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Cycling thread

Bruce Wayne said:
You can see that from 2002 to 2015 the times have generally hovered around the 45 minute mark. Then Pogacar blows them out of the water and goes under 40 minutes. That's a "huge" leap. Are we seriously suggesting that tech and nutrition are enough to lop 15% off of the times of the best riders from a decade ago, many of whom have been busted for drugs? That doesn't seem likely to me.

2024:15,9 km@7,9%---39:50---average speed 23.95 km/h(Tadej Pogacar)-RECORD
2015:15,9 km@7,9%---45:30---average speed 20.97 km/h(Valverde-Froome-Quintana-Pinot-Van Garderen-Contador-Rolland-Nibali-Thomas)
---47:44---average speed 19.99 km/h(Joaquim Rodriguez)
2011:15,9 km@7,9%---46:20---average speed 20.59 km/h(Jelle Vanendert)
2007:15,9 km@7,9%---44:08---average speed 21.62 km/h(Contador-Rasmussen)
2004:15,9 km@7,9%---45:31---average speed 20.96 km/h(Armstrong-Basso)
2002:15,9 km@7,9%---45:55---average speed 20.78 km/h(Lance Armstrong)
1998:15,8 km@7,9%---43:20---average speed 21.88 km/h(Marco Pantani)
Click to expand...
Tech, nutrition, and Pog being twice as good as any rider on that list. Plus garden variety doping in all likelihood - as you said the people in UAE are unrepentant dopers and people do not really change. But micro-dosing EPO or w/e doesn't create a Pog - he is too good at too many things.

It does create a JV, mind, who is Froome mk II. GT specialist who has never won a normal bike race, no real junior career, unreal TT performances (pure power) with no background in the discipline - far more of a candidate to be pushing the envelope of PEDs.
 
Black Belt Jones said:
Tech, nutrition, and Pog being twice as good as any rider on that list. Plus garden variety doping in all likelihood - as you said the people in UAE are unrepentant dopers and people do not really change. But micro-dosing EPO or w/e doesn't create a Pog - he is too good at too many things.
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In all likelihood, it's bloodtransfusions rather than micro-dosing EPO. Helps with recuperation, is undetectable if done right and it won't show up on your bio-passport. It would explain the sustained peak in performances without loss of form or any kind of dip. Or there's something else in the game. Remco Evenepoel and Landa (having the performance of his life) are also very good.

Froome had to peak for one race, was protected and never got close to where JV or Pog are now (performance-wise). He wouldn't even beat Landa these days. It's only a feeling but I think those days were probably the cleanest of modern cycling.
 
FrenchDarrenBent said:
In all likelihood, it's bloodtransfusions rather than micro-dosing EPO. Helps with recuperation, is undetectable if done right and it won't show up on your bio-passport. It would explain the sustained peak in performances without loss of form or any kind of dip. Or there's something else in the game. Remco Evenepoel and Landa (having the performance of his life) are also very good.

Froome had to peak for one race, was protected and never got close to where JV or Pog are now (performance-wise). He wouldn't even beat Landa these days. It's only a feeling but I think those days were probably the cleanest of modern cycling.
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Blood transfusions are the oldest performance enhancing technique in the book though? It seems odd to explain performances which are insane, totally unprecedented, unbelievable etc with such a venerable technique that anyone could use (if they think they can get away with it).

There could indeed be something else in the game, like maybe lungfish haemoglobin really is the bomb and UAE own a wormfarm. But absent a compelling argument in this direction it sounds far-fetched that Pog would have some unique special sauce.
 
I found it strange that Jorgensen had a change of bike before the last climb
Then started to blast up the last climb as if he hadn’t really been making much effort up to that point. Made me think his previous bike could have been motorised to save his legs.
Watching the riders freewheeling round bends on 9% gradients is crazy.
 
EPO was synthesised in lab form in 1977 (these details are sketchy) and first used to treat anemia in 1987. In this time we had numerous athletes using anabolic steroids (think Seoul in '88). EPO was banned in the early 90's but a test was only introduced in summer 2000. Similar drugs retacrit and silapo were approved for use in the EU on 2007.
Although I have absolutely zero evidence besides the super human endurance we are witnessing in a few sports (all those gold medals in the pool in Beijing) I firmly believe another designer drug has made it out of the labs and into the hands of unscrupulous doctors that will promise the next new talent untold success and fame. The rate of discovery in the past nearly 50 years since EPO landed and the technical advances in research point to something being there.
Simply put, there is no competing clean. Every rider coughs up the same story, "I was expected to dope to be able to keep up or there was no place on the team for me". A career or a no-one. That's always the choice.
 

Black Belt Jones said:
Blood transfusions are the oldest performance enhancing technique in the book though? It seems odd to explain performances which are insane, totally unprecedented, unbelievable etc with such a venerable technique that anyone could use (if they think they can get away with it).

There could indeed be something else in the game, like maybe lungfish haemoglobin really is the bomb and UAE own a wormfarm. But absent a compelling argument in this direction it sounds far-fetched that Pog would have some unique special sauce.
Click to expand...
I just think it's very strange. I'm clutchin at straws. Maybe we're really seeing three supermen?
I can't imagine it's healthy to ride this fast though, PED or no PEDs, pushing your body to those limits.
 

FrenchDarrenBent said:
Tech and nutrition.
This is so unreal. The form and fitnesscurve doesn't apply to him
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Or the fact that guys like Bardet and Bernal are saying they're doing their best numbers ever (and Bernal is a former Tour winner), yet neither is anywhere near him (or, for that matter, Pantani). Maybe they don't eat the same stuff or ride practically identical bikes.
 
In non-drug-speculation news, I just read in The Guardian that if Jason and Laura Kenny were a country, they'd be 22nd on the all-time Olympic gold medal table 🤣

No pressure on the kids...
 

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