Indurain's physiology

[issoisso]

In his book Rooks says he started doing EPO when the Gewiss train started winning all the races (Argentin, Berzin, Furlan). That would have been in '94.

From Ferrari's files we can deduce he started administering EPO to his patients in 92 (that's when the HcTs of Rominger, Bugno and so on, etc. start rising)

Certainly whoever used it before that reaped obscene wins on it...I'd just love to know who exactly.

 

[hrotha]

I'm ignorant????? ja, ja, ja, ja. Considering Berzin won Indurain in Giro 1994, and Berzin and the rest of the Gewiss was on EPO, that beautifull stage with the Mortirolo and Pantani, and maybe Indurain was o wasn't on EPO or whatever (consider Unzue's and Echavarri's parcours...), well, lets go backwards and let's periodize EPO exactly at the point of Fignon decadence (as he explains in his book, did you read it? I mean, 1991, 1992, etc.

How dare you accuse Berzin of doping? He never tested positive, you can't prove anything. He just failed a hematocrit control but as you know that wasn't proof of doping. Berzin and Gewiss were clean. Never tested positive. Right? You're not allowed to put one and one together and you should be ashamed to say that kind of stuff about Berzin.

And big Miguel was not caught, if you think Lemond and Fignon Roche and Kelly were angels in the 80's and then Bugno, Indurain, Chiapucci and Bartoli just cheaters... worst for you.

You're the only one here trying to make this about morals or whatever.

 

[issoisso]

How dare you accuse Berzin of doping? He never tested positive, you can't prove anything. He just failed a hematocrit control but as you know that wasn't proof of doping. Berzin and Gewiss were clean. Never tested positive. Right? You're not allowed to put one and one together and you should be ashamed to say that kind of stuff about Berzin.

You're the only one here trying to make this about morals or whatever.

Which gets funnier when you consider Induráin once tested positive for Salbutamol

 

[blutto]

Really, you used 2.5 kilo deep section wheels to climb Alp d'huez?

Did you even read the graphs? They referred to climbing, not TT. There was no equipment modifications during that period that could account for a 15% increase in climbing output.

...yes, I looked at those graphs but you most obviously did not read my post...really appreciate your most considerate behaviour....but hey if it walks like a duck...

...the point is that those output graphs do not take into account a lot of variables that would impact the wattage number...wind direction being one and the type of equipment used to perform the task being another...it just happens that during the period in question there were innovations in bike equipment that translated into more efficient ways of turning human power into forward momentum...

...the TT example was an example of an innovation that translated a given effort into a faster time...this is much the same as Merckx's problem with Mosers Hour Record...he was angry because for the first time in history the hour record was broken using less human input...whereas the simplistic wattage measurement you are talking about would show the Moser did more work simply because he went further...in actuality Moser didnt do more work but since the bike was more efficient he had a longer distance....

...by the way those v-sections were Wolber 20s...not whatever you were talking about...dude you really gotta lay off the sauce...it really seems to affect your thinking...

Cheers from your super special little fella friend...

blutto

 

[Race Radio]

troll babble

Let us know when you come up with a piece of equipment that gives you 15% increase in output......otherwise there is no need to keep embarrassing yourself.

 

[blutto]

Which gets funnier when you consider Induráin once tested positive for Salbutamol

...had a TUE for it?...

Cheers

blutto

 

[issoisso]

...had a TUE for it...

Cheers

blutto

No, the whole point at the time was that he DIDN'T have a TUE for it. He thought he did (or so he claimed), but he didn't.
Yet he still got away with it.

 

[blutto]

No, the whole point at the time was that he DIDN'T have a TUE for it. He thought he did (or so he claimed), but he didn't.
Yet he still got away with it.

...it may have been little more complex than that...he was tested by French authorities in France when he was on a training ride and had crossed the border...the story as I remember it (and I will apply for a Mists of Time fudging exemption here ..but if I'm still wrong I bow to your position and stand to be corrected ) was the TUE was with the Spanish authorities and it became a ****ing match between the French and the Spanish over who had jurisdiction...

Cheers

blutto

 

[issoisso]

One of many places on the internet where you might find a short description of the case:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/a-giant-in-the-saddle-profile-miguel-indurain-1588209.html

Last September, the French Cycling Federation announced that he had been tested positive after a race the previous May but it was accepted by the Union Cycliste Internationale and the International Olympic Committee that the drug concerned, salbutamol, was contained in a nasal inhaler Indurain had used to improve his respiration.

He didn't have a TUE. He was found positive, and later they accepted his excuse that it was in his inhaler and decided that he wasn't to be suspended for using an inhaler.

 

[ergmonkey]

Cheers from your super special little fella friend...

??????????

 

[blutto]

One of many places on the internet where you might find a short description of the case:





He didn't have a TUE. He was found positive, and later they accepted his excuse that it was in his inhaler and decided that he wasn't to be suspended for using an inhaler.

...thanks...that was a nice piece to read...kinda reinforced my memory of the French disdain for Indurain during that period...

...and lastly...dont mean to split hairs but the TUE may have been for his inhaler use...and not for any other means of ingestion...which is how the French tried to portray it....VeloNews did a story on this particular thing and I will have to unearth it in the next few days...this has me real curious...

...thanks again...

Cheers

blutto

 

[blutto]

??????????

...just a heartfelt expression of the warm relationship I have developed with Race Radio and his Familiar friends...

Cheers

blutto

 

[HoustonHammer]

10% is MASSIVE in professional sports and those numbers are over 10% We are not talking about weekend warriors who just discovered intervals, these are highly trained professional.

I was racing pretty much full time those years. The only thing that gave riders a 10% improvement came in a needle.

Quite true, but those graphs are meaningless without some description of what they're meant to portray. Certainly it seems to be a plot of estimated wattage, but then what? If Le Breton is right, and they're normalized figures, then your statement about a 10% edge being chemical is right. But if not, you have to consider body mass. They only common mountains in the two sets is Alpe d'Huez. Assuming a Lemond body mass of 68kg, and a Mig mass of 80kg, that wattage/kg comes to 5.5 for Lemond and 5.3 for Indurain.

 

[Race Radio]

Quite true, but those graphs are meaningless without some description of what they're meant to portray. Certainly it seems to be a plot of estimated wattage, but then what? If Le Breton is right, and they're normalized figures, then your statement about a 10% edge being chemical is right. But if not, you have to consider body mass. They only common mountains in the two sets is Alpe d'Huez. Assuming a Lemond body mass of 68kg, and a Mig mass of 80kg, that wattage/kg comes to 5.5 for Lemond and 5.3 for Indurain.

I agree. As has been the case in the past cyclismag takes rider weight into account along with grade

 

[Altitude]

Some actually believe that Indurain was clean? That's news to me

 

[scribe]

Some actually believe that Indurain was clean? That's news to me

Yes. The doping era has been neatly framed in by the Spanish giants of cycling.....Indurain and Contador.

 

[buckwheat]

...thanks...that was a nice piece to read...kinda reinforced my memory of the French disdain for Indurain during that period...

...and lastly...dont mean to split hairs but the TUE may have been for his inhaler use...and not for any other means of ingestion...which is how the French tried to portray it....VeloNews did a story on this particular thing and I will have to unearth it in the next few days...this has me real curious...

...thanks again...

Cheers

blutto

So, you're saying indurain was as pure as the driven snow?

Give it up dude. The guy owes his legendary status to **** he injected.

 

[buckwheat]

Let us know when you come up with a piece of equipment that gives you 15% increase in output......otherwise there is no need to keep embarrassing yourself.

blutto gave it to spartacus.

 

[Martin318is]

Smashing the contenders by minutes in an ITT is just as garish as blasting up a mountain.

Because visually he was a TTer, not a climber. As an example: Nobody blinks if Fabian wins a TT by a decent margin these days but if he smashed the field up a climb....

One is embarrassing for people, the other is freakish

 

[Iker_Baqueiro]

Miguel Indurain is the best cyclist ever !!! Stop with the envy.
He won 7 grand tours in 5 years. Top that Armstrong b!tch !!
Even back to back Tour and Giro in two years.

He even killed hugely Armstrong in one time trial, remember ?

Indurain is the best !!!

 

[buckwheat]

Because visually he was a TTer, not a climber. As an example: Nobody blinks if Fabian wins a TT by a decent margin these days but if he smashed the field up a climb....

One is embarrassing for people, the other is freakish

extraterrestrial?

 

[acoggan]

...thanks for bringing that article to my attention...a great read, though some of it, is as someone else pointed out, is pretty greek..

...what is especially interesting is how Indurain and his magic numbers colour discussions of his use/non-use of PED materials...in that regard I have some numbers of my own that may or may not help put some of these numbers into perspective...

...to start...I have to admit that Indurain was a fave of mine...the style, the personality were real draws...but what really fascinated me was that we shared several key physiological traits...and given that and that he raced at his level, and me at mine, left me with some questions about what really are the keys to cycling success...

...in some basic ways my physiology matched Indurain...I'm the same height and a relatively big guy with heavier musculature ( my weight playing college football was about 91 kg. and I could full squat 188 kg triples..and could do a 4.6 40 in full equipment.. )...my race weight became about 80 kg...my lung capacity was maybe a hair larger...a VO2 in the high 70s....hematocrit levels were in the high 40s...had a high pain threshold...and was blessed with a world-class coach....

...as a cyclist I was ok...I could time trial...I could sprint...and on a rouleur course I could do real well...but I was no Indurain...not by a long long long shot...

...now, granted, I did have a wicked case of asthma and seasonal allergies which would regularly destroy major parts of my season...and I never used drugs not even legal inhalers ( I had this bee in my bonnet about drugs at the time and steadfastly refused absolutely everything....though later in life when I finally started using inhalers I was blown away by the difference they made...so the Rominger story about allergy relief may have some real merit, but that is another story... )

....so I guess what I'm trying to say here is that numbers are great...and they are a great starting point for a discussion...but they are only that...

....there were, for instance, guys I rode with that had terrible numbers and they did well...some guys had off-the-scale numbers( way better than mine which on the surface were pretty good ) and did nothing but come up with good excuses (...one guy especially, that had Merckx/Indurain numbers and he sucked big time...race horse in training, donkey in races...no cojones was his accepted major malfunction.. )...

....yes we would like to have definitive proof...and numbers seem to provide that...but there may be something else in the mix that makes great ones great that is either hidden in the numbers or is simply beyond them...my wife who did her grad work in excercise physiology( specializing in test protocols) says the numbers are only an educated guess, that at best give you 75% of the answer...maybe she is right...and I mean she is right about everything else...

...thank you for your time, and patience, hope this rambling piece helped somewhat...

Cheers

blutto

1. What was your lactate threshold relative to your VO2max? Your efficiency?

2. What sort of competitive opporuntities were available to you? (In some regards, being blessed with the physiology necessary to perform well in a Grand Tour mitigates against your chances of ever racing in one.)

 

[rikdewy]

Mig was hot.

I think the 'Harlem Globetrotters' analogy to the EPO era is awesome... so true and very funny to boot!

I have two points:

I thought Mig practically admitted to using PED's.

and...

If any highly trained athlete took EPO etc they would pull similar VO2 max and resting HR. The very drugs they take warps their stat's, so surely they have to be taken with a grain of salt!!

 

[Dave_1]

I raced a lot with Eugeni Berzen and his m8 Bobrik 2 years prior to his Giro win. Berzen was a class above everyone in France that season and Bobrik had led the 1990 Tour Du Pont at just 19 years old. Proud to say i survived 600 miles and finished mid GC in the stage race to these two. what were they on ? I think they were quite good anyway...but agree they need given a very skeptical analysis now given they likely live off their ill gotten gains now.

 

[Rip:30]

...interesting graphs...but do keep in mind that those number differences, while numerically large, represent only about a 10% increase in performance..

...that could possibly be explained as a result of the better equipment that was being introduced at the time...lighter stiffer bikes were definitely a way to get up a mountain faster ( and this efficiency increase is not well mapped by wattage charts )...and better stiffer wheels really affect rolling resistance especially when weight distribution is disproportionately placed on the real wheel ( again the wattage charts dont reflect that accurately )....

...and then there are the better training regimes that began to be used at the time...the team that I was on at the time took full advantage of all of these advances and we got proportionately faster ( at least our time trial times seemed to reflect the advantages those advancements promised )...

...this is not meant to discount the possibility that PEDs were in use...and it also doesn't take into account the particular ways those races unfolded...GLs team, while good ( they were, I believe, 5th in the 89 TTT...) were nothing compared to the train that Indurain had at his disposal...

...the charts are nice but the reality they are supposed to represent is way too complicated to draw from them slam-dunk conclusions....

Cheers

blutto

...worst way to punctuate... ...sentences... ...(?)... ...did you know, that one period, used at the end of a sentence... ...is the convention...

...also... ... ridiculous argument... ...against Indurain not doping.... ...stiffer bikes... ...ya, flipping right...