[JaredL]

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Yea, I understand what your saying. I guess I was more thinking climbing ability. For, although Armstrong was such an overall bike rider, the "pure" climbers of his era couldn't touch him in the climbs, with the possible exception of Pantani.

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I really think Heras was as strong as Armstrong in a couple of those tours but was his teammate and wouldn't have been a GC threat anyway due to his terrible time trialing so he rode tempo and worked a lot more. He also had his training peak later so he would have been just getting into form for the tour to work for Lance and then peaking later for the Vuelta, which he dominated.