Le Tour doping/speculation/rumour/conjecture thread

Boardman was certainly using an SRM powermeter back in the mid 90s.

#torsoinlake, who is the rider in the pic? Looks like Rasmussen?

Michael ‘Chicken’ Rasmussen.

Michael Rasmussen was known for his care for detail when considering weight. With a low weight (60 kg) he was usually one of the lightest riders in his class. He was known for peeling off unnecessary stickers from his bike, not wearing the Livestrong wristband which was common among many Tour de France riders, due to the additional grams. He used to count each grain of rice before eating and had water with his breakfast cereal, instead of milk. He only carried one water bottle holder and his Colnago Extreme-C bike weighed 6.81 kg, only 10 g more than the minimum limit.

Contador will be struggling now he has to ride the tour against all his rivals and without his special steaks and chef to make them for him. IMHO he shouldnt be allowed to race, he still gets the benefits of his cheating so why should he be allowed to race?

An interesting and balanced article I thought:

http://velonews.competitor.com/2015/07/news/road/commentary-on-froome-and-not-knowing_378393

(Ironically found on the clinic Froome doping thread…. 😀 )

That’s a kind of Armstrongesque statement I’m afraid. Nothing has actually improved massively in the last 10 years.

True, apart from the attitude towards doping among the peloton (hopefully).

I heard Richie Porte moaning about armchair experts not knowing how to interpret riders’ data even if they had access to all of it – and let’s be honest he’s right isn’t he?

Personally as a layman I don’t find it suspicious that Froome can go as quick as Armstrong up one climb. Maybe if he managed it up all of them, every day though.

But Lance wasn’t even really a climber to begin with was he?

It wasn’t that armstrong was a great climber it was that he arrived at the end a mountain stage looking like he was out on a lazy sunday afternoon ride while everyone else was in the gurning world championship.

My goodness – that top pic is Froome? He has genuinely lost a lot of weight!

metalheart good Velonews link.

Personally as a layman I don’t find it suspicious that Froome can go as quick as Armstrong up one climb. Maybe if he managed it up all of them, every day though

The point wasn’t that Froome went up quicker than Armstrong, the point was that domestique (super-d!) Geraint Thomas did it quicker.

Make of that whatever you want.

On the ITV coverage earlier they did a piece on the questions being asked, not unreasonably had a pop at Jalabert, not unreasonably made a plea for informed journalism rather than wild accusations. Then **** the whole thing up by handing back to Ligget for the commentary.

The point wasn’t that Froome went up quicker than Armstrong, the point was that domestique (super-d!) Geraint Thomas did it quicker.

Make of that whatever you want.

Yes it was, you’re right.

I’d take the same view though TBH. It’s only suspicious if Gee’s doing it every day on every climb.

But it sounds to me like he’s had to back off a bit over the last couple of stages.

You’re right, chakaping, and I’m pleased about that

above 7w/kg

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/brailsford-repeats-call-for-implementation-of-power-data-passport/

Personally I think Froome is clean but I can see why some are suspicious (and if Froome was a Kazakh rider for Astana I’d be suspicious to). I have a hard time believing Sky (with all their links to BC) would risk doping within the team and I don’t think Froome could get away with it without the team knowing.

As for his performances, the problem with him in the TdF so far is he hasn’t had a bad day yet and he’s always finished looking the strongest of the GC contenders – that is certainly unusual (for a clean rider).

His Dauphine performance was understandably more credible IMO, the days when he attacked hard he suffered the next day, I’m a bit surprised we haven’t seen the same so far in the TdF – although the 4 Alps stages might be when it happens. Unless the 4 other main GC contenders really are sick or strangely out of form it’s hard to understand how he can be so dominant day after day.

I hope he wins and I hope he’s clean – British cycling would take years to recover credibility if he wasn’t

above 7w/kg

But he’s guessing the weight. I am concerned about the performances but a lot of this theorising with numbers with only part of the formulas is just BS and sensationalist – I’ll bet that if the figures had come out less exciting they wouldn’t have been mentioned.

I’m not sure he is so utterly dominant as some think – bertie is struggling after the giro and Nibali isn’t going as well this year, didn’t look so great at the dauphine so not surprising he’s off the pace still (he should ride in the autobus for a few days and target a stage win that isn’t AdH because that will be carnage).

It’s between froome and Quintana an they are fairly evenly matched – and if you compare the finish at Mende to some of the dopefuelled duels of yesteryear (rasmussen vs contador in 2007) then you can see that todays riders don’t go into the red repeatedly like others did – froome claws his way back

Berie and Nibbles are struggling because they fear the random night-time tests and are riding clean.

The fact that Froome grew up at an altitude of 5,500 feet explains why he climbs by spinning in an easy gear and transferring the load to his very efficient cardio-vascular system. His nearest rival as a climber seems to be Quintana, who would also have grown up and trained at altitude.

As he had done during an appearance on France Télévisions earlier in the week, Brailsford said that he would like the UCI to analyse the power data of all riders along with their blood profiles, a concept that was previously proposed by BMC doctor Max Testa in an interview with Cyclingnews in 2011.

from the linked article ^

Was anyone else tickled by the name of the Dr in context of the disucssion? 🙂

This little bit from the ITV4 coverage yesterday was pretty good…

About 4m25s in for the Jalabert bit.

Quintana, who would also have grown up and trained at altitude.

He still lives there. Gets some stick from some of the specialist press for not racing loads and for living in Colombia but he says it gives him balance in his life and that he finds it odd that some riders expect him to go to a hotel away from his wife and kids to train when he can be with them AND train at altitude. TBH although he and Froome are hardly fascinating characters to listen to, I quite admire their preference to let their riding do the talking.

As an aside, has anyone else read the TdF Rouleur? I think the whole magazine has gone a bit special. Over successive issues they’ve had a two part Lance love-fest followed by a Contador “He’s been found guilty but he probably was innocent” style piece.

Contador will be struggling now he has to ride the tour against all his rivals and without his special steaks and chef to make them for him.

My cycling mag with a review of the TdF last month came with a flyer from a butchers. I really don’t know if that was deliberate windup or someone in the marketing department didn’t really put two and two together!

one of the lads on a club run had two bottles of yellow liquid aboard yesterday–it was christened Froome Juice…

personally , i would be shocked and horrified if the sky boys were up to naughtiness–i cant see how it would be possible and why would they want to? -seem to be doing a fine job as it is! hey have targetted this one race unlike some of the others who seem to have other targets–

Apologies if this is not the right place but I have a road racing question so thought I’d ask it here.

I get that riding at speed behind your team mates gives you less drag so you save energy. But I see that the leaders will still sit in the shadows of their team mates when going up long steep climbs. Is there still an aero advantage at the slower speeds or another reason they stick behind their mates?

IIRC that was covered earlier but

– At the speed pros ride, there is an aero advantage
– it gives you something to focus on
– your team mates will ride at the pace you want rather than that dictated by your competition (in theory at least)

i would be shocked and horrified if the sky boys were up to naughtiness–i cant see how it would be possible and why would they want to? -seem to be doing a fine job as it is!

Er… Isn’t that rather circular reasoning?

Team Sky do seem to be campaigning an awful lot for UCI collaborative action to demonstrate / prove their position.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jul/20/dave-brailsford-team-sky-uci-tour-de-france-chris-froome

Would love to hear other teams’ opinions on this one, Astana anyone….??

IIRC that was covered earlier but

– At the speed pros ride, there is an aero advantage

1/ Drafting gives a 30-35% benefit over being the man in front
2/ Wind resistance (for the same frontal area, and assuming no head or tailwind) is proportional to V^3

So if speed uphill is halved compared to on the flat, (v/2)^3 gives 1/8 of the benefit of drafting on the flat = 4-5% benefit vs riding into the wind on the flat. So, much smaller benefit in actual terms than riding into the wind at full lick, but still easier, and when you’re on the rivet, I guess every little helps in getting you as far up the hill as possible before you have to do it all yourself.

Berie and Nibbles are struggling because they fear the random night-time tests and are riding clean.

I’d thought that, and was immediately saddened that my automatic assumption is that they were dopers.

While we’re (kind of) talking about, when teams have a train on the front, why do they keep a rider there until he’s burned out, why don’t they TTT it?

Would love to hear other teams’ opinions on this one,

Say the right things in public but fight it in private or when it affects them – see MPCC rules and Astana for a good example.

Team Sky are saying the right things and that’s really positive. Froome is also quite candid, probably beyond what the Sky PR team are comfortable with some of the time. I hope it’s not just PR though.

pondo – TTT you need 5 riders to finish. Teams will burn out up to 4 riders (of their 9) in the TTT as that’s the fastest way. Mountain top, only the team leader needs to set a good time so everyone else can be burned out.

So do I Nemesis, but I don’t recall hearing other teams pushing as hard for that kind of transparency, albeit controlled to the “industry experts” as opposed to open media.
We will see obviously, it’s just such a shame that the sport is still being dragged into the gutter.

Kin itv4!

pondo – Member

I’d thought that, and was immediately saddened that my automatic assumption is that they (Berie and Nibbles) were dopers.

let’s be honest, neither of them have a totally clean slate on this matter.

Nibbles by association, Bertie on account of him being a cheating ****.

pondo – TTT you need 5 riders to finish. Teams will burn out up to 4 riders (of their 9) in the TTT as that’s the fastest way. Mountain top, only the team leader needs to set a good time so everyone else can be burned out.

You’d (well – I’d 🙂 ) just think it would be more efficient to have one bloke on the front going full chat for, say, two minutes, then rotate him out and have someone else on the front for another two minutes, etc etc. There must be a logical reason why they don’t, I’m damn sure they know a lot more about it than I do. 🙂

All of this is a question of faith.

One man’s “he lives with his family at altitude” is another man’s “he lives in a region so remote the testers can’t reach him”. Horner in remote Colorado anyone?

We may never know a lot of the stories. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if dear old Jens or Cancellara or any other of the supposed clean heros did the odd naughty stuff, if only early on in their careers… doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of watching the racing though

While I desperately want Jens to be clean, East Germany and then some of his team choices combine to give me doubts. Frankly, I doubt anyone of his era was entirely clean throughout their entire career.

Exactly CFH

+1 on Jens for sure! Still a top bloke.

Cancellara… Dunno. Aside from mechanical doping obviously 😉