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Jan Ullrich

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Oct 30, 2011
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Bavarianrider said:
Wow seriously, you are turning everything your way, right:rolleyes: Ignorinring other statement completly.
At age 19 Ullrich was among the very youngest in that race by the way.

Anyay,
so who are those guys who would have won the Tour instead of Ullrich?
And what have they done at age 19 to back this up.
Who were those guys who were so much superior to Ullrich?
What did they do at age 19? Where are the quotes about them predecting their furture Tour de France glory.
I am waiting.

This just isn't a valid line of argument.

Cyclists tend not to turn professional until their early-to-mid twenties. One would not expect many future Tour winners. Carlos Sastre, for example, was born in 1975, so was 19 in 1994. Google 'Carlos Sastre 1994' and you get absolutely nothing. So one should not expect wide-spread press attention for future Tour winners when they are 19.

Even if it was normal to have identified future winners then, the line from the journalist doesn't stack up. What does winning a one-day race in non-mountainous terrain have to do with being a future Tour winner? The journalist clearly doesn't understand the principle here. If we look at the winners of the Junior World Road Race, we see a grand total of 1 future Tour winner (the great Greg LeMond) and a big fat zero in the EPO era. Winning one-day races at 19 doesn't make you a future tour winner.
 
Jan 27, 2010
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Caruut said:
This just isn't a valid line of argument.
...What does winning a one-day race in non-mountainous terrain have to do with being a future Tour winner? The journalist clearly doesn't understand the principle here. If we look at the winners of the Junior World Road Race, we see a grand total of 1 future Tour winner (the great Greg LeMond) and a big fat zero in the EPO era. Winning one-day races at 19 doesn't make you a future tour winner.

Good post.

All I can add tho is to entertain the opposite line of thought.

Winning AT 19 does NOT exclude you from winning a GT either. Just because you so promise and win at an early age does not reduce your success later does it?
 
Jan 27, 2010
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Merckx index said:
Then why don’t you invite one of them onto the forum to discuss this? I would love to hear what they have to say. Bring it on!

I’m sure they’re not going to admit to helping riders blood dope, but given that three of the main four protagonists we have been discussing here—Riis, Ulle, and LA—have now confessed and/or been sanctioned for doping, you could just ask one of these doctors how, in a dirty peloton where almost everyone had access to EPO and/or transfusions, these relatively large riders were able to climb so well. I assume these doctors must have had a theory of muscle density worked out, else why would they tell their charges to bulk up?

Let me remind everyone why, other things being equal, the best climbers tend to be small and light:



So the success at climbing of Ulle, LA and certain others does seem odd. Not impossible, but quite unlikely. We’re not talking about one outlier here, but four, who won every TDF but one over a period of fifteen years. Not just by time trialing well, but also by hanging with the competition, if not dominating it, on the climbs. I think RR and others are right to be suspicious of this.

But it's one thing to raise this issue, quite another to provide a coherent explanation for it. Your muscle density claim--as you have expressed it here-- has no apparent support in the scientific literature. It implies an understanding of oxygen transport that, if true, would seem to require a lot of re-writing of physiology textbooks. Blood boosting allows the blood to carry more oxygen, which in turn can be delivered to the muscles. It does not increase alveolar or capillary surface areas, or affect delivery in any other way, that we know of. As I said earlier, it’s possible that EPO, though certainly not transfusions, stimulates angiogenesis, but even if it does, there is no reason to believe it would do so preferentially in densely-muscled individuals.

Moreover, there are known, accepted ways in which some riders can benefit more than others from the same blood boosting program. The most obvious is if they have a lower natural HT. When the 50% limit went into effect, this put a ceiling on HT, so riders with lower HTs could raise theirs to a larger degree. Even before this sanctioned limit, there was a physiological one. When HT goes above the mid-50s, the advantage of more RBCs tends to be cancelled by increased viscosity, hindering blood flow--though the peak HT surely varies from individual to individual, which adds another variable for individual differences.

Another possibility is the relationship between HT and V02. As RR has noted in several of his posts, this differs from rider to rider. There are also differences in how much an increase in V02 a rider achieves with a given increase in HT. So this, too, would benefit certain dopers more than others.

I don't have any problem with explanations like this. What I have a problem with is arguing that the common denominator is muscle density, and that even though this is supposed to be independent of rider size or weight, almost all the riders who benefitted from muscle density just happened to be large ones who would not have been good climbers in a clean peloton.

This is the most rationale, least biased post to date. Thank you and keep up the great discussion. I appreciated it.
 
Bavarianrider said:
...

Phil: Jan was clearly the classiest bike rider around and probably still is. I never even thought about it when Jan won in 1997, but then again I predicted in 1998 that Cadel Evans would one day win the Tour – he’s getting there!

You had me at "Phil". But I continued anyways.

Predicting Cadel would one day win the Tour as an example of spotting talent in an undoped cyclist? I can't wait until Cadel confesses he, too, stopped driving the Ferrari in 2006.

Neworld said:
This is the most rationale, least biased post to date. Thank you and keep up the great discussion. I appreciated it.

Maybe, and I have no particular bone to pick with Merckx index, but with this insight:

Merckx index said:
...

Let me remind everyone why, other things being equal, the best climbers tend to be small and light:

....

No kidding.

The reference to a discussion on sportsci.org about how mVO2 is weight related is, well, is just hilarious.

No kidding.

Who writes this crap? You can't even derive V02 max if you don't know someone's weight. They are directly inversely proportionate by definition.

VO2 max is expressed either as an absolute rate in litres of oxygen per minute (L/min) or as a relative rate in millilitres of oxygen per kilogram of bodyweight per minute (mL/kg/min).

When citing Armstrong's or LeMond's VO2 max you are citing a value that whose units are mL/kg/min. Per kilogram.

In other words, if observing that the best climbers are small and light wasn't already stating the piercingly obvious, justifying that keen insight on the basis of an equation that has bodyweight in the denominator goes past obvious to the hilarious.

So, if that particular post counts as the most rationale you have ever read, you must be behind on your reading.

Dave.
 
Aug 13, 2009
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D-Queued said:
Predicting Cadel would one day win the Tour as an example of spotting talent in an undoped cyclist? I can't wait until Cadel confesses he, too, stopped driving the Ferrari in 2006.

Cadel got dropped at training camp too
 
Aug 13, 2009
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Merckx index said:
SNIP...
I don't have any problem with explanations like this. What I have a problem with is arguing that the common denominator is muscle density,....SNIP.

If you read my posts you will see that I very clearly said this is just one element. I also spelled out very clearly what the other elements were.....multiple times.

You are welcome to pretend that someone is saying muscle density is the common denominator but I am clear that it is one of multiple elements.
 
Oct 30, 2011
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Neworld said:
Good post.

All I can add tho is to entertain the opposite line of thought.

Winning AT 19 does NOT exclude you from winning a GT either. Just because you so promise and win at an early age does not reduce your success later does it?

No, most certainly not, and I didn't say it did.

However, Bavarianrider was using the fact that a journalist had heralded Jan as a future Tour winner aged 19 as proof that Jan would have won anyway without the hot sauce, and was challenging RR to find a rider who would have had his win stolen.

My points were that the lack of fanfare over another rider doesn't mean that there wouldn't have been another rider, and that the fanfare over Jan's win was unmerited. Just because it later turned out to be right doesn't mean that the reasoning can be backdated to be less flawed.

If every mother, upon giving birth to their child, stated "this child will revolutionise physics", most mothers would be wrong and a select few would turn out to be right. The fact that they were right, however, does not mean that they reached their conclusion for the right reasons.
 
D-Queued said:
The reference to a discussion on sportsci.org about how mVO2 is weight related is, well, is just hilarious.

No kidding.

Who writes this crap? You can't even derive V02 max if you don't know someone's weight. They are directly inversely proportionate by definition.

VO2 max is expressed either as an absolute rate in litres of oxygen per minute (L/min) or as a relative rate in millilitres of oxygen per kilogram of bodyweight per minute (mL/kg/min).

When citing Armstrong's or LeMond's VO2 max you are citing a value that whose units are mL/kg/min. Per kilogram.

In other words, if observing that the best climbers are small and light wasn't already stating the piercingly obvious, justifying that keen insight on the basis of an equation that has bodyweight in the denominator goes past obvious to the hilarious.

So, if that particular post counts as the most rationale you have ever read, you must be behind on your reading.

Dave.

Uh, no. V02 max, not normalized for weight, can and always is determined independently of weight. It is generally larger for larger riders, because they have larger lungs, hearts, blood vessels, etc. It is like watts or power in that respect.

But just as climbing ability is determined by watts/kg., so is it related to V02 max/kg. And smaller, lighter riders are generally higher in this way. As the quote notes, this is because oxygen intake is related to area, and area scales as the 2/3 power to mass. Same kind of 2/3 power scaling explains why larger riders are generally better TTers, in this case, frontal body area.

Meanwhile, this just in:

A study by a couple of Dutch researchers called: Lance Armstrong’s Era of Performance – Part I: Are his time trial performances much different from other winners?. They conclude that his performances were not outliers. In the discussion, they actually quote another study suggesting that the effects of EPO are overrated.

I wish I could supply some quotes, they are priceless, but I can’t copy and paste from the PDF.

I bet Part II will discuss climbing.

Edit: Here is the Abstract.

Abstract
In the aftermath of USADA’s doping charges, Lance Armstrong eventually acknowledged the use of banned substances during his professional cycling career. Reckoning his confessions, we decided to evaluate Armstrong’s sportive accomplishments by comparing his winning time trial achievements with achievements demonstrated by other riders in similar races over the years. In time trial racing, there are no collaborating riders on the course, making opportunities to profit from other riders’ efforts through drafting impossible. Time trial performances thus solely depend on the strength and endurance of the individual rider. Accordingly, we argue that an examination of the ‘historic’ variation in these individual performances will increase chances to detect the influence of illicit doping aids on Armstrong’s performances. In view of his doping use, we expected that his performances would be faster compared to performances of his counterparts in foregoing and succeeding years. We scrutinized archival records of the cycling sport and retrieved information concerning Armstrong’s winning time trial performances (N = 7), realized in the Tour de France (1999–2005), as well as performances of other riders (N = 55) who, from 1934 to 2010, won races in the three European Grand Tours (Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, and Vuelta a España) and all faced time trial distances comparable to Armstrong’s (50–61 km). We examined our research question by analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with riders as the independent variable (Armstrong vs. the other riders) and mean km/h performances as the dependent variable in which we controlled for the influence of year of competition (i.e., the year in which riders won their time trial) and distances of the trials on riders’ speed. ANCOVA initially revealed that Armstrong (Mkm/h = 49.37) indeed raced faster relative to the other riders (Mkm/h = 44.67, p ≤ 0.05). However, this main effect disappeared (p = 0.80) after controlling for the influence of competition year on riders’ performances, b = 0.20 km/h, p ≤ 0.001. Distance did not have a significant influence, b = -0.03 km/h, p = 0.84. ANCOVA further indicated that all but one of Armstrong’s performances fell within the bandwidth of the 68% confidence interval. Reckoning the historic variation in riders’ performances, Armstrong’s achievements do not appear to be outstanding or atypical, implying that effects of the performance–enhancing doping aids he resorted to are limited. Alternatively, his performances can also be plausibly explained by a gradual progress in speed over time, which is characteristic for professional cycling races such as the Tour de France.

Here is the article they cite on EPO. I'm not sure, but I think this study was discussed and thoroughly debunked here a little while ago? They also cite an article by Verbruggen claiming effects of PEDs are overrated. Wow.

Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2012 Dec 6. doi: 10.1111/bcp.12034. [Epub ahead of print]
Erythropoietin doping in cycling: Lack of evidence for efficacy and a negative risk-benefit.
Heuberger JA, Cohen Tervaert JM, Schepers FM, Vliegenthart AD, Rotmans JI, Daniels JM, Burggraaf J, Cohen AF.
Source
Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Abstract
AIM & METHODS:
Imagine a medicine that is expected to have very limited effects based upon knowledge of pharmacology and (patho)physiology, is studied in the wrong population, with low quality studies that use a surrogate endpoint that relates to the clinical endpoint in a partial manner at most. Such a medicine would surely not be recommended. Recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO) use to enhance performance in cycling is very common. A qualitative systematic review of the available literature was performed to look at the evidence for these ergogenic properties of this drug normally used to treat anaemia in chronic renal failure patients.
RESULTS:
The results of this literature search show there is no scientific basis to conclude rHuEPO has performance enhancing properties in elite cyclists. The reported studies have many shortcomings regarding translation of the results to professional cycling endurance performance. Additionally, the possibly harmful side-effects have not been adequately researched for this population but appear to be worrying at least.
CONCLUSIONS:
rHuEPO use in cycling is rife but scientifically unsupported by evidence and its use in sports is medical malpractice. What its use would have been, if the involved team physicians had been trained in clinical pharmacology and had investigated this properly, remains a matter of speculation. A single well controlled trial in athletes under real life circumstances would give a better indication of the real advantages and risk factors of rHuEPO use, but it would be an oversimplification that this would eradicate its use.
 
Jan 27, 2010
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D-Queued said:

Actually Dave, I was referring to the 'whole' post and not just the one line, good on you for being so fastidious that you dissect specifics and then...

I have never said that I am abreast of all papers on Human Metabolism or effects of doping on V02 or cycling performances. Are you a physiologist?

Anyway, the relevant part is NOT about how an athletes weight is in the VO2 max equation Dave, but to prove or disprove RR's assertion that adding PREFERENTIALLY more muscle (yes Kg's) and not just any old 'weight' will help boost a riders performance as it relates to O2 extraction while cycling.

That is the question that most people have been discussing over that last week. Some people question that 'well known' axiom, others do not.

No rationale mind would believe that Jan didn't benefit from EPO, Test, Auto BB... The question is how much did Jan dope compared to others? Why did he keep his HCT basically 'normal' during the 2000 and 2001 tours and then compared to other more doped riders still finish 2nd? Did Jan really have more PED induced muscle than other riders and if so why didn't other riders 'bulk-up' relative to their statures? And, when all the MDs/DSs who knew their riders had to add muscle and clearly would have told them to do so, why didn't they benefit as much as Jan?

Basically, we'll never know.
 
Jan 27, 2010
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Caruut said:
No, most certainly not, and I didn't say it did.

However, Bavarianrider was using the fact that a journalist had heralded Jan as a future Tour winner aged 19 as proof that Jan would have won anyway without the hot sauce, and was challenging RR to find a rider who would have had his win stolen.

My points were that the lack of fanfare over another rider doesn't mean that there wouldn't have been another rider, and that the fanfare over Jan's win was unmerited. Just because it later turned out to be right doesn't mean that the reasoning can be backdated to be less flawed.

If every mother, upon giving birth to their child, stated "this child will revolutionise physics", most mothers would be wrong and a select few would turn out to be right. The fact that they were right, however, does not mean that they reached their conclusion for the right reasons.

I agree with all above. No, you never said the opposite...I was just stating it as an option. Fair enough.
 
Feb 2, 2012
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Please entertain if you will.
If a "clean" jan is not deemed to be a true GC contender in
a PED free field, then pray tell who would reign above all others?
I am so curious to hear some names put forward......and why that
rider would be superior to Jan.
I honestly cant think of any,but feel free to try.
 
Jan 27, 2010
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pepcalais said:
Please entertain if you will.
If a "clean" jan is not deemed to be a true GC contender in
a PED free field, then pray tell who would reign above all others?
I am so curious to hear some names put forward......and why that
rider would be superior to Jan.
I honestly cant think of any,but feel free to try.

A skinny and clean JV of course.
 
Merckx index said:
Uh, no. V02 max, not normalized for weight, can and always is determined independently of weight. It is generally larger for larger riders, because they have larger lungs, hearts, blood vessels, etc. It is like watts or power in that respect.

....

(crazy article, btw)

Sorry, have to disagree with you.

As the Wikipedia reference notes, there is absolute VO2 max which is expressed in single digit ml/min and there is relative VO2 max, expressed in mL/kg/min and is ~30-40 for untrained males.

Again, as Wikipedia observes, rowers excel at absolute VO2 max, while pro cyclists excel at relative VO2 max. A really, really good absolute VO2 max would be around 6.

That would be a really terrible relative VO2 max.

If we are talking about Armstrong's VO2 max (~81) or LeMond's VO2 max (i.e. ~92.5) or Indurain's (~88) or Hushovd's for that matter (~86), then we are talking about relative VO2 max which is measured in mL/kg/min and is fundamentally bodyweight dependent.

Dave.
 
Oct 30, 2011
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pepcalais said:
Please entertain if you will.
If a "clean" jan is not deemed to be a true GC contender in
a PED free field, then pray tell who would reign above all others?
I am so curious to hear some names put forward......and why that
rider would be superior to Jan.
I honestly cant think of any,but feel free to try.

You miss the point entirely. We have pretty much no idea. For all we know he did a year as a neo-pro and thought:

"**** this, it's not worth it. I don't want to spend the next 10 years of my life lying to myself, the media and the public. I don't want to sleep with a heart rate monitor just to get me through the night alive. I don't even know if I'll ever make it to the top of the game, but I have to risk my life to find out. I could make what I'm earning now by going and working in an office without all this bloody hassle, and in 10 years time I'd have real career prospects instead of arms that make a heroin addict look tame."

That's kind of the point, you see. The dope destroys any notion of the real results.
 
Aug 13, 2009
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pepcalais said:
Please entertain if you will.
If a "clean" jan is not deemed to be a true GC contender in
a PED free field, then pray tell who would reign above all others?
I am so curious to hear some names put forward......and why that
rider would be superior to Jan.
I honestly cant think of any,but feel free to try.

Eddy Bouwmans. Won the white jersey of the Tour in 1992, out of the top level of the sport 2 years later because he would not continue to take EPO after trying it for a few weeks

Someone should start a thread.....
 
Feb 2, 2012
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I realise a definite answer is impossible.No-one can say for sure who
could have-would have or even should have achieved whatever or even whenever. However feel free to nominate a rider based on opinion even if it lacks any data to justify it. It's still difficult to go past Jan.
Just an opinion.
 
D-Queued said:
(crazy article, btw)

Sorry, have to disagree with you.

As the Wikipedia reference notes, there is absolute VO2 max which is expressed in single digit ml/min and there is relative VO2 max, expressed in mL/kg/min and is ~30-40 for untrained males.

Again, as Wikipedia observes, rowers excel at absolute VO2 max, while pro cyclists excel at relative VO2 max. A really, really good absolute VO2 max would be around 6.

That would be a really terrible relative VO2 max.

If we are talking about Armstrong's VO2 max (~81) or LeMond's VO2 max (i.e. ~92.5) or Indurain's (~88) or Hushovd's for that matter (~86), then we are talking about relative VO2 max which is measured in mL/kg/min and is fundamentally bodyweight dependent.

Dave.

Yes, there is absolute and relative, as I said. And yes, absolute is more important for rowers, where that 6 would be liters, or 6000 ml. The relative V02 max would not be "terrible", e..g, for a 100 kg rower it would be 60 ml/kg, which is still quite good. You know much more about the sport than I, but maybe some rowers are actually somewhat lighter than that, because of limits to what the shell can carry? In any case, absolute rather than relative is critical for rowers because they don't have to lift their body weight. Likewise, absolute is more important for TTng, for the same reason. It's only when you have to lift your body--either up hills in cycling, or in running, even on flat ground--that relative V02 max becomes more important.

What you're missing is that relative V02 max tends to decrease with increasing body weight, NOT because "of course" if you are heavier, the denominator will be larger and the fraction smaller. That isn't the reason, because as I said before, absolute V02 max tends to increase with body weight (rowers with their large absolute V02 maxes tend to be relatively large, certainly much larger than most cyclists). So both numerator and denominator increase. The reason relative V02 max tends to decrease relative to body weight is because the denominator increases faster than the numerator. This is the 2/3 scaling law, and results from the area effect on oxygen intake.

You may think it's blindingly obvious that smaller riders would climb better, but the reason for this was not always appreciated. Large riders have proportionally more muscle mass than smaller riders, and this muscle mass increases linearly with body weight, so just looking at them from the outside, it would seem they could climb just as well. The reason they can't is because of the critical areas inside the body that take up oxygen.

This in fact may be what the doctors RR talked to were thinking. Larger riders (though RR insists that the effect is denser muscles and not related to body size) do not get as much oxygen to their muscles, proportional to muscle size, as smaller riders do. So one might think they would benefit more from souping up their oxygen transport. The problem with this is that it's quite well established that oxygen uptake by muscles is limited by oxygen intake into the system (including to the capillaries), not by any processes within the muscle itself. IOW, even smaller riders, who are getting more oxygen to their muscles relative to muscle size, can still make use of extra oxygen just as well.

Since RR has furnished so little info, I can only speculate, but this may have been the thinking that fueled their theory. If it was, most physiologists would say it was false.
 
Caruut said:
This just isn't a valid line of argument.

Cyclists tend not to turn professional until their early-to-mid twenties. One would not expect many future Tour winners. Carlos Sastre, for example, was born in 1975, so was 19 in 1994. Google 'Carlos Sastre 1994' and you get absolutely nothing. So one should not expect wide-spread press attention for future Tour winners when they are 19.

Even if it was normal to have identified future winners then, the line from the journalist doesn't stack up. What does winning a one-day race in non-mountainous terrain have to do with being a future Tour winner? The journalist clearly doesn't understand the principle here. If we look at the winners of the Junior World Road Race, we see a grand total of 1 future Tour winner (the great Greg LeMond) and a big fat zero in the EPO era. Winning one-day races at 19 doesn't make you a future tour winner.


Sorry, it wa sclaimed that nothing inidicated that Ullrich would be a Tour de France winner.
When i show you that many predicted him to be a Tour winner at a very young age, all of a sudden that doesn't count?
When i ask to show me the guys who had better pptential than Ullrich, then all of a sudden those results are irrelevant, too.
Sorry this is getting beyond ridicilous.
Still those who claim that Ullrich was not a superb talent that was expected to do what he did failed to come up with anything to back up their statements besides their very own opinion.
Way to go guys, way to go.:rolleyes:
 
Bavarianrider said:
Sorry, it wa sclaimed that nothing inidicated that Ullrich would be a Tour de France winner.
When i show you that many predicted him to be a Tour winner at a very young age, all of a sudden that doesn't count?
When i ask to show me the guys who had better pptential than Ullrich, then all of a sudden those results are irrelevant, too.
Sorry this is getting beyond ridicilous.
Still those who claim that Ullrich was not a superb talent that was expected to do what he did failed to come up with anything to back up their statements besides their very own opinion.
Way to go guys, way to go.:rolleyes:

There are people here who seem to be arguing that a person who is a great grand tour rider without EPO cannot possibly be a great grand tour rider with EPO.
 
Jun 15, 2009
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MarkvW said:
There are people here who seem to be arguing that a person who is a great grand tour rider without EPO cannot possibly be a great grand tour rider with EPO.

That pretty much sums it up.
And we shall add that Ullrich was a great ITTler. A must for every great TdF champ even before Epo.
Anyway, RR knows a thing or two and did great work on Armstrong. So i respect him very much. Doing so, i give him Bassons (whom i also think would have been a great GT-Rider), Delion and Bouwmans. But after that, all guys with GT-Aspirations doped too back then, but none of them showed their talent early like Ullrich. None of them was as good in the ITTs, none of them were praised like Ullrich. So it´s very safe to say that Ullrich would have prevailed in a clean field too. Maybe not by 9 mins, but still a multiple GT-Winner. There is no doubt about that.
 
Merckx index said:
Yes, there is absolute and relative, as I said. And yes, absolute is more important for rowers, where that 6 would be liters, or 6000 ml. The relative V02 max would not be "terrible", e..g, for a 100 kg rower it would be 60 ml/kg, which is still quite good. You know much more about the sport than I, but maybe some rowers are actually somewhat lighter than that, because of limits to what the shell can carry? In any case, absolute rather than relative is critical for rowers because they don't have to lift their body weight. Likewise, absolute is more important for TTng, for the same reason. It's only when you have to lift your body--either up hills in cycling, or in running, even on flat ground--that relative V02 max becomes more important.

What you're missing is that relative V02 max tends to decrease with increasing body weight, NOT because "of course" if you are heavier, the denominator will be larger and the fraction smaller. That isn't the reason, because as I said before, absolute V02 max tends to increase with body weight (rowers with their large absolute V02 maxes tend to be relatively large, certainly much larger than most cyclists). So both numerator and denominator increase. The reason relative V02 max tends to decrease relative to body weight is because the denominator increases faster than the numerator. This is the 2/3 scaling law, and results from the area effect on oxygen intake.

You may think it's blindingly obvious that smaller riders would climb better, but the reason for this was not always appreciated. Large riders have proportionally more muscle mass than smaller riders, and this muscle mass increases linearly with body weight, so just looking at them from the outside, it would seem they could climb just as well. The reason they can't is because of the critical areas inside the body that take up oxygen.

This in fact may be what the doctors RR talked to were thinking. Larger riders (though RR insists that the effect is denser muscles and not related to body size) do not get as much oxygen to their muscles, proportional to muscle size, as smaller riders do. So one might think they would benefit more from souping up their oxygen transport. The problem with this is that it's quite well established that oxygen uptake by muscles is limited by oxygen intake into the system (including to the capillaries), not by any processes within the muscle itself. IOW, even smaller riders, who are getting more oxygen to their muscles relative to muscle size, can still make use of extra oxygen just as well.

Since RR has furnished so little info, I can only speculate, but this may have been the thinking that fueled their theory. If it was, most physiologists would say it was false.

Here is how I've always thought of it. For the sake of edification, if Andy or Krebs reads this I would definitely be interested in knowing how true or not this is.

Basically, in its simplest form it is a Surface Area:Volume problem. This is why cells are so small - to maximize this ratio so they can survive.

So like a cell take a cyclist and assign him some characteristic size 'L'. Blood vessel SA will scale as L^2 and blood volume as L^3 or linear in mass. (Assume a constant density and maybe the powers determined empirically aren't exactly natural numbers - but this is a 0th order calculation). The ratio SA:Vol has dimensions of 1/L. This means the smaller the characteristic size, the larger this ratio. That is, a small cyclist has "more" SA to work with given his blood volume. If capillary density and thus SA is a peripheral limiting factor, then the smaller cyclist has an advantage in oxygen delivery.

Incidentally, a similar argument can be used to show that the smaller cyclist also can cool himself better, a key part if using the central governor theory and not letting the brain get too hot. A larger animal can get around this by having a very elongated body and limbs. That is, for two animals with the same mass, the one that is more elongated will have have a better SA:Vol ratio and be able to cool itself better. Think of all of those tall but lithe climbers - or in the animal kingdom mountain goats.

Whereas for climbing it is all about power to mass, or power to length^3, for TTing it is all about power to length^2. A similar argument shows that in this case the bigger rider with more absolute power wins out.

To get really OT, where does this SA:Vol struggle come from? My thought is it is because gravity and electromagnetism are inverse square laws, which determine the limits of how cells on up to larger organisms can behave.
 

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