the world of professional cycling… what a mess

Junkyard +1

As for motorised "doping" – too many acid flashbacks? Was this begun on April 1st? It's obviously someone from outside cycling who has seen the powermeters on the pro peloton bikes and thought "ooh they've got wires and they are big and cumbersome so they are probably really motors". Just imagine that you have invented an electric motor that will fit in the centre of a chainset and weigh a few hundred grams, plus some super small batteries that are able to help out on a bike that will be running for 200 plus km in a day without stopping. Now lets think, should I revolutionise the world of powered transport and make billions or make some stealth units to fit on a few dozen pro cycling bikes and make a few hundred thousand? Get real.

You are making the error of thinking that this motor/ battery setup would be running all the time. Think of it like the kers system in F1 a year or 2 ago. The ability to add 30 or 40 Watts to your power output for just a few seconds here or there to ride away from other riders when everyone is on the limit would be a massive advantage. I've been doing a bit of work with electric motors recently and the size of motor and battery supply needed to do that is pifflingly small. When you take into account the silly UCI weight limit for bikes which mean you would not be carrying much of a penalty in terms of weight for the rest of the ride and you can see how it would be theoretically possible. The clever bit would be the internal integration of the drive with the bikes human powered systems without adding drag when not in use.

I think the biggest upset will be when they find Armstrong guilty

Hasn't he already been tested a couple of times? I can't recall the results – maybe you can?

Speed + Strength + endurance + skill = A possible drug enhanced performance improvement.
"If you take this once a day for a few months you will be world class instead of just very good". Tempting for some. At some point in many good sports peoples careers (and coaches) they have that question asked of them. What would you do?

Take last year, 2009. How many tested (pro semi pro and so on) cyclists are there in just Europe alone? 5000? 7500? How many cyclists were caught? 16 One of those was Tom Boonan for Coke, so 15, and one was Thomas Decker for a test he'd taken 2 YEARS before.., so that's 14. as a percentage of just 5000 that's 0.28%

Under any-ones estimate, that's "close to nil…" sorry.

true nick but Armstrong has never failed a drug test has he yet he managed to beat a field made up entirely of drug cheats. probleme is even when peopel test clean doubts are still raised sadly

[quoteJunkyard – Member
true nick but Armstrong has never failed a drug test has he yet he managed to beat a field made up entirely of drug cheats. probleme is even when peopel test clean doubts are still raised sadly[/quote]

Sadly, that's not exactly true. Armstrong has failed two drug tests in the past, but they're swept under the rug IIRC it was around 91-92. That and his connections with Dr Ferrari.

Why aren't cyclists being caught? Because they're not taking the drugs that show up in tests. EPO became popular because it gave all the benefits of blood doping but without all the associated risks of shoving blood in your veins. You can't test for blood doping it doesn't show up. At all. Cycling is full of blood dopers from regional 2nd division no bodies in France and Italy all the way up to the "premier" league. People like bruneel and Riis are knee deep in this. They think the problem is getting caught not the doping. As long as those people are running teams it'll carry on. Any one who thinks Armstrong hasn't taken drugs is deluding themselves TBH. Cynical moi?

Whilst I agree with the tone of your post Nickc I think some facts are probably needed before stating that Riis et al are championing doping.

But yeah, as much as I want to believe that Lance is clean, all the evidence points to the contrary. However, Trek bikes, Radio Shack, cycling in general not to mention the TDF reputation will be ruined if it comes out that Lance is on the fix. I honestly can't see anyone bar the federal thing pinning it on Armstrong, theres too much to loose

I think you are the only person here fixated on "tested" as the only way of getting caught. You can get done for murder without a CSI team "testing" you and achieving some sort of genetic match. Similarly cyclist get caught by being stupid (Millar keeping his old syringes for example) or implicated by others. It's all still cheats getting caught.

Also, I think most normal people will agree that the level of scrutiny will vary considerably as you go down through the field. I think that the fact that most of the people would get caught in cycling by testing are names, ie riders for a recognised pro team is partly because they will be tested more and partly because it is only really at the top end where it is worth it. At the top end where the differences in performance are marginal a 1% performance boost is worth it. Lower down, a 1% boost means you are still a nobody. A good thorough drugs program might set you back £10K a year and knowing what some friends that tried their hand in the continental little leagues lived on in terms of cash, paying for drugs would have been way out of their league. Sometimes they were strapped for enough cash for food – but as they say, eatin' cheatin'!

Finally on subject, have a little look at this who's who of the cycling world. wiki. If I was a top pro thinking about using drugs I'd swallow hard if I saw that list of those that had gone before me and wouldn't be thinking "close to nil".

convert – that list is truely shocking. Pretty much all the riders I followed as a teenager have tested positive at some point or another. No surprise but you really have to ask the question as to who is actually clean – there can't be that many

You can't test for blood doping it doesn't show up

Tell Vino that, he got done for exactly that during the 2007 tour. Blood doping cannot be done without triggering lots of indicators.

Nickc – You obviously live in some sort of 'perfect-world' bubble. Maybe we should just leave you in there.

you're right sorry, Homologous Transfusions are detectable, autologous are undetectable. So that's score 1 to the testers…I out of all those cyclists.

nickc – You obviously live in some sort of 'perfect-world' bubble

Not sure what you mean by that TBH, I'd love to live in a world where professional cyclists AREN'T taking drugs, but it's my belief that it's endemic in the sport, if that's your definition of a perfect little bubble, then I'm at a loss to understand your point.

The sport is a joke !

I think you are the only person here fixated on "tested" as the only way of getting caught

I think I said earlier that testing is about the least effective method there is for catching drug cheats

Look at how many have been caught through testing vs how many have been caught because they were stupid or through more regular police tactics. Testing catches almost no one if you consider how many professional cyclists there are.

Convert, I'd love to agree with you, I love watching road racing the tactics the pageantry the colour the spectacle, all fantastic, it's just I happen to think the sport is rife with doping, and the evidence that I'm right just piles up and up TBH

I think we are pretty close on what we think about this. My only point with what your have said is that you can't use phrases like

and the evidence that I'm right just piles up and up TBH

and still claim "close to nil" of getting caught. There would be no "evidence piling up" if no one was getting caught therefore QED the chance of getting caught can't possibly be nil (or even close to it!).

what must outsiders think of our sport.

Personally, I like Mountain Biking. Couldn't care less about this anal boring roadie nonsense…

Its not a joke – at the end of the day, drugs or no drugs, competing at the level they do requires a degree of fitness that I and most other people on here could never get near. However there are some (or most as it appears) that need that extra edge over the rest and are therefore willing to use banned substances to do so.

Pro cycling is like sausages; I like sausages, but I don't want to know how they're made….

The use of PEDs in cycling is a problem, but I can't get too exercised about it these days, it definitely goes on, and needs the control of drug testing, but it doesn't detract from the spectacle as far as I'm concerned.

To me the greatest "crime" of doping is that even though I like to think that Cancellara is clean, when he rode away in Flanders/Roubaix the little cynical part of my brain instantly thought there must be something going on, whether pharmaceutical or mechanical. And that is what I really hate. That doubt.

It still looked amazing to me though.

The bare stats of pros vs caught doesn't take account of where the testers are concentrating. Its only the top 2-300 riders who are getting serious attention, and of these I'm sure the team leaders/prolific winners are being tested more. If you consider this and then look at the list of grand tour podium finishers and classic/mountain stage winners who have been caught, the testing starts to look far more effective.

Eg in this year's giro many of the top riders have been sanctioned in the past
Basso: Caught
Scarponi: Caught
Vinokourov: Caught
Stefano Garzelli: Forced out of 2002 tour.

There would be no "evidence piling up" if no one was getting caught therefore QED the chance of getting caught can't possibly be nil (or even close to it!).

Depends on your level of cynicism I suppose. You can either believe that lack of cheats being caught through testing is either a) no-ones cheating, or b) they've devised a way of getting round the test…

It seems to me that the cycling press also perpetuates the 'its OK to drug' view. They still hold up as heroes people who were known (and died from) the drugs they used when competing, with the feeble excuse 'well, they all did it then'. The cycling press have not genuinely moved on, not in their heart of hearts. Tom Simpson dying on a hill of dehydration and drugs is not the heroic subject for celebration t-shirts, yet you still see them and similar items reviewed and for sale in the cycling press with every encouragement to wear them. Writers cycling up the hill where Simpson died, still write that they stopped to show respect. Respect? for someone who fanatically cheated and drugged himself to death?

There seem to be less drug related issues in the women's cycling but women's road cycling, so you would think it was worth promoting as a cleaner area for more positive publicity, but it still seems largely ignored by the press – where are the magazine supplements listing the competitors in the women's version of the Tour de France or those of other countries, or even of our own? I have never seen a single one.

Personally I hope cycling does get torn apart by the latest accusations as the gradual rebuilding of a shattered sport over the years might give us a better sport and a decent, sincere set of governing bodies.

I was discussing this with a workmate a while back who is far more into his road cycling and follows it quite closely…

His point of view/contention seemed to be it’s really only the less prepared teams and riders that get caught at the moment and that the general principle of juicing riders has changed in recent years, dosing them up in the middle of the TDF or Giro is a no go now, He reckons “Smart” drug use is primarily going on during out of season training to help riders “optimise” their preparation; build muscle mass or improve oxygen absorption, seeing as many pro’s now target their training towards one or two big races they can basically use drugs in concert with training to mean they hit “peak” output for certain events, by which time the drugs have done their job and are well out of the racers system but the changes in physiology have happened, effectively they’re getting 4 months worth of training results out of 3 months combined training/drug use, or so the theory goes…

It’s an interesting idea not sure how true it is, but then it opens up another debate, if a racer is getting results with no drugs in their system throughout the competitive season, but basically building fitness off-season, using drugs, outside the reach of the UCI, is it still actual cheating?
A subtle point and I think the answer has to be Yes but I can see the angle, crafty buggers these team Doctors eh…

I think Testing is perhaps only catching those who are a bit “Behind the times” with regards to performance enhancing drugs and their use…

What a waste of web space.
So what?
It confuses me how bunging some things into your body is cheating but others are allowed. Often neither are something that occur naturally. Who cares? and more to the point why?