Bye Lance

[Peter]

Thanks, Spesh.  I've only had time to skim that last article but it is very thought-provoking.

[woollypigs]

Been reading a lot about this, head spinning, the cycling world needs a good old clean up.

Here are a few articles I found (some long)

http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2009/michael-ashenden
http://velocitynation.com/content/interviews/2011/landiskimmage
http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2009/paul-kimmage
http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2009/david-walsh
http://velocitynation.com/content/interviews/2012/behind-scenes-contador-cas-hearing-michael-ashenden

The fist one is good to explain how EPO was/is used and how you can hide it and how they test for it too.

This one does make you go hmmm about livestrong
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/athletes/lance-armstrong/Its-Not-About-the-Lab-Rats.html?page=all

[clarion]

I wonder if the Sunday Times can try to get their money back? Armstrong sued the newspaper for libel after they published extracts from David Walsh's book L. A. Confidential which implied that he doped, and it paid him an undisclosed sum of money to drop the case.

Since the Sun never got any money back from Sir Elton John which they'd paid out for shockingly suggested he was not entirely heterosexual, I doubt they'll see a penny.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

I thought Lance was considered one of the very best, regarded as a likely future GT contender, even as a young pro, pre-cancer. Is that not so?

Only the USA-ian mags looking for the next Lemond talked about LA as a Tour winner. Everybody else picked him as a future Classics king.

[Exit Stage Left]

Lance came to prominence by winning the Worlds in bad weather in Oslo in 1994. He might well not have made much impact on the 1999 Tour de France, were it not for the horrendous weather, which suited him.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

He had been groomed at Subaru-Montgomery (that sponsor showing up often, later on) and Motorola (ex-7-Eleven team) prior to the World Championships and it was as a 1-day and week-long stage racer (without much climbing) that he was tipped to perform.

It will be interesting to hear the full details about how he affected the Motorola transformation. Andy Hampsten quit because drugs became institutionalised on the team. Sean Yates was assigned as LA's minder at Motorola, teaching him how to be a good pro.

[Exit Stage Left]

I've been wondering what's going to happen to all the Fantasy Tour de France results from 1999 to 2005. What faith can we have if fantasy is not based on reality. There's going to be a lot of work to do, but I'm sure it will be worth it to clear the dopers out of our fantasies.

[De Sisti]

Big Sean Yates was assigned as LA's minder at Motorola, teaching him how to be a good pro.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Do you think Yates did a good job?

[LEE]

I was watching Stephen Roche (on The Cycling Show) and it crossed my mind what a superhuman effort it was for him to catch Delgado.

When asked about Lance, he seemed very vague and "let's just move on" about it.  Inquiries at the time seemed to point at Roche and EPO/doping but his "Triple Crown" will stand I guess. 

Which Tour Winners would we say didn't use some degree of doping?

I'll say Wiggins as a starter.  After that i wouldn't like to say (and I'm just praying Wiggins hasn't).

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Lemond was the most recent. After that, there are just varying degrees of doubtfulness or knowledge.

[mr magnolia]

Which Tour Winners would we say didn't use some degree of doping?

I'll say Wiggins as a starter.  After that i wouldn't like to say (and I'm just praying Wiggins hasn't).

I'd really be pissed if wiggo gets tainted, but there is a comment in one of the many excellent articles upthread about wiggo and fromes speeds being comparable to the 95-05 speeds...
Doesn't chime with me, and maybe I picked it up wrong, but it made me suck my teeth and think about having another spliff.

[teethgrinder]

He had been groomed at Subaru-Montgomery (that sponsor showing up often, later on) and Motorola (ex-7-Eleven team) prior to the World Championships and it was as a 1-day and week-long stage racer (without much climbing) that he was tipped to perform.

It will be interesting to hear the full details about how he affected the Motorola transformation. Andy Hampsten quit because drugs became institutionalised on the team. Sean Yates was assigned as LA's minder at Motorola, teaching him how to be a good pro.

Pre cancer Lance was a classic rider. Very aggressive. World Champion at 21. He was a triathlete before he was a cyclist so he carried a lot of muscle. Too much muscle to be a top climber, which meant he'd never win a tour. He'd probably had a better chance at the green jersey.
Cancer treatment wasted his muscle away which is why he developed a high cadence. His muscle loss made him lighter for the climbs.
Sean Yates was his mentor and taght him the finer points. He made himself very unpopular when he started out as a pro. One Italian rider eased off on a sprint finish so that he wouldn't have to share the podium with Lance, as an insult to Lance. They became friends later on.
At least, that's what it says in his book.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was Sean who taught him how to descend. Sean was The Daddy!

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Cancer treatment wasted his muscle away which is why he developed a high cadence. His muscle loss made him lighter for the climbs.

LA didn't actually get as much lighter as was suggested at the time.

The high cadence thing was because high blood levels meant that there was no lack of oxygen for big muscles, part of the reason Indurain (apart from lots of talent) could match or ride away from the best climbers of his generation. You ended up with TTers and sprinters turning themselves into climbers because lack of oxygen wasn't a factor anymore. It got too obvious when people were climbing at the front of the peloton with their mouths closed and riders were having to brake for hairpins on Alpe d'Huez.

[rogerzilla]

Lemond was the most recent. After that, there are just varying degrees of doubtfulness or knowledge.

What says to me "LeMond didn't dope" was his amazing catalogue of DNFs.  He was certainly fallible.  Also not popular with the French, who didn't think he showed enough respect to the sport (although he actually seemed to love cycling, unlike Boardman or Pendleton who just did it as a job) and probably never forgave him for beating both Hinault and Fignon into TdF second place.

I was a LeMond fan in the 1990s and saw him at Lewes in 1994, when he was way past his best.  I was waiting to see him the next day near Basingstoke, but he was already in the broom wagon.  That was prtetty much the end of his career.

[Peter]

Did he know you were waiting for him?!

[rogerzilla]

Did he know you were waiting for him?!

I think he knew Basingstoke was only 5 miles away.

[spesh]

Which Tour Winners would we say didn't use some degree of doping?

I'll say Wiggins as a starter.  After that i wouldn't like to say (and I'm just praying Wiggins hasn't).

I'd really be pissed if wiggo gets tainted, but there is a comment in one of the many excellent articles upthread about wiggo and fromes speeds being comparable to the 95-05 speeds...
Doesn't chime with me, and maybe I picked it up wrong, but it made me suck my teeth and think about having another spliff.

I've seen mention elsewhere of a French scientist claiming that Wiggins and Froome's power/weight ratios were comparable to the EPO years, but his analysis was picked apart for using poor assumptions, and comparing power outputs on shorter climbs (15-16 minutes) with EPO-boosted power on longer climbs of up to 40 minutes. It might take me a little while to find where I'd seen it, so in the meantime, I'll repost a link I'd mentioned in the 2012 TdF thread, which points to a good article on the Science of Sport blog. Apart from discussion of C***gate, the author has a look at power/weight calculations, and his analysis is that power outputs in this year's TdF are more believable than those in the EPO years.

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2012/07/tour-in-mountains-analysis-discussion.html

6.2 W/kg for a top 10, 6.5 W/kg for the lead group


So, unfortunately, we have a scarcity of top rider data, as is often the case, but we do have Jani Brajkovic's SRM file to play with.  I've taken it from the TrainingPeaks Tour analysis site, and zoomed in on the relevant section, the Les Planche des Belles Filles.

...

The climb took Brajkovic 17 minutes to complete, and he lost 46 seconds on the stage winners (16:15 for the fastest time of the day).  His power output was reported as 351W, which gives him 5.8 W/kg (remember that relative power, expressed to body weight, is crucial for climbing, and it also allows comparison to other riders).

Note that there is about a minute's worth of missing data in the file, in the first quarter.  Jani actually tweeted me himself to point this out, and obviously some technical gremlins affected the SRM.  If one attempts to "normalize" these sections, and push them up towards the range of 400W that the power was at the time, then the average power output jumps from 351W to about 375W, and the relative power output is around 6.2 W/kg.

So, in terms of what that means for Wiggins and co at the front of the stage, it predicts about 6.4 to 6.5 W/kg.  Over 16 minutes, that's not at all unreasonable.  To give you some context, calculations of climbing power output in the Tour de France in the 1990s and 2000s often estimated that top riders maintained power outputs of 6.4 to 6.5W/kg on the Tour's HC climbs, most of which take over 40 minutes to climb.  So in other words, there was an era where the best riders were maintaining similar power outputs to what we saw on Saturday, for three times the duration.  Put differently, all those riders would probably have been a minute clear of this current generation on this climb...

[Peter]

Did he know you were waiting for him?!

I think he knew Basingstoke was only 5 miles away.

Yes, I think we demand too much from our heroes!

[mattc]

Did he know you were waiting for him?!

I think he knew Basingstoke was only 5 miles away.

Yes, I think we demand too much from our heroes!

Anquetil on drugs:
He and other cyclists had to ride "through the cold, through heatwaves, through Basingstoke, in the rain and in the mountains", and they had the right to treat themselves as they wished

[citoyen]

The peloton gave themselves a second rest day on the Vuelta yesterday, generally taking it very easy and not starting to race until the final 20km. The twitterati were up in arms. "You're paid to race, so race!"

David Harmon on Eurosport responded by pointing out that they've already done a week of bloody hard racing and it's the mentality of pushing riders to breaking point that is responsible for creating a lot of the problems we've seen in cycling over the years. It's a good point. If we want riders to race clean, we need to make a few compromises.

d.

[TheLurker]

The peloton gave themselves a second rest day on the Vuelta yesterday, generally taking it very easy and not starting to race until the final 20km. The twitterati were up in arms. "You're paid to race, so race!"

David Harmon on Eurosport responded by pointing out that they've already done a week of bloody hard racing and it's the mentality of pushing riders to breaking point that is responsible for creating a lot of the problems we've seen in cycling over the years. It's a good point. If we want riders to race clean, we need to make a few compromises.

d.

Yup, and it's why I would be quite happy to see shorter Grand Tours or shorter stages on the Grand Tours.  This  year's Vuelta strikes me as being particularly brutal.

[Peter]

The peloton gave themselves a second rest day on the Vuelta yesterday, generally taking it very easy and not starting to race until the final 20km. The twitterati were up in arms. "You're paid to race, so race!"

David Harmon on Eurosport responded by pointing out that they've already done a week of bloody hard racing and it's the mentality of pushing riders to breaking point that is responsible for creating a lot of the problems we've seen in cycling over the years. It's a good point. If we want riders to race clean, we need to make a few compromises.

d.

How many of the twitterati are doing the paying?  I guess exactly none.

[David Martin]

They are racing. It is about who crosses the line first, not how hard you ride before that. The last 20k were definitely a race - 70km/h strung out. Ouch!

Lets face it, most of the twitterati couldn't even ride a grand tour, let alone do so inside the time limit.

[Karla]

I think there was once a cyclist who said something about that.

It justifies their own bone-idleness because they can't ever imagine applying themselves to do anything in their lives.

'It's easy for them to sit under a pseudonym on Twitter and write that sort of s***, rather than get off their a**** in their own lives and apply themselves and work hard at something and achieve something.