The 2013 Anti-V Award

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• @ChrisO LeDuc didn't just compete in a national championship, he is a world masters champ as well as multiple time national champ. He's been decimating SE masters races for decades and everyone here saw that coming. His titles should all be stripped. Good riddance.

• @stickyjumper

  @ChrisO LeDuc didn't just compete in a national championship, he is a world masters champ as well as multiple time national champ. He's been decimating SE masters races for decades and everyone here saw that coming. His titles should all be stripped. Good riddance.

  Ah didn't know that, so it's a little more understandable but no more excusable. Glad they caught him then.

  It's an interesting point about stripping titles - I was thinking about that as I read the USADA release.

  Maybe anyone found guilty should be stripped of results for a set period prior to the actual positive test on the reasonable assumption that they didn't just take it up that week. It might make people think twice about starting in the first place if they also stood to lose some clean results.

• brilliant work, I absolutely agree, and love the sentiment

  Now, to be fair, there may be some descent patent attorney out there, its just I don't know of any personally.  IMHO, the corporate suit and ties can kiss my dogs dirty ass, suck my hairy balls and wear this dedicated award for perpetuity with pride.  They truly deserve this, however, if they think for a second I buy in that they have a trademark on 'roubaix' or 'alp d'huez', they are delusional.  I wouldn't have budged on this either, and am glad DanR stood firm, albeit I could only imagine how hard that would be to do in reality. 

  Bully lawyers in this really are something, but who cares. Bully your whatever around, I care not.  Accusations are meaningless, unless people allow it traction.  Ethereal arguements in a court of law, with judges who sincerely have no clue as to the utility of the arguements does not equal justice.  Justice in this is cycling, cyclists...we own these places in our hearts and minds, as frank well said, we made these places our holy ground, our forefathers, Merckx et al did.  Not only the past, as there will be others going forward we will all Hail in the end as greats.  No corporate vermen will ever own this, the Pave', the Arenberg, the Muur, and the host of every other thing in cycling we treasure with meaning....and corporates/douches never will.

• If doping gets an anti-V award, then this site itself is a source of douchbaggery, anti-V, and hypocrisy unlike any other.

  There are no clean riders at the professional level, but let me refer you to a comment posted on roadbikereview.com before it got deleted:

  THIS IS HOW THEY DOPE

  How do I know? Trust me ...I know.

  HGH, IGF-1 and Actovegin are pretty much the minimum that riders take. Ok...a few might just be on HGH because after all HGH converts in the liver to IGF-1.

  NONE of these drugs can be dectected....and no, UCI cannot contract out a test for HGH despite what you may have heard. They can only testIGF-1 which has a super short half life and a high degree of variability in humans. So IGF-1 cannot be reliable.

  Yes, there are some riders totally clean in the TDF and more than in years past but there are not that many guys...but soon the paranoia will clear as more riders and doctors start to figure out the controls.

  The top GC guys, with the "back up" and money, blood dope with their own frozen packed cells. Packed cells are pure red blood cells...the plasma is centrifuged off. To the packed cells is added a preservative and then they are dipped in liquid nitrogen and place in a deep freeze freezer with at least an inch between each bag. These bags can keep frozen for 10 bloody years!

  Now for a one day classic they just come to controls with a 49% crit. They can get there with blood doping or Dynepo use(human identical epo) After morning controls they have about an hour, and sometimes a little more, to blood dope. Units of their own blood are slammed into them with blood pumps. You can infuse a litre of packed cells in about an hour with no issue. This is at least 3 units of pure red cells. This will boost your crit by at least 5% and sometimes 8-9%! The top riders then line up at the starting line with a 55-59% crit!!!

  After the race the extra blood is taken out, the plasma is spun off and the red cells are frozen as above. They end up with a 50% crit. Alternatively they can just bleed the extra blood out of you until you are at 50%.

  Remember when "Lance" was so dehydrated after that one stage. Well, the guy was not dehydrated at all....he was caught with a super high crit. His doc's then said he was super dehydrated and sent him off to the motor home pronto. Control re-tested him in an hour after he was "re-hydrated" he he he and low and behold his crit was cool. Gee I wonder what they did ......they gave him a **** load saline IV along with volume expanders like Hespan to dilute his blood and drop his crit.

  In grand tours you have to pass morning controls with no more than a 50% crit, just like for any race, so they either take the extra blood out of you after the stage and save for re-infusion after morning controls, or they simply jack you with IV saline and volume expanders like Hespan right before morning controls so your crit is diluted to 49-50%. You still have the same O2 carrying capacity that you had at say 56% ...the blood is just diluted down. This extra fluid also comes in handy in the stage.

  If you blood dope for any length of time you must supplement with very tiny doses of epo and only via the IV route. Blood doping shuts down your own red cell production so you will have next to zero retics(immature red cells) in you ...and if control sees this they will know you are blood doping.

  The trouble in this tour has come from the new ultra long acting CERA. You need only 1-2 shots per month to keep keep your crit up..and even to build crit.

  Some doctors and riders thought this epo would be undetectable because of it's low sustained release....so they used it while blood doping to keep their retics up. Unfortunately if you take just the smallest amount too much(after morning controls) each day then you can get popped. The smart teams, docs, and riders, will not use CERA because it's epo comes from animal protein just like good old fashioned alpha and beta epo. The smart guys will use only Dynepo which is human identical. In micro doses you cannot be caught! If you take too much they can bust you on Dynepo by saying that you are on the stuff because your retic count will go too high too. That is what happened to Chickenman last year. He didn't actually get busted for Dynepo but they knew he was on it because retics were through the roof. He got greedy and probably ran out of frozen packed cells near the end of the race. He was worried that Contra-doper was going to catch him.

  Some guys just use Dynepo alone and do not blood dope at all...but they are forced to stay at 50%crit for the tour because if they took enough to raise it higher control will know they because they will see a high retic count. So these guys just hold at 50% with IV micro doses. You can "hold" crit steady with micro doses of alpha or beta epo but it is risky...a little too much and it won't wash out by morning and you'll get popped.

  So guys, almost everyone is doped to some degree. However, sprinters don't bother with blood doping. They are happy with a crit of 50% and then wheel sucking. I doubt very much that many sprinters could "keep up" to the pack even wheel sucking unless they are at at least 48% crit.

  FYI....almost all men have a natural crit of 40-45%. Most endurance athletes are lowish...like 40-42%. This is due to hemodilution with plasma. The body produces more plasma as it's senses even slight dehydration for the daily grind of of training.

  If you jack from 40-44% to 50% you will get about a 10% increase in sustainable power at threshold. So if you normally have a 350 watt threshold at say 70 kilo you will then get a 385 watt threshold power. This is the power you can hold for an hour all out.

  This is not the biggist deal though...the biggest deal is the unreal "repeatability" you have. Also a crit of 50% helps in day to day recovery.

  Now if you jack to 55% you will get at least a 12% increase in FTP and most guys can manage a 15%!!! So at the very least your 5 minute VO2 max repeat power becomes your one hour sustainable power!!! Think about that one guys. Repeatabilty of hard efforts goes through the roof. At 56-59% some guys get a 20% increase!!! So that is like going from 350 watts at 70 kilo's for an hour to 420 watts!!!

  The lower your starting crit the more power increase you get...so guys like Lance and Pantani and Riis and Indurain that had crits of 40-41 got huge gains in power!

  A high crit is so powerful that a "super talented' rider has NO CHANCE at all against a talented rider jacked. The best proof of this was seen in 1991 when Lemond was in the best shape of his life but epo free. Super gifted Fignon was also there and unjacked by epo. These riders were BY FAR the most talented riders that tour(sorry Indurain fans )

  In 1990 Lemond won the tour even though he was not in top shape(from the horses mouth). Even though Indurain was relegated to a domestique in 90 he was considered no real threat in 91 due to his size(mountains issue). BUT...in 91 he is a freak and had WAY more power than the previous year and he kills Lemond and Fignon. Lemond can only manage a 7th place and Fignon a 6th. ALL the riders that beat them would have had NO CHANCE against these guys unjacked on epo. In fact in 90 Lremond beat them all easily.

  Indurain wins...Bugno gets 2nd(well know epo user) and Chiappucci of all people gets 3rd jacked out of his tree.

  When a guy gets caught why doesn't he just say this.....

  "Leave me in peace; everybody takes dope" Jacque Anquetil...a class act and 5 time TDF winner!

  OK...flame away ...but it's the truth.

  RG

  So please, stop searching in vain for a embodiment of V in professional cycling because you won't find it. Seriously, the desperation here for worthy hero worship is so beta it makes me sick to my stomach. HTFU should also apply to anyone who tries too hard to live vicariously through some completely contrived public image sports figures put on for the media. Try looking for the hero within instead.

• Also that post was submitted before AICAR became the drug du jour of the most well funded GC guys. Team Sky is currently rocking it. There is no way to test for it. By the time WADA can figure out who's using it, all the riders will profited from its use will be retired and rolling in dough like Lance.

  All professional sports are freak shows guys!! Stop sticking your heads in the sand trying to pretend like there's something noble about a tradition that only non-competitive plebs still follow.

• Somehow you managed to fall on your head and it ended straight up your ass. Happy New Year!

• @unversio

  Somehow you managed to fall on your head and it ended straight up your ass. Happy New Year!

  Is that the best you got? Maybe the comment about your head in the sand got you too butthurt to come up with a clever rebuttal.

  Try taking some Provigil or amphetamines bro. You'll do better next time.

• The Keepers, the lurkers, and all the rest of us plebs [sic] have been told. I feel as if a weight has been lifted.

• @PeakInTwoYears

  plebs [sic]

  It's a word bro Nice try with the net sarcasm though. It's about as easy to catch as doping.

• @crucible

  Fascinating post. Can you now tell us why eyewear arms are worn over helmet straps?