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Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

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Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#251

Post by Aurornis »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #62
chrisfosterelli wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very hard to tell because the true rate of doping is not known. We just know about who we catch (or very questionable survey results) which are skewed by the resources available for testing and the resources available for hiding doping. Competitive cycling is more popular than many sports, so it gets a lot of attention and effort on both. Cycling was also at the center of the explosion of EPO use between the 199…

When will the average person benefit from all the interesting performance enhancing drugs that have been secretly developed?

Many of these drugs were developed and used as medical products before being adopted by athletes.

EPO is used in medical conditions.

Several anabolic steroids are prescription drugs and can be used in cases of muscle wasting or cancer.

Most people don’t understand the consequences that come with using these drugs. They’re often not a free lunch where you take the drug and become a better human being across the board. There are negative consequences for altering the body’s systems directly in most cases.

In medical conditions doctors can weigh the tradeoffs and use drugs sparingly to achieve an outcome while monitoring the negative effects. When a 20 year old gym bro starts juicing with excessive doses to get swole, they’re not thinking about how it’s going to damage their testes for the rest of their life or disrupt their HPTA axis.

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#252

Post by alistairSH »

timost wrote: post #172

There is this french website[0] which (among other things) analyses TdF performances over the years. They compute power metrics based on climbing times in the mountain stages. The trend these last few years is quite worrying, reaching and going above peak doping-era performances [1]. The website is maintained by a former pro-level coach of the festina era. [0] https://www.cyclisme-dopage.com/ [1] https://www.cyclisme…

I don't read French, so can't directly comment on the content.

However, these year-by-year comparisons often miss a few key points...

- Technology advances. Looks at the jerseys worn during the peak doping era (Lance, etc) vs today - they look downright baggy in the 90s vs now. The bikes are more aerodynamic as well. The tire roll faster.

- Nutrition has changed MASSIVELY in the last ~5 years. Gone are bananas and pastries (even from the Italian and French teams). The "bonk" is almost completely a thing of the past at this level - cyclists are consuming carbs at rates that would have put most people on the toilet a few years ago. Part of this is better mixes; part of it is humans can simply consume more carbs than we thought possible (with appropriate gut training).

- Training itself has changed. It's year-round, it's far more structured. Everybody has a power meter, glucose monitor, etc. Kids are starting this structure training at younger ages.

Anyway, do I think pro cycling is 100% clean? No, of course not, there's massive incentive to cheat. Do I believe the top cyclists (Pogi, Vingegaard, etc) are clean (per current rules)? Yes. They're testing far too often to not be. Are they possible pushing the limits of what's legal? Probably (see also: CO training last year, which is now banned).

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#253

Post by dr_dshiv »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #68
dr_dshiv wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When will the average person benefit from all the interesting performance enhancing drugs that have been secretly developed?

Generally, never. Because any small change in chemistry is something that evolution is very effective at picking up. Which means that if there is a simple intervention that improves performance, there is always a good reason why nature hasn't already given it to you. In the case of EPO, it's significantly increased risk of blood clots and blood pressure related conditions.

Caffeine is still the only outlier?

I remain optimistic.

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#254

Post by Aurornis »

floodfx wrote: post #43
ahi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I replied directly to OP, but applies here as well. Cycling is far more specialized than other sports so the pay off for doping is greater.

Why is pay off greater in cycling than other sports? Salary of the top riders? Compared to say NBA players, pro cyclist make relatively little. Tadej Pogacar (best and top paid cyclist) makes about $8M (euros) in salary per year. Steph Curry (highest paid) NBA player makes $55M (dollars) in salary per year.

> Compared to say NBA players

Basketball is highly skill based.

For a professional athlete it’s not hard to be in shape enough to run for an entire game. It’s just not a limitation.

For cycling, it’s nearly all physical ability.

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#255

Post by isk517 »

bogdan wrote: post #238
sumo89 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the most tested sport by far. Mostly because a couple of huge scandals - Festina and Armstrong. It's an endurance sport which is a natural target for doping because of the huge gains that can be made and it's also probably the most popular endurance sport too. That said, it's a problem in other sports but they just don't test as much or publicise it as much. It's become a real problem in Rugby, https://www.bbc.c…

> it's also probably the most popular endurance sport I believe long distance running takes that spot

Depends on what is meant by popular. In terms of participation then running, in terms of non-participatory viewers then cycling is probably more popular

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#256

Post by Der_Einzige »

jajko wrote: post #144
tokai wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greg LeMond has been on a whole motodoping tour online recently to stay relevant. He clearly does not understand modern cycling and he has a ton of people he wants to put down for the sake of his own reputation. There is not reason to believe him more than a crazy uncle.

Sometimes those folks just tell the truth. Now if you are OK with cheating and this just annoys you that's another story but lets be honest here - professional cycling became pathetic deplorable 'sport' full of jokes of sportsmen that should not be respected or admired in any way, in contrary. Half of Olympics is heading that way but for some reason cycling was and still is ahead of the curve for quite some time. I'l…

Hey, that's a lot of mental gymanstics for saying "I dislike cyclists going slow on the road so I'll take it out on their sport".

If you had the opposite idea of "doping is okay in sports" and applied the categorical imperative to it, we'd have a bunch of roided superman doing insane sports and it would be awesome. Daniel Tosh of all people proposed this jokingly in some standup years ago but why not just admit that everyone is doping and accept it?

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#257

Post by registeredcorn »

brrrrrm wrote: post #225
david-gpu wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is actually a lot of strategy in road cycling. Remember for one thing that there are teams -- ask yourself why is that.

I wouldn't deny that (and probably should have caveated this in my OP), but compared to a basketball or football team, the benefit of smart play doesn't seem as significant compared to doping up and pressing hard.

>the benefit of smart play doesn't seem as significant compared to doping up and pressing hard.

For the athlete, or for the team?

For professional racing strategy is in the hands of the team members on the sidelines - it's less of a team sport (as in athlete) and more of a group sport (as in information parity.) Whether it's motor races or TdF, there's a significant number of factors to consider. What you are going to have your team do? What are other teams doing? What you should do in response to what they're doing? What will they do in response to your response? What is the average performance of your team? What is the current and maximum performance? What's the condition of the equipment? What tires are being used? What is the forecast for the next few hours? How will changes in weather impact the equipment used? Will you have enough spares to make it through? Do you have good comms between you and the athletes? Etc.

For example, sometimes two athletes on the same team might be one behind the other, only for the coach to tell the lead to let the other teammate to pass. For the audience, it might be unclear why or it might even feel unfair, but there are reasons why they made that call.

Maybe the leader looks gassed and needs to hang back to collect himself.

Maybe they want to encourage the secondary by giving him the reigns for a while, and in turn, push the lead to work harder.

Maybe they want to keep the wear and tear a little lower on the lead by holding him back in case a team close behind ends up overtaking in a sharp turn up ahead.

Maybe they're worried about a pile up that hasn't been cleared yet.

Maybe the sun will be facing the direction of their next turn, so the secondary is providing shade for the lead.

So on and so fourth. An individual athlete can only receive and process so much of that information in a cohesive way.

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#258

Post by blululu »

Yeul wrote: post #158
jajko wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes those folks just tell the truth. Now if you are OK with cheating and this just annoys you that's another story but lets be honest here - professional cycling became pathetic deplorable 'sport' full of jokes of sportsmen that should not be respected or admired in any way, in contrary. Half of Olympics is heading that way but for some reason cycling was and still is ahead of the curve for quite some time. I'l…

The fact that rich, powerful countries earn more medals at the Olympics should dispel any notion of "fairness".

The list of Olympic gold medals per capita is typically led by small Caribbean nations like the Bahamas and Jamaica. Middle income eastern block countries like Hungary are a close follow.

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#259

Post by Der_Einzige »

jl6 wrote: post #103

The lengths people will go to to cheat in sports is super interesting - sometimes more interesting than the sport itself! There should be a global all-sport annual prize for red-teaming (against the cheaters).

Yet no one seriously accepts the idea that Anal Beads might have been used for cheating in chess and that was after the literal top chess grandmaster in the world accused someone of doing it.

Re: Tour de France confronts a new threat: Are cyclists using tiny motors?

#260

Post by wyre »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #199
littlestymaar wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Tour de France was originally intended to be so tough that only one person might finish it. The difficulty has been toned down a lot since the early days though. (You'll never see a 466km long stage like the first of Tour de France 1903[1] ever again). [1]: https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1re_%C3%A9tape_du_Tour_de_Fr... )

There are still races with much longer "stages" than 466km, but they are not part of the contemporary pro-cycling world. The classic brevet events, Paris-Brest-Paris and Boston-Montreal-Boston are 1200km ridden as a single stage. PBP is older than the TDF also, starting in 1891. The nature of brevet events means that they can essentially never be a spectator sport, hence the lack of any significant attention to them.

Pedantically, brevets are not races.
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