poor Cadel .. couldnt sprint up the mountain ..

[Realist]

I am not casting doubt on performances but....

Evans has been racing and winning since the Tour down under in Feb. He was winning again at the Ardennes classics, again at the Giro and hanging with the leaders on Sunday. All this after a season where he nearly won the Vuelta and won the Worlds.


The Teams Evans has chosen to ride for:

Saeco, Mapei, Telecom, Lotto, BMC

The teams that have ultimately failed to support Evans and sometimes even not chosen him for their tour teams, despite his obvious talent and ability:

Saeco, Mapei, Telecom, Lotto.

He didn't look an insider at any of those teams. He rode with Saeco because they rode Cannondale and he came across from Volvo-Cannondale on the mountain bike. He rode with Mapei because of an affiliation with the AIS junior and U23 program. I have no idea why he rode with Telecom, but they certainly didn't treat him very well and he was never selected for their tour team, despite the fact that while at Mapei he had led the Giro in its last week.

 

[Realist]

Takes 48 hours for a blood refill to properly kick in.

What? Why? Do you have evidence for this statement?

Just from the physiology, a change in blood volume should have immediate effect, as should the boost in red blood cells. It would be genuinely interesting to me (really - not being sarcastic/facetious) if there is some reason this doesn't happen.

 

[2wheels]

It's a big enough question mark to render the competition meaningless, unless it's a science project.

Totally agree that doping, and even just the perception of it, still casts a huge shadow over the sport. But I can't agree with calling it all "meaningless"; there are still amazing things going on out there. There was some pretty intense human drama etched in the faces of Voigt, Samuel Sanchez, and Evans today.

 

[santacruz]

OMG have you arm chair bike pros ever broken a bone and then rode your bike?? I just fractured my arm 2 weeks ago, just a tiny fracture, but I can't use that arm to prop myself up on my bike.. so I tried doing a short half hour ride just putting pressure onto one arm, and oh my!! I was so damn sore from only weighting down my left arm and everything that goes with it.. you ride in a certain way your entire life, then you expect to just be able to ride with only 1 arm?? your body isn't used to it and your muscles start cramping up horribly. And if I did put pressure on my barely broken arm (minor fracture) the PAIN is SOOO INTENSE!! you armchair pros know nothing.. it's like you expect people to ride with broken bones.. the only way they pull it off is because its the friggin TdF and there's so much emotion and their contracts and futures are on the line.

 

[Wallace]

OMG have you arm chair bike pros ever broken a bone and then rode your bike?? I just fractured my arm 2 weeks ago, just a tiny fracture, but I can't use that arm to prop myself up on my bike.. so I tried doing a short half hour ride just putting pressure onto one arm, and oh my!! I was so damn sore from only weighting down my left arm and everything that goes with it.. you ride in a certain way your entire life, then you expect to just be able to ride with only 1 arm?? your body isn't used to it and your muscles start cramping up horribly. And if I did put pressure on my barely broken arm (minor fracture) the PAIN is SOOO INTENSE!! you armchair pros know nothing.. it's like you expect people to ride with broken bones.. the only way they pull it off is because its the friggin TdF and there's so much emotion and their contracts and futures are on the line.

This comment 100% approved of by Wallace.

 

[CycloErgoSum]

OMG have you arm chair bike pros ever broken a bone and then rode your bike?? I just fractured my arm 2 weeks ago, just a tiny fracture, but I can't use that arm to prop myself up on my bike.. so I tried doing a short half hour ride just putting pressure onto one arm, and oh my!! I was so damn sore from only weighting down my left arm and everything that goes with it.. you ride in a certain way your entire life, then you expect to just be able to ride with only 1 arm?? your body isn't used to it and your muscles start cramping up horribly. And if I did put pressure on my barely broken arm (minor fracture) the PAIN is SOOO INTENSE!! you armchair pros know nothing.. it's like you expect people to ride with broken bones.. the only way they pull it off is because its the friggin TdF and there's so much emotion and their contracts and futures are on the line.

Thank you for your contribution; it helps shed light on what it's like to ride a bike with a broken or fractured bone. However, by contributing to this forum aren't you also an armchair pro, one with a broken arm that's tried to ride a bike?

How does your experience explain the excellent performance of Gesink today who also has a fractured wrist?

This is the problem with generalising from one's own experience: it doesn't indicate the consequences in all or similar cases.

 

[Mr.38%]

Clinic logic:
Guy rides fast = juiced
Guy rides slow = forgot to juice + douchbag
Guy rides fast all season long = juiced
Guy rides fast only occasionly = juiced
Guy flies through the air overtaking his bike = juiced but wrong stuff (LSD or THC) + douchbag
Guy cries in pain and grief = douchbag

My experience: Even a little furuncle in the *** may ruin a stage race of just 5 days.

 

[BikeCentric]

by the standards of some on here i should be able to use various peds go right past my cat-3 status and win the tour next year right?

Certainly not, but you'd most likely be a 2 or a 1 by the end of the month.

 

[BikeCentric]

Takes 48 hours for a blood refill to properly kick in.

Armstrong was tested the day before the rest day, on the morning of the rest day and the evening, if I recall correctly, so they'd have quite a good idea if he did have a refill. He is also probably being watched very closely. I think they would leave such activities to another day this time if they were to bother. The rest day is just too obvious.

It's not that surprising that Armstrong would recover reasonably well since he sat up and cruised up the last climb on Sunday whilst the rest were on the absolute limit. I think it was more a psychology thing due to the time gap rather than a complete physical collapse.

No, you are thinking about EPO injections, not transfusions. A transfusion starts to work for you the second you inject the blood, and as long as you inject some plasma as well to keep the hematocrit stable there is no possible way to get caught; there is simply no test at all for an autologous blood transfusion.

That being said, I do think this is a cleaner Tour than the last couple of years based on how many guys are cracking big time and losing huge chunks of time. I'm sure a lot of riders are scared to be carrying blood bags around to do top-offs with the Feds and Novitzsky sniffing around the Team Cars.

 

[BikeCentric]

OMG have you arm chair bike pros ever broken a bone and then rode your bike?? I just fractured my arm 2 weeks ago, just a tiny fracture, but I can't use that arm to prop myself up on my bike.. so I tried doing a short half hour ride just putting pressure onto one arm, and oh my!! I was so damn sore from only weighting down my left arm and everything that goes with it.. you ride in a certain way your entire life, then you expect to just be able to ride with only 1 arm?? your body isn't used to it and your muscles start cramping up horribly. And if I did put pressure on my barely broken arm (minor fracture) the PAIN is SOOO INTENSE!! you armchair pros know nothing.. it's like you expect people to ride with broken bones.. the only way they pull it off is because its the friggin TdF and there's so much emotion and their contracts and futures are on the line.

LOL, settle down Santacruz!

But you are right, the bottom line is that the simplest explanation for Evans' performance today is, yes, he has a frickin' broken arm! Ow!

 

[velosopher54]

OMG have you arm chair bike pros ever broken a bone and then rode your bike?? I just fractured my arm 2 weeks ago, just a tiny fracture, but I can't use that arm to prop myself up on my bike.. so I tried doing a short half hour ride just putting pressure onto one arm, and oh my!! I was so damn sore from only weighting down my left arm and everything that goes with it.. you ride in a certain way your entire life, then you expect to just be able to ride with only 1 arm?? your body isn't used to it and your muscles start cramping up horribly. And if I did put pressure on my barely broken arm (minor fracture) the PAIN is SOOO INTENSE!! you armchair pros know nothing.. it's like you expect people to ride with broken bones.. the only way they pull it off is because its the friggin TdF and there's so much emotion and their contracts and futures are on the line.

Totally agree. Remember when Hamilton rode with the broken collar bone? He ground his teeth down to nothing.Pain alone can suck the life out of a body and imagine then going up a mountain? Give me a break.

 

[Crashes and punctures]

No, you are thinking about EPO injections, not transfusions. A transfusion starts to work for you the second you inject the blood, and as long as you inject some plasma as well to keep the hematocrit stable there is no possible way to get caught; there is simply no test at all for an autologous blood transfusion.

I have no scientific data to back up the 48 hours but I've seen it said before several times. They say it's supposed to takes awhile for the red blood cells to bed back in.

EPO takes a week to work, not 48 hours. That's how long it is for new red blood cells to mature.

There is a type of test for blood transfusions in the biopassport.

 

[alberto.legstrong]

so your somehow certain all other gc guys are doped which they probably are but your also certain cadel does not which he probably does thats funny and naive.
by the standards of some on here i should be able to use various peds go right past my cat-3 status and win the tour next year right? i mean its that easy right? lol utterly ridiculous. hormones and rbcs dont pedal the bike for you. why are any of you on here you hate it all so much. me i dont hate cycling i know drugs or not its a brutal sporting event and these guys are all high level gifted athletes la included. bike racing is hard doped or not put simply. man there are some bitter burnouts on here go watch another sport.

i generally tend not to agree with you, in particular your tone, but i do now. Why would someone post that here? I don't post what I think of the nhl in their forums because I really don't care about the nhl. but i have no problem with their enjoyment of it. to each his own. I don't know why they like it and they don't need to justify it to me.

and to think cadel is clean, which is the implication....? nothing against him, but it's more the implication.

 

[Benotti69]

Totally agree. Remember when Hamilton rode with the broken collar bone? He ground his teeth down to nothing.Pain alone can suck the life out of a body and imagine then going up a mountain? Give me a break.

Hamilton had a minute hairline fracture of his collar bone that was made much bigger than it was. No doubt sore but there is no way he could have ridden with a broken bone otherwise Frankie Shleckie would have been there today. Hamilton was part of the Pharmastrong way of thinking...

Big up to Cadel for doing what he did today. True spirit of cycling riding to the end and making back 2 minutes on the descent, fantastic performance. Simon Gerrans rode the same distance on Sunday with a broken arm from an early crash, these guys are hard men and take some battering no matter what some posters like to spout...

 

[BikeCentric]

Hamilton had a minute hairline fracture of his collar bone that was made much bigger than it was. No doubt sore but there is no way he could have ridden with a broken bone otherwise Frankie Shleckie would have been there today. Hamilton was part of the Pharmastrong way of thinking...

Big up to Cadel for doing what he did today. True spirit of cycling riding to the end and making back 2 minutes on the descent, fantastic performance. Simon Gerrans rode the same distance on Sunday with a broken arm from an early crash, these guys are hard men and take some battering no matter what some posters like to spout...

Hey I don't think anybody said the dope makes it easier. As LeMond said, it never gets easier you just get faster and that truism of the sport applies no matter what you do to get faster. Really the reason the sport of cycling is so dope infested is precisely because of how hard of a sport it is.

 

[Realist]

I have no scientific data to back up the 48 hours but I've seen it said before several times. They say it's supposed to takes awhile for the red blood cells to bed back in.

EPO takes a week to work, not 48 hours. That's how long it is for new red blood cells to mature.

There is a type of test for blood transfusions in the biopassport.

Ok, that doesn't make much sense. If you inject RBC's and plasma it should kick in very close to immediately. Unless their is some problem with oxygen/haemoglobin binding that resolves over time? But stored blood products are used all frequently in clinical populations in emergency settings, where they take immediate effect. In the absence of real evidence or a plausible reason why it would be true, you would have to think this is wrong, wouldn't you?

 

[Crashes and punctures]

Ok, that doesn't make much sense. If you inject RBC's and plasma it should kick in very close to immediately. Unless their is some problem with oxygen/haemoglobin binding that resolves over time? But stored blood products are used all frequently in clinical populations in emergency settings, where they take immediate effect. In the absence of real evidence or a plausible reason why it would be true, you would have to think this is wrong, wouldn't you?

Maybe what I heard was wrong and a blood transfusion does start immediately. Or maybe it does work but it takes time for the brain to compute that your limit has now changed, and that's what they mean by taking 48hours to get the full effect.

 

[ColumbusSL]

I have no scientific data to back up the 48 hours but I've seen it said before several times. They say it's supposed to takes awhile for the red blood cells to bed back in.

EPO takes a week to work, not 48 hours. That's how long it is for new red blood cells to mature.

There is a type of test for blood transfusions in the biopassport.

I would get back to your Dr They and tell him he is full of it... a transfusion has an instantaneous effect... it is like waking up from a good nights sleep on the right side of the bed...


on cadel... I would love to know what if any program this guy is on... he jsut seems to have so many 'bad' days ... while a hairline fracture is still unbelievably painful and may explain this particular bad day it doesn't explain the other bad days in prev grand tours.

 

[burn it down]

OMG have you arm chair bike pros ever broken a bone and then rode your bike?? I just fractured my arm 2 weeks ago, just a tiny fracture, but I can't use that arm to prop myself up on my bike.. so I tried doing a short half hour ride just putting pressure onto one arm, and oh my!! I was so damn sore from only weighting down my left arm and everything that goes with it.. you ride in a certain way your entire life, then you expect to just be able to ride with only 1 arm?? your body isn't used to it and your muscles start cramping up horribly. And if I did put pressure on my barely broken arm (minor fracture) the PAIN is SOOO INTENSE!! you armchair pros know nothing.. it's like you expect people to ride with broken bones.. the only way they pull it off is because its the friggin TdF and there's so much emotion and their contracts and futures are on the line.

i fractured my elbow when some fatty pulled in front of me on the lake shore bike path in chicago last year.

i understand the pain you are talking about, but, in my experience, cadel will not be able to get back on the bike tomorrow, no matter how tough he is. i was able to get back on my bike and ride home, but in three hours i couldn't straighten my arm past 90 degrees let a lone put any weight on it.

 

[Greg Johnson]

i understand the pain you are talking about, but, in my experience, cadel will not be able to get back on the bike tomorrow, no matter how tough he is. i was able to get back on my bike and ride home, but in three hours i couldn't straighten my arm past 90 degrees let a lone put any weight on it.

Yup, I know that pain. If it's anything like mine was, it's truely remarkable he rode yesterday.

I was the same, rode home in a bit of pain thinking maybe it wasn't broken. By the time I got there I had to use my other hand to remove my fingers from the bars.

Cheers
Greg Johnson

 

[Martin318is]

The general content of this thread is dangerously close to only being around 50% actually about Cadel on the mountain stage.

NOTE: If you guys can't stay on that topic and keep the totally unrelated doping conversation out of this thread I will lock it. Take it outside.

 

[Ferminal]

The general content of this thread is dangerously close to only being around 50% actually about Cadel on the mountain stage.

NOTE: If you guys can't stay on that topic and keep the totally unrelated doing conversation out of this thread I will lock it. Take it outside.

Well it's the troll who is making the most unrelated posts.

 

[simoni]

Clinic logic:
Guy rides fast = juiced
Guy rides slow = forgot to juice + douchbag
Guy rides fast all season long = juiced
Guy rides fast only occasionly = juiced
Guy flies through the air overtaking his bike = juiced but wrong stuff (LSD or THC) + douchbag
Guy cries in pain and grief = douchbag

My experience: Even a little furuncle in the *** may ruin a stage race of just 5 days.

Pretty much sums it up.

Basically "dopers win, winners dope" (as it no other factor explains performance). Yeah, its evidently a large factor but theres more to it than that.

Anyway, broken elbows. I've had one. It hurts like **** - I still couldn't drive a month later as using the gear and brake levers hurt too much let alone any outdoor cycling. The fact Evans even got on his bike is incredible to me to say nothing of the ludicrous amounts of painkiller and anti-inflammatories he'll be on. Wouldn't like to be that guy's stomach at the moment...

 

[sars1981]

For the record! I clearly jumped the gun on this thread as I made it before I knew about the elbow factor.

The observations about bertie and AS' drastically renewed energy reserves attacking the mountain remain though.

 

[dopingectomy]

I would get back to your Dr They and tell him he is full of it... a transfusion has an instantaneous effect... it is like waking up from a good nights sleep on the right side of the bed...

No. It takes time to restore 2-3 BPG levels to make the transfusion effective.