Lloydy on doping in the 70s

DaveyL

Interesting article on the bike-pure website by Dave Lloyd:

http://bikepure.org/2010/08/a-note-of-o ... ave-lloyd/

I was pretty suprised to see him mention blood transfusions in the early-mid 70s

"In those days the emphasis was on Amphetamines, Ephydrine [sic], Anabolic Steroids, Blood Doping (a la Lasse Viren) and other cocktails."

afx237vi

It's an interesting piece, and I admire the way he doesn't seem to feel bitter about spending his career surrounded by people who were doping to beat him. I'm not sure I would feel the same way in that situation.

It also dispels the myth that everyone was doping in 70s (80s... 90s... delete as appropriate). Even if 99% of the riders at any given time are doping, there is still 1% who are trying to do it correctly and getting shafted as a result. As Lloyd says: "I simply wasn’t going to succumb to the doping and I was going to do it free of drugs, or just fail." Ultimately, there must be a few young talented riders who come through the ranks each year, try to do it clean, and just fail. That is the biggest shame.

frenchfighter

Lovely colour coordination and those Boras are a nice touch.

pedro118118

I suppose so.
And written with such humility and modesty to boot...
Not averse to the use of the odd "quotation mark" either!

No_Ta_Doctor

Nasty looking climb though, somewhere in N. Wales perhaps? Vicious.

Le Commentateur

My guess is it's Bwch y Groes (the harder side of).

Splottboy

Can't tell who it is.

No sign of a name anywhere.

Nowhere at all...

Any ideas who it may actually be?

Could it be a Mr Dolan or something?

Tom Butcher

Personally I'm glad to see a rider who doesn't let age get in the way of style.

frenchfighter

Just read it in its entirety - a really great article. I like the anecdotes a lot.

timoid.

Nice guy, but a bit naive thinking doping makes no difference.

Anonymous

How great is Dave Lloyd? If I was him I'd be spouting it off at every opportunity!

colint

As Lloyd says: "I simply wasn’t going to succumb to the doping and I was going to do it free of drugs, or just fail."

Unlike Kimmage, who failed doped and clean

Good read, still a good rider Lloydy, see him around north wales quite a bit

shockedsoshocked

NapoleonD wrote:

How great is Dave Lloyd? If I was him I'd be spouting it off at every opportunity!

You wouldn't need to be him to spout off, he does quite well on his own.

From his previous musings about how much better he was than everyone in the world (especially Paul Curran), I'm going to condense this article into "I'd have won the Tour De France if they weren't all on drugs".

:roll:

Murr X

I seem to see that bikepure article in a different light to many of you.

These days Dave Lloyd is quite the salesman. It wouldn't be too far fetched to imagine that the main reason he is saying anything on that site is to increase revenue for his coaching business.

His change of mind on powermeter usage highlighted the already well known thoughts that he was more interested in making money than he was in looking out for his clients.

Perhaps what I have just said will not go down well considering that this is mainly a British forum but I am not alone in what I think of the man.

Saying that he was indeed a great rider (as he is often keen on pointing out) in my mind.


Murr X

DaveyL

Murr X wrote:

I seem to see that bikepure article in a different light to many of you.

These days Dave Lloyd is quite the salesman. It wouldn't be too far fetched to imagine that the main reason he is saying anything on that site is to increase revenue for his coaching business.

His change of mind on powermeter usage highlighted the already well known thoughts that he was more interested in making money than he was in looking out for his clients.

Perhaps what I have just said will not go down well considering that this is mainly a British forum but I am not alone in what I think of the man.

Saying that he was indeed a great rider (as he is often keen on pointing out) in my mind.


Murr X

I suspect you might not be that far off the mark, especially given the volte-face he made on powermeters, as you point out.

I still thought it was worth a read, no matter his motives, just because I suppose I haven't heard too much about what went on the 70s, at least not specifics like that.

I had certainly never heard anyone claiming that cyclists were using transfusions in the 70s. If that is true then for me it is the biggest thing in the article, by far.

moray_gub

DaveyL wrote:

Murr X wrote:

I seem to see that bikepure article in a different light to many of you.



I had certainly never heard anyone claiming that cyclists were using transfusions in the 70s. If that is true then for me it is the biggest thing in the article, by far.

Lasse Viren the Finish long distance runner who won the 5000 and 10000 in Munich 72 and Montreal Olympics of 76 was reputed to have used blood doping techniques. His form between both games was patchy which only intensified the allegations i reckon its not to big a leap to think pro cyclists were doing it as well .

+1 on the Dave Lloyd i would have the Tour if post........

BikingBernie

In 1989 there was an informative article on blood doping in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Vol 23, no. 2. called Blood doping; a literature review.

One notable point made was that until the development of blood freezing techniques (as detailed by the likes of Landis), autologous blood doping was a non-starter as far as a performance-enhancing technique, not least because the body could not make up the shortfall in red cells in the time the extracted blood remained viable. After 3 weeks of storage 30 - 40% of the red cells would be ruptured, even when the blood had been treated with anti-coagulants and preservatives. Heterologous blood doping could be effective but carries additional risks, such as a negative reaction to the transfusion. Typically, a 800- 900 ml transfusion gave an 8-11% increase in VO2 max.

DaveyL

Wasn't blood freezing technology available in the early 70s though?

Also, when withdrawing blood, you actually get a "rebound" effect after about 3-4 weeks, as the new blood cells produced "work better" to use a technical term.

Birillo

I still thought it was worth a read, no matter his motives, just because I suppose I haven't heard too much about what went on the 70s, at least not specifics like that.

Take care. There's a fair bit of revisionism going on in Lloyd's version of events eg:

"Riders were dying “suspiciously” in their sleep"

To the best of my knowledge, this refers to the period between 1987 and 1990 when (allegedly) 18 Belgian and Dutch cyclists are reported to have "died in their sleep". That was more than 10 years after he was riding as a professional.

DaveyL

Birillo wrote:

I still thought it was worth a read, no matter his motives, just because I suppose I haven't heard too much about what went on the 70s, at least not specifics like that.

Take care. There's a fair bit of revisionism going on in Lloyd's version of events eg:

"Riders were dying “suspiciously” in their sleep"

To the best of my knowledge, this refers to the period between 1987 and 1990 when (allegedly) 18 Belgian and Dutch cyclists are reported to have "died in their sleep". That was more than 10 years after he was riding as a professional.

No. He says "We had one inexplicable fatality whilst I was in the team ..." so he is referring to the appropriate time period.

Of course these claims could be checked for their veracity.

mm1

Blood doping certainly practiced by Gston Nencini, who won the 1957 Giro and died aged 50 in 1980, so its a practice that's been around for longer than some might think.

Lloydy was (and no doubt still is) a class act; try looking up his palmares.

BikingBernie

DaveyL wrote:

Wasn't blood freezing technology available in the early 70s though?

True enough, but storing frozen blood is expensive and requires proper medical management as it involves separating the red blood cells off in a centrifuge, the addition of a preservative 'antifreeze' such as glycerol, the use of a -40 degree C fast refrigeration unit for the initial freezing, dialysis in order to remove the glycerol before transfusing the blood and so on. Even today, very little blood used for medical transfusions is frozen.

RichN95.

DaveyL wrote:

No. He says "We had one inexplicable fatality whilst I was in the team ..." so he is referring to the appropriate time period.

Of course these claims could be checked for their veracity.

The rider's name was Bas Hordijk. While they were both at TI Raleigh together, they had gone their separate ways at the time of death in 1977.

cougie

First I heard about blood doping was the us cyclists at the LA games in 1984. So I guess it must have been underground for a good while before that.

Lloydy was a legend when I was a schoolie - I think he went years without getting beaten in a tt.

Percy Vera

Tom Butcher wrote:

Personally I'm glad to see a rider who doesn't let age get in the way of style.

I was thinking that too, when I used to see you out on the Chaingang!

AndyRubio

Jeez how many more of you want to suck Dave Lloyd's dick? Anyone can say "They all did it but I didn't do it" and be whiter than white, but it doesn't necessarily make it true as we've seen year after year after cotton-picking year. As one of the posters above said, he's salesman and this piece is a good opportunity to say "Be as hardcore as I was IN BELGIUM! in the 70s! and sign up to my £120 a month training programme."

Having said that the old fcker's overtaken me at warp speed so many times in sportives, he's a machine. OK where's the queue....

mididoctors

NapoleonD wrote:

How great is Dave Lloyd? If I was him I'd be spouting it off at every opportunity!

hard

squired

On the subject of blood doping, a guy i went to college with was good enough to represent Britain at a World Championships in the 110m hurdles. One time (back in something like 1990) he was telling us how it was common knowledge that one of our great middle distance runners of the late 70s and 80s was a regular blood doper. So, it wouldn't surprise me if it was something cyclists were doing.

Percy Vera

squired wrote:

On the subject of blood doping, a guy i went to college with was good enough to represent Britain at a World Championships in the 110m hurdles. One time (back in something like 1990) he was telling us how it was common knowledge that one of our great middle distance runners of the late 70s and 80s was a regular blood doper. So, it wouldn't surprise me if it was something cyclists were doing.

Yeah, I've heard that too from quite a few sources and one source being pretty close

eh

Appart from it wasn't considered doping until 1986, so it was perfectly legit prior to that and you can't critisize athletes for using it.

I thought there were stories of riders doing blood transfusions as early as the late 50s, early 60s, but I'd have to dig out references later.

pedro118118

ShockedSoShocked wrote:

NapoleonD wrote:

How great is Dave Lloyd? If I was him I'd be spouting it off at every opportunity!

You wouldn't need to be him to spout off, he does quite well on his own.

From his previous musings about how much better he was than everyone in the world (especially Paul Curran), I'm going to condense this article into "I'd have won the Tour De France if they weren't all on drugs".

:roll:

I have to say, a similar thought had crossed my mind on reading the article, although I only got half way through - the first 3 paragraphs left me with no doubt as to how great he was in the 70s.

But this article is a simple cut and paste job from one that's been in his website for ages.
You know, the website, which goes to great lengths to illustrate how great he was in the 70s and how, even now in his 60s, he has "won" all these sportives etc etc 'cos he's so great...

Of all his qualities as a bike rider (of which there a many) modesty certainly ain't one of 'em.

That all said, fair play to him, we all gotta make a living...