Thomas Frei

[Colm.Murphy]

And here's where we all fail, by resorting to ad hominem attacks.

Let me participate: You're a bit dense, aren't you? Also, your mom is ugly.

Cycling is a farce; hence, all discussion of cycling is a farce.

None of this matters any more, folks. Now that we know the governing bodies are explicitly complicit in doping, we can all give up. Unless, of course, you want to bankroll a new governing body that is somehow IOC-approved.

Give up, move on, and ride your bikes.

No, sorry Jimmy. I am being earnest with my question. I am not attacking Joe. It may sound like it but I assure you Joe and I are on good terms. The tone of my words are open to interpretation, and as such you read them as an attack. Simply not the case.

 

[Colm.Murphy]

And here's where we all fail, by resorting to ad hominem attacks.

Let me participate: You're a bit dense, aren't you? Also, your mom is ugly.

Cycling is a farce; hence, all discussion of cycling is a farce.

None of this matters any more, folks. Now that we know the governing bodies are explicitly complicit in doping, we can all give up. Unless, of course, you want to bankroll a new governing body that is somehow IOC-approved.

Give up, move on, and ride your bikes.

No, sorry Jimmy. I am being earnest with my question. I am not attacking Joe. It may not sound like it but I assure you Joe and I are on good terms. The tone of my words are open to interpretation, and as such you read them as an attack. Simply not the case.

 

[JPM London]

No, sorry Jimmy. I am being earnest with my question. I am not attacking Joe. It may not sound like it but I assure you Joe and I are on good terms. The tone of my words are open to interpretation, and as such you read them as an attack. Simply not the case.

You sure had me fooled

I was about to ask whether your problem was the support for Frei or that the support came from Papp - but not sure that question makes sense now...

I think maybe you come across as attacking or aggressive because you're to the point and don't wrap up direct questions in fluff - will keep that in mind when I read your posts in the future.

 

[JPM London]

I could not "beat my best doped times clean" because I was a very good responder to EPO, realizing 10-12% gains in functional threshold power. Keep in mind I was using full doses of EPO, too, and not limiting to micro-dosing.

Someone who wasn't that significant of a responder to EPO, or who had only been using micro-dose amounts outside of the context of blood transfusion might possibly hope to equal their doped best times if certain factors weren't maximized at the time of the doping (due to laziness or inattention, for example). So, perhaps a small difference in weight, perhaps a more effective training program...there aren't many areas in which to make improvements and I would think most have to do with having been lazy to a degree before and allowing the EPO to boost your performance previously, but not as high as it might have been had you sorted-out all of these other variables (like diet, or physiology-centric training). So w/o the small gain from EPO (in a poor responder) if there were deficiencies in other areas that can be made-up, maybe there is hope to eek-out a few more watts.

Ultimately though I would think that it's a question that depends completely on the individual and their unique circumstances.

I think a key thing is the microdosing - as he notes, he's not even sure it did him any good. If taking his words in the linked interview at face value, it also seems he never took the doping thing very seriously - he did EPO because some people told him it was good - it doesn't sound like he ever did that full on, researching everything that might give an edge kind of doping that "pro-dopers" do. In the end it's very unlikely you'll get a massive result if you just do one thing off-handedly. To me it could look like he was a non-doper trying to play the role of doper - a bit like the nerd playing bad boy...

All the above obviously with his interview taken at face value - which it very much seems to me to be.

 

[la.margna]

He is just not that talented.

Sorry, that's not true. TF was Cadel's most respected helper in the mountains at BMC. With microdosing at last year's Giro del Trentino he was riding in stage 1 and 2 on the level of a Riccò, Basso, Vinokourov, Scarponi, all probably being on not just a microdosing programme. So might not be the most gifted and a potential Tour de France winner, but definitely not without any talent.

 

[auscyclefan94]

Sorry, that's not true. TF was Cadel's most respected helper in the mountains at BMC. With microdosing at last year's Giro del Trentino he was riding in stage 1 and 2 on the level of a Riccò, Basso, Vinokourov, Scarponi, all probably being on not just a microdosing programme. So might not be the most gifted and a potential Tour de France winner, but definitely not without any talent.

In the article (the one i linked) that thomas admitted and talked about wanting to come clean he said Cadel was the cyclist he most admired in the peleton and would like to hopefully ride for him in the tour de france.

 

[luckyboy]

Recently tweeted his 'HB-Mass Data,Blood Passport,Newest VO2Max Test, Training Data and Season Power' - https://twitter.com/#!/thomasfrei/status/124477132285018112

http://www.thomas-frei.ch/thomas-frei.ch/T&T/T&T.html

Looks like he was lucky not to have had his bio passport numbers investigated back in 2008.

 

[joe_papp]

Recently tweeted his 'HB-Mass Data,Blood Passport,Newest VO2Max Test, Training Data and Season Power' - https://twitter.com/#!/thomasfrei/status/124477132285018112

http://www.thomas-frei.ch/thomas-frei.ch/T&T/T&T.html

Looks like he was lucky not to have had his bio passport numbers investigated back in 2008.

Why? ........... (done to meet minimum character length for reply)

 

[craig1985]

Recently tweeted his 'HB-Mass Data,Blood Passport,Newest VO2Max Test, Training Data and Season Power' - https://twitter.com/#!/thomasfrei/status/124477132285018112

http://www.thomas-frei.ch/thomas-frei.ch/T&T/T&T.html

Looks like he was lucky not to have had his bio passport numbers investigated back in 2008.

He always posts his details of his training rides on FB. He has been on the MTB a lot lately.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

He's certainly being transparent.

http://www.thomas-frei.ch/thomas-frei.ch/T&T/T&T.html

How come these Hb-mass tests never give us any absolute numbers? Same with Basso.

 

[Kender]

I greatly appreciate the information Frei made public and certainly it made me treat him more kindly than the likes of Ricco.

I wonder though why he hasn't been given a reduced ban for cooperating. Given the information he released with regards to micro dosing and beating the tests surely that warrants more than Di Luca got?

it looks like to me that he really was sorry for what he'd done based on how he's acted since. He probably felt he deserved the full 2 years and he wanted that time to try and get back to those former levels cleanly.

 

[Kender]

I truly doubt anyone, anywhere considers Frei to "merit" any considerations. Be it a team director, or a team owner. He is just not that talented. He is not a Ricco or Landis, where their doping tool them to the heights.

Not everyone on the team has to win races. 1 rider does not make a team. A team needs support riders just as much as race winners

 

[the big ring]

The beauty of the training data presented is you can't actually tell what he did in the training sessions - but you can see progress made, in terms of volume / intensity / resulting fitness.

This is the kind of transparency other teams could employ. You know: the ones that claim they will be transparent... without giving their game away. Would be interesting to compare and contrast.

 

[la.margna]

I truly doubt anyone, anywhere considers Frei to "merit" any considerations. Be it a team director, or a team owner. He is just not that talented. He is not a Ricco or Landis, where their doping tool them to the heights.

Teams do not just need captains and winners. It was not for nothing that he shared the room with Cadel and was his favourite domestique for the mountains back then.

Also, losing just 11 seconds (in that sad stage he tested positive for EPO microdosing) on the likes of (in 2009 doped form) Riccò, Vinokourov, Basso, Pozzovivo, Scarponi is not that bad, I think. Was interestingly just the year he was about to get to another level. (which of course most will argue due to EPO use)