The doping confession of Danish cyclist Bo Hamburger in his new book “The Greatest Price — a Rider’s Confessions” illustrates how widespread doping was in professional cycling in the 1990s.

American Greg LeMond has noted numerous times how the pro peloton changed in the early 1990s and how he, a three-time Tour de France champion, could no longer keep up.

Hamburger admitted using the banned blood-oxygen booster EPO. ironically, he was the first cyclist to test positive for EPO in 2001  when  cycling’s governing body,  Union Cycliste Internationale, instituted a testing plan that included EPO. Hamburger denied using perfomance-enhancing drugs, and he was cleared by the Danish Doping Board after his “B” sample came back negative.

Hamburger said he started doping after an injury in 1995 and stopped in 1997. Hamburger won a stage in the Tour de France in 1994.

“Cycling was distinctively marked by doping in the 1990s,” the Associated Press quoted Hamburger as  saying Wednesday.  ”It was a little easier to look at oneself in the mirror when you knew others did the same. So I did it.

“One should have been very naive and very blind not to see what was going on.”

Hamburger, 37, rode for three teams in 16 years as a pro cyclist. He retired in 2006.

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