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State of the Peloton 2024

Page 39 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
The gap between #1 and #4 is now at 12min 57secs. After this weeks mutant championships are over, that's going to be at 18+ minutes, possibly over 20 mins.

I went through wikipedia for all tours from 1990 onwards and this actually never happened at this scale in the "modern times" or since EPO or whatever you want to call it. Biggest gap between #1 and #4 that I found was 1997 tour (#1 Ulrich, #4 Olano at 15mins55secs back).
Almeida is Pog's helper. What do you expect him to do, attack his teamleader?
 
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Almeida is Pog's helper. What do you expect him to do, attack his teamleader?
This isn't about Almeida or some other specific circumstance, it's just facts about past 35 years of cycling. You can dismiss Almeida and take the difference between #1 and #5 for all I care, point still stands. The gaps are huge between top3 and the rest. Look at something like this to see an entirely different kind of field:
 
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I think teams nowadays are way more secretive in the way that they don't want the secret to get out when a rider leaves. I doubt most of the riders, even top names, are told even half the truth about the dosages and synergies of the stuff that they are taking.

A few teams still being so far ahead of the curve makes little sense otherwise. If it was just expensive as hell Ineos wouldn't be that far behind in the arms race.

Better to break the bank to poach team doctors than riders from those teams...
This is the thought I've had and it's absolutely terrifying! I think this is right 😢 It means riders are quite easily not just doped, but duped 🤫
 
This isn't about Almeida or some other specific circumstance, it's just facts about past 35 years of cycling. You can dismiss Almeida and take the difference between #1 and #5 for all I care, point still stands. The gaps are huge between top3 and the rest. Look at something like this to see an entirely different kind of field:
You specifically wrote about the gap between 1st and 4th place in your comment. So how the hell is this not about Almeida?

Btw, Landa is Remco's helper. So now you have to move the goalpost again and go to sixth place.
 
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I mean, the still have to adhere to the 50% limit in hematocrit but yes, I can totally see the riskiness with that stuff in the sense of "more is more" or indeed less good medical supervision.
What if they’re manipulating the hemoglobin though with the carbon monoxide riding in order to increase it as well. Hemoglobin is what’s actually transports everything throughout the body. Then factor in performing at a high level while huffing on fumes, take out as much fumes during the race, and no wonder performances are getting better and better.
 
What if they’re manipulating the hemoglobin though with the carbon monoxide riding in order to increase it as well. Hemoglobin is what’s actually transports everything throughout the body. Then factor in performing at a high level while huffing on fumes, take out as much fumes during the race, and no wonder performances are getting better and better.
I really don't want to like this post. But it seems more and more likely and combined with riders not knowing what the docs are giving them it's quite terrifying!
 
I really don't want to like this post. But it seems more and more likely and combined with riders not knowing what the docs are giving them it's quite terrifying!
The idea of huffing on motorcycle fumes is absurd ... that's not what they're doing. They're using precisely dosed gases controlled by highly specialized equipment to progressively overload the system throughout the duration of an altitude camp. Doing this they can probably reach the mythical 60% hema levels previously only seen with massive EPO abuse.

Exhaust fumes have nothing to do with it. It's a funny visual, but it's irrelevant to what's actually happening.

And if the teams are really scummy (like a team run by Gianetti) the gases could be dosed during any sort of lactate test, vo2 test, or hemoglobin test, through the mask without the rider being aware. CO is tasteless and odorless after all.
 
I really don't want to like this post. But it seems more and more likely and combined with riders not knowing what the docs are giving them it's quite terrifying!
I don’t like it either but it makes sense with what we’re seeing that they don’t look like they’re breathing at all on these climbs. Their body got used to operating at a high level while breathing in whatever dose of canton monoxide, thus when it’s removed it increases their performance. Like if I were to wear weighted clothing like Goku in Dragon Ball and remove it, I’ll be faster and stronger just from having carried it around. That could also be why the Jumbo rider was taking a diuretic, instead of just removing water weight they could theoretically have had pulmonary edema and they were removing the fluid from their lungs.
 
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The gap between #1 and #4 is now at 12min 57secs. After this weeks mutant championships are over, that's going to be at 18+ minutes, possibly over 20 mins.

I went through wikipedia for all tours from 1990 onwards and this actually never happened at this scale in the "modern times" or since EPO or whatever you want to call it. Biggest gap between #1 and #4 that I found was 1997 tour (#1 Ulrich, #4 Olano at 15mins55secs back).

once you get past the 3 aliens, it is really a close tour with Almieda with a 30 second lead over Landa

There is a relatively small gap between 1 and 2, a smaller but closing gap between 2 and 3, then a MASSIVE gap between 3 and 4
 
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So Pogi has gone from "I know nothing!" to "nothing to see here."
https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/it...r-confirms-use-of-carbon-monoxide-rebreather/

and asking about @mou?! Wtf?
"I don't know who this guy is and what's his purpose. I think he just tries to be important on Twitter and forums or whatever, but I don't follow, I just heard a lot. People are asking. Maybe we will all together find out who the guy is."
Considering @mou claimed to have a source on the team, I'd think it was easy to find out if that's true or not.
 

Not a widely cited paper by any standards. A study on runners from 2019.

Fwiw seems to add to the lit claiming that the CO inhalation thing has a tangible if not necessarily very large effect on HB & vo2. Here they also document a little bit larger effect on running economy, or lower oxygen cost at submax speeds. All useful adaptations of course.

Effect sizes could well depend on exact inhalation protocol. But if I had to take a guess, the method, at least as utilised here, is not the one that takes you from 6,2 to 6,8w/kg, unless in combination with other stuff.
 
On a serious side - I
The idea of huffing on motorcycle fumes is absurd ... that's not what they're doing. They're using precisely dosed gases controlled by highly specialized equipment to progressively overload the system throughout the duration of an altitude camp. Doing this they can probably reach the mythical 60% hema levels previously only seen with massive EPO abuse.

Exhaust fumes have nothing to do with it. It's a funny visual, but it's irrelevant to what's actually happening.

And if the teams are really scummy (like a team run by Gianetti) the gases could be dosed during any sort of lactate test, vo2 test, or hemoglobin test, through the mask without the rider being aware. CO is tasteless and odorless after all.
Carbon monoxide is one substance in fumes. But no one can tell me all the other stuff and even particles in your lung are for sure not performance enhancing.

Introducing the gas to riders in test environments would indeed be awful on an ethical level but also potentially keeps knowledge about practices in a narrow circle and would make riders good “liars”, since they indeed believe they are not doing that.
 
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