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Tour de France riders are inhaling carbon monoxide in 'super altitude' recipe

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Re: Tour de France riders are inhaling carbon monoxide in 'super altitude' recipe

#41

Post by dtech »

vorador wrote: post #34
LargeWu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think because there's less "skill" required, in the sense of hand-eye coordination, than ball sports. The predominant factor seems to be how hard and how long you can push yourself. Once you reach the human body's natural physical limits, chemical advantage seems like the only way to break through those.

This is very wrong. These guys go downhill on small country roads very fast – sometimes over 100 kmh. You need deep riding skills to handle these speeds without getting injured.

He didn't say no skill, he said less in comparison with other professional sports.

Re: Tour de France riders are inhaling carbon monoxide in 'super altitude' recipe

#42

Post by SamBam »

matsemann wrote: post #37
beloch wrote: post #25

If it confers an advantage, even a small one, and it's allowed, everyone will be compelled to do it in order to remain competitive. That's the crazy thing about high level sports. Either it's banned or everyone does it. There is no in between.

In cycling it's also common to do lots of stuff that might not even have an advantage. But when you see other teams do it, you don't dare not to.

Reminds me of swimmer Mark Spitz who had a mustache at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, and won 7 gold medals in a world record. The Russian swimming coach asked him about the mustache, and he replied that American scientists had determined that it made him faster. A year later, in the 1973 World Championships, most of the Russian team had mustaches, while Spitz had shaved his off.

Re: Tour de France riders are inhaling carbon monoxide in 'super altitude' recipe

#43

Post by ben7799 »

its_ethan wrote: post #9
MBCook wrote: post #6

This sounds very stupidly dangerous. I’m amazed this is legal, and that people would do it in the first place. I get wanting to win at all costs but this is nuts.

I don't know what it is about cycling that seems to concentrate some of the most insane physiological manipulation (not sure if that's the right phrase tbh). Other sports like baseball/tennis/etc seem to have some issues with like general steroids. But the level that cyclists go to always seems to exceed them by orders of magnitude. I don't know how true it is, but I've heard that some cyclists had/have to set alarms…

That was the early EPO era.. there were some riders that died in their sleep their blood was so thick from massive amounts of EPO. Their red blood cell counts were excessively high.

Re: Tour de France riders are inhaling carbon monoxide in 'super altitude' recipe

#44

Post by axlee »

Swizec wrote: post #11
its_ethan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what it is about cycling that seems to concentrate some of the most insane physiological manipulation (not sure if that's the right phrase tbh). Other sports like baseball/tennis/etc seem to have some issues with like general steroids. But the level that cyclists go to always seems to exceed them by orders of magnitude. I don't know how true it is, but I've heard that some cyclists had/have to set alarms…

> I don't know how true it is, but I've heard that some cyclists had/have to set alarms throughout the night so they wake up to do jumping jacks to get their heart rates back up above the "artificial" 15bpm that their training + cocktail of drugs has caused. Even as a casual runner (top 20% in a marathon, def not competitive), I have had to silence low heart rate alarms on my apple watch because my heart rate regular…

Them and cross country skiers (for VO2Max domination)

Re: Tour de France riders are inhaling carbon monoxide in 'super altitude' recipe

#45

Post by scott_w »

Couple of things:

I’m not sure this is dangerous, per se, as long as the dosage is measured. As you learn in school, CO is only poisonous because it replaces oxygen in your blood. There’s no negative long term effects as long as the dose never reduces the oxygen mix of air beyond what a human can survive on.

This is being used to simulate altitude training, so I don’t see how you can ban it. It’ll just mean all teams go back to altitude training instead. We don’t consider altitude training doping because that would be an insane position to take. Would you ban riders from mountainous regions from cycling?

That second point also means it’s not being dangerously configured because we know the oxygen % levels at different altitudes.

An interesting article, nonetheless.

Re: Tour de France riders are inhaling carbon monoxide in 'super altitude' recipe

#46

Post by scott_w »

MBCook wrote: post #6

This sounds very stupidly dangerous. I’m amazed this is legal, and that people would do it in the first place. I get wanting to win at all costs but this is nuts.

I doubt it’s dangerous at all:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40948229

Re: Tour de France riders are inhaling carbon monoxide in 'super altitude' recipe

#47

Post by scott_w »

LargeWu wrote: post #17
its_ethan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what it is about cycling that seems to concentrate some of the most insane physiological manipulation (not sure if that's the right phrase tbh). Other sports like baseball/tennis/etc seem to have some issues with like general steroids. But the level that cyclists go to always seems to exceed them by orders of magnitude. I don't know how true it is, but I've heard that some cyclists had/have to set alarms…

I think because there's less "skill" required, in the sense of hand-eye coordination, than ball sports. The predominant factor seems to be how hard and how long you can push yourself. Once you reach the human body's natural physical limits, chemical advantage seems like the only way to break through those.

Only someone who’s never cycled quickly could say there’s less skill involved. Try riding down the side of a mountain at 50mph and follow up your post.

Re: Tour de France riders are inhaling carbon monoxide in 'super altitude' recipe

#48

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

mertd wrote: post #32
LargeWu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think because there's less "skill" required, in the sense of hand-eye coordination, than ball sports. The predominant factor seems to be how hard and how long you can push yourself. Once you reach the human body's natural physical limits, chemical advantage seems like the only way to break through those.

As a cyclist (albeit never raced), I want to get offended by this but I feel is largely correct. There is a lot of real time strategizing happening in road races however the marginal gains of simply having more Watts per kg for more hours trumps everything else.

Bicycles are the most efficient form of transport... at moderate speeds. At elite level speeds you are so far down the exponental well of wind resistance that you need meticulous attention to aero savings and sustained power output. All of the possible aero gains permitted under the rules are already accounted for. That leaves power output as the only avenue for gaining a competitive advantage. No other sport has the same combination of antagonizing factors at play.

Re: Tour de France riders are inhaling carbon monoxide in 'super altitude' recipe

#49

Post by scott_w »

dtech wrote: post #41
vorador wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very wrong. These guys go downhill on small country roads very fast – sometimes over 100 kmh. You need deep riding skills to handle these speeds without getting injured.

He didn't say no skill, he said less in comparison with other professional sports.

Try riding down the side of a mountain at 50-70mph and tell me there’s less skill in that

Re: Tour de France riders are inhaling carbon monoxide in 'super altitude' recipe

#50

Post by scott_w »

lupusreal wrote: post #10

I understand inhaling carbon monoxide to be common practice for road cyclists.

You inhale less CO and other pollutants on a bicycle than you do in a car. I don’t have the study to hand but this has definitely been measured.
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