State of the Peloton 2024

[ppanther92]

In general - for sure there are progresses in material and training. But I would argue that these are not linear but rather diminishing in return. I would say, at Armstrong's time training steering was already on a good level. Bikes as well. But sure - some natural Watt improvements I can credit them.

Whats more interesting is - that an Riis, Indurain, even Armstrong (said himself at his podcast that he raced the Tour at 72kg) had a really heavy built, and blood doping and EPO still made them go up fast. That would be impossible today. The first 70+ kg guy today probably was Gee. So its interesting how ideal body types change. Once probably for the type of racing (way more ITT kms back then), but surely also based on the drugs that are state of the art.

Sky pretty much pushed weight down to a bare minimum and while Vingegaard still is really skinny, this also does not seem to be the norm anymore. And maybe also not even attainable for everyone, with for example Hejsedal or Contador stating they pushed too low on certain occasions. There was a lot of talks about AICAR and GW-1516 back then but as far as I am concerned, they both have quite long detection windows nowadays.

In the end, no one (at the outside at least) probably has a real clue what they are doing right now that makes them so fast. I wonder sometimes, with the hype surrounding weight loss peptides like Semaglutide, if that can help a GT rider maintain super low body fat, but I would rather say the delayed gastric emptying and uptake of carbohydrates makes for a rather bad performance-enhancing drug.

So really, who knows. Maybe its also the good old microdosing with EPO (Ashenden showed this can be done without being flagged in the passport, nor detected on the next day) and/or hormones like testosterone and HGH. So nothing fancy but combined with better material, training, and maybe fueling (still not sure if I should buy in the Visma ketones hype), it makes them go as fast as they are.

What still makes me personally a bit curious, is that COVID with no testing basically for the whole 2020, seemed to have been a catalyst in hindsight. Speed really changed. But also not sure what to make out of this. Because even though if everyone went really crazy back then, there shouldn't be an effect in 2024.

 

[Bavarianrider]

So 2 Minuten faster than Armstrong on the final climb. This is *** comical.

 

[Monoxidator]

The Carbon Monoxide research is not new. WADA had a paper on it from 2013 by a German researcher.

Endogenous erythropoietin stimulation by CO-breathing and by stabilizing HIF-1 by oral Cobalt application

www.wada-ama.org

More recently (2020)… the same dr, Dr Schmid from Bayreuth Uiversity was quoted as saying it could be bigger than EPO.

Carbon Monoxide: A New Edge in Endurance Performance?

Discover how controlled carbon monoxide inhalation boosts endurance performance, rivaling altitude training and raising ethical questions in sports medicine.

www.innovations-report.com

It’s odd that Derek Gee, not a climber at all suddenly turns into a GC contender on IPT, and we know that UAE and Visma have riders doing some crazy performances as well. These three teams just happen to be the ones carefully monitoring CO emissions from the lungs. Just to measure training response, right??!!

 

[Monoxidator]

The actual 2020 white paper says 3 weeks of treatment increased hemoglobin by 5%. And these are trained cyclists in the study, who apparently also increased their VO2Max. Insane!! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32118696/

 

[fbjim]

i think the peloton is actually clean and this is a completely normal result of what happens when you inhale pure Toyota Hilux exhaust fumes before doing an HC climb. this is why Colombia, a country with notably poor air quality, produces such good climbers

 

[Monoxidator]

My initial reaction was similar to most, like wtf??? But reading in more detail it starts to become clear. 2020 is the year things started to change, that’s when the last study came out. Why would someone build this testing equipment to precisely measure these effects if no one was doing it?? Now things are going wild. They can precisely control the dosing and ramp up the hemoglobin in conjunction with altitude camps and avoid the doping controls. No needles involved. Not a banned substance. The pieces all fit.

 

[Rob5091]

"Never tested positive!"

 

[solo80k]

The actual 2020 white paper says 3 weeks of treatment increased hemoglobin by 5%. And these are trained cyclists in the study, who apparently also increased their VO2Max. Insane!! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32118696/

It can be a way to maintain the year long peak like Pogacar displays now, or Jonas' epic recovery while he's training at home for weeks.

 

[slim charles]

I'm gonna ask some questions that may be basic and, well, stupid, so I apologize for that.

Are the bikes that much better nowadays compared to 20 years ago? I have been following cycling for some 17-18 years, but I was never really well versed in the equipment nor did I pay much attention to the innovations and all that. But it just feels... weird. I mean obviously, these results are insane. And I sincerely doubt there are a lot of clean riders [or pro athletes in general].
But it just feels unlikely that the peloton is this much more doped than they were back in the day. Though, I guess, if they are using something that is not yet illegal, they might as well go crazy with it.

So, the question is, how much of this can really [putting aside the PR] be put on the innovations - the equipment mostly, and to a lesser extent [I assume], to the nutrition etc?

 

[Rob5091]

Treating Japanese oldies for muscle loss with CO might be "interesting" for teams -
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0891584924004106

 

[meat puppet]

Assessing equipment in anything close to objective terms will be difficult for lay folks, but I would say the bikes are better in terms of aero, power transfer, behavior under high speeds, and also weight. Additionally my hunch is that the "modern" aggressive rider position on the bike with the saddle forward results in a system that is more aero and more efficient in its capacity to deliver power to the back wheel (hip joint anteriorly rotated almost over the bottom bracket). Gearing options enable more high cadence climbing options.

So, my view is that there are tangible equipment gains.

Training and nutrition have also evolved somewhat, generally speaking. It's difficult to speak specifically since these things are trade secrets.

Do tech and training plus nutrition account for the whole bridging of the performance gap to, say, the 1990s? IMO no. The improvements, real as they may be, are incremental rather than revolutionary. Beside being on epo, the best riders were not simply fooling around back in the days either.

The carbon monoxide thing seems interesting. Stimulation of endogenous epo production has its advantages! Haven't looked at the papers yet. If low dose ethical administration gives a performance boost to recreational folks, be sure that pros will at least experiment with something a bit more potent. They might also require a larger dose to get an effect, but this is speculation. As the protocol messes with retics, among other things, it's probably best done at altitude. Another speculation could be about the potency of using a combination of monoxide plus exogenous microdosing at altitude.

 

[fbjim]

so this is a vibes thing and not a scientific thing

i do think that, at least to a measurable extent, tech matters for higher speed climbs.

some of the more eye-opening climbs we've seen in recent years are on climbs like this one, or other now-legendary performances like Pogacar at the 2020 Peyresourde, or McNulty on the Val Louron-Azet, and the second half of the climb to Pla d'Adet definitely qualifies as a "higher speed" climb.

obviously aerodynamics are going to matter a bit more on high speed climbs as opposed to extremely ramped, slow climbs.

what i'd be interested in seeing is if we've also seen numbers like this on the more "rampas inhumanas" climb. we still haven't touched the infamous ADH record, for instance, though we've only used that once during the post-2020 rocket fuel era.

 

[ashhutch1997]

I'm gonna ask some questions that may be basic and, well, stupid, so I apologize for that.

Are the bikes that much better nowadays compared to 20 years ago? I have been following cycling for some 17-18 years, but I was never really well versed in the equipment nor did I pay much attention to the innovations and all that. But it just feels... weird. I mean obviously, these results are insane. And I sincerely doubt there are a lot of clean riders [or pro athletes in general].
But it just feels unlikely that the peloton is this much more doped than they were back in the day. Though, I guess, if they are using something that is not yet illegal, they might as well go crazy with it.

So, the question is, how much of this can really [putting aside the PR] be put on the innovations - the equipment mostly, and to a lesser extent [I assume], to the nutrition etc?

No they aren't IMO. The bikes of 10-15 years ago were lighter than today's, and the bikes these days are less areo, as most brands have stopped producing areo bikes in favor of all round bikes (cheaper to manufacture).
I actually sold my 'modern bike' for an older model for this very reason.

 

[AmRacer]

No they aren't IMO. The bikes of 10-15 years ago were lighter than today's, and the bikes these days are less areo, as most brands have stopped producing areo bikes in favor of all round bikes (cheaper to manufacture).
I actually sold my 'modern bike' for an older model for this very reason.

The road surface might be better nowadays. Tires have less rolling friction,

 

[ashhutch1997]

The road surface might be better nowadays. Tires have less rolling friction,

Well if you've seen the state of the roads in the UK today then I have to disagree lol.
Other than Spain, I would say the roads are in a much worse state than 10 - 20 years ago given the economy ect.

 

[Rob5091]

The road surface might be better nowadays. Tires have less rolling friction,

Comments at the Giro were more about how bad the roads were.

 

[Monoxidator]

I would say if you’re a responder to altitude training, you’ll probably respond even more to this CO dosing. If 3 weeks of the treatment can boost your Hemoglobin 5%, imagine what a ramp over an entire season would do. It would easily reach the 10% bump EPO gives.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Ok, almost 4 minutes quicker than Pantani.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Ok, almost 4 minutes quicker than Pantani.

I mean, the new asphalt is so much smoother, a weekend warrior like me goes a good km/h faster on that one compared to old rough one on 8 percent gradients.
That said, all breaks are off and there's too much money involved to bust anyone...

 

[ppanther92]

Going to post here rather than the rider threads. Cause we obviously have two aliens but also Landa is Pantani now.

 

[Scarponi]

I can see why riders like Bardet , Pinot, Geshkce said they can’t keep
Up at the back of the peleton.
Reminds you of Lemonds comments in early 90s

 

[Monoxidator]

It’s turned into an arms race. UAE and Giannetti were always going to win with their bigger budgets.

 

[Penninepeddler]

~2-3 years ago at least what was being done was semi-believable still...

but now? Yeh...

guys like Bernal are matching/beating their numbers from 5 years ago when they were right at the pointy end and getting minute-after-minute put into them.

Are Hindley, Carapaz and Simon Yates form "losses" even actual losses? They are riding as well as ever off the numbers seemingly... but just that there are a LOT of guys at the very front who somehow, in their mid to late-20s, are improving their V02 Max, VAM etc year-after-year...

or is it that they are just better fuelled and have worked hard to increase their pedal-stroke efficiency?

 

[Scarponi]

For those who knew cycling in the past, do the stage lengths and profiles have anything to do with these times? Some of the old
Profiles posted on here look diabolical compared to today in length and mountains. Though others have said they soft pedalled the first part of stages 30 years ago.

 

[fbjim]

I can see why riders like Bardet , Pinot, Geshkce said they can’t keep
Up at the back of the peleton.
Reminds you of Lemonds comments in early 90s

ok let's get some perspective here i think there is a minor difference between Greg LeMond and Simon Geschke