Long Distance Cycling - doping & the rando scene?

there's a thread in the road forum about this, but what struck me is that this guy doped and then did a brevet series & the PBP. 71 hour time; i'd think he'd do a sub-50 hour one on all those drugs!

http://outside.away.com/outside/bodywork/200311/200311_drug_test_1.html

so here's a question: while this was just an experiment, do you think there are any people taking enhancers (beyond caffeine, etc) doing the brevets & even the PBP?

personally it makes me mad that he chose the PBP of all events to do! he should have tried to do crit racing or something else..

I seem to recall a thread about this a year or so ago, but don't remember if it was on bikeforums or somewhere else (it might've been on randon), but basically, considering the cost of performance enhancing drugs, the toll that it takes on your body and the absence of financial reward in randonneuring, it doesn't make economical sense to dope up.

The point of doping is to build one's cycling career, and to make a name for one's self within a crowd that is perceived to be full of dopers and cheaters. You need an edge to get yourself noticed, to get a sponsorship, to get the support that brings you up to the next tier. Maybe doping will do that. Maybe hard work is enough. Suffice to say, if you want to build a career out of competitive cycling, opting to do a 200k brevet instead of a cat 4 crit is a waste of your time. So the people who are interested in randonneuring are less likely to dope.

All the same, there is a gray area between taking testosterone and EPO and randonneurs who might chase various expensive and exotic options for improving their finishing times. Beyond caffeine, there are folks who discuss the viability of taking ephedrine and prescription medications that combat drowsiness Indeed, if there are any areas where randonneurs might be tempted to dabble with some kind of magic potion, it's for the all-important question of dealing with all-day/all-night riding.

But, in general, a brevet is ultimately a matter to be settled between the rider and the course. If someone finishes a 600k by riding straight through while hopped up on amphetamines, how does that affect your finishing time? If it doesn't affect your time, why should you care how someone else finished the ride?

Don't know and don't care.

Doping is only cheating in competitive cycling (or other competitive sport), doping during a randonnee is not cheating. There are no rules against performance-enhancing drugs in non-competitive cycling. Why would you get mad if somebody does something that is not against the rules?

The racers who did PBP in the old days often took drugs, although it wasn't considered doping or cheating then. It was somewhat akin to 'preparing your body for peak performance', like training properly.

so here's a question: while this was just an experiment, do you think there are any people taking enhancers (beyond caffeine, etc) doing the brevets & even the PBP?

Just the thought of people doping to do a brevet ... :lol: :roflmao: :roflmao2:

I guess if they DNF'd on their first five tries at a 200K, maybe someone might turn to doping, but it is a pretty sad thought nonetheless.

Just the thought of people doping to do a brevet ... :lol: :roflmao: :roflmao2:


I mean, why do you think they call it "dope"?

Scott P

Doping? For a non-competitive sport? Well, I guess there are people that are a special kind of dumb-a**. True the only people they are cheating are themselves. Maybe their sense of "accomplishment" comes from thinking they "put one over" on someone. I guess there are people that are proud of their ability to cheat.

For myself I think I get more pride from the hard work I put into improving myself. Maybe things aren't going as fast as I would like, but if I take a short cut to get there it would just lessen the accomplishment of what I'm trying to achieve. Only performance enhancing drugs I'm going to use is the analgesics that help me get through the little aches and pains. That is until they make aspirin illegal.

I'm sure that at least some brevet / PBP riders are on some kind of anti-aging program that involves T, HGH and other prescription drugs.

However, I seriously doubt many of them take drugs with the specific intention of improving their times. Part of the reason is that the improvements really are somewhat small in scope, especially for those who are not doing 30 days of stage races in a row. You could not take a Joe Average Bike Club Rider, juice him up with T and EPO, and get him even to the level of a pro domestique. You'll get more noticeable performance benefits from aero bars than from drugs.

I'm generally anti-doping, but I could really care less when it comes to non-competitive events. If you're taking a drug to beat another rider to the finish line, that's a totally different story.

Silly thinking of riders that take Ensure to complete centuries/doubles!:roflmao2:

Maybe ... maybe not ... but who cares????

Everyone who finishes a brevet or randonnee is the Winner and comes in First Place. Those who don't finish, DNF. Those are the two "places" in randonneuring.

How fast or slow you are really doesn't matter one bit.

Maybe ... maybe not ... but who cares????

well i guess you all would call me crazy, but i care. i'm not saying this was the end of the world that the guy doped for PBP, i just thought it was a dumb event to choose.

maybe it's because i'm just getting into the rando thing, but it is a little competitive for me. posting the times means you know where you finished in relation to the other riders. we shouldn't post the finishing times if they don't want people to compare themselves to others!

the first few guys/gals that finish our brevets also certainly care (about finishing fast), and are well known for doing so. also, fast riders are often congratulated by volunteers along the route for being in the "upper crust" (e.g. first half) of the pack. so if one of our famously fast riders ended up being a doper, i'm sure it would rustle more than a few feathers around here.

say what you will, but randonneurring is competitive for quite a few people!! no prizes, no places, i know, i know...

anyway, the guy was an idiot for doping at all in the first place, even for an experiment. at least that's my take.

Yeah, well, I think you're being a bit silly about this. A guy doped up, and happened to pick PBP as his endurance event. In 2003.

Not to mention you kind of missed the point of the article. The idea wasn't "wow I'm going to dope up for PBP, I bet lots of people do this." The point was "I'm going to really see what this stuff does to me, so readers can get an idea of what it's probably doing to the pros & amateurs."

Sorry, but this is old news. Just go back to riding your bike.

maybe it's because i'm just getting into the rando thing, but it is a little competitive for me. posting the times means you know where you finished in relation to the other riders. we shouldn't post the finishing times if they don't want people to compare themselves to others!



A lot of clubs don't post finishing times. Randonneuring is not meant to be competetive ... it's meant to be cooperative.

Personally, I couldn't care less how long any other rider took to finish an event. The only time I've paid any attention to the times is to see how long riders in past events took to finish ... to estimate the difficulty level of the ride. Otherwise I couldn't begin to tell you how long the other riders in my club took to finish their events, or how long anyone here took to finish their events. If they finish within the time period ... great! :)

To quote your RUSA site:

Randonneuring: Randonneuring is long-distance unsupported endurance cycling. This style of riding is non-competitive in nature, and self-sufficiency is paramount. When riders participate in randonneuring events, they are part of a long tradition that goes back to the beginning of the sport of cycling in France and Italy. Friendly camaraderie, not competition, is the hallmark of randonneuring.

Sorry, but this is old news.

old news that i thought brought up an interesting topic.. excuse me for saying, but i was really just trying to spice up the sometimes-sleeping LD forum.

nevermind i guess.

say what you will, but randonneurring is competitive for quite a few people!! no prizes, no places, i know, i know... I think that this is a separate conversation from doping (and if you want to have that conversation, I personally think that's a more worthwhile topic than conjecturing about whether folks dope or not)

A fellow rider spent some in Scotland last year, and told us how the Scottish randonneurs do not post finishing times, but run brevets almost constantly. For competitively-minded randonneurs, the basis for competition is on who can complete the most brevets in a given month, quarter or calendar year. The interesting thing he described was that most Scots had atrocious finishing times because they like to stop for tea at their controles, so nobody cares about riding particularly fast so long as you finish.

Personally, I like tracking my own finishing times for my own records, in gauging my general improvement from one season to the next, and I like that my club posts times so that I don't have to do the record keeping myself. I don't, however, try to see how many people I've beaten, or particularly care where I am in the pack. There will always be someone faster, someone more hardcore, someone who may be a little slower than me but is riding fixed, or someone who may be just as fast but is more than twice my age. There are no valid bases for comparison, in my mind, so I don't bother making the effort to gauge my performance against someone else's.

But, there are certainly people who will compete for anything and who do care, but I think that they will have that mindset regardless of whether times are posted or not. If it's not fastest times, it's most completed, or it's distance / average temperature, or distance * age of bike or some other arbitrary goal post. And, for those folks, there's always the possibility that one of their 'competitors' may be cheating and what kind of ruffling will come up if such news emerges.

However, unlike, cycling, where news of doping provokes much drama and handwringing and scandal, most randonneurs will greet news of dopers with a sad shrug their shoulders but will just get on with their rides.

I think that is in part, in no small accord to the fact that there are very few spectators in randonneuring. Some folks may look up at awe to some of the faster riders in the sport, but ultimately, we're all participants in this tradition, and we're all concerned with how we -individually- perform. Hearing that some idol is a cheater and a fraud shouldn't detract from the joy that we get out of our rides.

A fellow rider spent some in Scotland last year, and told us how the Scottish randonneurs do not post finishing times, but run brevets almost constantly. For competitively-minded randonneurs, the basis for competition is on who can complete the most brevets in a given month, quarter or calendar year. The interesting thing he described was that most Scots had atrocious finishing times because they like to stop for tea at their controles, so nobody cares about riding particularly fast so long as you finish.


It isn't just the Scots. It is an Audax UK rule, no published finish times. Audax Australia doesn't have a rule about not publishing finish times but usually it is just a list of finishers, usually in alphabetical order.

It isn't just the Scots. It is an Audax UK rule, no published finish times. Audax Australia doesn't have a rule about not publishing finish times but usually it is just a list of finishers, usually in alphabetical order.

One thing that I need to clarify in my original post is that the Scots kept point scoring records for distances completed. Basically, you get 1 point for every 100k ridden in a brevet that you succesfully completed, which is part of the overall point of "even without finishing times, competitively minded folks will still find a metric for one-upping each other"

there's a thread in the road forum about this, but what struck me is that this guy doped and then did a brevet series & the PBP. 71 hour time; i'd think he'd do a sub-50 hour one on all those drugs!

The only reason he was that fast is because he was stoking Bob Breedlove's tandem!

Mr. Stevens is not a regular randonneur, although apparently he is quite an accomplished xc-skier.

When I think about it now, taking the meds was a lesser crime compared to writing about it and embarrassing PBP and the greater randonneur community. It's not in violation of the rules, and it's not really any skin off anyone else's back, but a lot of randonneurs were kind of peeved about this. Perhaps it's because we try to promote a culture of "do your best" rather than "win at all costs." I rode some of the same brevets as he did that year, and the article left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. But, of course, it really had no effect whatsoever on my own performances in those events.

I brought over-the-counter ephedrine to PBP to keep me awake, if needed, but ended up not taking it. In the TdF that would have gotten me kicked out and banned.

Given the average age of randonneurs (mid/late 40's, I'd say), I'll bet a rather large number is on prescription meds that would run afoul of the IOC/WADA/UCI lists. In this sport, that's nobody's business but their's and their doctor's.

One thing that I need to clarify in my original post is that the Scots kept point scoring records for distances completed. Basically, you get 1 point for every 100k ridden in a brevet that you succesfully completed, which is part of the overall point of "even without finishing times, competitively minded folks will still find a metric for one-upping each other"

That isn't a Scottish 'thing', it is an Audax UK competition. Audax Ecosse are a part of AUK. See http://www.aukweb.net/results/this/interim.php for the AUK results list.

Of course there are going to be people doping in these events. Heck, there are people taking alcohol, uppers, cocaine, caffeine etc to deal with their everyday lives/jobs (not that they all work well, but that's what they do). You're always going to have people looking for an easy way out.

But, seriously, who cares? You are NOT competing against others. In your head you may be but if the guy you're passing is just having a fun ride with friends and doesn't care about his time, how does comparing your time to his tell you anything about your ability? Doping to win the RAAM? Cheating. Doping to ride PBP? A person's own choice (misguided though it is) that has ZERO effect on anyone else.

But, seriously, who cares?

well, according to a rumor i heard, the PBP cared. supposedly the PBP organizers were not impressed by the journalist's stunt in 03, and banned him from the 07 PBP.

furthermore, i heard that in 07 entrants had to accept an "optional" drug test on the application form - can anyone confirm/deny this? an ancien said it was so, but you never know.

furthermore, i heard that in 07 entrants had to accept an "optional" drug test on the application form - can anyone confirm/deny this? an ancien said it was so, but you never know.

You don't have to take the ancien's word for it. The PBP 2007 Entry form is still available from RUSA's website (http://www.rusa.org/Download/PBP2007EntryForm.pdf) and Article 13 mentions the possibility of the Ministry of Youth and Sport requesting a medical control to conduct a drug test, but the language indicates that this is more of a government stipulation than it is ACP being all teed off that a doper rode PBP and then wrote about it in an American magazine. If someone has a copy of the 1999 or 2003 application form, it would be interesting to see if Article 13 existed then as well.

Personally, I totally didn't realize that this was there as the language was buried in the terms and conditions and there was no ticky-box saying "YOU MUST PEE IN THE LITTLE CUP BEFORE YOU CAN RIDE" or anything like that. From my experience, the impact of this stunt on PBP 07 was non-existent. If anything, they made a bigger deal of the fact that randonneurs kept on urinating in public places throughout the route and the requisite negative publicity of riders being 'slovenly'.

I have a copy of all that from 2003, but it would take a while to dig it out ... but I don't recall anything about drug testing then ... and there was nothing about drug testing when we got to the start/finish area this year either.

I never heard anything about this guy mattm is talking about ... I did hear about the front runners who had a car riding behind them lighting the way (I saw them in action on the route too for that matter), and I hear about the urinating in public issue ... but absolutely nothing about drug use.

Perhaps the 2007 issue will be the support vehicles which were helping their riders on the route instead of, or in addition to, supporting them at the controls.

Here in North Carolina, we have a complete brevet series in the Raleigh area and two brevets in the Lexington area. The results from these brevets don't appear to be published. I also rode a brevet with Audux Atlanta and another one in South Carolina and I don't think those results were published. So I've ridden eight brevets this year where no results were published. At least one RBA doesn't think it is anyone's business whether or not another rider finished or what her or his time was. I don't know how the other three RBAs feel about publishing finishers and times, I'm just pretty sure they didn't do it.

When I rode with the Seattle and Oregon Randonneurs, our times were published as was a list of finishers and DNFs. I wonder if it is more common to publish or not to publish.

Chuck Lathe
Franklinville, NC

Here in North Carolina, we have a complete brevet series in the Raleigh area and two brevets in the Lexington area. The results from these brevets don't appear to be published. I also rode a brevet with Audux Atlanta and another one in South Carolina and I don't think those results were published. So I've ridden eight brevets this year where no results were published. At least one RBA doesn't think it is anyone's business whether or not another rider finished or what her or his time was. I don't know how the other three RBAs feel about publishing finishers and times, I'm just pretty sure they didn't do it.

When I rode with the Seattle and Oregon Randonneurs, our times were published as was a list of finishers and DNFs. I wonder if it is more common to publish or not to publish.

Chuck Lathe
Franklinville, NC

While the RBA may choose not to publish results, for US randonneurs, you can query for them on the RUSA website.

theres a brevet coming up in florida and im kind of dissapointed to find this on the website.

Is it a race? Officially no, but the real answer is a little more nuanced. Your finishing time is recorded, and will be reported along with all event results on this Web site. If you're a RUSA member your finishing time will be recorded in RUSA's official database. [....] in some sense it is a race, but who or what you are competing against is up to you.

i just wish they wouldve stuck to the spirit and heritage of randonneuring and just said no, its not a race.

theres a brevet coming up in florida and im kind of dissapointed to find this on the website.



i just wish they wouldve stuck to the spirit and heritage of randonneuring and just said no, its not a race.

+1

Especially since it matters for insurance purposes. If I crash on a brevet and my bicycle is damaged, my bicycle is insured because a brevet is NOT a race. But if I were to take my bicycle on a race and crash, it would not be insured.

It's right there in the fine print of my policy, my bicycle is covered for everything but wars and races (and probably a couple other things).

It's right there in the fine print of my policy, my bicycle is covered for everything but wars and races (and probably a couple other things).

No wars? I'd better check mine lest my weekend plans be foiled. ;)