I spent many years racing as a cyclist, rode for some of the bigest teams at the time, managed to stay clean, but only just. Decided to duck out as I was under constant pressure to partake. It's a beutiful sport though, the hardest out there IMO

Cheating within the rules is an oxymoron .

As I said . Everyone cheated . He did it better . 

You did not make one within the meaning of the words you used I have not addressed .

He is cheating , he used any all means available ,that is what cheating is .

My point is why should armstrong receive the level of opprobrium he does because he did what everybody else does only better. Look at the rehabilitation of David Millar . In retrospect he probably new a lot more than he let on.

so there is more honour in humble , failed cheating ?

That is part of the cheating , hence my point . He did it properly all of bullyibng , intimidation etc stems from the fact he was cheating and didnt want to get found out . In that respect he is no different from any other cyclist of the time , he was just better at it .

A hierarchy of cheating opprobrium. Defies logic in my opinion , but its a free country .

Armstrong came allegedly as the breath of fresh air, back from cancer after the big drugs fracas
Guaranteed 100% clean.
I was very much on his side when he refuted those who accused him of doping.
Defended him to the end not knowing what was really going on.
He is different to the other dopers as he is a bully and a bare faced liar, systemised, more sophisticated on a team level than anyone else.

I'd like to see a list the top guys in his TdF wins and see who was doping.
Could make tragic reading but I like to see it.

'Everyone else' is offensive to the ones who never doped, EG Cadel Evans

Cheating has been endemic in pro cycling since Adam was a lad. Tom Simpson, who died on the upper slopes of Mont Ventoux in 1967 was a result of taking amphetamines plus dehydration. The term used for denial of drug wrongdoing, and keeping quiet at all costs derived from the Mafia term "Omerta" meaning "Code of Silence". When a particular cyclist was found out, they took their ban on the chin and served their time in silence.

The problem was that everyone was doping, so anyone clean got absolutely nowhere. EPO boosts peak power output by about 10% and endurance (time to exhaustion) by rather more. But taken on power output, and assuming speed is proportional to the square root of power (as a result of wind resistance) speed will increase by 5%, or 25mph to 26.3mph. Over the 80 hours of racing in a grand tour that puts a non-doping cyclist 100 miles behind, or about 4 hours off the pace.

Is cycling clean now? No idea; I hope so with two British cyclists as Tour de France winners in recent years. It is certainly the case that average speed has come down, from a peak of 41.5kph (25.8mph) in 2005 to 39.5kph (24.5mph) last year.

Armstrong's problem was not so much doping, as his attitude. He was always aggressive even back when he was doing triathlon as a kid, but I think the defining moment for him was cancer. In a way I have some sympathy for what happened next - cancer, recovered - screw this I'm going to live life on my own terms from now on and start winning. He also had cancer spread to his brain, and although there is no real evidence for this it may have played a role in his post-cancer attitude.

But although he disappointed me big time, having followed his 7 wins in absolute awe, I really think he has been used as a scapegoat to put the fear of god into pro cycling. Is he a nice guy - well absolutely not, but that is not the point.

If the tour has been clean, would he still have won? Who can say - but he certainly was a guy who was a consummate cyclist. Anyone here remember in 2003 when on the lower part of a descent Joseba Beloki's tyre peeled off his rim right in front of Armstrong? Rather than slowing and going around Beloki (or crashing into him), he turned sharp left into a field with almost instant reaction. There could have been a sharp drop (there wasn't); there could have been a ditch (there wasn't); the field could have been chest deep in corn (it wasn't); he could have punctured on the corn stubble (he didn't). He weighed up the risks at an almost inhuman rate and just did it. With that level of skill he showed that he was a guy born to be on a bike. Makes his fall from grace all the sadder.

There have been very few clean riders since Tommy Simpson died in '67.  Doping has been woven into the sport of cycling for decades, but as it is such a tightly knit and traditional sport it was unknown and the many that did know chose to over look it.
When I was racing in the 90's EPO was as commonplace as cornflakes.  The team who I raced for, who were a major national bank, had their own doping account.  The team doctors would freely hand out seringes all the time, the dope testing was so piss poor and when riders were tested they were unable to differentiate between natural red blood cells and those caused by doping so all they could do was place a percentage threshold.
I am out of it now but I believe it to be a much cleaner environment.  
Armstrong was wrong to dope, but so was everyone else.