Doping hypocrisy

[Squire]

Oh, another thing I'd like to add regarding the 1999 videos looking faster, is that there was more of a tendency to film the riders from the side back then, which makes the speed look a lot higher than having the camera in front of or behind the rider(s).

 

[red_flanders]

Propa is a 6.2% (average) climb with parts up to 13.9% .There are going to be extended big ring sections where people are flying.

 

[carton]

Yes, Squire, perception is mainly, if not wholly, stylistic, but part of that style has some substance behind it. Guys paced up the climb behind a train today. Outside of Quintana, who faded, there were basically no attacks before the kite. They were sprinting all up that place back then. So while the difference in average power (even assuming no drivetrain/aero/mechanical efficeincies) might not be all that much (ain't nothing though), I would bet you that difference in normalized power was significantly higher. Which, whatever you may think of the time-trialling up climbs line, is a truer gauge of performance.

 

[Benotti69]

Dumoulin lost his inner fat....come on guys doping ended in 2006 or was 2007, '08, '09, '10....................better bikes, better diet, tailwinds, train harder than dopers, dig deeper, bigger suitcases of courage than others oh yeah and get a tattoo to say you are clean

 

[carton]

Re: Re:

If the former, is that really cleaner?

Yes, IMHO. Less octane in that rocketfuel is most likely better for riders' health.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNUwVcp5iUY

a must see!

Oh, HWMNBN on a cycling=drugs mockumentary. Lovely.

BTW, credit to Alexandre on the Pantani Oropa vid.

 

[ice&fire]

Re: Re:

Just watched this (Pantani @ Oropa, Youtube), probably for the first time in over a decade, as someone put up the link on PRR. That was stoopid. These guys were sprinting up those climbs. Literally freewheeling into hairpins, sprinting out of corners, dodging the motorbikes, like this was the freaking Poggio. It's obscene.

Whoever is thinks what we have now isn't cleaner than this is either blissfully ignorant or boldly hypocritical.

Cleaner as in less potent doping or as in more riders actually being fully clean? If the former, is that really cleaner?

Great vid anyway, thanks. Amazing speeds eh. Crazy but very entertaining. I'm not sure how much of a difference I see compared to current performances to be honest... but I have been called blissfully ignorant and boldly hypocritical before.

P'raps it puts the rampant use of motors theory in question when they were doing speeds like than in '99? Just spitballing, dunno what to make of it really. Sad seeing Pantani in full flight like that though, in context of everything that was about to happen.

Oh you have been called blissfully ignorant an boldly hypocritical before?

Let's make it n+1 times then

http://www.climbing-records.com/2014/05/speeding-up-oropa-top-30-fastest-ever.html

Dumoulin's time today is reported as 17:37. He is now ranked second of all time in that climb.

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

Just watched this (Pantani @ Oropa, Youtube), probably for the first time in over a decade, as someone put up the link on PRR. That was stoopid. These guys were sprinting up those climbs. Literally freewheeling into hairpins, sprinting out of corners, dodging the motorbikes, like this was the freaking Poggio. It's obscene.

Whoever is thinks what we have now isn't cleaner than this is either blissfully ignorant or boldly hypocritical.

Cleaner as in less potent doping or as in more riders actually being fully clean? If the former, is that really cleaner?

Great vid anyway, thanks. Amazing speeds eh. Crazy but very entertaining. I'm not sure how much of a difference I see compared to current performances to be honest... but I have been called blissfully ignorant and boldly hypocritical before.

P'raps it puts the rampant use of motors theory in question when they were doing speeds like than in '99? Just spitballing, dunno what to make of it really. Sad seeing Pantani in full flight like that though, in context of everything that was about to happen.

Oh you have been called blissfully ignorant an boldly hypocritical before?

Let's make it n+1 times then

http://www.climbing-records.com/2014/05/speeding-up-oropa-top-30-fastest-ever.html

Dumoulin's time today is reported as 17:37. He is now ranked second of all time in that climb.

Funny how certain peeps on the twitter machine are getting all pedantic over a TTers climbing time up Oropa.

Dumoulin had to be within a few % of Pantani's time never mind how many meters difference in the start or finish of the stage. A TTer coming that close to a guy who 60+% boosted his Hct and people want to argue it is not proof of doping!!!

Some of these peeps would have buried Armstrong with this time!!!

Jeebuz!

 

[Dan2016]

Re: Re:

Just watched this (Pantani @ Oropa, Youtube), probably for the first time in over a decade, as someone put up the link on PRR. That was stoopid. These guys were sprinting up those climbs. Literally freewheeling into hairpins, sprinting out of corners, dodging the motorbikes, like this was the freaking Poggio. It's obscene.

Whoever is thinks what we have now isn't cleaner than this is either blissfully ignorant or boldly hypocritical.

Cleaner as in less potent doping or as in more riders actually being fully clean? If the former, is that really cleaner?

Great vid anyway, thanks. Amazing speeds eh. Crazy but very entertaining. I'm not sure how much of a difference I see compared to current performances to be honest... but I have been called blissfully ignorant and boldly hypocritical before.

P'raps it puts the rampant use of motors theory in question when they were doing speeds like than in '99? Just spitballing, dunno what to make of it really. Sad seeing Pantani in full flight like that though, in context of everything that was about to happen.

Oh you have been called blissfully ignorant an boldly hypocritical before?

Let's make it n+1 times then

http://www.climbing-records.com/2014/05/speeding-up-oropa-top-30-fastest-ever.html

Wot's your point m8?

Do you think riders are cleaner nowadays?

 

[Dan2016]

Re: Re:

If the former, is that really cleaner?

Yes, IMHO. Less octane in that rocketfuel is most likely better for riders' health.

Fair enough. If 'cleaner' is to be defined on a health basis maybe you have a point, I'm not sure on that either way. I think of it more on the principle, and more-less high octane doping is a false contrast in that context. You're either doping or not, and the de facto norm is to dope, now as it always has been, I think.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Re:

Poor old Rebellin - Has been banned from the Giro since he tested positive at the 2008 Olympic Games - Once has to thing this is a decision from the Italian Olympic Committee.

That's because he got caught for an event representing the nation on prime time TV.
He can ride modestly but not in front of the big time national TV screens again.
If Basso had done the same he wouldn't have got to race (and win) the Giro again.
I like Rebellin, I like the way he continues.

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

Some pretty nauseating hagiography of Pantani and his Oropa performance by Rob Hatch on Eurosport a few minutes ago, with just a casual mention of his hematocrit issue later in the race at the end, like he'd returned a library book a day late.

Still more balanced than the usual fluff about Pantani. It seems that everyone wants to be a pirate.

 

[42x16ss]

Re: Re:

Just watched this (Pantani @ Oropa, Youtube), probably for the first time in over a decade, as someone put up the link on PRR. That was stoopid. These guys were sprinting up those climbs. Literally freewheeling into hairpins, sprinting out of corners, dodging the motorbikes, like this was the freaking Poggio. It's obscene.

Whoever is thinks what we have now isn't cleaner than this is either blissfully ignorant or boldly hypocritical.

Cleaner as in less potent doping or as in more riders actually being fully clean? If the former, is that really cleaner?

Great vid anyway, thanks. Amazing speeds eh. Crazy but very entertaining. I'm not sure how much of a difference I see compared to current performances to be honest... but I have been called blissfully ignorant and boldly hypocritical before.

P'raps it puts the rampant use of motors theory in question when they were doing speeds like than in '99? Just spitballing, dunno what to make of it really. Sad seeing Pantani in full flight like that though, in context of everything that was about to happen.

Oh you have been called blissfully ignorant an boldly hypocritical before?

Let's make it n+1 times then

http://www.climbing-records.com/2014/05/speeding-up-oropa-top-30-fastest-ever.html

Only 46 seconds between 3rd and 30th, on a 19 minute climb. Not much.

Just because Pantani blows everything out of the water doesn't make everyone else's times irrelevant. If anything, you could say that the 1999 times were so fast because tactics were irrelevant beyond damage control against Pantani.

This is also from 2014, not long after the Giro stage to Oropa, so no 2017 times to compare.

Edit: Here's the 2017 times

http://www.climbing-records.com/2017/05/new-top-50-oropa-closer-to-pantani.html?m=1

Might want to go back and rethink things...

 

[vedrafjord]

1. 1999: 17:04 Marco Pantani 23.55 km/h
2. 2017: 17:37 Tom Dumoulin 22.82 km/h
3. 2017: 17:40 Ilnur Zakarin 22.75 km/h
4. 2017: 17:46 Mikel Landa 22.63 km/h
5. 1999: 17:50 Laurent Jalabert 22.54 km/h
6. 2017: 17:51 Nairo Quintana 22.52 km/h
7. 1999: 18:04 Gilberto Simoni 22.25 km/h
8. 1999: 18:07 Ivan Gotti 22.19 km/h
9. 1999: 18:07 Daniel Clavero 22.19 km/h
10. 1993: 18:12 Piotr Ugrumov 22.09 km/h
11. 2007: 18:12 Leonardo Piepoli 22.09 km/h
12. 2017: 18:12 Thibaut Pinot 22.09 km/h
13. 1999: 18:13 Nicola Miceli 22.07 km/h
14. 1993: 18:16 Stephen Roche 22.01 km/h
15. 1999: 18:18 Paolo Savoldelli 21.97 km/h
16. 2017: 18:18 Adam Yates 21.97 km/h
17. 2017: 18:20 Vincenzo Nibali 21.93 km/h
18. 2017: 18:20 Franco Pellizotti 21.93 km/h
19. 1993: 18:21 Moreno Argentin 21.91 km/h
20. 1999: 18:23 Andrei Zintchenko 21.87 km/h

Viewed in isolation that's a pretty damning list, and it does give serious weight to the idea that we're in the middle of a new dirty era. Quintana's winning time from 2014 was 5% slower than Dumoulin's from yesterday. Sure the bikes are better today, but Pantani's bike from 1999 was 8kg and we're still on 6.8kg today - taking into account the weight of the rider (and their clothing/helmet/shoes) you're talking maybe a 1.5% improvement from the bike in the last 18 years.

 

[kingjr]

Re:

1. 1999: 17:04 Marco Pantani 23.55 km/h
2. 2017: 17:37 Tom Dumoulin 22.82 km/h
3. 2017: 17:40 Ilnur Zakarin 22.75 km/h
4. 2017: 17:46 Mikel Landa 22.63 km/h
5. 1999: 17:50 Laurent Jalabert 22.54 km/h
6. 2017: 17:51 Nairo Quintana 22.52 km/h
7. 1999: 18:04 Gilberto Simoni 22.25 km/h
8. 1999: 18:07 Ivan Gotti 22.19 km/h
9. 1999: 18:07 Daniel Clavero 22.19 km/h
10. 1993: 18:12 Piotr Ugrumov 22.09 km/h
11. 2007: 18:12 Leonardo Piepoli 22.09 km/h
12. 2017: 18:12 Thibaut Pinot 22.09 km/h
13. 1999: 18:13 Nicola Miceli 22.07 km/h
14. 1993: 18:16 Stephen Roche 22.01 km/h
15. 1999: 18:18 Paolo Savoldelli 21.97 km/h
16. 2017: 18:18 Adam Yates 21.97 km/h
17. 2017: 18:20 Vincenzo Nibali 21.93 km/h
18. 2017: 18:20 Franco Pellizotti 21.93 km/h
19. 1993: 18:21 Moreno Argentin 21.91 km/h
20. 1999: 18:23 Andrei Zintchenko 21.87 km/h

Viewed in isolation that's a pretty damning list, and it does give serious weight to the idea that we're in the middle of a new dirty era. Quintana's winning time from 2014 was 5% slower than Dumoulin's from yesterday. Sure the bikes are better today, but Pantani's bike from 1999 was 8kg and we're still on 6.8kg today - taking into account the weight of the rider (and their clothing/helmet/shoes) you're talking maybe a 1.5% improvement from the bike in the last 18 years.

What about the improvement in aerodynamics? One of the ESP commentators stated a couple of days ago that there was quite a big difference.

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

1. 1999: 17:04 Marco Pantani 23.55 km/h
2. 2017: 17:37 Tom Dumoulin 22.82 km/h
3. 2017: 17:40 Ilnur Zakarin 22.75 km/h
4. 2017: 17:46 Mikel Landa 22.63 km/h
5. 1999: 17:50 Laurent Jalabert 22.54 km/h
6. 2017: 17:51 Nairo Quintana 22.52 km/h
7. 1999: 18:04 Gilberto Simoni 22.25 km/h
8. 1999: 18:07 Ivan Gotti 22.19 km/h
9. 1999: 18:07 Daniel Clavero 22.19 km/h
10. 1993: 18:12 Piotr Ugrumov 22.09 km/h
11. 2007: 18:12 Leonardo Piepoli 22.09 km/h
12. 2017: 18:12 Thibaut Pinot 22.09 km/h
13. 1999: 18:13 Nicola Miceli 22.07 km/h
14. 1993: 18:16 Stephen Roche 22.01 km/h
15. 1999: 18:18 Paolo Savoldelli 21.97 km/h
16. 2017: 18:18 Adam Yates 21.97 km/h
17. 2017: 18:20 Vincenzo Nibali 21.93 km/h
18. 2017: 18:20 Franco Pellizotti 21.93 km/h
19. 1993: 18:21 Moreno Argentin 21.91 km/h
20. 1999: 18:23 Andrei Zintchenko 21.87 km/h

Viewed in isolation that's a pretty damning list, and it does give serious weight to the idea that we're in the middle of a new dirty era. Quintana's winning time from 2014 was 5% slower than Dumoulin's from yesterday. Sure the bikes are better today, but Pantani's bike from 1999 was 8kg and we're still on 6.8kg today - taking into account the weight of the rider (and their clothing/helmet/shoes) you're talking maybe a 1.5% improvement from the bike in the last 18 years.

What about the improvement in aerodynamics? One of the ESP commentators stated a couple of days ago that there was quite a big difference.

Pantani was small. Dumoulin is 185cm. Aerodynamics ????

As for commentators :lol:

 

[King Boonen]

Pretty sure aero benefits kick in around 18mph, below that the extra weight is a negative if there is any. Someone more knowledgeable may correct me but that number is in my head for some reason and that's in a wind tunnel.

 

[benzwire]

As far as equipment, the weight differences (particularly the rotating weight of the wheels) would have the most effect. Aerodynamics on this climb would probably not be too much of a factor, but not completely insignificant at around 23 km/h. As pointed out, the size of Tom D. vs Marco P. negates that.

 

[vedrafjord]

Doing 22km/h on a 7% climb you're spending the vast amount of your energy overcoming gravity and not air resistance.

In terms of the aerodynamics of climbing, very little has changed since Pantani's day either. This is because:
- the biggest contributor to how aero the rider-bike combo is the rider, not the bike, since they have a much bigger frontal area.
- riders use different bikes for climbing and sprints/flat classics/breakaways - climbing bikes might have aero forks and maybe spokes, but not deep section wheels or aero seat tube etc - light weight and stiffness are much more important.

So the difference aero advancements have made to climbing speeds in the last 20 years is essentially nil. Pantani's climbing position on the drops is probably more aero than most of the current guys.

Re: Pantani, I was doing a search for stuff about the Oropa performance and found a section from Matt Rendell's well-regarded biography that I'd heard of, but never saw the exact numbers. Laid up in hospital after his Milan-Turin crash, his haematocrit fell steadily over a number of days from 60.1 to 15.9 - anaemia bad enough to kill him - until someone smuggled EPO into the hospital and he made a miraculous recovery.

So we're talking about someone who took PEDs in such quantity that withdrawal could have easily killed him. This is why I find RCS's continuing canonisation of him so distasteful - what kind of message does it send to kids starting off in the sport to celebrate such recklessness?

 

[Benotti69]

Re:

Pretty sure aero benefits kick in around 18mph, below that the extra weight is a negative if there is any. Someone more knowledgeable may correct me but that number is in my head for some reason and that's in a wind tunnel.

Not sure how relevant wind tunnels are to the realities of the outdoors.

Great post Vredrafjord on gravity being the biggest obstacle for climbing.

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

Pretty sure aero benefits kick in around 18mph, below that the extra weight is a negative if there is any. Someone more knowledgeable may correct me but that number is in my head for some reason and that's in a wind tunnel.

Not sure how relevant wind tunnels are to the realities of the outdoors.

Great post Vredrafjord on gravity being the biggest obstacle for climbing.

That's why I mentioned it. So many of my club bang on about aero when 90% of the time they sit in someone's wheel anyway and the effect will be completely different. Aero matters on TTs, and fast solo attacks. On climbs when you're up out of the saddle and all over the bike it's probably tiny.

 

[carton]

Re: Re:

The point where aero doesn't matter is probably around the point where drafting doesn't matter, because you're not going to be able to perceive a 1% or 2% impact. The effect will be smaller, but it's still there. I can feel a draft plenty at 18kph, never mind on 25kph they were hitting on long sections. Of course, if I'm doing 18kph up a 7% climb I'm putting in an attack.

Also, the chart Fjord cited was @ 4W/kg. Most guys in the gruppeto would've done more than that up Oropa, which is 5.8%. So @ 6.5W/kg, surely over 20% of the effort on Oropa was against the air. Now, I agree that the effect on technology on climbs is, well, marginal. But the 2017 guys surely got some free seconds vs the 1999 guys all the same.

 

[King Boonen]

Drafting and aerodynamics are two very different things.

 

[red_flanders]

Wasn't the discussion about the difference in the aerodynamics of bikes between eras and on a climb like this? Absolutely minimal. As close to iIrrelevant to the discussion of whether someone is doping as possible.

 

[Netserk]

Re: Re:

The point where aero doesn't matter is probably around the point where drafting doesn't matter, because you're not going to be able to perceive a 1% or 2% impact. The effect will be smaller, but it's still there. I can feel a draft plenty at 18kph, never mind on 25kph they were hitting on long sections. Of course, if I'm doing 18kph up a 7% climb I'm putting in an attack.

Also, the chart Fjord cited was @ 4W/kg. Most guys in the gruppeto would've done more than that up Oropa, which is 5.8%. So @ 6.5W/kg, surely over 20% of the effort on Oropa was against the air. Now, I agree that the effect on technology on climbs is, well, marginal. But the 2017 guys surely got some free seconds vs the 1999 guys all the same.

No, the weight was including the bike and equipment. If bike, shoes, helmet etc. weights 8.3kg, then the W/kg for the cyclist would be 6 W/kg in the example.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

1999:

2014:

2017:

Pretty sure that that is going to be a factor in why this year's times are so much faster than 2014's. The big surprise therefore is how comparatively slow the 2007 MTT was, but then post-Puerto may be a factor in that, and I don't remember what the weather was like that day.