Tour de France 2026 ***Spoilers***

[Dogtrousers]

For the record it's amazing how few crashes there are. ... Just on vibes I think the stress of lack of sleep shouldn't be in the mix

Pro cyclists are all incredible bike handlers. They live on a different planet. I just look at the peloton when it's cruising along unstressed and I'm amazed. Let alone difficult road conditions or when the racing is hard. As for sprints and descents ....

Given the degree of risk and stress, I agree that waking them up at all hours is something to be avoided.

 

[mjr]

I have some sympathy with this and was the first to say so

Does first matter? This is a forum, not a race!

 

[Pblakeney]

I fully remember the first time I went out on club ride which turned out to be a chain gang. I was completely stressed out.

 

[Pblakeney]

The key there is ‘after’. They aren’t being woken in the middle of the night before a game. That’s effectively the equivalent of the post-stage testing riders have to deal with every day and which no-one complains about, just that midweek football finishes later.

I was just pointing out that high profile players do get tested at inconvenient times.
Do I think they are doping? Yes. Do I think they are adequately tested? No.

 

[mididoctors]

Does first matter? This is a forum, not a race!

I don't know

 

[mididoctors]

I was just pointing out that high profile players do get tested at inconvenient times.
Do I think they are doping? Yes. Do I think they are adequately tested? No.

What doping are they doing ? I get the skepticism I just don't get what gear are they on ?

 

[mididoctors]

I fully remember the first time I went out on club ride which turned out to be a chain gang. I was completely stressed out.

At physical limits sensory perception around you gets tunneled out and you can't process the environment your acting in . You don't notice what's important or able to read other riders intentions instinctively

 

[Dogtrousers]

Just read that Pidders got a 400CHF and 20 sec fine for "pushing off a team car" yesterday.

https://www.idlprocycling.com/cycli...given-time-penalty-and-hefty-fine-on-stage-10

 

[Pblakeney]

What doping are they doing ? I get the skepticism I just don't get what gear are they on ?

I wish I knew as I'd make a fortune! 😂
Based purely on a radio show 30 years ago when someone was referring to "doping" in the States and said it was not to do with bloods, steroids or testosterone (which were the go-to at the time). I can't truly remember the specifics but vaguely DNA or genes.

 

[Happy_Days]

From RoadCC:

 

[Blazing Saddles]

From RoadCC:

View attachment 815666

That doesn’t sound good.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

That doesn’t sound good.

No, but unless we have some idea of what the actual standards are for this it's a little difficult to draw much conclusion. "Risk of loss of evidence" I assume is the risk that suspected substance has a limited glow-time, so that's almost anything, taken in small enough amounts. I've no idea what "serious and corresponding suspicions" are, but I think it's probably worth noting that this was a drug test, not a police raid. If we were in the land of chemist receipts and tapped phone calls and riders' dads meeting with banned doctors then I think it would be a lot more legal-based than that.

 

[Pblakeney]

At physical limits sensory perception around you gets tunneled out and you can't process the environment your acting in . You don't notice what's important or able to read other riders intentions instinctively

Not in my case as I wasn't struggling physically. It was the mental stress of keeping the wheel gap to within those 2".
Concentration, stress, worry. All mental.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Gosh. So they were following proper procedure. My default cockup assumption was wrong

 

[MadMalx]

I wish I knew as I'd make a fortune! 😂
Based purely on a radio show 30 years ago when someone was referring to "doping" in the States and said it was not to do with bloods, steroids or testosterone (which were the go-to at the time). I can't truly remember the specifics but vaguely DNA or genes.

Like others, I'm not in denial but I'm struggling to spot plausible performance enhancers that will produce a Pog from the peleton. Saying genes or DNA doesn't get us any closer to what is being boosted. If we could get genes or DNA into the body with anything better than miniscule efficiency then cystic fibrosis, muscular Duchenne muscular dystrophy, many cancers, and many other genetic disease would be cured long ago. Advances have been made but we're still a long way off efficient delivery.
In competition, we're still left with oxygen uptake as the limiting step in (aerobic) performance. This would likely mean an elevated haematocrit so risk biopassport violations. Testrosterone boosting (maybe by increasing expression of the testosterone synthesising enzymes) would be much more useful out of competition to boost muscle, and will take a good while to kick in. And I'm not sure how much benefit muscle building would benefit climbers (as opposed to roulers or sprinters).
Illicit methods to boost recovery is possibly an area for exploration - what I suspect the Sky Fluimucil decongestant (N-acetyl cysteine) story was really about.