State of the Peloton 2024

[Nick2413]

Why do you think he is a much easier target? Vingegaard has his absurd TT and also pretty much absurd numbers considering where he's coming from with the injury even more so. I agree that Pogacars dominance is much more crushing on many levels, he also has a very tainted entourage to say the least, but Vingegaard has beaten him many a times and is also actually quite the dominant rider when Pogi is not around. He won 3 out of 4 stages in his first race of the season for example.
I agree that Pogacar is the easier target, but I don't think it's at all hard or much harder to question Vingegaard, if you want to.

For your same reasoning, personality. Not that Pogacar’s personality is hateable. But busting Vingegaard would be the most boring story ever and Denmark is probably harder to go after than Slovenia.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

For your same reasoning, personality. Not that Pogacar’s personality is hateable. But busting Vingegaard would be the most boring story ever and Denmark is probably harder to go after than Slovenia.

Good point, but I think the personality also gives him a lot of defense from a lot of people, also and especially in the media.
I remember well the die hard Lance believers, whatever came out, however clear the situation was, they didn't want to believe it untill it was all over and he confessed. But that took *** forever and a lot of people to talk if I recall correctly.
As you pointed out, Lance's nature became only obvious to a greater public through the questions that were being asked, but honestly also just because he pissed of or mistreated to many people. If Pogacar doesn't do that he'll be hard nut to crack if not for a criminal investigation, and probably even then.
And as I pointed out earlier, there are less Doping cases now in Cycling than basically ever before, so there's no indication anyone is looking very hard atm.

I don't really know how Slovenia/Denmark play into this, other than the prospect of local journalists getting funding to blow them up respectively. I also have no idea how Slovenian courts handle doping cases, if it came to that. Which would also need for the case to be in Slovenia. I'd be more concerned about UAE, because they'd surely want to protect their project from any doping revelations. Probably by all means necessary.

 

[Monoxidator]

With so many ways to increase HCT/Hgb these days they should just go back to a hard limit on it and not even bother trying to detect exact compounds. Frankly it doesn’t even matter whether it’s EPO or CO or altitude, they all do the same thing, and the health risk is the high HCT values.

That's not a terrible idea. Cap it say ... 55% or something. No excuses for going over it.

wouldn't manipulating your blood values with CO trigger the biopassport? i know that's why they would do it at altitude, but that must wear off after a couple weeks, no? they're still going insanely fast 3 weeks into the Tour. there has to be something else. maybe they are using blood transfusions with CO affected blood? i still think that would trigger the passport.

The teams are likely bribing the UCI into looking past the unrealistic HC numbers. For specific riders they have the plausible excuse of being "altitude responders." In the research paper I read, the effects of the CO therapy lasted as long as the treatment did ... 3 week treatment and 3 week elevated HC and Vo2.

 

[Rob5091]

The teams are likely bribing the UCI into looking past the unrealistic HC numbers. For specific riders they have the plausible excuse of being "altitude responders." In the research paper I read, the effects of the CO therapy lasted as long as the treatment did ... 3 week treatment and 3 week elevated HC and Vo2.

Roll out a university professor who's on the team to explain the "dodgy numbers" is always a good move. (like Froome's salbutamol case when Sky paid big bucks for the experts to say Froome's kidneys somehow stored salbutamol then released it later just as he was having a bad day at the Vuelta).
Not long ago there was an Instagram post with some UAE guys in front of a Ferrari and some gangster reference. That same week,the tv show 60 minutes in Australia had a segment on the UAE & Dubai called "Gangster's Paradise" Admittedly that should have been done like 5 years ago but at least they went there..
That the Al Maktoums are also into race horses (listen to the talk with UCI's anti-motor doping boss for his take on horse racing) is fitting - another sport where doped up participants keep schtum.
With all the big bucks coming into pro-cycling it's not surprising that organizations will start to turn a blind eye as performances become more and more extreme. Why rock the boat,or bite the hand that gives you a nice lifestyle and get to meet sporting "heroes"? It's only sport after all!

 

[Krzysztof_O]

It seems only selected teams have access to let's call it hypothetical fuel-X (which upped climbing speeds by at least 5% aka 0.3 w/kg on selected big climbs of this Tour). The gap behind the top3 is an abyss. UAE and Visma-LAB obviously have it. Soudal probably as well (not only Remco's best ever performances, also Landa is very strong). Ineos guys looks like amateurs compared to top dogs, they are missing it. Not sure about BORA (Primoz left earlier), maybe missing it too (Hindley really poor). Elite climbers from a breakaway being passed by Teddy like by a motorcycle was comical - most teams miss it IMO.

 

[Rackham]

It seems only selected teams have access to let's call it hypothetical fuel-X. The gap behind the top3 is an abyss. UAE and Visma-LAB obviously have it. Soudal probably as well (not only Remco's best ever performances, also Landa is very strong). Ineos guys looks like amateurs compared to top dogs, they are missing it. Not sure about BORA (Primoz left earlier), maybe missing it too (Hindley really poor). Elite climbers from a breakaway being passed by Teddy like by a motorcycle was comical - most teams miss it IMO.

This is an interesting conversation.

I'd be very curious to see how Rog & Red Bull (if he's fit) do in the Vuelta versus Almeida & Yates. And if Vingegaard does do the Vuelta it's a forgone conclusion anyway. No one will hold his wheel.

Someone here used the "don't bring nukes to an antimatter fight" analogy last week & I think it applies to Rog & Red Bull in this Tour. IMO they prepared for the 2022 & 2023 Tour de France's... in 2024. But unfortunately for them there's been a huge boost to their rivals since last year. There's something about whatever these teams are doing which grants some riders anything between a 5%-10% improvement year-on-year. Red Bull & Ineos meanwhile appear to have antiquated methods. I think there's probably some serious head scratching going on behind the scenes.

It's like Combloux last year became the norm this year. Honestly I'm pretty down on Rog's chances right now. It'll get labelled as 'age' related decline (which is ironic when we see what Landa is doing) but Paris-Nice in hindsight sort of set the tone: he's on the limit when he wins & cannot win anymore when he's slightly below his limit.

 

[fbjim]

frankly if there is a sponsor out there who is fully willing to bend rules to rocket-power their team, it's going to be Red Bull. don't think we've heard the last from them.

 

[DenisMenchov]

I'm 99% sure Alpecin has the new stuff as well. And Red Bull probably has it too, just their top 3 guys were not here in the end (Rogla, Vlasov and Martinez). INEOS are behind for sure for some time now.

 

[houtdffan]

frankly if there is a sponsor out there who is fully willing to bend rules to rocket-power their team, it's going to be Red Bull. don't think we've heard the last from them.

I'd expect Red Bull to do it with their bikes.

That team, I believe, is owned by Red Bull themselves now. Which means, they will have all their F1 resources

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

frankly if there is a sponsor out there who is fully willing to bend rules to rocket-power their team, it's going to be Red Bull. don't think we've heard the last from them.

They'll have a clear laid out plan of how to achieve very good results, or even dominate at some point. It's going to be interesting to see. The super team thing isn't beloved by me, but I guess one more team to spread out the good riders a bit more isn't such a bad thing.

Overall RedBull have an extreme amount of experience in all sorts of different sports, I'm sure they'll propagate some innovations (magical or otherwise)

 

[repoman]

Roll out a university professor who's on the team to explain the "dodgy numbers" is always a good move. (like Froome's salbutamol case when Sky paid big bucks for the experts to say Froome's kidneys somehow stored salbutamol then released it later just as he was having a bad day at the Vuelta).
Not long ago there was an Instagram post with some UAE guys in front of a Ferrari and some gangster reference. That same week,the tv show 60 minutes in Australia had a segment on the UAE & Dubai called "Gangster's Paradise" Admittedly that should have been done like 5 years ago but at least they went there..
That the Al Maktoums are also into race horses (listen to the talk with UCI's anti-motor doping boss for his take on horse racing) is fitting - another sport where doped up participants keep schtum.
With all the big bucks coming into pro-cycling it's not surprising that organizations will start to turn a blind eye as performances become more and more extreme. Why rock the boat,or bite the hand that gives you a nice lifestyle and get to meet sporting "heroes"? It's only sport after all!

The doctor that formulated the salbutamol test for WADA literally failed to account for dehydration in the test. When you actually stop to think that lowered plasma/being dehydrated would impact results that whole thing was a bunch of nothing. Salbutamol isn't even a performance enhancing drug in terms of being able to produce more power or cardiovascular function. It was outlawed because people like bodybuilders use it to cut fat, and you need to take HUGE amounts of it for that to work, like 50 inhalers in a day worth of intake. Froome's level was just above allowed limits.

 

[houtdffan]

MPCC has no plans to call for ban on carbon monoxide rebreathers in cycling

‘Right now, there is nothing that says that it’s being used in the optic of performance enhancement’ MPCC president says

www.cyclingnews.com

MPCC only cares about appearances... nah, not really

perfectly fine to go around huffing the carbon monoxide

 

[E_F_]

MPCC has no plans to call for ban on carbon monoxide rebreathers in cycling

‘Right now, there is nothing that says that it’s being used in the optic of performance enhancement’ MPCC president says

www.cyclingnews.com

MPCC only cares about appearances... nah, not really

perfectly fine to go around huffing the carbon monoxide

Damn, even though we have every reason to believe it could be used, they need prof that it is being used, before they'll ban it? Great thinking there!

 

[E_F_]

Salbutamol isn't even a performance enhancing drug in terms of being able to produce more power or cardiovascular function

It increases your oxygen intake massively afaik???

 

[repoman]

It increases your oxygen intake massively afaik???

No. It's used as a bronchodilator, so it can expand bronchi that's constricted from asthma, but it won't expand bronchi past a baseline.
The testing of this substance is bad too, with control getting basically impossible results (athletes administered a set amount, and the test gave out results that indicated the test subject took 800% more than was administered.


"This comment is an indirect result of a study by Martineauet al. [9], published in 1992, that demonstrated that 16 mg of long-acting oral salbutamol was distinctly anabolic. That oral salbutamol can improve exercise performance has been confirmed in subsequent publications [10]. In a 2007 review, Kindermann [11] noted that numerous studies had demonstrated that inhaled salbutamol does not enhance sports performance. Subsequent published research has tended to confirm this fact in doses of up to 1600 μg in 24 h [12]."

16mg is a TON of the substance.

 

[E_F_]

No.

How doping works in cycling, explained by a physiologist and former pro rider

We talked to an expert to learn more about how today’s cyclists cheat — from EPO, to salbutamol, to ... uh ... poop doping.

www.sbnation.com

" It is a bronchial dilator. I’ll take it back a step — the whole buzz about beet juice being a vasodilator, increasing blood circulation to the muscles without as much work, it’s the same idea of using clenbuterol or another type of asthma inhaler, where it increases the surface space of the bronchials so you have more oxygen transfer. So effectively with every breath, you can intake and transfer more oxygen to the cells. So again, it’s all about that oxygen delivery."

 

[ontheroad]

He goes under the radar a fair bit due to the 2 super mutants but Derek Gee might get the award for the biggest performance leap in the last year. Notable mention to Jorgenson.

 

[Simurgh]

Lest we forget to notice; Derek G 9th in final GC in front of established, even if second or third-tier, GC contenders Hindley, Mas, Gaudu and Carapaz. Deux vitesses?

 

[Monoxidator]

He goes under the radar a fair bit due to the 2 super mutants but Derek Gee might get the award for the biggest performance leap in the last year. Notable mention to Jorgensen.

Derek Gee doesn't go under the radar at all.

 

[Monoxidator]

Lest we forget to notice; Derek G 9th in final GC in front of established, even if second or third-tier, GC contenders Hindley, Mas, Gaudu and Carapaz. Deux vitesses?

When they say "Incredible Talent" now, what they mean is "Incredible Responder"

 

[Barnacle Bill]

I feel like UAE have been holding back a bit this year, for the sake of appearances. I hope next year they go full out all season, no gifts, no apologies, unleash all the boys, "let it rip".

 

[houtdffan]

I feel like UAE have been holding back a bit this year, for the sake of appearances. I hope next year they go full out all season, no gifts, no apologies, unleash all the boys, "let it rip".

QS will do this next year

Mapei makes a return!

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I feel like UAE have been holding back a bit this year, for the sake of appearances. I hope next year they go full out all season, no gifts, no apologies, unleash all the boys, "let it rip".

Don't forget these:

 

[Mayomaniac]

He goes under the radar a fair bit due to the 2 super mutants but Derek Gee might get the award for the biggest performance leap in the last year. Notable mention to Jorgenson.

That's how people must have felt when they suddenly saw Bjarne Riis becoming a gc rider in 1993...

 

[AmRacer]

That's how people must have felt when they suddenly saw Bjarne Riis becoming a gc rider in 1993...

Jonas 2021?