Slipstream

iainf72

Cyclingfansanonymous points out today that Slipstream not only have Allen Lim involved, but also Paul Scott via Agency for cycling ethics.

Paul Scott of Landis fame

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/n ... id=2846871

Does it make you go "hmmmm"?

LangerDan

P1ss off and stick with T-Mobile, Cassandra. Being sceptical about Slipstream is my gig!

iainf72

Go on Dan. What's your theory?

I have no real opinion on Slipstream. Maybe because JV doesn't have a beard.

LangerDan

There is no theory. I just believe that using (commercial) external testing bodies is analogous to having one of those speed-trap detectors. You can deal with misbehaviour before there are very major and very public consequences. A rider who is prepared to dope knows that if he manages to sneak under the radar of the teams own testing, he'll get past the official tests. If he does get caught by the team, the worst that will happen is he'll be let go - no two year ban, no fine.

I think I'd prefer a more draconian approach whereby the teams pay WADA or similar to carry out an increased number of offical tests.

Matchstick Man

iainf72 wrote:

Cyclingfansanonymous points out today that Slipstream not only have Allen Lim involved, but also Paul Scott via Agency for cycling ethics.

Paul Scott of Landis fame

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/n ... id=2846871

Does it make you go "hmmmm"?

one of the magazines last year (procycling or cycle sport) had a piece written by Vaughters about how Landis was the next Tour winner - fairly gushing piece IIRC. Showed the pair of them riding together on a PowerTap training camp ride and JV dressed up in Cyclops threads so I'm sure JV has the connections with Cyclops / Allen Lim as well as being a contemporary of Landis. Cycling is a small world. Don't SLipstream have a sponsorship deal with POwerTap?

Doom

LangerDan wrote:

A rider who is prepared to dope knows that if he manages to sneak under the radar of the teams own testing, he'll get past the official tests. If he does get caught by the team, the worst that will happen is he'll be let go - no two year ban, no fine.

I dont think thats a cycnical view i think that its about as accurate as you can get. If you review a certain pro tour team riders blood values for last season as per their internal testing set up its quite interesting to see the changes for the duration of the season especially if you plot the peaks and troughs with riders race schedules.

These team testing systems has reinforced my view that doping is systematicly organised by the team itself. I think that the multpile tour winning team of recent years established that as the best set up for ensuring all their riders hit the start line at 'best' form year in year out.

Radsman

A naive question perhaps, but isn't the point to stop people from doping? I don't really care how this is done and whether the guilty are simply kicked off teams or banned outright.

Radsman

Matchstick Man wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Cyclingfansanonymous points out today that Slipstream not only have Allen Lim involved, but also Paul Scott via Agency for cycling ethics.

Paul Scott of Landis fame

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/n ... id=2846871

Does it make you go "hmmmm"?

one of the magazines last year (procycling or cycle sport) had a piece written by Vaughters about how Landis was the next Tour winner - fairly gushing piece IIRC. Showed the pair of them riding together on a PowerTap training camp ride and JV dressed up in Cyclops threads so I'm sure JV has the connections with Cyclops / Allen Lim as well as being a contemporary of Landis. Cycling is a small world. Don't SLipstream have a sponsorship deal with POwerTap?

Vaughters was on CNN, the day of his positive, stating how he believes Landis is not guilty but will not likely get off because he will take the fall for all the bad things in cycling. I got the impression, him and Floyd were best of friends.

iainf72

LangerDan wrote:

I think I'd prefer a more draconian approach whereby the teams pay WADA or similar to carry out an increased number of offical tests.

You're advocating the T-Mobile approach?

I guess that would work if the tests weren't a pile of bottom.

Also, things like Slipstream and the CSC systems provide the data to WADA etc, no?

dave_1

I don't buy into slipstream that much when I realise they have this connection to the Floyd Landis entourage

LangerDan

iainf72 wrote:

LangerDan wrote:

I think I'd prefer a more draconian approach whereby the teams pay WADA or similar to carry out an increased number of offical tests.

You're advocating the T-Mobile approach?

I guess that would work if the tests weren't a pile of bottom.

Also, things like Slipstream and the CSC systems provide the data to WADA etc, no?

What I'm suggesting is that WADA visit the guys far more frequently than they do and carry out the normal testing - not profiling, not passports, just little bottles of blood and wee. I appreciate that the tests aren't great but I don't know how much better the teams tests will be. It is more the fact that there are severe consequences for failing rather than having to listen to Vaughters and Millar doing their best Mr. McKays "mmmm, kay, drugs are bad" speech.

In a recent interview, Anne Gripper pointed out that the UCI has to test a couple of thousand athletes. When the budget is spread around, it means that riders don't get visited as often as they should.

drenkrom

Oh, I heartily agree. No one in cycling should have any friends. Friends lead to doping. After all, it's so suspicious that Landis' friends and Vaughters' friends are the same. They only knew each other for the entirelty of their careers. If they're still talking it must be about doping! And they share a sponsor!?!?! Vaughters really should not have taken the deal from CycleOps knowing Landis would test positive two years later. Shame on him. As for hiring one of the absolute best wattage-based coaches in the world, that was a mistake! He should have hired one of the thousands of cycling coaches who have never been associated to any doper. And we all know that when someone is guilty, that makes everyone he has ever met guilty as well, right?

:roll:

This truly is getting ridiculous. Here we have the absolute most-transparent, ethical setup of any cycling team and you guys find niggles with it.So Vaughters said he though Landis was innocent. So did all actors of US cycling. I bet he's eating his words now. Besides, if all of us on here had to eat our words uttered in support of what later became proven dopers, we'd be having a feast! If you've got dirt on Allen Lim, by all means, go public! Journos have been digging for two years and found nothing. Enlighten them! As for the shared sponsor, that hardly even merits a response.

If the Slipstream setup is suspicious to you, what would you change? Make a list and write to info@slipstreamsports.com. Or become a curling fan. No doping there. Unless you consider beer to be a performance enhancing product, of course.

off the back

With regard to those team tests -The tests are carried out by an independent body and results go first to Wada and UCI. Also the teams in question with these additional tests are looking to have any positive tests count towards UCI bans and not just someone loosing their contract with the team. There is an issue with regard to longitudinal profiling - how do you get an irregular trend to be proof of doping. So work is ongoing but it is not all sorted. For all that these tests are very positive, transparent and a welcome addition!

With regard to Slipstream backroom staff. For a start it it more than likely that JV is the unnamed US Postal rider than admitted to using EPO with Frankie Andreau. This comes back to the big question what happens to riders who were in the peleton in the 90s and took drugs. Can they be advocates for drug free cycling now (Andrea, Millar, JV(?), Skibby etc). For a start the cycling world is quite different now and riders have a lot more of a choice to dope or not. I think that riders from the 90's can be part of teams going fwd even if they took drugs in the past IF there motives are genuine to clean up the sport.

With regard to Lim and Scott I would like to see JV address the concerns people have on them. Personally I do believe JV is genuine and that he wants to create a different sport to the one of the past 15years.

Anonymous

Excellent post drenkrom.
Again.

iainf72

drenkrom wrote:

This truly is getting ridiculous. Here we have the absolute most-transparent, ethical setup of any cycling team and you guys find niggles with it.So Vaughters said he though Landis was innocent. So did all actors of US cycling. I bet he's eating his words now. Besides, if all of us on here had to eat our words uttered in support of what later became proven dopers, we'd be having a feast! If you've got dirt on Allen Lim, by all means, go public! Journos have been digging for two years and found nothing. Enlighten them! As for the shared sponsor, that hardly even merits a response.

Drenkom - I believe JV has invited people to question Slipstream and their setup as part of his transparency. My question was merely "how do you feel about it"

The Lim question is an interesting one because Floyd's 'crit rose during the Tour de France, which would usually mean blood manipulation. Allen Lim was extremely close to Floyd yet didn't notice anything going on ? He also spent ages preparing for the Tour and if he was going to store some blood it probably would've been done during that period. He's a good coach and of course a team would employ him. Do you think he's as good as Michele Ferrari or Luigi Cecchini?

There's nothing wrong with questioning.

windyphil

would floyds crit have risen naturally due to his body adapting even further to the stress being placed on it by the tour? Only asking because I know my crit is high (49) from riding just 200miles commuting a week........and I'm still slow :roll:

LangerDan

off the back wrote:

With regard to those team tests -The tests are carried out by an independent body and results go first to Wada and UCI. Also the teams in question with these additional tests are looking to have any positive tests count towards UCI bans and not just someone loosing their contract with the team. .

Not quite. According to the website for the Agency for Cycling Ethics - which is not quite an independant body, just a third-party commercial operation that is presently having financial difficulties due to the costs of testing. Slipstream team management has "asked WADA to audit the results", by "receiving the results directly from the lab and use the results as research". WADA have expressed interest but has not made a decision.

In other words, WADA would act as an interested observer, but not an enforcer.

As regards having "positive tests" - there aren't any. ACE states that they do not test for banned substances - instead they establish long-term physiological profiles where sudden changes in parameters may be indicative of doping. It is unlikely to be possible for WADA to penalise a rider solely on the basis of the test data supplied by a teams own program.

DaveyL

iainf72 wrote:

drenkrom wrote:

This truly is getting ridiculous. Here we have the absolute most-transparent, ethical setup of any cycling team and you guys find niggles with it.So Vaughters said he though Landis was innocent. So did all actors of US cycling. I bet he's eating his words now. Besides, if all of us on here had to eat our words uttered in support of what later became proven dopers, we'd be having a feast! If you've got dirt on Allen Lim, by all means, go public! Journos have been digging for two years and found nothing. Enlighten them! As for the shared sponsor, that hardly even merits a response.

Drenkom - I believe JV has invited people to question Slipstream and their setup as part of his transparency. My question was merely "how do you feel about it"

The Lim question is an interesting one because Floyd's 'crit rose during the Tour de France, which would usually mean blood manipulation. Allen Lim was extremely close to Floyd yet didn't notice anything going on ? He also spent ages preparing for the Tour and if he was going to store some blood it probably would've been done during that period. He's a good coach and of course a team would employ him. Do you think he's as good as Michele Ferrari or Luigi Cecchini?

There's nothing wrong with questioning.

Really?I've never heard that before. Do you have a reference?

saisie

I agree with Drenkrom, you guys are starting to sound pathetic with your quest to find a negative in everything.

LangerDan

I really would love to be positive about this. I got far more enjoyment from watching racing when I didn't have to doubt every exceptional ride, every exploit, every "miracle". For the past decade we have been fed a steady diet of lies from riders and managers, organisers and administrators. As fans, our trust has been betrayed repeatedly. I believe that the sport may be turning a corner but I'll make my judgement on actual results, not a series of pious aspirations massaged into a press release.

iainf72

DaveyL wrote:

Really?I've never heard that before. Do you have a reference?

http://cyclingfansanonymous.blogspot.co ... ofile.html

It's sourced from his documents released for defense at his arb hearing.

phil s

Drenkrom is on the money... this is all starting to get a bit pathetic. Credit where credit is due please. A long journey starts with a single step.

LangerDan

phil s wrote:

Drenkrom is on the money... this is all starting to get a bit pathetic. Credit where credit is due please. A long journey starts with a single step.

At the moment, there is no single step - there is just some talk about walking. Slipstream haven't implemented their program in the heat of ProTour-level competition yet. We wont be able to tell whether this works for at least a year.

DaveyL

Thats because they haven't taken part in Pro-Tour level competition yet. Why don't you wait til they do before calling them out? Or tell us why their current testing programme is inadequate?

DaveyL

iainf72 wrote:

DaveyL wrote:

Really?I've never heard that before. Do you have a reference?

http://cyclingfansanonymous.blogspot.co ... ofile.html

It's sourced from his documents released for defense at his arb hearing.

There's one pre-Tour test and one in the middle of the Tour. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from that. I certainly wouldn't use two data points to draw a graph, which is what anyone who comments on what his crit did *during* the Tour is doing...