professional cycling is too brutal

dave_1

it is too hard. e.g. footage of Fignon. No wonder his health has broken

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCRUsHho ... re=related

Kléber

It's all part of the romance and legend, this is what makes cycling the sport that it is. No stadiums, no fake turf, no half-time snacks, no time outs. It's the hardest sport going and the best too.

Think of Hinault riding into Liege. Pantani on the Galibier. Museeuw staying away from Tchmil on the way to Roubaix.

But, yes it is brutal too and at times too much. Some race organisers deliberately make their races a circus with silly climbs that no team cars can climb, or they make life harder with massive transfers.

And certainly bad weather is one thing for a TV viewer and another for the riders. The feeling of being on the start line in the rain and knowing it's snowing up ahead is a grim one.

phil s

Kléber wrote:

No stadiums, no fake turf, no half-time snacks, no time outs. It's the hardest sport going and the best too.

Too 'kin right, mate.

Noodley

Dave_1 wrote:

it is too hard. e.g. footage of Fignon. No wonder his health has broken

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCRUsHho ... re=related

The drugs might have played a part. No? :?

nick hanson

I think it unlikely that Fignon had access to anything stronger than his contemporaries.
The guy's been VERY unfortunate with his health problem,& I,for one,wish him all the best

chriskempton

What's the story behind the Fignon clip?

dave_1

Kléber wrote:

It's all part of the romance and legend, this is what makes cycling the sport that it is. No stadiums, no fake turf, no half-time snacks, no time outs. It's the hardest sport going and the best too.

Think of Hinault riding into Liege. Pantani on the Galibier. Museeuw staying away from Tchmil on the way to Roubaix.

But, yes it is brutal too and at times too much. Some race organisers deliberately make their races a circus with silly climbs that no team cars can climb, or they make life harder with massive transfers.

And certainly bad weather is one thing for a TV viewer and another for the riders. The feeling of being on the start line in the rain and knowing it's snowing up ahead is a grim one.

Maybe stage racing needs looked at, as well as mineral level/hormonal change/changes in immunity during these horrid things. Perhaps not enough is known about the impact of riding on average at 150-170 beats per minute a 100 miles a day for 3 weeks...Maybe it damages their health/internal organs in some way. Am pretty sure medical research would show the stomach is incapable of absorbing the levels of nutrients from food required to avoid malnourishment in such a demanding 3 weeks, hence syringes come into it

Kléber

An update on Fignon for anyone interested...

He's had his first chemo at the end of the Tour, "it was totally ineffective", in that it didn't reduce the cancer, it only stopped it progressing, but in this he says things are looking better. He says he's fighting the illness and undergoing more treatment and forbids the doctors from telling him he's condemned.

Noodley

Dave_1 wrote:

Maybe stage racing needs looked at, as well as mineral level/hormonal change/changes in immunity during these horrid things. Perhaps not enough is known about the impact of riding on average at 150-170 beats per minute a 100 miles a day for 3 weeks...Maybe it damages their health/internal organs in some way. Am pretty sure medical research would show the stomach is incapable of absorbing the levels of nutrients from food required to avoid malnourishment in such a demanding 3 weeks, hence syringes come into it

Maybe if drugs were not used then they would not race at these levels? That's why I made reference to the drugs....taking drugs to keep going harder faster and longer will eventually impact on your health as it permits 'artificial' performance.

redddraggon

To be fair the riders only go as fast as they want to. They could take it easier if they wanted :roll:

dave_1

Noodley wrote:

Dave_1 wrote:

Maybe stage racing needs looked at, as well as mineral level/hormonal change/changes in immunity during these horrid things. Perhaps not enough is known about the impact of riding on average at 150-170 beats per minute a 100 miles a day for 3 weeks...Maybe it damages their health/internal organs in some way. Am pretty sure medical research would show the stomach is incapable of absorbing the levels of nutrients from food required to avoid malnourishment in such a demanding 3 weeks, hence syringes come into it

Maybe if drugs were not used then they would not race at these levels? That's why I made reference to the drugs....taking drugs to keep going harder faster and longer will eventually impact on your health as it permits 'artificial' performance.

the climate and the terrain though, all weather racing and the distances day by day...surely that stuff can't be good for human health over a decade?

yakk

With you there Dave, proper medical support for riders would be great, but how to police? Difficult practicalities. Alan Peiper alluded to taking cortisol to restore normal levels. As posted above, syringes do come into it as the body cannot absorb the amount of vit B needed to restore normal levels, hence injections.
Would be great for some common sense to prevail. The history of it is all about suffering and who's body can take the most battering. Health didn't come into it. We live in hope!
Yak

top_bhoy

Lots of 'normal' people within the general population get cancer - surely hard cycling cannot be blamed on Fignons current state of health unless there are hard facts to back it up?

Maybe if the cyclists didn't take the drugs, the bodys natural defence mechanism would kick-in and stop the body from being over-stressed.

frenchfighter

Contador:

In the race, you suffer a great deal, but over all you like it, in the sense that you do it to get something you want. Your legs hurt, and you almost ask them to hurt more if that means being able to go faster.

teagar

Dave_1 wrote:

Noodley wrote:

Dave_1 wrote:

Maybe stage racing needs looked at, as well as mineral level/hormonal change/changes in immunity during these horrid things. Perhaps not enough is known about the impact of riding on average at 150-170 beats per minute a 100 miles a day for 3 weeks...Maybe it damages their health/internal organs in some way. Am pretty sure medical research would show the stomach is incapable of absorbing the levels of nutrients from food required to avoid malnourishment in such a demanding 3 weeks, hence syringes come into it

Maybe if drugs were not used then they would not race at these levels? That's why I made reference to the drugs....taking drugs to keep going harder faster and longer will eventually impact on your health as it permits 'artificial' performance.

the climate and the terrain though, all weather racing and the distances day by day...surely that stuff can't be good for human health over a decade?

Any top sport is bad for health. Not just cycling.

ridgerider

Music killed Roy Castle.

Pross

No one is forcing them into a career as a cyclist. Of course it's tough, if it wasn't we'd all be doing it. What do we want to see, pro cyclists riding flat 60 mile one day races? Can't see how Fignon's illness can be linked to cycling though.

Roscobob

Pross wrote:

No one is forcing them into a career as a cyclist. Of course it's tough, if it wasn't we'd all be doing it. What do we want to see, pro cyclists riding flat 60 mile one day races? Can't see how Fignon's illness can be linked to cycling though.

Anyone with the right (or wrong depending on how you look at it) genes can get Cancer. Pushing your body to it's limit is going to make you more suseptable (sp?) to any kind of illness though. And doping can't have helped.

NickHu

Roy Castle - what a hero

ride_whenever

The effects of what are essentially ultra-endurance events have been studied pretty extensively AFAIK, mostly looking at the guys who run several marathons back to back.

Any exercise will suppress your immune system to some extent. But these guys are all exceptional anyway. Hence these feats that shouldn't really be possible are more than possible.

Pross

Anyone with the right (or wrong depending on how you look at it) genes can get Cancer. Pushing your body to it's limit is going to make you more suseptable (sp?) to any kind of illness though. And doping can't have helped.

No need to tell me, my 6 year old is just finishing her 18 month course of chemo. There is probably a balance in pro sport (assuming no doping) as pro cyclists are incredibly fit, eat healthily and generally don't smoke or drink to excess so compensating for the additional rigours on the body.

Slow1972

And the length of stages is generally shorter than they used to be, we know more about recovery, nutrition, training etc than we ever did.

Think of the boys in the early days, didnt bother drinking much water (no bottles passed up from team cars then), nicking bottles of alcohol out of the bars along the way, just using ampetamines to mask the pain, unpaved roads, carry your own spare tyre etc etc... now that was brutal!!

Kléber

It's very hard to measure the effects. An old study suggested pro cyclists had much reduced life expectancies but that compared them to the average citizen, when the survey was from a time when many cyclists came from the fields, mines and factories and these categories already had short lives.

Short of finding lots of twins and putting one through pro cycling and the other through a normal life it's hard to measure the health effects properly.

And the heavy cycling normally lasts only a decade for most riders; yes they race hard but they also rest a lot too. A mineworker grafts for five days of the week and only gets a few weeks of paid holiday.

Doping will play its part, especially hormone abuse, from steroids to EPO. But remember that smoking 60 a day only increases your chance of cancer by a relatively small amount, it's not like you will be struck with illness, it's all about changing the probability.

Bronzie

Pross wrote:

No one is forcing them into a career as a cyclist.

Indeed, there are worse jobs.

Read somewhere this week (although for the life of me I can't find it now) about an Italian rider who has come back to racing after spending a year working in his family stonemasonry business. He commented that compared to working 12 hour days doing that, even riding mountain stages every day would seem easy.

dave_1

Do you agree that teams should use injections or not? I agree , they should have. I disagree with no needle rules as some people's health suffers otherwise

Kléber

I'd prefer a balanced diet.

But race organisers have their part to play too. ASO has realised that you can't have stages over 200km in the last week of the Tour, gone are the days of 240km mountain stages.

dave_1

Kléber wrote:

I'd prefer a balanced diet.

But race organisers have their part to play too. ASO has realised that you can't have stages over 200km in the last week of the Tour, gone are the days of 240km mountain stages.

Kleber, 3 week grand tours and "a balanced diet" will leave some of them malnourished, adding in the training needed to meet the demands of the race

dave_1

you want the brutal three week stage races and the no needles policy -balanced diet. Well...you can't have both! maybe we can cut the riders some slack?

Kléber

Not so. If you believe Garmin are clean then the likes of Wiggins, Millar and VDV aren't having problems are they. It takes organisation to get it right but it's possible. Mouncoutié managed some good rides in the Vuelta and he doesn't even take vitamin supplements.

dave_1

Kléber wrote:

Not so. If you believe Garmin are clean then the likes of Wiggins, Millar and VDV aren't having problems are they. It takes organisation to get it right but it's possible. Mouncoutié managed some good rides in the Vuelta and he doesn't even take vitamin supplements.

but with 200 riders in the race, I don't think all will get through on a balanced diet, e.g. low red blood cell count willl happen as the stomach is poor at absorbing iron, hence injections. I think the demands of the race are beyond what a balance diet can priovide, or could be

Kléber

Riders are not getting low blood counts from the lack of iron, it is fatigue that reduces RBC production. An iron pill contains far more iron than an anemic pro could ever need and the same goes for a generous slice of tuna or some venison.

No injection needed, the "more is better" Belgian soigneur method is a slippery slope.

Ferretin injections are usually only necessary in conjunction with large doses of EPO.