base2 

I wonder how much faster these guys would go if only they ran tubulars & paid attention to grams instead like true professional racers.

I'm just going to drop this right here.

Koyote

This thread could be epic.

Wildwood 

Eddy said: Ride up grades, before buying upgrades.
Or something close , after all = he did ride the finest equipment of the day.

3alarmer 

If pro cycling is now clean, why do records set by dopers keep on getting broken?

Trakhak

The Cycling Highlights channel carved its niche by making videos that are insinuatingly nasty (for current riders whose results are amazing but, as the old song says, have "a name that a shame never has been connected with") or, for proven or confessed dopers, just nasty.

To their credit, they did a recent video on Greg Lemond which featured a YouTube thumbnail that teased doping-related revelations but turned out to support Greg's claims of having raced clean throughout his career.

Jughed

Big tailwind this year played a role.

The difference between this years bike and bikes of the last say 15 years - not very much at all.

Just about every rider, new and old, that I've seen interviewed are all saying pretty much the same thing - these races are full gas from the starting line.


Bikes, equipment, aero this or that - improvements, yes. But the real question is how are these boys putting out more W/KG than the EPO boys? A few things to consider:
-These guys are much younger and more powerful than the fully juiced/coked/EPO'd up riders that hold the old records.
-These guys are coming out of winter break, early season races, and hitting W/KG's that the old pro's could only make at peak times, for peak races.
-These guys are racing harder and more often...

MVP/Wout are destroying the cyclocross field in the winter - they are flat out racing 9-10 months per year. Pogs/Vingo come into early season races at close to 7WKG +/- - right out of the blocks.

Point of reference - Ole Lance himself flat out said that with the best doctors and "octane" as he called it, he would come out of training camps at 5.5WKG, and knew that 6.5+/- would win the TDF.

Bikes aside, food/carbs/altitude alone are not making these young riders more powerful and faster than the completely doped up well seasoned pros of the past.

My guess, complete shot in the dark. These team coaches, which a few of them are experts at cellular level biology and lactate processing, have found a way to manipulate how the body uses and processes lactate. That coupled with manipulation the riders biological passport numbers before the turn pro - and keeping those numbers at set levels via microdosing of new and old school substances - we now have super human riders.

I know - call me crazy!!

PeteHski

Different enough that they would be uncompetitive. Tyres and aero are the key differences.

I agree there are several other factors, but not rider doping in the current culture. Too much risk and baggage from the recent past. There might well be the odd one, but I think the days of systematic team doping are over.

seypat

I thought Trollheim was closed. I was wrong. Why isn't this thread in Road or Pro?

Outrider1

Jughed's above post is very plausible. Having been a strength athlete and competed at nearly the professional level, you are naive if you don't think some sort of peds are not being used at the elite levels let alone the professional level. That's just how competitive sports at those levels function.

tcs

Oh, I so want that to be true.

But given the history of cycle racing, you have to go "hmm" when a rider does the impossible.

Lemond. 1989 Tour; final time trial.

tcs

Fun fact: Eddy failed more race drug tests than Lance.

PeteHski

How recently were you competing and in what sport?
Given the recent dark history of cycling, the idea of the likes of Jumbo and Ineos systematically doping their riders today seems highly unlikely. Listening to interviews with young riders they just seem appalled by the whole concept of doping. There appears to have been a genuine change of culture that was ironically sparked off by Lance. Had he got away with it then it would probably be still going on today. If they are still doping, we will find out eventually. Hiding stuff would be really hard in this era where everyone is watching under a microscope.

cb400bill

Thread moved from General Cycling to Pro Cycling for the Fans.

mstateglfr 

Why arent threads on the General forum that ask about hybrids moved to the hybrids forum?
Why arent threads on the General forum that ask about gravel bikes moved to the gravel forum?
Why arent threads on the General forum that ask about lights or gps moved to the electronics forum?
Why arent threads on the General forum that ask about training or nutrition moved to the training and nutrition forum?
Why arent threads on the General forum that ask about mechanical issues moved to the mechanics forum?
Why arent threads on the General forum that ask about anything having to do with road bikes moved to the road forum?

etc etc etc.

The mods can obviously do what they want, and they will. But a thread about racing is no less appropriate for the General forum than probably 85% of threads that are started in the General forum. Almost none are then actually moved to the 'correct' forum.

cb400bill

If you would report them, instead of just complaining, perhaps they would get moved.

Wildwood 

Lance who?

zandoval 

Very nice... Just spent some time looking into this race. I dont usually follow bicycle racing but this one I will follow closely from now on. I found a good site for general information on the race via the following link. Highlights brought the race to me...

https://www.paris-roubaix.fr/en/stage-1

https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/vi...53e?autoplay=1

base2 

cb400bill I was actually thinking that this has nothing to do with racing at all. But more a validation of the current long running discussion in General about Aero vs Weight and tubeless vs tubes.

It is often (wrongly) cited that weight is supreme and that Aero is nothing. The refutation to that is Aero has been leading to faster times in races.
The side point to that is Aero also benefits amateurs more because of the longer times spent on the course. The above article basically validates that Aero is king and wide supple tubeless is not slower.

I thought that citing professional race times and the related knock-on effects of network broadcast time considerations was a worthy discussion of how such advancements in design benefit the general populace.

Oh well, Ce est la vie.

seypat

That title is a direct troll of another BF member. Enough said.

mstateglfr 

I did not complain in that post. I don't care if they are moved or not.

But since you bring this up, one time I actually did report all the threads in General that needed to be moved. I was then sent a disciplinary PM.
So...yeah.

cb400bill

Yes, you did.

mstateglfr 

If there was a complaint, it was seypat since he asked why the thread is in General and I interpret that to mean he does not want it in General
What I did was explain that this thread's topic is no different from dozens of threads started each day in General. That is simply an analysis and my opinion was not offered up.

To actually give you my opinion, which is needed for you to know if I am complaining or not, I dont care if General is full of threads that should technically be in other forums.

cb400bill

Blah blah blah

3alarmer 

...so you're happy that at least justice prevailed with this one thread ?

Personally, I have a hard time figuring out why people who have been involved with Bike Forums for quite a while start threads in General, rather than the specific topical forum that applies (which are many). I always assumed it was because there's a regular group now in General, that can extend any thread at all, on any topic, to 30 or 40 pages of back and forth bickering. This thread probably won't go more than 2 or 3 pages, now that it landed here.

Think about all those 'bent threads that got started in General before the hammer dropped. Ain't nobody got time to monitor and move all that stuff.

Trakhak

Many people forget that that 25-km (short) time trial was largely downhill, with a tailwind along much of the course. And, more importantly, that Lemond was using Scott aero bars (and was the first to use aero bars in the Tour).

For Lemond skeptics, here's a pretty good refutation of the claim that Lemond had to have been using dope to win that time trial.

Thanks for your post, by the way. Without it, I might never have found that GCN video.