Prevalence of EPO in the amateur bike racing ranks?
 

This has been discussed here in the past, but I'm wondering if anyone has anything new to add regarding this topic? There must be a few guys juicing from Cat 5 through Masters 45+.

Would taking EPO for 60 days and winning a few bicycle races be fun? Sure. Would I spend the money? Perhaps, I spend enough time and money on this sport that it wouldn't be a stretch in that respect. But for me, and I would guess for 95%+ of those here, doping is so completely antithetical to every reason I ride a bicycle that it would make the whole pursuit of the sport rather pointless.

In addition to which EPO would generate real Self Loathing. And that's no fun at all.

This thread is not realistic..... Who on earth would only do a 60 day cycle?

Ok ill turn off the ******* post-o-meter for a second and give an honest answer.....


There are guys doping without question. Its affordable to many and the stuff is easy to get. Hell there are pills you can buy at GNC/Vitamin world that would come up positive in a test (Havoc and Novedex XT as examples) and for damn sure work. For the "real deal" enhancement drugs they are fairly cheap (well EPO is quite expensive) but still you MUST train hard and eat right or they will not help. Its not like you take the drugs and are fast the next day......

Ya can't help but wonder. Max out my Test. levels, and give me a Hematocrit of 49.99999. What difference would it really make? Didn't some dude do a blog to that effect a couple years ago, I remember a link here somewhere.

60 day cycle of EPO. First off, what amateur racer in his right mind would do EPO. But if you did, you'd get results in 60 days. For sure from what I've read.

There was an article in Outside Magazine a few years back where the author wanted to find out, as a 40+ year old amateur, how easy it was to get the stuff and how well it would work. He took Hgh, Test and epo primarily and it worked quite well for him. He was noticeably faster, recovered quite quickly from extra hard efforts and had far increased endurance. Scary stuff.

I raced against a guy today who has served one or two years for an EPO or some such positive.

I read that article. It does sound tempting, until you think it through. That took me about 10 seconds, and I do have a tendency to go over to the Dark Side.

Well, I'm not on Windows, but still.

I just can't imagine it being fun or rewarding.

Okay, I know it's not an answer (and my answer is that, yes, some must try it), but since we're not making money at this and race for pride, what's the point?

Seems like (as Pcad said) it would take the last bit of fun out of whatever little we accomplish.

Personally, I'm too much of a health/physiology weenie for such substances to be interesting.

I guess this wouldn't stop some people. There are a lot of people who do a lot of things that simply don't answer to reason, and I think this topic is one.

-bullseye

Anyone see the movie The Ringer?

Seriously, what fun is there in cheating to win?

While I don't condone it at the pro level, when "everyone" is doing it, I can see why it is necessary to even be competitive.

At a masters or cat 5 level, if you can't "win" on your own ability, then it is about competing against yourself.

of course, there are no former pros or world or national champions racing on the master's circuit.

The article:

Drug Test, Outside Magazine

I read it every few months. It's a fascinating article.

Unquestionably there are guys in the area, esp PCad's area, who were taking stuff. From NY alone I think there have been 4 or 5 suspensions due to positive tests. The most famous would be Joe Papp, who was based out of, at some point, Glen Falls. He's the guy who testified at Floyd's thing and did a CyclingNews diary. Others include a Masters guy (placed regularly in NYC races) and two Cat 1-2 racers (or maybe they were pro). Oh and one domestic team pro.

I asked a figurehead of US racing at a spring series training race what would happen if I had a dope test done there. He laughed and said we'd lose half the racers out there. I think he was exaggerating but his attitude shows that he thinks it's somewhat prevalent. Two of the guys who raced for his teams would eventually test positive (and are in that list above).

Unfortunately it takes a lot of money to do tests, but given an opportunity, I'd do a lot of testing at local races. You can make a decent living sandbagging, have fun doing it, and never have a chance of getting tested. That's fine. If people do that by doping, I think that's not a good thing.

View on doping locally:
http://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.co...e-and-now.html

Idea for testing:
http://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.co...-controls.html

cdr

Pcad's Bag of Excuses just got bigger. EXCELLENT.

Your contribution to Pcad Cycling Zen cannot be overstated carpe.

The question is whether you think the person is racing to be fast, or racing for the challenge.

There've been plenty of days I just simply want to be fast, and the appeal of performance enhancers is high. But, in my line of work - it's simply out of the question.

At the end of the day, limiting PEDs is about protecting the health of the rider. It's not about "leveling" the playing field - because if that were the case we'd all race on Walmart frames. People who choose to spend $$ will gain performance advantages.

With that in mind - if there were no health risks (or in my line of work, cause me to drop out of flight status), of course I would take them (if I chose to afford them), because they'd have no reason to be against the rules anymore. Hell, walk around the local warm up scene and watch the asthma inhalers coming out of the woodwork. I've seen more asthma inhalers in the last 3 months than I've seen since my 7th grade AD&D games.

Just a bit of honesty.

I honestly think most dopers have rationalized it out of being cheating in their heads. Since the drugs' primary use is to aid your training you still have to "work" to get results, and in fact the drugs allow you to work extra hard extra often, I imagine a lot of dopers say, "well I worked extra hard and extra often so I deserve these results maybe you should have worked harder too."

I remember when Mark McGwire first came under steroid scrutiny, Tony LeRussa tried to defend him by saying, "his results are natural: he stays in the gym longer than anyone and puts in the work." To me, that sounded like a guy who knew nothing about steroids and secondly an unintentional admission of guilt.

The thing is albuterol doesn't enlarge lungs any more than they would be naturally if the person is healthy. I was having a bit of asthma-like symptoms during 'cross this fall, and using albuterol didn't really seem to help, it just made me light headed and dizzy post race due to the stimulants.

:roflmao2: :D :beer:

Around here, at my level, I doubt it.

Even if it was legal, waking up three times a night to do jumping jacks, just so you don't die... I think I'd drop out of competitive cycling.

I have wondered about it, particularly with a select few really strong riders around here. But as to the prevalence? I don't think anyone in the know would tell, and those who are not can only speculate.

Here is a question for you guys though. If USAC/UCI said that EPO starting tomorrow would be perfectly legal, would you use it?

No.

I race for the spirit of the challenge and to hang out with my friends.

To P'Caddy, I live & race in Florida. Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and West Palm seems to be the home of the anti-aging through chemistry industry; maybe Southern California gives us a run for our money, but there's a reason why "Nip Tuck" was originally based in south beach. I don't doubt there are people that I race against that are juiced.

Nope. Too dangerous and too expensive. Not to mention the unfair advantage angle. Nobody cares if I win bike races except for me...and I'd rather win au natural.

Look for anti aging drugs in the masters category. Legal (to buy and use, not legal per wada) and safe. If any cat 5 dopes, I'm going to shoot myself.

I know of a masters rider or two who are CATVs and take test as "hormone replacement."

They still get dropped by juniors and fatties with tactical know-how.

Then get rid of anything you're riding with/on that puts your investment in the sport higher than ~ $500. That seems like a reasonably arbitrary "unfair advantage" money limit?

I did a miss and out crit at the Taipei show a few years ago that he won. I think he'd just won some races in Cuba just before this?

Him doping didn't really matter much to me as I got stuffed into the barricade and had myself a spectacular crash but I was a bit surprised to hear his name come up a few weeks later.

On topic: The was a local guy who confessed to amphetamine use on his blog. He said how sorry he was and how ashamed he was and everyone said he was brave for coming forward.

The funny thing was this guy never got anywhere. In fact, he was so high at Nationals one year that he attacked the group, went into a corner on a descent WAY too hot and crashed his brains out. No-one could figure out what the hell had happened. It looked like this guy had attacked for all he was worth and then just sprinted of the side of the road into a ditch.

There is another rider I am pretty sure was using steroids 2 years ago. It worked for him. So yeah, there are amatuer riders who juice.

sounds like when manzano imploded in the 2003 tour.

http://www.bobkestrut.com/images/man...3_collapse.jpg

I have to agree with this. Are bling wheels unfair advantage? Aerobars? My wind tunnel experience? A power meter?

I personally do take certain supplements (for general health, but I do not doubt for an instant that my cycling benefits from these) and I would be upset with the problem of a sport where EPO was legal because while I like to push myself to the limits (within legal boundaries) I do not put medicinal chemicals into my system under almost any circumstance (I could be pushed to take antibiotics if I felt they were absolutely necessary) and thus would be left at a disadvantage to those who could/would legally use EPO. It's an interesting question. Gla dI don't have to face it.

Part of the reason I did ask though, is because I believe that most people see EPO as being terrible because it is "banned" - not because it is possibly detrimental to health. I think that lifting that ban, most of your competitors would indeed explore the option VERY quickly.

I'm not sure that it's proven EPO taken in reasonable doses is actually bad for you. I think the whole jumping jacks out of bed at night thing was an 80s thing before these guys got a handle on proper dosages. Not the same can be said for OTC supplements whose benefits are at best controversial and unclear, and which frequently turn out to not be as supportive to good health as we'd like to imagine.