• The Cycling News forum is still looking to add volunteer moderators with. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

State of the Peloton 2024

Page 57 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
I have been reading up on athletics as well (e.g. marathon). There the explanations are wondershoes (carbon plates), although that hasn't changed in the last few years. In Cycling it's the magical carbs intake which for some reason is not used to explain away performances in the marathon although Maurten is a big sponsor there as well. It seems every sport has their own explanation but what we see across the board are sudden large improvements.

Case in point the WR in the marathon for Women. Suddenly in the last two years (way after introduction of Carbon plated shoes) the progress went from 2h14 (2019) to 2h09 (yesterday) with an intermediate step of 2h11. It was 2h15 from 2003-2014. For the men the progression is much more granular with progression steps being smaller and relatively more frequent. Since it's someone from Africa, Kenya in particular, people obviously have been scream doping as Kenya has not been testing properly anymore as funding for it has also dwindled while there were a lot of positive tests in recent years.

However, with the large steps there but also our own Pogacar which is far better than the rest throughout the year... my uninformed opinion theorizes there might be something new on the block. Large steps are being made across sports and different sports provide different reasons. A common denominator would make more sense though... Whatever it may be. For the sake of athletes, I just hope it's not detrimental to their health.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Squire
I have been reading up on athletics as well (e.g. marathon). There the explanations are wondershoes (carbon plates), although that hasn't changed in the last few years. In Cycling it's the magical carbs intake which for some reason is not used to explain away performances in the marathon although Maurten is a big sponsor there as well. It seems every sport has their own explanation but what we see across the board are sudden large improvements.

Case in point the WR in the marathon for Women. Suddenly in the last two years (way after introduction of Carbon plated shoes) the progress went from 2h14 (2019) to 2h09 (yesterday) with an intermediate step of 2h11. It was 2h15 from 2003-2014. For the men the progression is much more granular with progression steps being smaller and relatively more frequent. Since it's someone from Africa, Kenya in particular, people obviously have been scream doping as Kenya has not been testing properly anymore as funding for it has also dwindled while there were a lot of positive tests in recent years.

However, with the large steps there but also our own Pogacar which is far better than the rest throughout the year... my uninformed opinion theorizes there might be something new on the block. Large steps are being made across sports and different sports provide different reasons. A common denominator would make more sense though... Whatever it may be. For the sake of athletes, I just hope it's not detrimental to their health.
Maybe they have put something in our food or it was the vaccine.
 
Mathias Flückiger after 2 years gets acquited ...
https://cyclinguptodate.com/mountai...arded-over-43000-swiss-francs-in-compensation
After more than two years of fighting, Flückiger has now been officially acquitted of the charge. "The pressure over the last two years has been unbelievably great. Dealing with this case, with countless obstacles, was by far the hardest and longest competition in my career," Flückiger was quoted as saying on Friday by Blick. "I am grateful that I had my family, my girlfriend and an incredibly good team by my side. They made it possible for the truth to prevail in the end."
In an added bonus for the now 36-year-old Swiss talent, Flückiger, he has also been awarded a not inconsiderable sum of 43,380 Swiss francs, plus the Swiss Sports Integrity SSI have been ordered to pay Flückiger's 3,000 francs legal cost fee.

According to the Swiss however, this is simply not enough compensation for the damage caused. This amount "does not come close to covering the actual costs that Mathias Flückiger has had to spend over the last two years, let alone the lost bonuses and sponsorship income as well as personal expenses," his team claim in a statement. "Actual financial damage suffered must be fully compensated." As such, we may not have seen the last of this drama just yet.
Original article at https://www.blick.ch/sport/rad/dopi...ger-endgueltig-freigesprochen-id20236522.html
 
Clicky bait or actual info? :confused_old:

View: https://x.com/unclecycling/status/1847337675814039733?s=19

CyclingHighlights
@unclecycling

"Since 45 days I know one of the biggest doping secrets in World Tour. It will be disappointing for a lot of fans who think actual cycling is clean. But I have to wait guys, that’s how it works. This info has a great value but we don’t sell nothing to the press."

I wonder who this Uncle is. he's bilingual, speaks both Spanish and English (but I think his first language is Spanish) he's similar to the twitter antidopers in his way of wanting us all to open our eyes, like they are prophets shouting in the desert and we are deaf. same as his other antidopers friends takes pleasure in every mishap/controversy happening to any cyclist/team. doesn't seem to enjoy the sport and only tweets about doping or bad/weird stuff happening.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Salvarani and yaco
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FAUB04kwPxM&pp=ygUSY3ljbGluZyBoaWdobGlnaHRz


Most of these videos are well written and although completely stupid majority of the time, spoken in over the top sarcasm, they avoid legal consequences in markets like US.
This video title for example is click bait plainly.....
And most of the videos never have data, rather just a string of data points that you are supposed to conclude something sinister is going on.
The social media algorithms steer me to all these and I occasionally click and watch and almost always regret it.
So w the image and title, what do most people think.. Guilty of something.. And cycling has made itself a sports ground zero for doping conspiracy theories, because many of them were true.. Too many
 
Because in Nibali era, doing 6 w/kg during one hour was otherworldly numbers. I think nowadays, Pogacar and Vingegaard can perform 0,7 -0,8 w/kg higher than in Nibali era. Froome's ride to LPSM was less than 6,2 w/kg.
Nobody does fresh FTP numbers in a race. It's where a lot of really dumb comparisons originate from.

Nibali did 6.9 for 20 minutes IIRC before the 2014 Tour de France, that data got published in a scientific article, that while anonimized, wasn't hard to figure out.
 
Anyone want to start an investigative collaboration to get closer to the bottom of all this? Perhaps even ask some questions of relevant organizations and individuals? I have a silly acronym for it! Association of Curious Cycling Enthusiasts Substantiating Suspicions.
 
People should have a look on Strava, and compare Nibali's Giro winning stage of 2016 to the power outputs on Vars, Bonette and Isola 2000 in 2024.

Buitrago, who's like 5kg lighter than Nibali does like 10% more W (not W/kg) for the whole stage on average and he finishes minutes down.
Get a bike, start testing a quality SRM product that Nibali used and compare it to the crappy Shimano that Santi used and you will surely get two different results.
 
An interesting 2024 paper -
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11414593/



Question then is, what is the "main cause of fatigue"?:confused_old:
Muscular damage and glycogen shortage. I think in extreme exercise there's also hormonal effects.

There's at least anecdotal evidence in ultra endurance athletes that fatigue, presumably at lower intensities, is also highly psychological and people can just blast through levels of fatigue they didn't think was possible at all.
 
Clicky bait or actual info? :confused_old:

View: https://x.com/unclecycling/status/1847337675814039733?s=19

CyclingHighlights
@unclecycling

"Since 45 days I know one of the biggest doping secrets in World Tour. It will be disappointing for a lot of fans who think actual cycling is clean. But I have to wait guys, that’s how it works. This info has a great value but we don’t sell nothing to the press."
In the comments he basically says that he knows small fish ("Landis") but is now building evidence for his big fish ("Lance"). Apparantly he has been in discussion with mou as well who says in the comments that he is eager to supply him with any info showing Pogi is clean. According to mou it's more realistic that the pope would mary in the Saint Peter's cathedral than Pogi doping