Banal? I'd say inept, amateur, clueless. Plenty of posters on here could come up with a better plan. And why would you stop using needles because a UCI rule prevented it and replace it with something banned by WADA?
Sure, plenty of people could come up with a better plan, but many of these things happen without a plan, they're things that circumstances etc drag you into.
Let's be fair here: an awful lot of cycling's doping history
is amateur hour at the five and dime. Swannies keeping vials of EPO and Testosterone and Clenbuterol in the vegetable drawer of the fridge? Carrying your EPO around in a Rupert the Bear thermos? Where's the secret compartments in the heel of your shoe, where's the hidden room in the swannie's house with a fully kitted out state of the art medical room, all white and gleaming chrome? Even Dr Evil, Ferrari, he's only Mike Myers level Evil, meeting his clients in a camper van parked in a lay-by (if he
was Mike Myers you'd have a scene where doggers knock on the side of the van asking to come in and that, for me, is where
The Program went wrong, it lacked humour). What's the most sophisticated we've had, Fuentes with his Siberia fridge? But what was Fuentes if not inept, mixing up different blood bags?
If we demand that doping
look sophisticated in order to be challenged then we're going to turn a blind eye to an awful lot of doping.
(Again, for the record, in my opinion the doping part of the GMC case against Freeman is weak-assed crap but it's not weak-assed simply because what they're showing is not sophisticated enough to fit the myth of the Medal Factory.)
As for something banned by UCI/banned by WADA - devil's advocaat hat again as the GMC are making such a poor fist of their case - first, research, to see if its viable; second, an experiment to see if it's practical. (I still think the GMC case is weak-assed crap and wouldn't withstand a big bad wolf, unless the wolf was having a bit of a wheezy day, its asthma playing up.)
Arising from that, a geek question here, for those who are clued up on this topic: in 2011 there was no steroid part of the ABP so in theory you had more freedom to mess about with your T levels than, say, with your red blood cells. T has an impact on red blood cells, yes? Is that impact noticeable in the ABP's blood module? And is the effect different for injections and topical application?
(Or - in more general terms - why do cyclists use patches and gels when, as established upthread, injections are more efficient? Glow time?)