ralphbert said:
I'll put my hand up and say I'm one those people. Not so much a line in the sand but an important marker to gauge performance.
If the performance of current winners compare well with past winners we know without doubt whose performances were enhanced.
IOW we don't need W/kg estimates to establish that, at least at a population level. Individual data points need to be treated with great caution.
ralphbert said:
We make allowances for tactics, route and weather. (Thats for you Parker)
It's discussed, but the only allowance I've ever seen in quoted numbers is an arbitrary % added to or subtracted from W/kg estimates. No allowance for estimation error factors is ever quoted.
ralphbert said:
We know from past dopers, if you have low hemocrit high efficiency physiology you can boost performance 10 to 20% with blood manipulation.
What's that got to do with W/kg estimates and how they are calculated or should be used wrt assessing doping?
ralphbert said:
There is still cannon fodder who get popped for epo but are competitive rather than winners.
Precisely, and hence the fat blurry plausibility line in the W/kg sand is highly individual as well, not to mention even more prone to tactical considerations given the majority are racing to meet time cuts or other domestic duties, not attain best results.
ralphbert said:
People like Bassons talk about riding at those times where oppressive speed in a grand tour took his hemocrit from 41 to 36 when riding as a dom. Speeds today are the same.
Are they, or is it a case of cherry picking individual data points (e.g. a particular race day) to find examples of where that might be the case?
It's a genuine question. e.g. when I plotted the average speed of the top 5 riders up the Ad'H climb over the years since late 1980s, that doesn't appear to be the case for that particular well documented climb.
So what's the real overall big picture wrt climbing times?
ralphbert said:
Talk of drugs that raise the point the body can use fat for energy and appearance of skeletal riders who can tt with enormous power.
Tour De France winner who reveals his talent with world best performances in his late 20s
Take those points and considering them, for me the most likely explanation is nothing has changed cycling.
Interesting points, but what's that got to do with W/kg estimates and how those estimates are used?