Downieville Classic Pre Race Interview with Levi Leipheimer

Does anybody care what Levi Leipheimer has to say? I don’t.

once again, more people wanting to state negative opinions. “WoofWoof” and “me that’s who”, just because you CAN leave a comment, doesn’t mean you should.

Levi, best of luck, and best of luck to everyone riding in the race.

I’m with Craig, don’t want to read about Levi, don’t click the link. Also, I guess the negative posters are perfect and have never done anything wrong or made mistakes. Levi is a kind and gracious man not seeking out attention or interviews. He’s getting on with his life. Sure would be nice if all the negative nellies could get on with their lives too. Allez Levi!

I think it’s great that Levis’s moving on and enjoying life. Personally I could give thee shits about his past, he still has an interesting perspective on riding and racing. Besides leaving all the negative comments your keyboard can handle won’t change the past or do anything to clean up “our” sport, supporting teams and riders who are racing now will at least help.

Levi is a good guy in my opinion. He doped when everyone else did – so be it. If you want to hate on doping you might as well hate every pro that’s ever raced. IMO everyone is guilty. It’s history now, time to move on.

Great. All roadies should go MTB. Its more fun, and less dependend on dope. And they should all lend a hand in trail access. He lives in Santa Rosa, near Marin, where all MTB is banned and bikes confiscated on trails.

Gotta love those positive comments.

The house: http://www.bicycling.com/video/home-levi-leipheimer#/video/all

I love Mountain Biking!

Levi has been trading on his “nice, clean guy who everybody loves” persona as long as he’s been a pro- too bad he was lying and cheating the entire time. It’s a whole lot harder to think highly of someone doing philanthropic deeds when it turns out they made most of their money illegally. Doing good things in no way equates to everybody forgiving you, and I think it’s a sad state of affairs that people aren’t more angry at long time dopers STILL trading on their “nice guy” image (Vaughters, Levi, Danielson, Zabriskie….)

My questions for Levi are this: What doping products is he planning to use for the downieville classic and what did he use to win the Crusher in the Tusher. And when is he going to return the ore cart to the Leadville 100 so they can give it to JHK.

I’m ok with Levi, but I am definitely not a fan. He doped, and it irritates me that guys like him state all the time that it was part of the game.

the complainers seem like they feel as if XC had no dopers, and even if they wanted to dope they would race on road exclusively. I don’t believe it, but between Rain and filibuster’s perspectives, there must be someone out there who sees succeeding at MTB races as worth the risk to try doping. I see the some of the same personality types in both styles of racing, so I assume it’s not just road racers doping.
This article is about one racer’s approach where he can run whatever he wants, not his ethical status. I would like a similar setup, but with a command post instead of a reverb, 28T chainring, and flat pedals.

Guess commenting on the bike feature itself was not as interesting and sensational as turning this into a doping thread.

Levi, you are always welcome in mountain biking, along with any other PRO former or otherwise seeking asylum.

Racers who rode in the era when only dopers won, including Levi and Lance, were only “leveling the playing field”. At least that is how I feel and because so many have either not been caught, have not confessed or have and still retain there trophies, I agree with Ulrich that Lance’s Tour wins should be reinstated and we should all just move on. Levi’s past bothers me no more than any of them and I hope his future is a lot more peaceful than when he was virtually required to poison himself to win races.

Nah. Levi, and Lane especially made then playing field less level than ever. If EPO was such a great “playing field leveler” and everybody was doing it, then you would have several different guys winning every year instead of the most doped up guy winning 7 years in a row.

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Cycling is viewed by mainstream society as some fringe sport with as many drug fueled athletes as bodybuilding. Don’t even state otherwise. Not even MLB baseball or football is equated to such “who cares” status. And we have people like Levi and Lance to thank for that. To the public, cycling is not a legitimate sport. Levi, Lance, and dopers like them just need to go away and get out of cycling for good.

I gotta admit, I kinda laughed when I read Levi simply described as “recently retired” in the opening of the article. It seems like it might be more honest to say Levi “recently left the sport of road racing after not being able to get a ProTour contract after his doping suspension was up.”

I’m not totally sure if he got what he really deserved, but, not knowing the intricacies of the situation, it’s tough to judge. It is fair to say that he possibly took a job and money out of the pockets of clean racers, which is really dishonorable.

It’s all about trust for me. How can you trust a guy that looked right into the camera and lied for so many years. If I can’t trust you then you can’t be a part of my beloved sport of Mountain Biking.
Get off the mountain trails you lying sack of shite. You are a disgrace to the creed of Mountain Bikers. Go back to the still dopin roadie crowd. You’ll fit right in.

@AZBikeFreak: Nobody cares about trust. He is not your husband, is he?

People do not care about road cycling because it is a bunch of freaks in colorful tights riding around roads. Nothing to get excited about. It is not about dope.

Worst thing that actually happened was USADA’s vendetta against retired Lance. Nobody needed that, and nobody gained anything from it. Do not like dopers – run better tests.

Oddly enough, Levi is very likely clean now. I have doubts that most of the masters-age winners will be clean and the same can be said of the pros. The only reason why Levi would be clean? He has nothing to prove and isn’t doing this for a paycheck.

Levi is proof positive that doping crime does indeed pay. It pays big and especially here in the US. The dude is still treated special, is still sponsored by the big red S and is still treated like some kind of a star.

He is in fact a disgraced cheater. He was banned. That ban may have ended by now. No matter, he doesn’t care. Since he can’t call himself a road pro anymore, he chooses to stink up our mountainbike racing.

Shame on Levi and shame on the Downieville promoters for allowing it. I have raced many of the classic and historic mtb races. I have never raced Downieville, but have always wanted to do so. That changed when I read about this.

I will not be racing Downieville.