Doping brits
Comments
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From what I understand of how Wiggins rode he used a high cadence with a tortoise V hare approach (though admittedly a pretty quick tortoise). He kept his tempo fairly steady, didn't match the bursts of the attacks, but got back the ground eventually. By keeping a high cadence he kept his legs in shape but would have been pushing his lactate. That he wasn't matching the attacks could be taken either as intelligent riding or simply that he wasn't able to gasp enough oxygen for it.
That's a far cry from the well known dopers breathing through their skin at high cadence and still being able to grab the back wheel of someone blasting past in low cadence.Warning No formatter is installed for the format0 -
Biking Bernie
I understand what your saying about cadence but the fact they need fresh legs day after day would make the higher cadence a better option in grand tours.
Fair enough Obree on the track or even a one day classic when you can rest afterwards, Then smashing a big gear would be the wise option if indeed it is the most efficient.0 -
I have already said as much myself. However, it is no good saving one's legs by using lower gears when this also means that one's power at threshold is also reduced, which is the case given that a higher cadence has a higher bio-mechanical and metabolic cost than a lower one. If a group of closely matched riders are all on the limit at a crucial point during the race, say on the final climb of a mountain stage, what matters most is producing the maximal possible power.warrior4life wrote:Biking Bernie
I understand what your saying about cadence but the fact they need fresh legs day after day would make the higher cadence a better option in grand tours.
Of course, if a rider has so much aerobic 'headroom' that they can use a lower gear and still come in first, then not only won't they have to suffer like a dog in a sea of blood lactate, they will also benefit from an enhanced recovery. However, in the real world no rider has such a margin, not unless they create one by Epo use or blood doping...
A new scientific culture of high performance has been emerging in recent decades. This new approach to the sport undermines the classic Tour themes of suffering and survival and the race’s legénde, its history of remarkable feats of courage and endurance by exceptional champions. Christopher S: Thompson. The Tour de France.
Drugs have stolen the soul of cycling. Like a cancer, they've eaten it up from the inside. They're the one cancer Armstrong thinks no one should talk about. They have transformed riders and they have transformed the Tour. The French philosopher Robert Redeker best sums up the situation the sport finds itself in today: "The athletic type represented by Lance Armstrong - unlike Fausto Coppi or Jean Robic - is coming closer to Lara Croft, the virtually fabricated cyber-heroine." According to Redeker, "Cycling is becoming a video game; the onetime 'prisoners of the road' have become virtual human beings."
The riders may have freed themselves from being prisoners of the road, but today they are - to borrow the title of the Philip Gaumont's doping memoir - prisonniers du dopage. In their quest to find the perfect pharmaceutical solution to the inhumanity of the Tour de France, they have transformed themselves into something not entirely human. According to Redeker, "A huge gulf now exists between the race and the racers, who have become virtual figures, transformed into PlayStation characters while the public, the ones at the folding tables and the tents, drinking pastis and fresh rosé du pays, are still real. The type of man once promoted by the race, the people's man, born of hard toil, hardened to suffering and adept at surpassing himself, has been substituted by Robocop on wheels, someone no fan can relate to or identify with."
http://instantpunditry.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/07/
So what does he believe is behind the French anti-Armstrong mentality? "I think the way that I raced the Tour; the methodical robotic approach to racing; not showing emotion; not showing pain, suffering or ease. It's not a popular style of racing in France.
"To them, panache is the guy who suffers swinging all over his bike looking like he is about to fall off. I never found that to be an effective way to try and win.
http://www.bikeradar.com/feature/articl ... ong-19202/0 -
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BikingBernie wrote:
Drugs have stolen the soul of cycling. Like a cancer, they've eaten it up from the inside. They're the one cancer Armstrong thinks no one should talk about. They have transformed riders and they have transformed the Tour. The French philosopher Robert Redeker best sums up the situation the sport finds itself in today: "The athletic type represented by Lance Armstrong - unlike Fausto Coppi or Jean Robic - is coming closer to Lara Croft, the virtually fabricated cyber-heroine." According to Redeker, "Cycling is becoming a video game; the onetime 'prisoners of the road' have become virtual human beings."
The riders may have freed themselves from being prisoners of the road, but today they are - to borrow the title of the Philip Gaumont's doping memoir - prisonniers du dopage. In their quest to find the perfect pharmaceutical solution to the inhumanity of the Tour de France, they have transformed themselves into something not entirely human. According to Redeker, "A huge gulf now exists between the race and the racers, who have become virtual figures, transformed into PlayStation characters while the public, the ones at the folding tables and the tents, drinking pastis and fresh rosé du pays, are still real. The type of man once promoted by the race, the people's man, born of hard toil, hardened to suffering and adept at surpassing himself, has been substituted by Robocop on wheels, someone no fan can relate to or identify with."
Yea, caus before Lance came along, no one took drugs :roll:
The fact is, whether doping or clean, if you want to win the mental battle against your opponents, looking like your out for a Sunday club run whilst you are suffering is important and actually, many cancer sufferers did identify with Lance, in some small way, and found him inspirational.
Ullrich had a lower cadence than armstrong, are we saying that makes him clean. Because that's stupid!You live and learn. At any rate, you live0 -
Ulrich never failed a test (other than for recreational drugs).0
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Perhaps he was just less doped than Armstrong...Jez mon wrote:Ullrich had a lower cadence than armstrong, are we saying that makes him clean. Because that's stupid!
Cyclevaughters: once I went to CA and saw that now all the teams got 25 injections every day
Cyclevaughters: hell, CA was ZERO
FDREU: you mean all the riders
Cyclevaughters: Credit Agricole
FDREU: it's crazy
Cyclevaughters: So, I realized lance was full of shit when he'd say everyone was doing it
FDREU: You may read stuff that i say to radio or press, praising the Tour and lance but it's just playing the game
Cyclevaughters: believe me, as carzy as it sounds - Moreau was on nothing. Hct of 39%
FDREU: when in 2000-2001
Cyclevaughters: so, that's when you start thinking... hell, kevin was telling me that after 2000 Ullrich never raced over 42%--- yeah moreau in 2000-2001
Cyclevaughters: anyhow - whtever
FDREU: After 1999, you know many things changed. lance did not
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/landis ... ssage.html0 -
Hardly, but Armstrong took doping to a whole new level of 'professionalism', which is why a Tour no-hoper like him was transformed into a multiple 'winner'.Jez mon wrote:before Lance came along, no one took drugs
And the way he both used and deceived such people is the most sickening thing about the whole Armstrong story...Jez mon wrote:...many cancer sufferers did identify with Lance, in some small way, and found him inspirational.0 -
A few questions for you BB
Do you actually have any data relating to Wiggins cadence?
Is your arguement regarding high cadence = doping based on the fact that economy/efficiency are greater at lower cadences?
Have you actually looked at any peer-reviewed research? a few journal articles that go against your beliefs are listed below
Have you ever heard of the chewbacca defence? You seem to take a similar approach to supporting your arguements posting largely irrelevant info
http://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Abstract/2004/06000/In_Professional_Road_Cyclists,_Low_Pedaling.19.aspx
LUCIA, A**., A. F. SAN JUAN, M. MONTILLA, S. CAÑETE, A. SANTALLA, C. EARNEST, and M. PÉREZ. In Professional Road Cyclists, Low Pedaling Cadences Are Less Efficient. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 36, No. 6, pp. 1048-1054, 2004.
In professional road cyclists riding at high PO, GE/economy improves at increasing pedaling cadences
**Lucia does alot of research with spanish cyclists, may not be the best source of information to support this arguement
http://www.ismj.com/pages/311417173/ISMJ/journals/articles/Vol.10-No.1-2009/optimal-cadence-selection-during-cycling.asp
muscle activation of gastrocnemius lateralis and biceps femoris has been shown to increase at faster pedal rates 45, 47, 71. It is thought that such increases in muscle activation allow for a greater delivery of forces during the downstroke and reduced negative forces during the upstroke of the cycle pattern
a low cadence (i.e. high force; 50rpm) resulted in significantly greater Type II muscle glycogen depletion compared with a higher pedal rate (100rpm).
The most economical cadence appears to be extremely low (~50-60rpm) when cycling at low power outputs (?W), but increases to approximately 80-100rpm with increasing workloads (~350W)
at lower cadences, greater force per pedal stroke is required to maintain a given power output, which requires additional muscle fibre recruitment and thus a higher energy expenditure
increases in cardiac output observed at higher cadences were not solely due to elevated oxygen demands. Instead the authors suggested that the higher cardiac output could have been due to the enhanced effectiveness of the skeletal muscle pump resulting from the faster cadences
higher cadences might also reduce the period of blood flow occlusion that occurs in the microvessels of skeletal muscle during cycling - higher cadences could improve oxygen delivery to working muscles by limiting blood flow occlusion
Based on previous research, it would appear that muscle force and neuromuscular fatigue might be reduced, and cycling power output maximised, with relatively high pedal rates (100-120rpm). However, such high pedal rates increase the metabolic cost of cycling, especially at low power outputs (≤ 200W). As a result, short duration sprint cycling performance might be optimised with the adoption of fast pedal rates (~120rpm). Due to the influence that fast pedal rates have been shown to impart on cycling mechanics, cycling efficiency and fatigue development, performance in longer duration events might be enhanced from use of slightly slower cadences (~90-100rpm).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1435159
We conclude that uphill cycling is more economical at a high versus a low cadence.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10541922
gross efficiency increased with elevated work rates although gross efficiency was inversley related to cadence (this bit supports your arguement), however the influence of cadence on gross efficiency reduced as a linear function of intensity, while delta efficiency (more valid measure than gross efficiency) was seen to increase with cadences between 60 and 120rpm, authors conclude that this may explain preferred cadence of pro cyclists between 90 and 105 rpm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8933490
optimal pedalling frequency increases as a function of intensity, both trained cyclists and untrained individuals showed greater endurance (e.g. cycled for longer at the given intensity) at 80 rpm compared to 50 rpm
Your belief that cycling is more economical at lower cadences may be true at very low power outputs <150 watts, but when cycling uphill at 450+ watts higher cadences a far more beneficial due to increased efficiency, reduced blood flow occlusion, gretaer venous return (increasing cardiac output), reduced neuromuscular fatigue, reduced negative forces on the upstroke, reduced perception of effort and reduced glycogen depletion
The choice of a cyclist to use a high cadence has nothing to do with doping.0 -
BikingBernie wrote:
Perhaps he was just less doped than Armstrong...Jez mon wrote:Ullrich had a lower cadence than armstrong, are we saying that makes him clean. Because that's stupid!
Cyclevaughters: once I went to CA and saw that now all the teams got 25 injections every day
Cyclevaughters: hell, CA was ZERO
FDREU: you mean all the riders
Cyclevaughters: Credit Agricole
FDREU: it's crazy
Cyclevaughters: So, I realized lance was full of shoot when he'd say everyone was doing it
FDREU: You may read stuff that i say to radio or press, praising the Tour and lance but it's just playing the game
Cyclevaughters: believe me, as carzy as it sounds - Moreau was on nothing. Hct of 39%
FDREU: when in 2000-2001
Cyclevaughters: so, that's when you start thinking... hell, kevin was telling me that after 2000 Ullrich never raced over 42%--- yeah moreau in 2000-2001
Cyclevaughters: anyhow - whtever
FDREU: After 1999, you know many things changed. lance did not
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/landis ... ssage.html
Is this IM conversation now gospel truth then?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it later proven that Ullrich had been using the service of Dr Fuentes? Maybe that was the secret of Fuentes' success, it was only partial doping.0 -
Wow, scientific proof that all those millions of cyclists who find that they automatically drop their cadence when climbing are doing it wrong. If only someone had told Ullrich, and all those other pros who use a ‘low’ cadence when climbing, that all they need to do in order to go faster is put it in a smaller gear! Perhaps testers should also go ‘old school’ and start riding 76 inch fixed again.jp1985 wrote:Have you actually looked at any peer-reviewed research? a few journal articles that go against your beliefs are listed below
Seriously though, no one is arguing that a ‘low’ cadence is a panacea. For above threshold efforts, as with many track events, higher cadences are the best approach. There is also a complex interplay of factors which means that a really low cadence of say 50 Rpm or less and a high cadence of 100 Rpm plus might well both be less efficient than a cadence of 80 Rpm or so. There is also the issue of perceived exertion, with studies showing that riders often select a higher cadence not because this maximises their efficiency, but because it simply ‘feels’ easier, which has a lot to do with the number of fast-twitch fibres that are being recruited.
Anyhow, in reality those studies you quote support, rather than undermine, what I have said. For example:
http://www.ismj.com/pages/311417173/ISM ... ycling.asp
Quote: "During ultra-endurance cycling (i.e. >4h), performance might be improved through the use of a relatively low cadence (70-90rpm), since lower cadences have been shown to improve cycling economy and lower energy demands."
Sounds much like what I have said in relation to riding a mountain stage of the Tour.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10541922
Quote: "Exercise intensities were administered in random order, separated by rest periods of 3-5 min; four pedalling frequencies (60, 80, 100 and 120 rpm) were randomly tested per intensity. The oxygen cost of cycling was always lower when the exercise was performed at 60 rpm."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1435159
In this study their low cadence condition was 41 Rpm, which is very low, and their ‘high cadence’ condition was 84 Rpm, which, going by what I have read is close to the optimal climbing cadence for most riders. It is certainly a lot less then the 100-105 Rpm I have read that Armstrong tended to use. Perhaps we should again mark that paper down as actually supporting what I have said!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8933490
Mmm. a study using just 12 collage-age riders, and comparing cadences of 50 and 80 Rpm. As such this is hardly a study that sheds much light on the benefits or otherwise of pro cyclists riding at threshold at a ‘low’ 80 Rpm and 100 Rpm plus respectively!
http://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Abstr ... ng.19.aspx
This one used a rather high power loading 366 watts plus or minus 37 watts, for 6 minute at a time. Hardly comparable to riding at threshold for a long period in a mountain stage of the Tour. It could be this level of intensity was above threshold for all or some of the riders, and in such cases using a higher cadence is often the best approach, as is best exemplified by Kilo riders and sprinters. This study does seem to support what I have said about perceived exertion being less at a higher cadence.0 -
Perhaps some people are just more willing to risk their life and health than others are. Not every rider is prepared to take things to the extreme that people like 'Mr 60%' Riis and Armstrong were. (From what Prentice Steffen, the ex USP team doctor, told L'Equipe it may well be presumed that Armstrong normally started a key stage of the Tour with a haemocrit level of around 58%). It could also be that not every rider in the Tour was prepared to have blood transfused in and out on an almost daily basis in order to cheat the controls and to avoid dying of heart failure in the middle of the night.andyp wrote:Is this IM conversation now gospel truth then?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it later proven that Ullrich had been using the service of Dr Fuentes? Maybe that was the secret of Fuentes' success, it was only partial doping.
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/landis ... ssage.html
Cyclevaughters: yeah, it's very complex how the avoid all the controls now, but it's not any new drug or anything, just the resources and planning to pull of a well devised plan
Cyclevaughters: it's why they all got dropped on stage 9 - no refill yet - then on the rest day - boom 800ml of packed cells
FDREU: they have it mastered. good point
Cyclevaughters: they draw the blood right after the dauphine
FDREU: how do they sneak it in, or keep it until needed
FDREU: i'm sure it's not with the truck in the frig
Cyclevaughters: motorcycle - refridgerated panniers
L'EQUIPE
October 6, 2005, page 12.
English translation of "Ce qui s'est passe sur le Tour 2005".
Prentice Steffen, the ex-doctor for US Postal let go at the end of 1996 for not wanting to respond to the doping trend, reveals the new practices of the peloton.
L'EQUIPE:
Who told you?
STEFFEN:
Someone in the heart of a team that I can't name. Before going to the start of the Tour, the riders of certain teams, during their training camps, took EPO (which disappears from the urine within three days, even 12 hours when small doses are used) and took their hematocrits up to around 60. Then a doctor withdraws their blood, saving it in special containers, to lower their blood parameters into the accepted range (50) so that they pass without difficulty the medical controls before the Tour. Then, as the teams well know, during the race the vampires (2) can arrive any day but always between 7 and 8 in the morning. After that time, there is no more testing and the riders were able to reinject their own blood. They were racing the stage with an enormous advantage- their hemotrocrit in the 55 to 58 range during the race- then in the evening at the hotel, someone again withdraws their blood so that they sleep without risk (3) and, especially, they escape the possible tests the next morning.
L'EQUIPE:
This practice was used every evening during the three weeks of the Tour?
STEFFEN:
No, just for important stages in the mountains or maybe for a time trial. It's so simple to do and there's no risk of being caught unless the police intervene. The blood was shuttled by motorcycle in a refrigerated compartment...0 -
Simon E wrote:
Yep, right and wrong. Quite simple if someone has bothered to explain the difference to you. I find the law is also a handy guide picking the right one too, I don't fancy a stretch in prison or a few months wandering around town in a 'Community Payback' hi-viz vest.P_Tucker wrote:Ah, black and white land. Life is so easy there.
The excuses about grey areas are like the ones drivers use to justify driving in a selfish and dangerous manner, putting others' lives at risk ("I haven't killed anyone. Yet"); that drug smugglers and arms traders use and it's what government ministers like to say when fiddling their expenses.
Riders DO have options. From some of the posts here it's surprising that anyone manages to make a living from manual work or chooses a job without a cushy 'career ladder' to climb and a smart German car or two on the driveway to massage the ego.
Doping (cheating) is wrong. And FFS it's nothing like a powermeter :roll:
The problem with right and wrong is that both positions depend entirely on your point of view. There is no objective right and wrong; anyone who thinks so is quite frankly a bit thick.0 -
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