Is it time for minimum weights?

[Fatclimber]

What is this!?!?! What could possibly be wrong with sporting a pound or two extra!?!

About 10-20 seconds slower on Alpe d'Huez

Dawggie Dawg looks like a real animal whilst flexing those massive tendons

 

[Microchip]

About 10-20 seconds slower on Alpe d'Huez

Dawggie Dawg looks like a real animal whilst flexing those massive tendons

What has them sooo small?? A liquid diet??

It just doesn’t look healthy.

 

[mewmewmew13]

it is getting very freaky...I don't remember even a couple of years ago looking that skeletal!

Froome is scary skinny...didn't recognize him in older pics.
ick...tendon-y arms look like they might snap..recalling beef jerky there.

Same with Tejay..yikes! If you look at older photos he had some meat on him..not much, but when you compare to this year's ToC it is startling.

 

[Microchip]

it is getting very freaky...I don't remember even a couple of years ago looking that skeletal!

Froome is scary skinny...didn't recognize him in older pics.
ick...tendon-y arms look like they might snap..recalling beef jerky there.

Same with Tejay..yikes! If you look at older photos he had some meat on him..not much, but when you compare to this year's ToC it is startling.

My Uncle would say “He’s so skinny I looked in vain at the ground for a shadow."

 

[mewmewmew13]

There was one podium shot of Tejay this year that is just like Froome arms...tiny little T-rex things..

 

[Microchip]

There was one podium shot of Tejay this year that is just like Froome arms...tiny little T-rex things..

 

[mewmewmew13]

gheez! and he even has some extra covering on them

He is certainly not the only one...those arms of many in the peloton have really struck me this year especially

 

[BroDeal]

It looks like Tim Kerrison has been giving the team too much dope meant for swimmers. Froome is growing flippers.

 

[jw1979]

Have y'all forgotten about Michael Rasmussen so soon? I'm not so sure how to post a picture, but maybe someone could put up a good one of him. It's not like emaciated is new to land-based endurance sport.

Who knows, maybe they are using substances that are being designed by the pharmaceutical companies for obesity, diabetes, etc., or maybe they are just finding that eating disorders work really well, if only for a very short period of time.

 

[hfer07]

To the OP:

Just not possible. Cycling is ultimately ruled by power-to-weight-ratio & all teams nowadays are in fact inclined & fully supporting that approach to the sport-even if is an unhealthy habit. Apart from that- how can be ever established a "weight limit" for small size riders such Rujano or Pozzo? because actually they are well balanced for their height-the problems lies on the current 1.75 + high riders weighing 62 kilos or less-that's where the "anorexic" aspect is exposed & yet no damn muscle mass found to "support" their prowess-not only in the mountains but on the TTing for fvcks sake.........

overall- such benchmark will never be set, when we well know what's really behind the weigh lose obsession & the all almighty "N.U.M.B.E.R.S"......

 

[BroDeal]

Have y'all forgotten about Michael Rasmussen so soon? I'm not so sure how to post a picture, but maybe someone could put up a good one of him. It's not like emaciated is new to land-based endurance sport.

Uh-oh. Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop using eye bleach.

 

[Afrank]

Have y'all forgotten about Michael Rasmussen so soon? I'm not so sure how to post a picture, but maybe someone could put up a good one of him. It's not like emaciated is new to land-based endurance sport.

Who knows, maybe they are using substances that are being designed by the pharmaceutical companies for obesity, diabetes, etc., or maybe they are just finding that eating disorders work really well, if only for a very short period of time.

I don't think anyone wants to subject everyone to having to look at the horror that is Rasmussen.

A minimum weight is of course, frankly, a pretty dumb and impossible idea IMO. But...if it would spare us from having to look at images of cyclists as sickly thin as Rasmussen...

 

[Fatclimber]

What has them sooo small?? A liquid diet??

It just doesn’t look healthy.

Lol! Nothing will make a man feel more masculine than those words.

I agree, it is not healthy looking but these guys are 100% about performance. If they were concerned about looks they would have picked a different trade.

 

[rikdewy]

And this is what I believe enCYCLOpedia was driving at. Things that shed the weight that could border on affecting the health of the riders.

It's pretty evident that Froome et al are on 'something', whether it be legal or not, and they've got to the stage of being unhealthy in any physicians eyes.

I think the OP is onto something. I'm sure some sort of (BMI) formula could be concocted to keep the peloton healthy. There would be no weight penalty necessary, they'd just take a little less GW1516 or AICAR or .....

Surely the extra, lets say, kilo of mass they'd have to put on would give them some more power too.

 

[enCYCLOpedia]

I would see minimum weight (bmi) similar to maximum hematocrit: we don't know how riders get to be this emaciated, but we can be reasonably certain that, for most, the process is detrimental to their health.

Just like maximum hematocrit, any such measure (whether based on absolute weight, bmi, body fat or a combination) will of course be crude and perhaps unfair to some true freaks of nature (remember Mäntyranta? He would not be allowed to race today). In the absence of specific tests, it also won't completely eliminate the use of proteine kinease stimulants and other substances. Still, like maximum hematocrit, it will prevent the most unhealthy excesses, which is in the interest of all riders (and most fans and sponsors, too).

 

[horsinabout]

What I find interesting is looking at this from an historical perspective.

Circa 80's the riders were built more like sprinters, with low % body fat but very muscled i.e. ripped. Not to romanticise the past but how did they climb so well being built like sprinters?



Now the polar opposite is happening. Visible Low muscle mass and body fat combination.

Same question, how on earth do they still climb the mountains so fast, being so emaciated. Where do they get their power?

I find the comparison and contrast between the past and now the most interesting.

Different era, different doping?



Lance Armstrong berated by the cycling community for a mass doping program on a scale never seen before, yet LA never had this body type when racing ever.



And not just Sky.

 

[horsinabout]

Another interesting comparison - Froome on GB squad when he still tucked in to a Sunday roast.



Look a little pot belly

 

[Dazed and Confused]

yea, some interesting comparisons. Must admit, things are starting to look a bit like a freak show to me. Giro this year:

Wanna reduced the household's food budget? Hook up with a GC rider.

Note: this is before the race even started.

 

[Master50]

In 1988 I went to the tour and the riders were just as lean but shorter. Riders taller tan 5'10" were standouts. There a are quite a few riders over 6' now. Maybe taller and lean just looks thinner than the past.
Anyone remember Gert Jan Tunisse? sorry for the spelling.
Even sprinters look very lean but do tend to have the shape of a more muscular person.
Pro men have avoided upper body muscularity for a very long time. their arm muscles need exercise to be bigger. We want them to be spectacular cyclists not multi sport athletes. Great cyclists have skinny upper bodies and low body fat. Only healthy is important and lean can be very healthy. Lots of evidence that well nourished but under calories people live longest.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

How heavy and how tall are these skinny riders we speak of?

Because a quick look on internet tells me 186cm and 69kg for Froome, which would be a bmi of 19.9; nothing like underweight. Wiggins at 19.3 (190cm and 69kg)

I must say though, I find it hard to believe those numbers are correct. I'm 190cm and before gaining a bit more muscle mass last few months I was always ~70kg. So that's the same numbers as Froome, Wiggins, Gesink etc. But I don't look anywhere near as skinny as those guys.

 

[DirtyWorks]

What I find interesting is looking at this from an historical perspective.

Circa 80's the riders were built more like sprinters, with low % body fat but very muscled i.e. ripped. Not to romanticise the past but how did they climb so well being built like sprinters?

If I have my era right, that's towards the end of the steroid era with EPO use at much lower levels of the sport. There was no WADA, but that hasn't changed anything. That's also the end of the featherweight, tiny, climbing specialists. EPO eliminates them.

Now the polar opposite is happening. Visible Low muscle mass and body fat combination.

Same question, how on earth do they still climb the mountains so fast, being so emaciated. Where do they get their power?

I find the comparison and contrast between the past and now the most interesting.

Different era, different doping?

For sure. There is no test for AICAR. According to the bodybuilding forums, it's one part of a very powerful combination for getting lean. The bonus is extra endurance.

There is no telling how many positives the UCI is actually sitting on with the new EPO test procedure and recent GW1516(I think) positives. They've handed out a few lower-level positives.

Lance Armstrong berated by the cycling community for a mass doping program on a scale never seen before, yet LA never had this body type when racing ever.

Haha. His body composition changed with the doping technology. That was obvious. Ohh, but the deniers demanding doping 'proof' just kept that myth going at all costs.

IMHO, an AICAR and Telmisartan somewhere in there is how those guys are getting so lean and keeping so much power for weeks longer than a 'pan y agua' athlete losing weight can possibly accomplish. That's assuming both are doing blood infusions during grand tours. This gets spectators the slower than EPO, but still impossible on 'pan y agua' results. Take the transfusions out and fall further down the placings.

Copied out of the comments to a story, I don't know the full meaning of the description. Telmisartan is an angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB). It works by blocking a substance in the body that causes blood vessels to tighten. As a result, telmisartan relaxes the blood vessels. This lowers blood pressure and increases the supply of blood and oxygen to the heart.

Some further reading suggests ACE inhibitors might be in play too. Given the amount of uncontrolled human experimentation in athletics, it wouldn't surprise me to discover later that results vary widely from really working to worse performance. I'm not a bio/chem person, and what I've read suggests conflicting data on it's effectiveness in increasing human performance.

 

[TheEnoculator]

How heavy and how tall are these skinny riders we speak of?

Because a quick look on internet tells me 186cm and 69kg for Froome, which would be a bmi of 19.9; nothing like underweight. Wiggins at 19.3 (190cm and 69kg)

I must say though, I find it hard to believe those numbers are correct. I'm 190cm and before gaining a bit more muscle mass last few months I was always ~70kg. So that's the same numbers as Froome, Wiggins, Gesink etc. But I don't look anywhere near as skinny as those guys.

I'm an amateur racer with a 8-hour desk job. I'm about 1.62m tall and 50.4 kg, so I have a BMI of 19.1 and a body fat of 5%, so I should be a better climber than Froome, but I'm not because I'm nowhere near his power.

You need to remember that those guys have lots of LEAN muscles, not just muscles. They might look like bones, but if you grab their arms, they are very hard like beef jerky, which also explain their super low body fat.

 

[vrusimov]

What I find interesting is looking at this from an historical perspective.

Circa 80's the riders were built more like sprinters, with low % body fat but very muscled i.e. ripped. Not to romanticise the past but how did they climb so well being built like sprinters?



Now the polar opposite is happening. Visible Low muscle mass and body fat combination.

Same question, how on earth do they still climb the mountains so fast, being so emaciated. Where do they get their power?

I find the comparison and contrast between the past and now the most interesting.

Different era, different doping?



Lance Armstrong berated by the cycling community for a mass doping program on a scale never seen before, yet LA never had this body type when racing ever.



And not just Sky.

In Not Normal, Hamilton is reported as having 3.8% body fat in 2000 while on EPO. I can scarcely hazard to guess what it was 3-4 years later!!

 

[DirtyWorks]

You need to remember that those guys have lots of LEAN muscles, not just muscles. They might look like bones, but if you grab their arms, they are very hard like beef jerky, which also explain their super low body fat.

If they got that skinny temporarily, I'd have a harder time arguing it's doping. But these guys are staying super skinny, and developing tremendous power for weeks longer than a clean rider could. They are way below historic climbing specialist weight and somehow retaining TT power.

In this regard, I'd cut Ryder some slack if he got as skinny as he could naturally. Because what happened to him at the Giro is what happens naturally. Going into it he had tremendous power sufficient to do a long, solo flyer at L-B-L, but it didn't last long. Some combination of getting sick and the power falling off is what happens when a rider gets "too light" for their own body to function well on no PED's. Does that mean he's not doping? I really don't know one way or the other. I wish it were true it means he's clean. But, this is Pro Cycling....

 

[Alpechraxler]

Copied out of the comments to a story, I don't know the full meaning of the description. Telmisartan is an angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB). It works by blocking a substance in the body that causes blood vessels to tighten. As a result, telmisartan relaxes the blood vessels. This lowers blood pressure and increases the supply of blood and oxygen to the heart.

Some further reading suggests ACE inhibitors might be in play too. Given the amount of uncontrolled human experimentation in athletics, it wouldn't surprise me to discover later that results vary widely from really working to worse performance. I'm not a bio/chem person, and what I've read suggests conflicting data on it's effectiveness in increasing human performance.

To hell with this stupid idea that Telmisartan might be benefical at all. It's PPAR gamma/delta activity is small and i doubt that you could even stand up from the bed without passing out because of low bloodpressure with doses that would induce a metabolic differance. To further prove my point i am way ahead of my dad performance wise who is taking it together with a masking agent...