Doping git thread

[roadrash]

Blimey, I thought I'd stumbled into the Clinic!
If I was convinced that this generation were still on the juice, I'd have given upb watching ,following and commenting. There are other past-times available, I'm told...

Very well said , I can not understand anyone watching pro cycling if they think it is in any way dodgy , why would you , it just doesnt make sense to me.

 

[Dogtrousers]

My personal niche theory is that The Data has hugely reduced the number of riders training* badly; this has a domino? Virtuous Spiral? Something something effect, pushing everyone up a bit. Fewer races have hangers on, more riders can go hard all day. etc ... etc ...


*And probably also feeding badly, warming up badly, tapering badly, over-training badly, pacing long climbs badly ...

Made me think of this article by Michael Hutchinson

If you monitor your fitness with the current tech, you realise that nothing weird ever really happens. You get fit. You get less fit. But the VO2 max fairy doesn’t exist. If you want to go faster you probably ought to do something to deserve it. But I'll say this much; it was a lot more fun when we had no idea what was going on.

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/...ore-fun-when-we-had-no-idea-what-was-going-on

 

[phreak]

You seem to have completely ignored my extremely long-winded point above, which is that the peloton is not the same peloton it was before. Exactly why what we should have seen and did see was a plateau and then a rise is something I went into at (I thought) probably too much length.

Interesting though that the revolutionary jump in speed you compare is the swimsuit, a tech advancement. Nike's shoes for distance running are there as well. But in cycling we tend to imagine it's some new secret wonder-drug (there aren't actually any of these, we know about what's coming pretty quickly). Sorry if you missed the aero revolution btw, bikes have changed a lot in the last ten years. The aero bikes are lighter and the climbing bikes are more aero, to the extent that some producers just make a single lightweight aero model now, I believe.

I read your post, so you don't need to be snidey. If I don't agree with it doesn't mean I didn't comprehend it. I'm sure it's a topic that's been done to death, so other results will no doubt be available, but when Cycling News tested a 2013 bike with a 2023 bike, they found gains on the flat, but very few going uphill. Is that the answer for why climbing speeds have gone through the roof?

https://www.cyclingnews.com/feature...ny-colbrelli-and-bahrain-victorious-find-out/

As for whether this kind of chat should be allowed or not - this is a "doping git" thread. What on earth else is going to be discussed in it? I'm perfectly capable of watching the sport without having to believe in the people competing in it. I think I finally put that to bed in 2007 when Vino was thrown out after seemingly heroic deeds.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

I read your post, so you don't need to be snidey. If I don't agree with it doesn't mean I didn't comprehend it. I'm sure it's a topic that's been done to death, so other results will no doubt be available, but when Cycling News tested a 2013 bike with a 2023 bike, they found gains on the flat, but very few going uphill. Is that the answer for why climbing speeds have gone through the roof?

https://www.cyclingnews.com/feature...ny-colbrelli-and-bahrain-victorious-find-out/

As for whether this kind of chat should be allowed or not - this is a "doping git" thread. What on earth else is going to be discussed in it? I'm perfectly capable of watching the sport without having to believe in the people competing in it. I think I finally put that to bed in 2007 when Vino was thrown out after seemingly heroic deeds.

I wasn't being snidey. You responded to my post without addressing any of the points and just saying (paraphrased) "cor blimey, it's a mystery and probably dodgy guv" after I'd been at pains to provide an argument to explain that exactly what you thought was mysterious was what you'd expect to see from a clean(ish) peloton. Then you mobilised some straw-man bullshit about a "completely clean" peloton, which is obviously nothing I've ever claimed. You keep banging on about tech without for a moment taking in or addressing my points about the peloton as a whole and the effect EPO doping had on it.

If you can't handle some robust argument then you should probably just mute me.

Now I'm being snidey, but you don't appear to be a serious person, so I dgaf

 

[MadMalx]

There really aren't any wonderdrugs out there that will improve performance without majorly risking biopassport flags (EPO-like drugs or blood boosting), or are readily detectable now (anaboloic steroids, probably only of use for sprinting and flat TTs anyway). The benefits of everything else is limited by oxygen requirement. If you're microdosing to avoid biopassport violations it's not going to help much.

 

[phreak]

I wasn't being snidey. You responded to my post without addressing any of the points and just saying (paraphrased) "cor blimey, it's a mystery and probably dodgy guv" after I'd been at pains to provide an argument to explain that exactly what you thought was mysterious was what you'd expect to see from a clean(ish) peloton. Then you mobilised some straw-man bullshit about a "completely clean" peloton, which is obviously nothing I've ever claimed. You keep banging on about tech without for a moment taking in or addressing my points about the peloton as a whole and the effect EPO doping had on it.

If you can't handle some robust argument then you should probably just mute me.

Now I'm being snidey, but you don't appear to be a serious person, so I dgaf

You gave a largely unsubstantiated theory that riders were previously scouted and nurtured based on their ability to dope, which is no longer the case, and presented that as a fait accompli for why times are so much faster. If we use a couple of examples (and I accept that we're relying on them actually telling the truth), but Armstrong said he started to dope when he was 21, so I don't think he became a pro because of his capacity to dope, especially as there was clearly a step change after Gewiss. Similarly with the likes of Riis, who said he doped with steroids in his early career, and was largely a carthorse before EPO transformed him. As he was already 30 before he joined Gewiss, it's hard to argue that he was nurtured because of his doping capabilities.

Even the training stuff seems dubious. I mean, Andy Coggan published his book in 2006, yet it's taken 13 years for times to march up the hockey stick, and even then, we're assuming that a book for the general public was espousing something professional coaches didn't already know.

Maybe it's true and it's all perfectly above board and Pogacar riding away from everyone while sat down and breathing through his nose is just the way to do it nowadays. As was said above, we don't really know any more these days than we did during the 90s and 00s.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

There really aren't any wonderdrugs out there that will improve performance without majorly risking biopassport flags (EPO-like drugs or blood boosting), or are readily detectable now (anaboloic steroids, probably only of use for sprinting and flat TTs anyway). The benefits of everything else is limited by oxygen requirement. If you're microdosing to avoid biopassport violations it's not going to help much.

This. Whenever you ask what it is they're all on people start to mumble something about AICAR, an experimental drug that hasn't yet been approved for use in humans, which is testable and was rumoured to have been knocking about as far back as 2009.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

You gave a largely unsubstantiated theory that riders were previously scouted and nurtured based on their ability to dope, which is no longer the case, and presented that as a fait accompli for why times are so much faster. If we use a couple of examples (and I accept that we're relying on them actually telling the truth), but Armstrong said he started to dope when he was 21, so I don't think he became a pro because of his capacity to dope, especially as there was clearly a step change after Gewiss. Similarly with the likes of Riis, who said he doped with steroids in his early career, and was largely a carthorse before EPO transformed him. As he was already 30 before he joined Gewiss, it's hard to argue that he was nurtured because of his doping capabilities.

Even the training stuff seems dubious. I mean, Andy Coggan published his book in 2006, yet it's taken 13 years for times to march up the hockey stick, and even then, we're assuming that a book for the general public was espousing something professional coaches didn't already know.

Maybe it's true and it's all perfectly above board and Pogacar riding away from everyone while sat down and breathing through his nose is just the way to do it nowadays. As was said above, we don't really know any more these days than we did during the 90s and 00s.

I don't think you understood at all. You don't need to scout riders on their ability to dope, you choose successful riders, It's pure natural selection. And at a time where there was no EPO test and riders could get themselves up to 50% hematocrit, that meant riders that were juiced to the gills. You've actually supported my point.