Donkeys to racehorces. The effect of PEDs on cycling performance

[fatsprintking]

I've been a competitive athlete for almost my entire life and a professional cyclist for the last few, and I can tell you that I've never in my life seen a rider make a dramatic change in training behaviors and performance in their late 20's. What, he just suddenly decided to start training correctly when he was almost 30 years old? He wasn't training hard before that? I'm sorry, but that's nonsensical. In the entire history of the TDF, can you point to another rider with a meteoric rise from career domestic with practically no results to a Tour winner?

.

The situation with Riis is a little more complicated. There was a great article I had years ago which laid it all out in detail, but from memory - He spent a lot of his early career racing at a weight of around 80kg. He won the tour at a weight of 69kg. I will try and find some pictures of what he looked a few years before he won the tour and what he looked like on the podium, but it is pretty dramatic.

He certainly did change his training once he started working with Checchini, and Checchini was quoted at the time of his win in saying that he did not believe that Riis could win the tour as he did not believe that he could get his weight down to an acceptable level. He said that one of his proudest moments was looking at how skinny Riis was on the podium, and the efforts that it had taken to attain that weight. Riis stated that pre Checchini he just went out and rode.

My feeling is that Riis was a good responder to epo, but also that he took the weight loss side of things to an extreme and was good at it. Just his weight loss alone was going to create a substantial change in his climbing and power to weight, but my feeling is that this combined with a change in training approach and pushing epo to the extreme that he had a window of stellar form.

The fact that he could not maintain this for any length makes sense. I reckon he was at a higher weight the year after he won. Anyway he was a donkey, but it was not just the epo that changed him.

 

[Cavalier]

Of course I have seen the studies, I worked on two and I was also a subject in both.

That's multiple times now I've read you claiming some form of expertise, when everything you're posting is based upon little else than supposition, with little in the way of evidence or statistical theory to defend what you're saying. You need to either back it up with numbers, or prove your professional qualification - because at the moment everything you're posting is based upon "I've seen it" and nothing you've posted has been based upon actual evidence of the ability level of the riders you're trying to impart knowledge about.

 

[python]

this is one of those subjects where there is a wealth of scientific and technical information to back or disprove almost any SOUND opinion. the reason being that despite the multitude of good studies there are too many variables that affect performance and thus too many grey areas…

when it comes to studying effects of doping on elite level performance we don’t really have much reliable and objective information. don’t get me wrong, we know some but far from enough to achieve a consensus. even when only scientists are left in the room…we still don't even agree on what constitutes elite talent and how to measure it..

we could get some place - that is, compare them objectively - if the elite dopers released COMPLETE details of their inborn physiology along with the exact details of doping regiments. for understandable reasons, the dopers and their docs avoid peer reviewed publications.

we need their maximum oxygen uptake CHANGES from youth to adulthood. we need their watt per kilo CHANGES during the season,. We need their efficiency/economy CHANGES both off-season and in peak form. we need to know ALL of that WITH and WITHOUT doping and we need it for a representative sample of elite dopers. that we need their hematological data and hormonal profiles too goes without saying…

i’ve been in the elite sports both as a student and a participant for many years. i also know some about the doping history, practice and detection. what i am trying to say is that i've come across SOME of the required data - some incredibly interesting and valuable data - but NEVER have i seen a sufficient set to answer the OP’s question conclusively and objectively.

all i’ve concluded after many years is that hormonal doping DEFINITELY changed the level playing field.

broadly speaking, for example, we know that the top level pros exhibit about 7 w/kilo (give or take) at vo2 max. some of them also demonstrate remarkable mechanical efficiency changes with training and passing years, however, to put it into a scientifically sound conclusion about donkeys and thoroughbreds, one needs to do better, much better, than ed coyle did with armstrong.

 

[peterst6906]

... however, to put it into a scientifically sound conclusion about donkeys and thoroughbreds, one needs to do better...

From reading his posts, I think this is at the heart of what Krebs has been trying to get at, across a few threads.

It's difficult, based on the scientific data that we do know about the general population of elite endurance athletes and lack of data about specific athletes, to draw any absolute conclusions about riders like LA, Riis, Indurain or any others.

I think Krebs picked up on the view of several people that LA, Riis and Indurain in particular would have been little more than bottle carriers/domestiques/Cat 1 amateurs/donkeys/Non GT winners without doping and has tried to put across an argument that this absolute position is not reasonable.

Of course, I may be wrong on that and there may be other reasons.

However, the clinic is not a place where scientific arguments have anymore credibility than emotional arguments, because this is the internet and no-one wins the internet.

 

[Frosty]

Ideally there should be some good examples from people who have tested positive for EPO and then come back racing clean. Obviously this involves a huge number of assumptions - motivation level before and after, among other things, as well as the obvious one of whether they are racing clean or not. This makes it difficult to draw any conclusions.

Guys like Sella and di Luca both got done and seem to have dropped down in level quite a bit to me. Still getting good results but not on the same level. Basso won the Giro 2010 but that was not like his 2006 effort and i certainly can't see him coming anywhere near 2nd in a 50km TT. Think Dave Millar in his book talked about the effect EPO had on him although i cant remember what they were word for word now.

Be interesting to see how Thomas Frei gets on with his return, bit difficult to compare his results with his ones pre-suspension as he was 25 when he tested.

Then again Scarponi seems to have got better since his return.

 

[Von Mises]

What is known, the pure grimpeurs, went backwards relative to the peloton, in the past 20 years.

Are you sure about it? Lemond, Hinault, Fignon, Merckx were not featherweights either?

 

[fatsprintking]

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The interview link below is interesting from 1997 - I just post it to show that it is easy to oversimplify the situation with epo and that Riis was also one of the first road riders to really embrace training with power and understanding weight. He was lucky, but he made the most of it. The article says he was 76kg, but in another interview I saw at the time he said that he would be about 4kg above this for much of the early season as he put on both fat and muscle over the winter.

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/results/archives/may97/8_5.html

 

[Aapjes]

It's difficult, based on the scientific data that we do know about the general population of elite endurance athletes and lack of data about specific athletes, to draw any absolute conclusions about riders like LA, Riis, Indurain or any others.

The only way to get really good scientific data would be a randomized controlled trial among actual pro athletes, in real races. Something that is obviously impossible to do.

However, that doesn't mean that there isn't evidence that can be debated, even though it will always be merely indicative.

I think Krebs picked up on the view of several people that LA, Riis and Indurain in particular would have been little more than bottle carriers/domestiques/Cat 1 amateurs/donkeys/Non GT winners without doping and has tried to put across an argument that this absolute position is not reasonable.

I think there is reasonably strong scientific evidence that doping benefits different people by different amounts. So in a perfect world without doping, race results will then be different from the results in a fully doped race.

At a certain performance, a rider is a GT contender (let's say, top 10 in GT ability of the participating riders). With the changed race results due to a different response to doping, that top 10 can certainly be different in a fully doped race, assuming that doping makes a serious difference. So if the definition of donkey is a non-GT contender, while a GT contender is a racehorse, then there is pretty strong evidence that doping can turn one into another, if only at the fringes of those groups.

But if there is a gap between the definition of a donkey and racehorse, then the question becomes a lot more difficult. Let's say that top-3 is a racehorse and outside top-20 is a donkey. Then the question is whether a super responder with doping can bridge that gap, which is very dependent on the field of riders. How many are doping and to what extent? How many good and super responders are there ahead of him? What is the actual difference of a super-responder vs a good responder vs a average responder vs a poor responder. Furthermore, many riders at lower placing don't ride ride for the GC. Their placing doesn't reflect their GC ability.

 

[taiwan]

Be interesting to see how Thomas Frei gets on with his return, bit difficult to compare his results with his ones pre-suspension as he was 25 when he tested.

Just got 2nd in Swiss TT champs. Too few results to go by though.

 

[Elagabalus]

The interview link below is interesting from 1997 - I just post it to show that it is easy to oversimplify the situation with epo and that Riis was also one of the first road riders to really embrace training with power and understanding weight. He was lucky, but he made the most of it. The article says he was 76kg, but in another interview I saw at the time he said that he would be about 4kg above this for much of the early season as he put on both fat and muscle over the winter.

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/results/archives/may97/8_5.html

I thought this prequel review of Riis' book (from the building a cycling bookshelf thread) was fairly evenhanded wrt Riis (even if, in the end, he's still compared to a donkey).

http://cyclismas.com/2012/05/riishomon-a-heros-tale-part-1/

Although I'm assuming the reviewer is just using info gleaned from Riis' book so it's going to be very pro Riis.

From reading his posts, I think this is at the heart of what Krebs has been trying to get at, across a few threads.

It's difficult, based on the scientific data that we do know about the general population of elite endurance athletes and lack of data about specific athletes, to draw any absolute conclusions about riders like LA, Riis, Indurain or any others.

I think Krebs picked up on the view of several people that LA, Riis and Indurain in particular would have been little more than bottle carriers/domestiques/Cat 1 amateurs/donkeys/Non GT winners without doping and has tried to put across an argument that this absolute position is not reasonable....

That's my view as well. I think some on here are very reluctant to give any rider any credit at all.

 

[happychappy]

/8_5.html[/url]

6'2" ? Looks built like Magnus Backstedt, a lot more bodyfat too by the looks of his face.

 

[Merckx index]

I tend to agree with Krebs on this issue, but…as others have noted, we lack all the data we need to make firm conclusions. For a long time I have wished that elite riders who decide to retire would volunteer for a study like this. Though if a rider is no longer racing he doesn’t have the motivation to train the way he did when he was competing, I think a study of recently retired riders who trained even a little would be helpful. Ricco, this is your chance for a big contribution!

That said, we are in a better position to discuss this issue as it pertains to current riders than to riders of the past. Because the passport program has probably reduced the amount to which riders can manipulate their blood values. Probably 3-4 points in hematocrit is about the limit. We can estimate how much more oxygen carried this translates to, and from this estimate the power increase.

Also note that blood transfusion reduces the effect of different responders. People may respond differently to the same dose of EPO, but everyone responds (initially) exactly the same way to a given dose of blood. That is, the number of cells added is the same, which means the increase in oxygen carrying capacity is the same. The main difference in response occurs at the level at which oxygen is transformed to power. There is sure to be individual variability here, but at least it is not complicated by variability in number of red cells synthesized by EPO. So in principle we can at least reduce the range of possible performance benefits compared to what was possible during the 90s, when it was all about EPO. I think this is an unrecognized factor in the peloton today. Not only does the passport program probably reduce the amount of performance enhancement possible, but to the extent that riders transfuse rather than use EPO, it also reduces the variability in response. Even when EPO is used instead of transfusion, it is micro-dosed, with amounts probably adjusted with the passport in mind.

Finally, though, even if we had all the data it was scientifically possible to obtain, there would still be some uncertainties in translating it to race conditions. E.g., the SoS article noted that an EPO study found an average of 12-13% increase in power, but a 50% increase in time to exhaustion at 80% power. We could say the same thing about some dose of transfused blood. How much time does that 50% increase mean in a mountain stage? I don’t think anyone can say. We can say that a certain increase in power results in a certain decrease in time up a steep climb, but trying to gauge parameters like time to exhaustion is much trickier. When you add the factor of recovering stage to stage throughout a GT it becomes even more complicated.

 

[function]

And, MOST IMPORTANTLY

-the difference between a professional donkey and a racehorse isn't that dramatic, roughly 5-7% of sustainable power. Take any non-sprinter in the pro peloton and give him a 5-7% increase in threshold power and you have a guy who can win the tour.

Ok, so if you took a decent all-rounder with an 5.5W/kg FTP, and gave them 7%, that would only yield 5.9W/kg. I don't think that's enough to win the tour.

 

[rhubroma]

I move this to the appropriate thread.
I don't think Armstrong was a donkey, just that he clearly benefited in an extraordinary way from the pharmacological products.

One point to remember is that doping also has a "therapeutic" aspect (in the Italian lexicon this is emphatically clear, curarsi, literally to "take care of oneself" from the verb curare , to cure (a disease) or look after yourself in the sense of helping the body heal, recover, feel healthy, etc. In fact an Italian cyclist doesn't go to his doctor to "dope," but to "look after himself" and "be cared for": curarsi. Here one encounters a physiological justification of doping, as an enshrined therapeutic precept. Indeed Fuentes said as much in his own defense, that he was not harming the athletes who sought his services, but actually taking care of their health. Ferrari et all would have felt the same way. The brutality of cycling at the professional level, according to them, requires such treatments, in order to replenish and maintain the rider's diminished bio-levels inflicted upon the body by the exhausting and agonizing training and racing regiment, during which the body is pushed to physiological extremes. So argues the doping specialists.

Given this philosophy, it is easy to comprehend how many a rider who may have gone into a doping program with uneasiness of mind and a guilty conscience, is easily persuaded by the medical experts that in fact what he does is not only ethically unproblematic, but even vital to his good health!

In this justification framework it is easy to see also how the market takes over in establishing the value and costs of treatment, and a corporate mentality establishes a kind of managerial hierarchy, for which the CEO rider/s with the highest salary, in being monitored, assisted and treated by the best medic, collects the biggest year end bonus. For Lance that was 7 straight Tour de France's. Furthermore, he himself said his Tours weren't won during the race but all the discipline and rigor and quantity-quality miles he put into his training regime before the event. Having the best doping program out there, the Texan gave himself the possibility to train the way he did, in ruthless and maniacal fashion to become the sport's premier workout demon: although it would have otherwise been impossible to recuperate without Ferrari's expertise, methods and "help." Thus probably, and I'm sure he thought this to be the case at the time, Ferrari allowed Lance to literally out-train his rivals. Armstrong's entire mission was to make himself invincible and he rather did for 7 years. Bruyneel in an interview said as much, recalling how Lance's pre-game power output and resistance, which they had trained and built up to perfection on the Ferrari system, meant that he had fair certainty that without bad luck, crash or illness, Armstrong was a shoe in at the start of the Tour for overall victory. Now some of this was certainly willpower, some physiology, but the part that put him beyond the others (hence the critical one), wasn't these two, but Ferrari's incomparable methods. He simply bought that, though, for which his achievement, if not his entire credibility, becomes extinguished: for herein lies the fraud. It wasn't a level playing field, this is the greatest myth to dispel at once. He played the dirty game better through money and stacking the odds in his favor, which is noteworthy but certainly not admirable, while taking his fans and all of cycling for a ride.

I don't think consequently Ulrich, or any of his other rivals, had that quality of a program, and thus couldn't match Lance in the preparation phase and so couldn't match him on the roads of France in July either. That's how he won I believe. They were all on solid programs and trying to learn Lance's little secrets, and making headway (like Basso especially till he got popped), but without a Ferrari (or the natural class of a Contador, who also doped of course), they remained slightly off the back.

It was a remarkable achievement. Too bad it was all fabricated on a fraud, a fraud, not because the others were clean riders, but because Lance used the power of sheer bucks to buy his superiority and in the process made a mockery of fair-play even among the dopers. Then he intimidated and bullied Lemond and anybody who called him to task on it. Which is naturally reprehensible.

 

[131313]

Even then, that would only make him on par (which I suppose you could argue allowed him to win once). Now take that even further to what LA achieved. 7 wins in a row? Not possible.

I thought you didn't want to talk about Lance? Hmm.... it seems like you have an agenda here (and BTW, I mostly agree with you regarding Lance's ability).

How is possible then that you are forgetting that elite endurance athletes tend to mature over a period of many years? He was domestique for Fignon for several seasons and once he became a leader in his own right it still took him 3yr of high placing finishes before winning. If it is possible to achieve that 12% increase in sustainable power in a couple of months of doping and he didn't change his training behaviours according to you, then why did it take him 4yrs?

Yes, he lost some weight. I imagine drugs had a lot to do with that as well, both losing the weight and maintaining a functioning endocrine system at an artificially-low amount of body fat.

Show me one single Tour champion who made the sort of progression that Riis made pre-EPO era. Just one. Sure guys made a progression, but nothing even *remotely* close.

 

[JPM London]

this is one of those subjects where there is a wealth of scientific and technical information to back or disprove almost any SOUND opinion. the reason being that despite the multitude of good studies there are too many variables that affect performance and thus too many grey areas…

when it comes to studying effects of doping on elite level performance we don’t really have much reliable and objective information. don’t get me wrong, we know some but far from enough to achieve a consensus. even when only scientists are left in the room…we still don't even agree on what constitutes elite talent and how to measure it..

we could get some place - that is, compare them objectively - if the elite dopers released COMPLETE details of their inborn physiology along with the exact details of doping regiments. for understandable reasons, the dopers and their docs avoid peer reviewed publications.

we need their maximum oxygen uptake CHANGES from youth to adulthood. we need their watt per kilo CHANGES during the season,. We need their efficiency/economy CHANGES both off-season and in peak form. we need to know ALL of that WITH and WITHOUT doping and we need it for a representative sample of elite dopers. that we need their hematological data and hormonal profiles too goes without saying…

i’ve been in the elite sports both as a student and a participant for many years. i also know some about the doping history, practice and detection. what i am trying to say is that i've come across SOME of the required data - some incredibly interesting and valuable data - but NEVER have i seen a sufficient set to answer the OP’s question conclusively and objectively.

all i’ve concluded after many years is that hormonal doping DEFINITELY changed the level playing field.

broadly speaking, for example, we know that the top level pros exhibit about 7 w/kilo (give or take) at vo2 max. some of them also demonstrate remarkable mechanical efficiency changes with training and passing years, however, to put it into a scientifically sound conclusion about donkeys and thoroughbreds, one needs to do better, much better, than ed coyle did with armstrong.

Probably the best post in the thread so far...

FWIW I really don't like the "donkey-thoroughbred" classification to begin with. That in itself is skewing facts. We are already talking about the upper percentiles of people when it comes to riding a bike fast for long distances.

I guess if we were to talk in a meaningful way donkeys/race horses we would be looking at making the average Joe (the donkey) into a pro-tour rider (thoroughbred). Pro-riders moving up is not donkeys-to-racehorses, it's just race horse to contender/winner. A donkey would never have made it to become Fignon's preferred domestique and a donkey would never have won the Worlds and for the third of the riders mainly mentioned in the thread; Indurain's power numbers for at least the first Tour aren't incredible at all.

YES - there's no doubt as Python puts it that hormonal doping changed things, but they were still all race horses to begin with. As Riis said when asked if he ever experienced any side effects "I rode a lot faster". But, still, he won his first race at age 6 competing against far older kids - that's not a donkey. A donkey would never-ever in a million years get anywhere near the top level - at least not on dope alone. As others have pointed out there were many reasons to the rise of eg Riis. Many of them were unrelated to doping, but doping did play a role as well - as it did for any rider going up since the early nineties until {insert own choice of year} when cycling became clean enough for clean athletes to compete.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

<snipped for brevity>

The debate is whether or not an average level pro-cyclist, the so called "donkey", can simply bypass more naturally gifted pro-level cyclists, the "thoroughbreds", whom are also doping. Furthermore, how gifted does one really need to be in order to win clean?

Discuss

As JPM said above, I believe classing any rider as a donkey skews your question.

Average level Pro simply bypass gifted Pros who are also doping.
The answer for me would be yes. But it would not be simple and dependent on many other factors.

Answer the question about probabilities and the ergogenic effects of EPO then. How is it possible that Bjarne Riis could have had an EPO response so far beyond anyone else and why did everyone else respond so poorly at that time?

An alternative explanation is that Riis was never a donkey, but simply that he didn't train and prepare properly until later in his career.

Training and overall preparation make a huge difference to performance. Well beyond anything that can ever be achieved by doping alone. Why must we always invoke doping as the only or main explanation?

Obviously training and preparation is fundamental to any athletes career - but the reason doping is looked as the main explanation is because it compliments training and perpetration.

As for Riis, I would never call any Pro (even a doped one) a donkey - but Riis is certainly a rider who transformed himself the most (even more than the subtle subject of this thread).
But Riis was a rouler - a diesel engine who could ride a hard tempo all day (until the road went up) - a breed of cyclist that almost disappeared from the peloton.
While that is not entirely down to doping, Riis's rise from rouler to Tour winner was through doping.

 

[GJB123]

People need to let go of the donkey to racehorse-metaphor. People who used that (and I am one of them) use that as a hyperbole. It is not meant to depict the truth, it is meant to make a point. The point being that non GT-contenders were transformed into GT-winners (and some of them no less than 7 times ) through the use of large scale doping.

I am not under the illusion that if you give me enough doping I could be transformed into a GT-contender nor do I believe that any pro rider can be transformed into a GT-contender solely by the use of doping. It still takes a lot of hard work, effort and training (which you can do more of if you dope) to get to a GT-winning level. It is just that without the doping but with the hard work I firmly believe the subjects of our discussion would not have won any GT's.

Regards
GJ

 

[andy1234]

People need to let go of the donkey to racehorse-metaphor. People who used that (and I am one of them) use that as a hyperbole. It is not meant to depict the truth, it is meant to make a point. The point being that non GT-contenders were transformed into GT-winners (and some of them no less than 7 times ) through the use of large scale doping.

I am not under the illusion that if you give me enough doping I could be transformed into a GT-contender nor do I believe that any pro rider can be transformed into a GT-contender solely by the use of doping. It still takes a lot of hard work, effort and training (which you can do more of if you dope) to get to a GT-winning level. It is just that without the doping but with the hard work I firmly believe the subjects of our discussion would not have won any GT's.

Regards
GJ

I'm sure you won't be the only poster to back pedal on this.
Donkey to Racehorse is hardly an ambiguous statement

You may well have use it as hyperbole, but I'm not sure the same can be said of other posters.

 

[Mongol_Waaijer]

Was it Kohl who said that there are some pro riders who wouldn't be good enough to even turn pro without dope? Jacsche?

Kimmage had a little dig at Riis in Rough Ride saying he didn't appear to be of pro quality at the start of his career.

People need to let go of the donkey to racehorse-metaphor. People who used that (and I am one of them) use that as a hyperbole. It is not meant to depict the truth, it is meant to make a point. The point being that non GT-contenders were transformed into GT-winners (and some of them no less than 7 times ) through the use of large scale doping.

I am not under the illusion that if you give me enough doping I could be transformed into a GT-contender nor do I believe that any pro rider can be transformed into a GT-contender solely by the use of doping. It still takes a lot of hard work, effort and training (which you can do more of if you dope) to get to a GT-winning level. It is just that without the doping but with the hard work I firmly believe the subjects of our discussion would not have won any GT's.

Regards
GJ

 

[Dr. Maserati]

I'm sure you won't be the only poster to back pedal on this.
Donkey to Racehorse is hardly an ambiguous statement

You may well have use it as hyperbole, but I'm not sure the same can be said of other posters.

Then why not ask them? The list of names is on the other thread - do they think Armstrong was an 'average' rider, let them explain their reasons.

 

[silverrocket]

Maybe it's more like doping turning donkeys into faster donkeys, and slow racehorses into faster ones. Some of those horses simply got "more faster" than others, and so doping simply rearranged the hierarchy to the advantage of some (eg. Riis, who had big jumps and got to the top) and to the disadvantage of others (insert your own examples of riders who were almost certainly doping, but still falling down through the rankings).

 

[hiero2]

Respected and esteemed members of the clinic, I decided to start a thread on this topic so as not to derail other threads with the debate.
. . .
The debate is whether or not an average level pro-cyclist, the so called "donkey", can simply bypass more naturally gifted pro-level cyclists, the "thoroughbreds", whom are also doping. Furthermore, how gifted does one really need to be in order to win clean?

. . .
To include all of the population suggests that it's generally not possible to turn donkeys into thoroughbreds, however there is always the potential that a very, very small number of riders who are the outliers in their response to dope, are able to gain a much greater advantage because they are genetically/behaviourally disposed to respond better.

It's very difficult to know who those outliers are because, for someone to reach the pro-peleton on the basis of PED response, they would have to start with doping very, very early (as a young teenager), otherwise they will have already established themselves as an elite athlete (which is also outlier in terms of the total population) (My emphasis: hiero).

The likelihood that someone is an outlier twice (ie. elite athlete who then has an elite response to PEDs) is exceedingly small, though if the population being studied is large enough, they must exist.

So is it possible? Not for the average rider, but there must be a very, very small number of people for whom it is possible.

For the World Tour, the rider's are already the elite of the elite by being there in the first place. To win at that level clean or doped requires a lot of natural talent to begin with.

My belief is that doping only changes relative positions throughout the entire peloton. . . .

IMO PEDs do not elevate donkeys to racehorses ie: someone outside of the top 30 does not become a podium placer and especially not a multiple winner, because this implies that all of the racehorses, ie: all of the riders inside the top 20, must respond poorly and that one donkey must respond with a magnitude greater than seen in any published study on the ergogenic effects of EPO which is a highly unlikely statistical probability.

When I say you can't turn a donkey into a racehorse - I mean a donkey, not other racehorses. I don't think anybody who can make it into the pro peloton is a donkey. Just as you won't find any donkeys on the track at Pimlico. As peterst6906 points out - for someone less gifted (a donkey) it would take years of applying oneself to a doping regime to even compete at the pro level.

As for whether someone outside the "top 30" can change that status, as far as I am concerned there is no discussion. We KNOW, from history, that dopers can and did change their performances to such a degree. I am referring to the early 90's, when EPO was new, undetectable, and admitted to by teams and riders. Shortly after that, we "know" less - because the topic became taboo. But I will guess, as most other here do, I think, that the peloton was shortly after that a race between dopers, so the differences were again leveled, and the quality of your program became very important. Today I fail to find the news coverage that I remember from the 90s, but it existed. It is like 1998, when Mark McGwire admitted he used androstenedione. A few years later you could not find that quote, and McGwire didn't seem to recall it either. You CAN find it today in online archives, but as recently as 2005 that research effort would have netted you a big zero.

Even though the American press didn't cover the bicycle racing stuff - so I can't find references that I believe exist. But, I can find other people discussing the events. I found references to to two of the races I was thinking about, "the team podium sweeps of the ’94 Fleche Wallonne (Gewiss-Ballan) and the ’96 Paris-Roubaix (Mapie-GB)" here:
http://redkiteprayer.com/tag/mapei-gb/

On the other hand, the question of how good does a rider who is clean have to be, to beat a doper? That same blog post gives us something interesting - something that I was otherwise not aware of: "LeMond’s last-minute win at the 1990 Tour de France because the guy he beat—Claudio Chiappucci—was on EPO. " If indeed, Chiappucci was on EPO, then we have a good idea of how good somebody had to be to win clean. On the third hand - you, dear reader, might be among those who think Lemond doped. <sigh>

 

[andy1234]

Then why not ask them? The list of names is on the other thread - do they think Armstrong was an 'average' rider, let them explain their reasons.

A partial list of names is indeed on the other thread. If they and the others want to join the conversation, the door is open.

Maybe we could also create a new definition of donkey? Apparently donkey now means a non GT contender, rather than just an ordinary rider.

It doesn't leave much scope for defining everybody else beneath that level though

 

[DirtyWorks]

I am referring to group data on the physiological characteristics of pro-level cyclists and also group data on studies of the effects of EPO on performance.

You are back to vague references of poorly documented doping episodes and then you want to somehow get very specific conclusions.

Unless more riders stand up and do a Landis, it's a fruitless discussion. Even then, Landis hedged his confession, so the data still isn't great.