further their own agendas by claiming that because I didn't race the Tour de France I could not know that testosterone was and is used in endurance road cycling to facilitate recovery during multi-day stage races...