shovelhd

Did I say 1000? Sheesh. What a maroon.

Hermes

No, masters' records do not require a biological passport. She had the standard urine test after she broke the record. The test was several hundred dollars. There is no blood test at races. The biological passport program, which costs EURO 7,500 requires blood draws to determine hematocrit and other metrics. Those metrics are monitored and changes may indicate the athlete is doping. With the passport program comes where abouts testing where one has to keep USADA informed of ones location and USADA shows up frequently to test the athlete.

At this event, the USADA person followed her around right after she broke the record until she provided them with a urine sample. At masters road nationals, where she won the TT championship, USADA had a board on the road next to their tent and if your number was on the board, you had to provide a urine sample. She had to provide another urine sample. Both tests were negative but took several weeks to get the results.

With more testing, we will all have to watch what we eat and no food supplements. Guys will have to give up their ExtenZe.

Maltex

Testing for PED's must be substantially more expensive then testing for illicit drugs like marijuana and cocaine. Companies can turn a profit charging less for $30 for those tests, the cost for a negative test are really only the material of the testing supplies. Positive tests are more expensive because they might need more analysis and a medical review.

They should train officials to collect samples, they are already being paid any possible travel cost and it doesn't takes take any special expertise to watch someone pee then put some tape over a cup.

spectastic

what's it like to race nrc/ncc? is it humbling getting whooped by the best in the nation?

how much does it usually cost? is it covered by sponsors? do you get groupies?

spectastic

i've watched like 4 documentaries on lance armstrong, so I'm clearly an expert on this subject matter.

cpd is correct that epo injected in the blood stream will be gone with a night's sleep. the traditional administration of epo was done just under the skin, where the drug is gradually adsorbed by the body. how that plays with the short halflife of the drug? beats me.. but that's how it was done until they came up with the drug test. They then started to inject it into the bloodstream for much faster delivery to the blood stream, but because this also meant it would be flushed out by the kidneys much faster, it required more frequent administration. meanwhile, that italian dude who played team discovery's evil doctor came up with blood transfusion, where blood was extracted from the body during training, centrifuged to extract the good stuff from the plasma, and injected back into the rider shortly prior to the race, by which time the rider's blood values would have recovered from the initial blood loss. But as you can imagine, there's a lot of moving parts, and **** can easily go wrong, like mixing up people's blood, keeping the blood fresh and sanitary, the large delta in temperature between the blood extract and the rider's body temp, the delta in pressure that needs to be compensated for upon injection (I'm no doctor, but putting the **** back in has got to be a lot harder than taking that **** out), and of course, having certified people to handle all this ****, which was not the case in a lot of cases.

in short, not worth it.. don't we have a forum member who has first hand experience with this?

P.S. you can detect blood doping. lance's 2009 tour was supposedly a clean tour, to prove that he can do it without the drugs. but his blood hermatocrit was suspiciously high right before one of the crucial mountain stages that secured his podium in the overall. it's supposed to drop throughout the stages, but his increased.

gsteinb

for instance?

gsteinb

I'm unaware of any forum posters who were caught dopers, though most dopers who get caught (amateur) are usually known by someone on the forum in some form.

gsteinb

I culled out five pages of stuff on the ride clean topic and split it into its own thread. I apologize if something got lost or left behind (or inadvertently moved) in the act. Hopefully we can get the goals thread more back on topic.

I blame teton for the start

Teton: on a related note, i've seen a few of cat 1's complaining about their $25 surcharge for 2016. it's a small sample, but the ones i've seen have been masters athletes who have not raced open events in years. i suggested that they downgrade to cat 2 if it's about the money ($25 vs $5), but i doubt they will. i do get the ego part of it.

Duke of Kent

There are a few "if" statements to follow:

If my Cat1 license from OBRA-land had transferred to USAC, if I was only racing on the road in USAC, I would very seriously considering downgrading.

However, due to the fact that I just upgraded to a higher category on the dirt, I'm within that realm. I will be very, very angry if they post my name on some board at a race in BFE, ______ (insert mountain west state name here), I'm already gone, and I get suspended as a result. I don't stick around after races unless I'm getting money or a podium picture to send to the parents.

Seeing as most races I do use the entry fees to fund trail work or local advocacy groups as opposed to prize lists 20 deep, or a "pick your prize" table consisting of women's non-bib shorts from the early 2000s, I rarely stick around, even if I podium. Someone else can have that set of orange Jagwire V-brake cables and housings.

USAC should have bigger fish to fry than RANDOMLY testing middle aged guys who race around in circles in the woods for little to no gain. If I'm blowing up a local, regional or national race series? Sure, test me. But, first fix the selection process for worlds or like events, balance the organization's budget, etc.

dz_nuzz

I think I am in the same boat of many people here, sure the money isn't really an issue, I can deal with it for a yearly license. But what are we really gonna accomplish? I mean so we test 3% of athletes instead of 1%? Is it really worth it? I don't think so. If someone is doping then let them run through the ranks, hit Nationals, win something and then get caught is my take.

Unless perhaps there was some voting system where everyone could vote to have Dude X tested and USADA just arrived at his house at 3am and demanded urine.

Grumpy McTrumpy

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

When Johnson left and Bouchard-Hall came in, I had hopes that the general policies would change to reflect the needs of grassroots racing. The situations that are causing attrition at the lowest level of bike racing seem to still be there however. Costs are still high (and I don't know but haven't yet seen evidence that any costs will be reduced: insurance, fees, licenses, promoter "certifications" etc.)

Regardless of whether one can justify the increase in costs to the actual riders, the attrition is plainly visible by the loss of PROMOTERS, as well as events just plain disappearing.

Whereas the spirit behind the RideClean program is a good one (our club was one of the first to contribute to it,) the results seem to be that, although some riders do get popped, the additional financial pressure that is put on the membership at large is only contributing to the attrition in the sport. So, I say cancel the Ride Clean Program and re-focus on making cycle racing more accessible.

Not less accessible. We've already had enough of that.

Hermes

Meat, processed foods and snacks and more when traveling to other countries than the US (that may be wishful thinking). Tainted beef was a concern in Mexico.

Buy food from Whole Foods (know the source), prepare it yourself and hope for the best. I do not know the answer.

gsteinb

Is that real or just some obfuscation used by pros? My thought always was the latter. Granted supplements would be foolish to take, IMO.

mattm

Holloway (amateur national crit champion, multiple NCC crit winner) says he rarely gets tested - or at least he stated he "doesn't get tested enough" on Facebook a while back.

Point being there is no guarantee that moving up the ranks will get you tested.

Ygduf

I've never been tested but I look forward to it. Rare are my opportunities to pee with someone watching!

Hermes

I have no idea what pros actually do versus what they say they do other than many have cheated. Here is a page from the FDA website. Residual steroids are acceptable in meat sold in the the US. What is not clear is what amount, if any, of those steroids will trigger a positive drug test in humans. Maybe they are destroyed in the stomach of humans by digestion. And I suspect there are sources of food supply who cheat to gain profit just like athletes who cheat to win.

As more athletes get tested, time will tell how many positives, if any, get generated that were a result of the food chain.

gsteinb

it would be disheartening if they did 100 extra tests and got no positives. it would be more disheartening if they did 100 extra tests and caught 100 guys.

shovelhd

Thats my point of view.

100 tests would be the podium at every NRC (which now includes NCC) race, or close to it. Skip a race or two to save for targeted tests.

Hermes

Clenbuterol - - - Mexican beef...https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0417114010.htm

The illegal use of clenbuterol in livestock farming may affect the results of doping controls in sport. This is the conclusion of a study by the Institute of Food Safety, RIKILT Wageningen UR, Netherlands, in partnership with fellow institutes.

cmh

It seems like it would be good to have different penalties for different PEDs; lower for those with less performance impact, and higher possibility of coming from contaminated food. Taking clenbuterol is cheating, but it helps you get skinnier right? This is a small gain compared to something like EPO. You aren't going to get EPO from contaminated food unless you happen to be eating a retired race horse. Steroids are in between these examples.

Really just thinking out loud here, and I'm sure there are good counter examples and arguments to this idea.

tetonrider

i'm in the same boat as you...cat 1 MTB = higher surcharge for me. i might downgrade as there really are few USAC-run MTB events, and if I do one it is easy enough to bump it back up. however, i actually am happy to support increased anti-doping efforts. i'm assuming (big assumption) that they will work. i'm giving the benefit of the doubt.

the reason i responded to your post, though, is that i don't think the fact that you're a cat 1 (road, mtb or whatever) is going to increase YOUR odds of getting tested; it seems just that they are making the higher category riders bear the brunt of the cost.

now, presumably higher category riders may race more and race higher profile events, so that could increase the odds of testing, but they have not said that will be the case.


a couple things.

1%->3% may not be worth it. i don't know what the actual numbers will be.

based on some testing done last year, it SEEMS like testers may have responded to tips. i don't know how it works but have heard about a tip line. maybe if they get enough flags for the same rider (votes, in your example), that triggers testing? maybe that's not a bad thing.

finally, your idea of "just let the dopers run through the ranks, win nationals, and then get caught" troubles me a bit. doping really violates a moral contract that we have when we're competing in sport....amateur sport. in my mind, doping to win nationals is no worse than doping to win the local cat 5 criterium. either one is doing something that goes against the code of fair play. that said, i suspect the odds of someone doping for something as "prestigious" as nationals (for whatever that is worth) are probably higher, which means testing there is likely to be better use of limited $$.

to the point @Grumpy McTrumpy was making, the sport has a big problem in terms of barriers to entry. personally, i think it is expensive, with or without a license fee surcharge, but that's another discussion. if people are -- or feel that they are -- being cheated out of the opportunity to play fairly, then that perception further reduces the chances of someone entering a cat 5 race or sticking around. we all know the sport is difficult at any level; it requires time, $, and sacrifice. there are lots of opportunities for people to get demoralized in training alone. add "competing against dopers" to the mix and, well, it doesn't INcrease the chances people will enter races or stay in the sport.

i'm not saying people who think that way are correct, but it does seem to be a real perception amongst the masses that doping is an issue.

as a result, i can't really agree that we should not care about a doper until they hit nationals.

on a daily basis or within a race, i don't concern myself with who is/is not doping, as i don't see much point to it. i prefer to win a race and would prefer not to lose to someone who is playing dirty -- but the reality is that the real takeaways from the sport deal with much more than finishing 2nd vs 1st or even 10th vs 9th @ cascade or anywhere else. BUT.....if we are going to bother to test, i would prefer for it to be wide-spread and effective.

tetonrider

i'm no expert, but when the contador thing came up (did anyone else find it amusing when bob roll would repeatedly say ****adoor?), i thought they said clen was a masking agent.

anyway, you touch on a key point: there are always shades of gray. you've got the guy plotting for an advantage -- a big one, then someone looking for a minor advantage. you might also have a person who took something but didn't know the rules (e.g., a supplement like DHEA that their doc recommended)... or the person who bought the off-brand protein powder which had some trace of another banned substance in it.

how do you differentiate?

i have not seen the full policy, but apparently testosterone is now legal for low-level amateurs....if you've never finished in the top 5 of an event with 50+ riders. i also heard that if an amateur gets popped for something that has a medical purpose and they can prove it AFTER THE FACT, then despite it being banned they are good to go. seems really shady to me.

some doctor that does all the T stuff sued ... and won. so now there is a recreational TUE for amateurs.

oy.

dz_nuzz

Its not that I don't care about doping or people doping to win less prestigious races, but I am more concerned with how feasible it is to catch people. In a perfect world I think we would test every single person who got prize money at a race. I guess I would just like to think that the number of Cat 5 riders doping to win their local tuesday night crit are probably lower than people going to NRC or big name races and that if we just spread our testing out over the entire population we will not get a return on the investment.

Going back to @gsteinb 's point, while it would be even more disheartening to catch 100 dopers with 100 tests I think that is what should happen. Catch the dirty ones, make an example and make other riders think twice before they dope. I see it as more of a question of how to have the most impact rather than how to make people feel "safe"

Duke of Kent

I just got my Pro MTB license; I attempted to imply that but wasn't clear. I anticipate being mid pack, pack fodder, contributing to the prize list and nothing more.

I know a few guys in the same situation that HAVE been tested at larger events despite mid pack finishes (that they were ecstatic about).

I realize dopers can finish in the middle third of a "pro" mountain bike race, but, to me, that seems like wasted time and money. If you're going to test, test the top 3 and move on. I don't think someone is going to dope and then intentionally finish 4th for the rest of their life.

I can't even comprehend missing a piss test after a mid-pack finish in a "pro" mountain bike race, let alone getting suspended for it. A friend of mine has offered to fly me out for the Sea Otter XC race, which is about as big as it gets in the US short of the odd WC race at Windham. If they tested ME there, that would be a great microcosm of USAC's problems.

I say "pro" because the barrier to entry to that level in MTB is quite low, BTW.

Ygduf

I only care about doping for guys who are faster than I am, so focus testing on my rank and above. And fix the ranking system ffs.