Whatever happened to Bernard Kohl?

You know, the guy that stood on the podium of the 2008 Tour de France then promptly disappeared into the void after testing positive for the next-gen iteration of EPO, CERA?

Well he's still running his own bike shop, which back in 2009 he launched as the new chapter of his life. The warehouse-shop, a 3000-square metre space in the heart of Vienna, Austria, sells a huge range of high-end bikes and doubles as a fitness and service centre. Kohl claims he's now working 60-70 hour weeks regularly to keep the business going, and is committed to making it work. It's now in its fifth year in operation.

Unlike many of his contemporaries he's owned his crimes. Stuck throughout the warehouse are heirlooms of the career he once had. Victories, race numbers, old jerseys, and - remarkably - doping programs, marked with the code he used during his life as a professional. Kohl says it's his way of being transparent, and of fully acknowledging the past.

After retiring in May 2009, Kohl blasted the hypocrisy of the cycling establishment, revealing the scope of not just his own sordid history in the sport, but of the culture's prevalent.

"I did not cheat anyone in the peloton, be sure of that – there is like a social organisation (of doping) within the ­peloton, these things are accepted," Kohl affirmed at the time to L'Equipe. He also questioned the efficacy of the UCI's Biological Passport system, and the testing regimen in place, which he believed to be easy to navigate if you had the right advice and tools.

"I was tested 200 times during my career, and 100 times I had drugs in my body," Kohl told the New York Times in 2010. "I was caught, but 99 other times, I wasn't. Riders think they can get away with doping because most of the time they do.

"Even if there is a new test for blood doping, I'm not even sure it will scare riders into stopping. The problem is just that bad."

He was famously outspoken in claiming that to finish in the top-10 of the Tour de France you had to be doping, but said in leaving cycling he was at peace in no longer being made to live a double life.

You can see the impressive Bernard Kohl Fahrad and Fitness store in full here.