Thought experiment: giving up performance-enhancing drugs

[andygates]

Here's the scenario: You're a successful pro rider in a Tour-grade team.  You're using PEDs and you are getting good results.  But you've decided that you want out.

How do you come off the PEDs without appearing to have a suspicious collapse in performance, or missing your mortgage and school fees?  Is it actually possibly to "get out" without quitting the sport or testing positive?

[Tiger]

Isn't that why Armstrong quit then?

[nuttycyclist]

Decrease the PEDs and Increase the training.

[andygates]

And slide slowly out of the rankings (and presumably income) while planning a career as a coach or writer or restaurateur?

It's grim though - you're winding down your dosage while being at risk of a positive test, when you could be still up a the front eating mountains for the same risk.

[David Martin]

Given that PEDs tend to be either used in a careful regime during out of competition training, or for an immediate boost (eg homologous blood transfusions) it should be fairly easy to come off them. If you want out then just do it in the off season, claim an illness/injury or other 'taking some time to come back' event.

..d

[Frenchie]

Maybe this explains why the French riders have appeared off the radars for a while. The so-called diagonal testing demanded by the French governing bodies has been in place for a while now, following the Festina affair. I hope this is one good reason, amongst others I am sure, and that one day these riders will have the last laugh.

[Ian H]

What was that recent study that appeared to show that placebos had nearly the same effect, and some effect even when the riders knew they were taking them.

[Frenchie]

It's grim though - you're winding down your dosage while being at risk of a positive test, when you could be still up a the front eating mountains for the same risk.

Millar got out "honorably" it seems and is still there.

[andygates]

Millar did it by taking his punishment.  He fessed up, took his lumps, and is conspiciously uber-clean now (though still hated by some).