I don't think anyone should buy any story that any cyclist was clean anywhere near a professional circuit.
My uncle was president of a national road cycling federation. He had been involved with cycling teams, professional and amateur, since the 50s. He never raced himself, but many people wanted to be his friends: My grandmother owned a pharmacy, and he had access to get anything he wanted out of said pharmacy. So I'd hear the stories over dinner, or as we were following the peloton on stages that were nearby. He'd provide "pharmacological support" not just to racers alone, but team managers. He was more important in the 60s and 70s, when testing was really bad, and the substances racers would need were almost entirely things you'd get at the pharmacy counter. As doping became more professionalized, there was more use for specialized doctors, and things you couldn't just get straight from the pharmacy supplies, but contact higher up in the drug supply chain would still be helpful getting more exotic things.
Eventually he got caught: He was in the news as the police detained him and a few lower-tier racers. But since this wasn't, say, Movistar or Visma-Lease getting caught, it wasn't in every news feed, but it's someone that had been helping doping for decades.
It might be too much to say that everyone riding the Vuelta or the Tour for the last 50 years was definitely doping, but I'd expect that it's far more than 50-50. People don't keep up with top talent that is doing EPO and blood transfusions by just eating a lot of pasta for breakfast.
My uncle was president of a national road cycling federation. He had been involved with cycling teams, professional and amateur, since the 50s. He never raced himself, but many people wanted to be his friends: My grandmother owned a pharmacy, and he had access to get anything he wanted out of said pharmacy. So I'd hear the stories over dinner, or as we were following the peloton on stages that were nearby. He'd provide "pharmacological support" not just to racers alone, but team managers. He was more important in the 60s and 70s, when testing was really bad, and the substances racers would need were almost entirely things you'd get at the pharmacy counter. As doping became more professionalized, there was more use for specialized doctors, and things you couldn't just get straight from the pharmacy supplies, but contact higher up in the drug supply chain would still be helpful getting more exotic things.
Eventually he got caught: He was in the news as the police detained him and a few lower-tier racers. But since this wasn't, say, Movistar or Visma-Lease getting caught, it wasn't in every news feed, but it's someone that had been helping doping for decades.
It might be too much to say that everyone riding the Vuelta or the Tour for the last 50 years was definitely doping, but I'd expect that it's far more than 50-50. People don't keep up with top talent that is doing EPO and blood transfusions by just eating a lot of pasta for breakfast.