Official pro cycling "WTF are they on?" thread

Thomas. PLease. said:
Ventoux time as at 2013, some pretty conspicuous company...

1. 2004: 55:51 Iban Mayo 23.10 km/h
2. 2004: 56:26 Tyler Hamilton 22.86 km/h
3. 1999: 56:50 Jonathan Vaughters 22.70 km/h
4. 2004: 56:54 Oscar Sevilla 22.67 km/h
5. 1999: 57:33 Alexander Vinokourov 22.42 km/h
6. 1994: 57:34 Marco Pantani 22.41 km/h
7. 1999: 57:34 Wladimir Belli 22.41 km/h
8. 2004: 57:39 Juan Miguel Mercado 22.38 km/h
9. 1999: 57:42 Joseba Beloki 22.36 km/h
10. 2004: 57:49 Lance Armstrong 22.31 km/h
11. 1999: 57:52 Lance Armstrong 22.29 km/h
12. 2004: 58:14 Inigo Landaluze 22.15 km/h
13. 1999: 58:15 Kevin Livingston 22.15 km/h
14. 1999: 58:31 David Moncoutie 22.05 km/h
15. 2004: 58:35 José Enrique Gutierrez 22.02 km/h
16. 2009: 58:45 Andy Schleck 21.96 km/h
17. 2009: 58:45 Alberto Contador 21.96 km/h
18. 2009: 58:48 Lance Armstrong 21.94 km/h
19. 2009: 58:50 Fränk Schleck 21.93 km/h
20. 1999: 58:51 Unai Osa 21.92 km/h
21. 2009: 58:53 Roman Kreuziger 21.91 km/h
22. 2002: 59:00 Lance Armstrong 21.86 km/h
23. 2013: 59:00 Chris Froome 21.86 km/h
24. 1994: 59:02 Richard Virenque 21.85 km/h
25. 1994: 59:02 Armand De Las Cuevas 21.85 km/h
26. 1994: 59:02 Luc Leblanc 21.85 km/h
27. 1994: 59:02 Miguel Indurain 21.85 km/h
28. 1994: 59:02 Roberto Conti 21.85 km/h
29. 2009: 59:03 Franco Pellizotti 21.85 km/h
30. 2000: 59:05 Marco Pantani 21.83 km/h
31. 2000: 59:05 Lance Armstrong 21.83 km/h
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Still 29s behind a rider who was definitely clean in 1999 though!

It does look rather suspect when riders are sometimes beating some previously dodgy times, but using that as evidence of doping is pushing it a bit, especially on climbs like ventoux which are massively influenced by wind.

A better analysis would be comparing efforts across a stage. If riders are going full guns, 6w/kg+ on 2 HC climbs in a row then it will seem rather dodgy!
 
Stuff like micro dosing EPO is probably still going on. I think the days of high octane drugs and blood doping have long gone. But is it 100% clean? You'd have to be very naive to think it is.
 
Forgotten where I read it now, but interesting regarding Paolini getting popped for cocaine, not because he was out on the razz on tour, but because he'd made a blood transfusion which was taken while he had previously being taking cocaine. Which makes sense to me.

Still, I had thought the days of blood bags were long gone, but I guess not.
 
So **** hit the fan last night when a load of Froome's data got leaked and someone put together a video displaying his live HR/power data alongside his climb of Ventoux in 2013. Sky have claimed the data has been hacked which I guess makes it legit.

https://m.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1033149476696091&id=213103522034028

Ross Tucker is taking a lot of flak for it on Twitter, he's behind the Science of Sport website which analyses performance in cycling and raised some question marks over Nibali's performance last year among others. The data proves his estimates have been within about 5-10W of Froome's actual power. As he points out, no-one raised an eyebrow when he posted about Nibali last year, but in 2013 and this year he's been taking a lot of criticism for it. Critics have called his approach pseudoscience, but it's the most accurate pseudoscience I've seen.

Unsurprisingly the power numbers are somewhat questionable for that stage of a GT...

Continuing on, if teams have nothing to hide there is no reason not to publish their power data. All the pro teams know what power is required to win a GT. I like Ross Tucker's analogy of it's the same as Justin Gatlin hiding his time in the 100m to stop his rivals knowing how fast he's going. Knowing that you need x number of watts to win the Tour is as helpful as knowing you need to run 9.70s to win the 100m.

What bothers me about this all isn't so much the alleged cheating, it's the hypocrisy of people like Sky and Brian Cookson coming in to cycling claiming they would do things differently, then once they're in finding pathetic excuses not to be as transparent as they should be.
 
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One More Solo said:
So **** hit the fan last night when a load of Froome's data got leaked and someone put together a video displaying his live HR/power data alongside his climb of Ventoux in 2013. Sky have claimed the data has been hacked which I guess makes it legit.

https://m.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1033149476696091&id=213103522034028

Ross Tucker is taking a lot of flak for it on Twitter, he's behind the Science of Sport website which analyses performance in cycling and raised some question marks over Nibali's performance last year among others. The data proves his estimates have been within about 5-10W of Froome's actual power. As he points out, no-one raised an eyebrow when he posted about Nibali last year, but in 2013 and this year he's been taking a lot of criticism for it. Critics have called his approach pseudoscience, but it's the most accurate pseudoscience I've seen.

Unsurprisingly the power numbers are somewhat questionable for that stage of a GT...

Continuing on, if teams have nothing to hide there is no reason not to publish their power data. All the pro teams know what power is required to win a GT. I like Ross Tucker's analogy of it's the same as Justin Gatlin hiding his time in the 100m to stop his rivals knowing how fast he's going. Knowing that you need x number of watts to win the Tour is as helpful as knowing you need to run 9.70s to win the 100m.

What bothers me about this all isn't so much the alleged cheating, it's the hypocrisy of people like Sky and Brian Cookson coming in to cycling claiming they would do things differently, then once they're in finding pathetic excuses not to be as transparent as they should be.
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The simple solution with the power numbers is for the sport to make them all public for every rider in every race we shouldn't be asking or expecting an individual team to reveal data that they believe to be sensitive if nobody else is doing it. If the sport wants to be seen as clean then it is probably something that should be done along with the banning of almost all TUE's if someone has saddle sores that need cortisone they shouldn't be on a bike.

I'm not stupid enough to believe that any top level sport is clean especially one like cycling where drugs bring such obvious benefits but I do believe it is nothing like as rampant as in the dark days when you had guys who were built like tanks like Risse flying up the hills. I really want to believe Froome is clean and I hope history vinidicates him as he seems like a good guy and cycling needs a clean star or two..
 
Apologies, didn't even see this thread existed and posted a heap of stuff about the above in the Pro Cycling Discussion Thread.

Maybe a mod could kindly move all our jabbering about that today into this thread? :)
 
a1ex2001 said:
The simple solution with the power numbers is for the sport to make them all public for every rider in every race we shouldn't be asking or expecting an individual team to reveal data that they believe to be sensitive if nobody else is doing it. If the sport wants to be seen as clean then it is probably something that should be done along with the banning of almost all TUE's if someone has saddle sores that need cortisone they shouldn't be on a bike.

I'm not stupid enough to believe that any top level sport is clean especially one like cycling where drugs bring such obvious benefits but I do believe it is nothing like as rampant as in the dark days when you had guys who were built like tanks like Risse flying up the hills. I really want to believe Froome is clean and I hope history vinidicates him as he seems like a good guy and cycling needs a clean star or two..
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Fact is, Sky bang on more than any other team about winning clean and then getting upset when people question their performances and try and cover it up with spurious technological explanations. If you listen to Sky, it's like they invented the derailleur, but the reality is powermeters have existed since the 1980s and the tech arms race has been going on for decades.

As I've said, they should have nothing to hide. Why does it matter if everyone knows Froome does x watts per kg up a climb? Will it make them train harder? If Froome is exceptionally physiologically gifted then no-one will be able to touch him in an out and out drag race anyway.
 
I don't see the problem of being transparent with race gathered data.

If they want to keep their training plans, nutrition and marginal gains to themsevles then fine but from a race of man versus man on the same course, I don't see the problem of UCI and competitor teams seeing the performance data of all riders.
 
One More Solo said:
Knowing that you need x number of watts to win the Tour is as helpful as knowing you need to run 9.70s to win the 100m.
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I dont agree with the 100m analogy.
The only data you need to release for the 100m to prove you did it is the finish time.
For power, you cant just publish the overall average like that. If Chris Froome wins the tour and says at the end that he averaged 3w/kg over the whole race, that doesnt mean anything. They would need to publish all the instantaneous power readings taken all the way through to prove that average.

That doesnt specifically give anybody an advantage over anybody else but it does show where each rider's weakness is.
I can look at my power graphs from 2 different rides with exactly the same average power and tell you which one was harder.
I could also look at one of my rides and tell you exactly where I started to crack - even if the average power doesnt drop at all.

And that's just my own crude analysis of my own inconsistent power. A team of data-analysts with the full data of a pro rider in a grand tour could probably identify the exact circumstances needed to make that rider crack.
It would just take Team Sky's tactics of driving the pace up the climbs to an extreme. There would be no point attacking because they will have paced it not only to the power they know that Froome can do but also from analysis of each other GC contender in the race.

It would end up like horse racing where the main favourites all intentionally do poorly in the lead up races to hide their form then it would become even more suspicious when a rider who had a terrible race in the Dauphine suddenly wins the tour.
 
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xdcx said:
I don't see the problem of being transparent with race gathered data.

If they want to keep their training plans, nutrition and marginal gains to themsevles then fine but from a race of man versus man on the same course, I don't see the problem of UCI and competitor teams seeing the performance data of all riders.
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This is the point, I don't think SKY would object if it was a UCI mandate that all teams competing had the data published but to expect SKY to reveal all when nobody else does seems a little silly to me. For me the authorities are still not noisy enough about drugs they need to sanction teams and individuals consistently and harshly and the sport as a whole needs to be open and honest if it wants to lift the fog of suspicion a little!
 
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:p

My point being, his "pseudoscience" has actually turned out to be very close to the real numbers i.e. it's not pseudoscience.

And touch, I disagree on that point. I imagine most of the teams have a very good idea as it is of what their rivals strengths, weaknesses and power numbers are. Even if you have all those numbers confirmed exactly, races are won and lost on someone having a good day and someone having a bad day. I expect Contador was by far the strongest rider at the Giro on paper, but he still lost time on stages at the Giro.
 
One More Solo said:
I expect Contador was by far the strongest rider at the Giro on paper, but he still lost time on stages at the Giro.
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Imagine if team sky had his power data from those stages. Maybe he was having a bad day or maybe something happened that caused him to lose time. Maybe it was a particularly fast stage on the flat beforehand?
Maybe it was a particularly slow stage? Maybe Contador had to work a little harder in a crosswind because his positioning wasnt quite as good as the others. Maybe something happened the day before?

Cross compare his power data that day with previous data where he has also suffered, identify the patterns and then you know how to make Contador have a bad day.

Of course, all of the other teams will be doing the same thing with Froome's data. The team tactics then become all about trying to dictate the race to the weaknesses of the other rider - and probably invisible to everybody watching the race.

Maybe the UCI could ask for a copy of the power data as part of the random doping controls, but I wouldnt want to see it all publicly available to all the other teams.
 
One More Solo said:
:p

My point being, his "pseudoscience" has actually turned out to be very close to the real numbers i.e. it's not pseudoscience.
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I guessed the winner of the grand national in a couple of sweepstakes previously. Even a stopped clock etc....

Ultimately, the reveal of this data doesn't really prove anything at all. I've read more people saying it seems pretty normal and as would be expected for an athlete trained to that level as i've read people shouting he's the new Lance.

To me, there are so many other variables that affect performance in one part of a race, on one given day, in one set of environment conditions, with one particular way of training and preparing prior to the race, and one particular journey through a multi day tour to get to that point. You can't just look at one part of a race in isolation from everything else and point fingers based on 'oh, his power is x and his heart rate is y therefore derp'.
 
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