a 40% improvement??

dave_1
dave_1 Posts: 9,512
edited May 2009 in Pro race
Basso is a v interesting as an example...now clean and still very good. IMO he shows the claim of doping gives "a 40% improvement" as claimed by the likes of Aurelio to be incorrect -more like 5% IMO. And if Armstrong were doping, why is he so low now...surely by the 40% advantage he would be higher up? Good Giro, the best win
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Comments

  • donrhummy
    donrhummy Posts: 2,329
    Dave_1 wrote:
    Basso is a v interesting as an example...now clean and still very good. IMO he shows the claim of doping gives "a 40% improvement" as claimed by the likes of Aurelio to be incorrect -more like 5% IMO. And if Armstrong were doping, why is he so low now...surely by the 40% advantage he would be higher up? Good Giro, the best win

    Since you're assuming everyone is clean now, I don't see where you get such a low number of 5%. IF everyone is cleaner now, then they're all riding at reduced levels and Basso (who was destroying people before - watch his last Giro - without breaking a sweat) is now behind guys who wouldn't have been anywhere near him before.

    Seriously, watch the Giro he rode in '06 when he was "planning" to dope. Simoni, who was still in his prime and a mountain climber, looks like he's riding up a mountain while Basso looks like he's out for a sunday ride on flat ground. He's barely breathing hard and yet riding away on 14% grades like it's nothing (clean of course since he only planned to dope).
  • Kléber
    Kléber Posts: 6,842
    There's obviously no scientific test where researchers have taken two groups of riders and given one lot bread and water and the other lot get their haematocrit boosted to 60%. Indeed, some of the research on altitude training says it won't work because if your blood can carry more oxygen, it gets thicker and the research says viscous blood won't flow so well in your veins. Tell that to Bjarne Riis!

    The numbers I've seen say it takes a rider's threshold output up by 10-20%, obviously it depends on what they do and how far they are willing to push things. But it can take an above average pro and turn them into a King of the Mountain, you can go from 5W/kg to 6W/kg.
  • phil s
    phil s Posts: 1,128
    An above average pro would be well above 5w/kg
    -- Dirk Hofman Motorhomes --
  • Kléber
    Kléber Posts: 6,842
    Yes, you're right Phil S.

    I was just trying to use round numbers. It's similar to gaining 60-100 watts in absolute terms depending on your weight. That's just the immediate gain, before you look at increased muscle strength or recovery powers from other things. The enormous performance gains go a long way to explaining why so many riders do it, especially when set against the fact that so few get caught.
  • csp
    csp Posts: 777
    Doping is not the only factor in someone's performance.
  • moray_gub
    moray_gub Posts: 3,328
    donrhummy wrote:
    Seriously, watch the Giro he rode in '06 when he was "planning" to dope. Simoni, who was still in his prime and a mountain climber,

    Without arguing about Basso and his 2006 perfomance i dont think you can say Simoni was in his prime when he was 34.
    Gasping - but somehow still alive !
  • Murr X
    Murr X Posts: 258
    I seriously doubt that anyone ever got nearly as much as a 40% increase in power from doping. A good pro is well above 5W/kg clean at FTP, many good amateurs are also at 5W/kg or even slightly above.

    A 40% increase would boost a rider from 5W/kg up to 7W/kg! Now lets not forget that not even Riis or Pantani where even at 7W/kg at their best... Sastre and Evans where well below that at last years TDF (perhaps at 5.7-6W/kg, but I could be wrong).

    TBH I feel that many of those who are preaching about doping and the effects of doping on these forums really don't understand these things unlike what they may want you to believe, and where did this 30-40% increase come from anyway? Please don't tell that it was written by some Joe on a forum and so it must be true. :x

    Peace
  • aurelio_-_banned
    aurelio_-_banned Posts: 1,317
    edited May 2009
    Dave_1 wrote:
    Basso is a v interesting as an example...now clean and still very good. IMO he shows the claim of doping gives "a 40% improvement" as claimed by the likes of Aurelio to be i ncorrect
    Almost as incorrect as you claim that I ever said such a thing. :roll:

    The studies I have referred to in the past show that the use of Epo / blood doping typically gives a 5-15% improvement in threshold power, depending on the rider's physiology (a rider with a natural haemocrit level of 39% has more to gain from boosting it to 50% than one whose natural haemocrit level is 49%), how far they are prepared to push the doping envelope and so on.

    As has been pointed out, you also seem to be assuming that the performances we have seen in the Giro have been done on nothing but mineral water. I very much doubt that this is true.
  • aurelio_-_banned
    aurelio_-_banned Posts: 1,317
    edited May 2009
    Murr X wrote:
    where did this 30-40% increase come from anyway? Please don't tell that it was written by some Joe on a forum and so it must be true.
    It came from Dave_1 himself, who has just made it up in order to support his fantasy that, irrespective of doping, the most naturally talented rider will always still win. :roll:
  • aurelio_-_banned
    aurelio_-_banned Posts: 1,317
    aurelio wrote:
    ...you also seem to be assuming that the performances we have seen in the Giro have been done on nothing but mineral water. I very much doubt that this is true.
    Right on cue:

    Giro leader Menchov denies Vienna blood bank rumours

    Giro d'Italia race leader Denis Menchov denied seeking treatment at a Vienna blood bank, Humanplasma. Un-named reports associated the team Rabobank Russian with an ongoing Austrian investigation Wednesday, four days prior to the end of the Giro d'Italia.

    http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id= ... /may28news
  • dulldave
    dulldave Posts: 949
    The Giro must be clean, nobody has tested positive yet :lol:
    Scottish and British...and a bit French
  • aurelio_-_banned
    aurelio_-_banned Posts: 1,317
    dulldave wrote:
    The Giro must be clean, nobody has tested positive yet :lol:
    It was 'ceratainly' clean last year as well. :lol:
  • finchy
    finchy Posts: 6,686
    Read down on the cyclingnews.com link that Aurelio provided us with.

    The UCI official states that "The analyses of riders’ profiles, which during recent months have indicated a certain number of anomalies and confirmed the results of several traditional anti-doping controls, have now reached the final stage and will very soon allow disciplinary proceedings to be initiated."
  • Kléber
    Kléber Posts: 6,842
    johnfinch: Pat McQuaid said the same months ago:
    Mr. McQuaid would not say how many cases were being prepared or how many athletes were involved, adding that it may be one or three or six riders. He said the doping actions would begin in “the coming days and weeks.
    - New York Times, 27 February
  • don key
    don key Posts: 494
    dulldave wrote:
    The Giro must be clean, nobody has tested positive yet :lol:

    There is an argument, overwhwhelming, that Lance has pested tossitive.
  • donrhummy
    donrhummy Posts: 2,329
    OK, you really think it's only a 5-15% gain? EVERYONE needs to read this: http://outside.away.com/outside/bodywor ... est_1.html

    The biggest thing everyone's missing about how doping helps you is that, not only do you get a gain that day in your sustained power output but the next day, your body has recovered as though you never rode the day before. In the article above, the writer for Outside magazine actualy takes all the drugs himself to see what they're like and then trains and rides Paris-Brest-Paris. The next day, he said could have easily ridden the whole thing again; it was if he'd spent the day before resting. READ that article before commenting on doping and how it affects people's bodies.
  • aurelio_-_banned
    aurelio_-_banned Posts: 1,317
    donrhummy wrote:
    OK, you really think it's only a 5-15% gain? EVERYONE needs to read this: http://outside.away.com/outside/bodywor ... est_1.html
    I have read that before and see nothing in it that suggests the threshold power increases a pro cyclist can expect to get from blood doping / Epo use are greater than 5-15%.

    I also think that the Paris-Brest is probably not the best measure of the effectiveness of Epo use, given that it is a pure endurance event where having a very efficient fat-burning metabolism is the key to a good time. However, you are quite right to point out that not having to go deep into the red time after time because you are using Epo / blood doping and so on will have additional benefits in terms of recovery and so on.
  • monkey71
    monkey71 Posts: 24
    Kléber wrote:
    There's obviously no scientific test where researchers have taken two groups of riders and given one lot bread and water and the other lot get their haematocrit boosted to 60%.


    Actually there is.... The Australian Institute of Sport did one such study where there was a placebo group and a group injected with EPO, I believe the study was also used to help develop one of the first tests for EPO. The results were very interesting, if Ian is readin, in reference to a post of yours in a different topic, yes us ":Aussies" do have anti doping controls and it is far more stringent than a lot of european countries.....
  • Kléber
    Kléber Posts: 6,842
    That would be interesting if you could post the results. I know a small test was done on swimmers in Italy but the sample size was very small, but the results showed big gains with the swimmers able to take more strokes in between having to breathe.

    @donrhummy: I did allude to the help from other products but they are smaller, blood manipulation, via EPO or transfusion, surely dwarfs all other forms of doping.
  • aurelio_-_banned
    aurelio_-_banned Posts: 1,317
    Another Epo-testing related study was the paper 'Testing for recombinant human erythropoietin in urine: problems associated with current anti doping testing' done by the Copenhagen Muscle Research Centre, published in June last year.

    This study gave male university students carefully-controlled levels of Epo, and whilst the ultimate effects are likely to be less than in a pro cyclist taking larger doses, (and endurance training tends to reduce blood haemocrit due to an increase in plasma volume) the study did give an interesting insight into how variable the response to such doping can be, even in a tightly-controlled study.

    In this study aerobic capacity increased between 5.4 and 7.9%, a 32% variation. This was with an increase in blood haemocrit from an average of 43.9 plus or minus 1.8, to 48.8 plus or minus 3.5 a few days after the end of the dosing period.
  • timoid.
    timoid. Posts: 3,133
    Dave that 40% improvement figure is rubbish and Aurelio certainly has not claimed it as true.

    However at the level these guys are playing at, even a 5% improvement is huge. Its almost the exact difference between Contador (1st @ 89.56.49) and Markus Eichler (141st and last @ 94.30.20) in last year's Giro.

    In fact the top 10 were seperated by 0.2% (11 minutes).

    Which goes to show that if dope can add 1% it'll transform you. Wonder why people juice?

    Food for thought.
    It's a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired.
  • dave_1
    dave_1 Posts: 9,512
    aurelio wrote:
    Dave_1 wrote:
    Basso is a v interesting as an example...now clean and still very good. IMO he shows the claim of doping gives "a 40% improvement" as claimed by the likes of Aurelio to be i ncorrect
    Almost as incorrect as you claim that I ever said such a thing. :roll:

    The studies I have referred to in the past show that the use of Epo / blood doping typically gives a 5-15% improvement in threshold power, depending on the rider's physiology (a rider with a natural haemocrit level of 39% has more to gain from boosting it to 50% than one whose natural haemocrit level is 49%), how far they are prepared to push the doping envelope and so on.

    As has been pointed out, you also seem to be assuming that the performances we have seen in the Giro have been done on nothing but mineral water. I very much doubt that this is true.


    You have quoted Lemond's claims among the many links you post, claiming up to a 40% improvement as a result of doping...when infact Basso is in the lead group now-clean, and therefore the difference between winning and losing very small...hence you needed pulled up for your ill informed postings on here-many infact. The best guys mostly win and that's your whole case...that the races are not credible when they are infact!!!!
  • Murr X
    Murr X Posts: 258
    Timoid. wrote:
    Dave that 40% improvement figure is rubbish and Aurelio certainly has not claimed it as true.

    However at the level these guys are playing at, even a 5% improvement is huge. Its almost the exact difference between Contador (1st @ 89.56.49) and Markus Eichler (141st and last @ 94.30.20) in last year's Giro.

    In fact the top 10 were seperated by 0.2% (11 minutes).

    Which goes to show that if dope can add 1% it'll transform you. Wonder why people juice?

    Food for thought.
    Timoid, I posted this next bit on another thread last month,



    I would be highly skeptical of Charles Yesalis's knowledge on cycling as he blatanly says that a five-percent boost would have been the difference between first and 143rd in the tour... Lets not forget that the riders are huddled in the bunch most of the time and so that 5% is made during a relatively short time (ie important climbs and TTs) where the top men are putting out MUCH more power than the guys well down the field.

    Also of great importance is that a 5% increase in power does NOT mean a 5% reduction in elapsed time - increase you're power in a TT 5% and you sure as hell won't go 5% faster.

    Point is if you increase you're power output 5% you will NOT jump up from 143rd to first in the tour...

    I think a lot of you guys need to get training with a powermeter and learn about watts pronto! :lol:

    Cheers
  • Homer J
    Homer J Posts: 920
    Anyone here speak from experiance?
  • aurelio_-_banned
    aurelio_-_banned Posts: 1,317
    Dave_1 wrote:
    You have quoted Lemond's claims among the many links you post, claiming up to a 40% improvement as a result of doping...
    I have certainly quoted some things that Lemond has said, such as his comment about Armstrong having made either the greatest comeback or committing the greatest fraud in cycling. However, I don't recall ever agreeing with any claims made by Lemond to the effect that doping gives a '40% improvement'. (Presumably you mean in performance rather than something indirectly related to performance). Come to that I don't think that Lemond himself has ever used the figure '40%' when talking about the advantages of doping. Please feel free to show me otherwise.
  • aurelio_-_banned
    aurelio_-_banned Posts: 1,317
    Murr X wrote:
    Lets not forget that the riders are huddled in the bunch most of the time and so that 5% is made during a relatively short time (ie important climbs and TTs) where the top men are putting out MUCH more power than the guys well down the field.

    Also of great importance is that a 5% increase in power does NOT mean a 5% reduction in elapsed time - increase you're power in a TT 5% and you sure as hell won't go 5% faster.
    It still remains the case that a 5% increase in threshold power, even if it is only put to good use in TT's and on summit finishes, is more than enough to make the difference between being an also-ran and getting on the podium. Also, that 5% figure is something of a minimum, and 'super responders' and those with a naturally low haemocrit can expect to get a much bigger increase in threshold power.

    Also, whilst it is true what you say about a 5% increase in threshold power not equating to a 5% increase in speed in a TT (largely because air resistance rises with the square of the speed) in a relatively low-speed climbing situation an increase of 10% in threshold power can be expected to lead to a increase in climbing speed of not that much less than this.

    For example, take a look at the 2005 Alp 'd Huez mountain TT. Armstrong 'won' in 39.41, 8% slower than this would give a time of 43. 10 not even good enough for 20th place.
  • dave_1
    dave_1 Posts: 9,512
    the fact is, if Basso is clean, then look how very close he is to winning the giro...which blows away theories pedaled by aurelio about the huge gains doping give...when infact it is smaller amounts of improvement at the very highest level... the clean guy has a chance of beating the doper.....Aurelio wants to trash the Giro as a sham, the TDF as a sham....but infact the case of Basso shows Aurelio's theory is weak...
  • diarmuid
    diarmuid Posts: 73
    Dave_1 wrote:
    the fact is, if Basso is clean,

    Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. One for sure, it's no "fact"
  • dave_1
    dave_1 Posts: 9,512
    diarmuid wrote:
    Dave_1 wrote:
    the fact is, if Basso is clean,

    Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. One for sure, it's no "fact"

    if he wasn't clean he'd have been 5 or 10 minutes ahead by now...the contrast is quite big...but the difference between him and Di Luca/Menchov quite small and taking into account Basso's openess with his blood results...I am willing to believe he is clean..but accept many will doubt that. I think we can have some confidence in Basso's performance and credibility of the top 6 at the Giro.....certainly the performance of Basso blows Aurelio's theory out the water-the race is believable, clean riders can get close to winning...therefore the events are not the sham Aurelio continually dismisses them as
  • Bronzie
    Bronzie Posts: 4,927
    Dave_1 wrote:
    if he wasn't clean he'd have been 5 or 10 minutes ahead by now...
    Impossible to say that with any certainty..........maybe he's just dropped his dosage from his 2006 levels.

    That's the most annoying thing about the whole doping situation, there are very few certainties any more.