Doping git thread

[No Ta Doctor]

2 years seems excessive. 🤷‍♂️

It's pretty standard for a no fault finding, basic is four years ban

 

[stage hunter]

I see that Escape collective is
1- Running a free week (who would have thought that a written outlet on cycling would struggle to get enough subscribers at £100/yr when the fans baulk at paying more than £96/yr to actually watch)
2- Flagging up a story about Gianetti and his iffy past (that everyone alrady knows), as it is on a Radio France broadcast.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

I see that Escape collective is
1- Running a free week (who would have thought that a written outlet on cycling would struggle to get enough subscribers at £100/yr when the fans baulk at paying more than £96/yr to actually watch)
2- Flagging up a story about Gianetti and his iffy past (that everyone alrady knows), as it is on a Radio France broadcast.

We used to get proper doping scandals the week before the Tour. None of this rehashed thin old gruel, warmed up for a few clicks. It was fridges full of blood bags and suitcases stuffed with EPO, HGH and Testosterone.

 

[TakeTheHighRoad]

We used to get proper doping scandals the week before the Tour. None of this rehashed thin old gruel, warmed up for a few clicks. It was fridges full of blood bags and suitcases stuffed with EPO, HGH and Testosterone.

Ah, the good old bad old days. 2006 was the creme de la creme vintage of this

 

[No Ta Doctor]

Ah, the good old bad old days. 2006 was the creme de la creme vintage of this

TBH, I took a pause between '98 and 2010. The rider sit down protest was shameful. Floyd's letter to Lance eventually brought me back.

 

[phreak]

TBH, I took a pause between '98 and 2010. The rider sit down protest was shameful. Floyd's letter to Lance eventually brought me back.

And yet, the current generation are knocking lumps out of any of the performances from that era, and even bigger lumps from the Froome era. We're being asked to accept that absolutely enormous gains have been made in a handful of years off the back of nutrition and aero socks.

 

[M.R.M]

They have because the local races are 3-4 km/h faster as well for similar or less watts. In the end none of us know for sure, so it's just not worth worrying about.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

And yet, the current generation are knocking lumps out of any of the performances from that era, and even bigger lumps from the Froome era. We're being asked to accept that absolutely enormous gains have been made in a handful of years off the back of nutrition and aero socks.

They have because the local races are 3-4 km/h faster as well for similar or less watts. In the end none of us know for sure, so it's just not worth worrying about.

I didn't know that about local races, but that's interesting. Bear in mind that while people might be splashing out on aero bikes and using power meters for training, they're not getting the altitude camps and wind tunnel testing that the pros now get, and nor are they trained to eat a million calories of scientific sugar per hour....

I think the pattern of a relative plateau during the Froome years followed by improvement afterwards is pretty much what you'd expect if the peloton in general had cleaned up in that time.

Firstly, we know that EPO was never a level playing field. Some riders couldn't benefit from it as they were already at or near the 50% hematocrit. Their natural advantage was removed by doping. But the other riders, who maybe had different advantages (mumbles something about metabolic pathways and lactic acid) and were level already, they got a massive boost. So the peloton by then had been selected for riders that could take advantage of EPO. That selection is also for riders that are willing to dope, because EPO was so egregiously beneficial. When we talk of donkeys to thoroughbreads, he peloton was selected for donkeys that would dope. They were never the best. And there would always have been some clean riders that could still hang with them.

So when the EPO test comes in, these people would have been history - except they switched to blood doping. Then the bio passport comes in and the effects of blood transfusions can be seen. At that point it's pretty much all over for them. At this point clean athletes can start winning again, but on average the peloton is a little slower than it was when everyone could juice up to 49% hematocrit and chuck an extra half litre of blood in on a rest day.

As that older generation faded away, younger athletes came through that were no longer told they had to dope to ride. And they were no longer selected for how well they'd respond to EPO. Add to this the increasing globalisation of the sport and the democratisation of power data and you have a far broader pool of young athletes to select from, who have been training with power data and can show what they can do. That increased selection pool gives you a far better chance of finding world class athletes. See also the runners etc. who ended up cycling because of an injury. Suddenly people who were going out on a ride as a temporary training method while they recuperated had watts and segment times and realised they might be a bit good. Just look at the amount of nationalities represented in the pro peloton now compared to twenty years ago.

So that's where a lot of the increase comes from, I think. It's not just about the tech. It's not just about the nutritional advances. It's not just about the aero socks.... It's not even just about the professionalisation of the peloton and the many marginal gains that are now no longer gains because everyone is doing them. It's that the sport has access to better athletes, and that those athletes have already been training with power meters and plans from the internet.

And yes, some are undoubtedly still doping. But the blood passport provides a "speed limit". You can maybe microdose with EPO for small gains, but the risk is still there for far less reward, and there's nothing out there that compares to EPO. Blood bags always needed a conspiracy within the team - some motorbike courier with a cool box rocks up to the hotel on e TdF rest day then people are going to know about it.

So all in all I think and hope we're actually in a pretty good place.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Add to this the [ ... ] democratisation of power data and you have a far broader pool of young athletes to select from, who have been training with power data and can show what they can do.

I read an interesting article (can't remember where, I'll try to find it) about the first generation to have grown up immersed in data for everything and what a benefit this was.

It argued that this was a step change as important as any.

 

[phreak]

I didn't know that about local races, but that's interesting. Bear in mind that while people might be splashing out on aero bikes and using power meters for training, they're not getting the altitude camps and wind tunnel testing that the pros now get, and nor are they trained to eat a million calories of scientific sugar per hour....

I think the pattern of a relative plateau during the Froome years followed by improvement afterwards is pretty much what you'd expect if the peloton in general had cleaned up in that time.

Firstly, we know that EPO was never a level playing field. Some riders couldn't benefit from it as they were already at or near the 50% hematocrit. Their natural advantage was removed by doping. But the other riders, who maybe had different advantages (mumbles something about metabolic pathways and lactic acid) and were level already, they got a massive boost. So the peloton by then had been selected for riders that could take advantage of EPO. That selection is also for riders that are willing to dope, because EPO was so egregiously beneficial. When we talk of donkeys to thoroughbreads, he peloton was selected for donkeys that would dope. They were never the best. And there would always have been some clean riders that could still hang with them.

So when the EPO test comes in, these people would have been history - except they switched to blood doping. Then the bio passport comes in and the effects of blood transfusions can be seen. At that point it's pretty much all over for them. At this point clean athletes can start winning again, but on average the peloton is a little slower than it was when everyone could juice up to 49% hematocrit and chuck an extra half litre of blood in on a rest day.

As that older generation faded away, younger athletes came through that were no longer told they had to dope to ride. And they were no longer selected for how well they'd respond to EPO. Add to this the increasing globalisation of the sport and the democratisation of power data and you have a far broader pool of young athletes to select from, who have been training with power data and can show what they can do. That increased selection pool gives you a far better chance of finding world class athletes. See also the runners etc. who ended up cycling because of an injury. Suddenly people who were going out on a ride as a temporary training method while they recuperated had watts and segment times and realised they might be a bit good. Just look at the amount of nationalities represented in the pro peloton now compared to twenty years ago.

So that's where a lot of the increase comes from, I think. It's not just about the tech. It's not just about the nutritional advances. It's not just about the aero socks.... It's not even just about the professionalisation of the peloton and the many marginal gains that are now no longer gains because everyone is doing them. It's that the sport has access to better athletes, and that those athletes have already been training with power meters and plans from the internet.

And yes, some are undoubtedly still doping. But the blood passport provides a "speed limit". You can maybe microdose with EPO for small gains, but the risk is still there for far less reward, and there's nothing out there that compares to EPO. Blood bags always needed a conspiracy within the team - some motorbike courier with a cool box rocks up to the hotel on e TdF rest day then people are going to know about it.

So all in all I think and hope we're actually in a pretty good place.

I don't know about other sports, but we've seen a hockey stick-style improvement in the handful of years since Pogacar arrived on the scene. For the decade from 2010, times were not only fairly static but they were also quite a bit slower than the EPO era. This was despite the "marginal gains" approach supposedly making the sport far more scientific than it had ever been before. Now, in the last 5 years, not only are riders quicker than the Froome era, but they're also smashing the times of the worst EPO era.

Given both the history of the sport and the history of the people running UAE and other teams, I don't think anyone can be blamed for raising a substantial eyebrow or two. Maybe you're right. Maybe for the first time ever, cycling is completely clean and it just so happens to be coinciding with a rider doing things we've never ever seen before and riding faster than we've ever seen before. What we're seeing at the moment is akin to swimming when the superswimsuits were introduced.

I'm sure equipment will have changed, but we're not talking about the difference between Pogacar's Colnago and whatever steel thing Merckx was riding around on. We're talking about, say, Froome's Dogma F10 and Pogacar's Colnago. It's just difficult to see how we've seen such enormous gains in equipment or understanding in just half a dozen years.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

I often wonder if pro riders got the opportunity for intensive turbo training during the early part of the covid pandemic, when they weren't knowingly infected, to find gains that the usual calendar schedule wouldn't discover.

There were some pros that were badly affected by covid, including Sagan.

On Hampshire Strava segments, there was a noticeable surge in top tens during early covid, which I again put down to more constructive turbo training and a large number of cyclists being furloughed (not me sadly, I had to deliver all the tat everyone was ordering online, along with a gazillion test kits).

Or I missed the bus on secret motors and magic drugs.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

I don't know about other sports, but we've seen a hockey stick-style improvement in the handful of years since Pogacar arrived on the scene. For the decade from 2010, times were not only fairly static but they were also quite a bit slower than the EPO era. This was despite the "marginal gains" approach supposedly making the sport far more scientific than it had ever been before. Now, in the last 5 years, not only are riders quicker than the Froome era, but they're also smashing the times of the worst EPO era.

Given both the history of the sport and the history of the people running UAE and other teams, I don't think anyone can be blamed for raising a substantial eyebrow or two. Maybe you're right. Maybe for the first time ever, cycling is completely clean and it just so happens to be coinciding with a rider doing things we've never ever seen before and riding faster than we've ever seen before. What we're seeing at the moment is akin to swimming when the superswimsuits were introduced.

I'm sure equipment will have changed, but we're not talking about the difference between Pogacar's Colnago and whatever steel thing Merckx was riding around on. We're talking about, say, Froome's Dogma F10 and Pogacar's Colnago. It's just difficult to see how we've seen such enormous gains in equipment or understanding in just half a dozen years.

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.

 

[rich p]

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...

 

[Dogtrousers]

In the end none of us know for sure, so it's just not worth worrying about.

This.

If some actual news comes out that such and such is actually on the juice or riding a motorbike I'll be the first to say "S/He never fooled me for a minute, I always knew s/he was a wrong 'un"

But until that happens - not worth worrying about. If nothing else, it's very boring. Just look at the Clinic.

 

[matticus]

I read an interesting article (can't remember where, I'll try to find it) about the first generation to have grown up immersed in data for everything and what a benefit this was.

It argued that this was a step change as important as any.

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 ...