**** Breaking News: Hamilton Tested Positive? ***

Originally Posted by rob of the og

Bizarre. You're suggesting 2 things:

1. TdF average speed can only improve by using drugs
2. The effectiveness/prevelance of drugs has increased since 1989

To address the 1st: In 1989 Lemond, Fignon, Delgado were racing a whole season, from Etoilles des Besseges to the Tour of Lombardy. The TdF was one (albeit important) rendezvous along the way. No-one used HRMs, SRM cranks hadn't been invented, there was no facility to download data for later analysis and the coaches were ex-cyclists. These days Armstrong, Ullrich, Hamilton show up for one race all year, having trained specifically and without fatigue. They have all the advantages of modern training technology and methodology and their coaches are sports scientists. Might speed things up a little.

Secondly: If anything drug use has moved from the proven effective (amphetamines and the like) to the less effective but less detectable as the authorities have at least started to catch up. Witness Hamilton's (alledged) use of blood doping - much more primitive than EPO but (until now) undetectable. Laurent Fignon has all but admitted using drugs in the 1980's; the PDM team famously all had the stomach flu in 1991; Dr Ferrari's case book goes back to the early 90's and beyond; as many riders had one-off incredible improvements back then as they do now... should I continue?

Originally Posted by wadoflove

I agree with you.

But nobody mentions the fact (excuse me if someone already did) that nowadays riders are attacking in the opening Kms on each and every stage. This was nearly unheard of a few years ago when the team leaders controlled everything and dometiques were what their name implies. Now you have attacks and specialty teams like Fassa Bortolo chasing them down to bring their sprinters home for the win on flat stages where nothing used to happen (I know I slept through many a flat stage in the past). I think that this is the main reason for the increase in speed between the end of the Lemond era and the present era. Drugs were rampant back then especially amphetamines and painkillers.

Originally Posted by wadoflove

Sorry, I have been busy but the Dr is now in...

1) So I have searched for use of this procedure in paternity testing on the web and have found one reference to it and that was a cost-effectiveness analysis by a company trying to sell the equipment to hospitals. That means it is not an established technique for paternity testing. This claim appears to be incorrect or overstated.

2) I cannot believe that a technique that was published for the first time in a peer reviewed journal in November of 2003 can be a well established technique 6 months later. There would have to be a greater consensus in the scientific community. My wife works with this technique and she tells me constantly that it is very tricky and you can see whatever you want to in the results. The article on cyclingnews indicates that they are looking for an absence of signal on some blood cells as a positive indicator. There could be a number of reasons that some cells do not light up.

3) "Length of time until a transfusion is undetectable? Up to 120 days; for athletes, probably less than 90 days because red cells have shorter lives in highly active individuals". If he tested positive a couple of weeks ago then they can do another blood test and have different labs analyse the blood and see if a consensus can be arrived at because apparently the first test was considered questionable by the lab that performed it until "outside experts were brought in to confirm it" (who were they I wonder?).

It appears that the experts on this topic are the people that developed and published the test in the first place. I am not saying these are dishonest scientists but it may be that they unconsciously are aware that catching a high profile athlete with their new test could lead to a great deal of publicity and liscencing fees for their university... Also these people are extremely adamant that their test is basically foolproof and I would not trust any scientist that talks this way about their results. NOTHING IS FOOLPROOF! There are always exceptions and different interpretations of results. Especially with these sorts of biological reagents.

For these and other reasons I would recommend an independant scientific study a decision that Phonak has taken already.


4) So what do you do over there at Velonews AntoineG?

Originally Posted by rob of the og

Bizarre. You're suggesting 2 things:

1. TdF average speed can only improve by using drugs
2. The effectiveness/prevelance of drugs has increased since 1989

To address the 1st: In 1989 Lemond, Fignon, Delgado were racing a whole season, from Etoilles des Besseges to the Tour of Lombardy. The TdF was one (albeit important) rendezvous along the way. No-one used HRMs, SRM cranks hadn't been invented, there was no facility to download data for later analysis and the coaches were ex-cyclists. These days Armstrong, Ullrich, Hamilton show up for one race all year, having trained specifically and without fatigue. They have all the advantages of modern training technology and methodology and their coaches are sports scientists. Might speed things up a little.

Secondly: If anything drug use has moved from the proven effective (amphetamines and the like) to the less effective but less detectable as the authorities have at least started to catch up. Witness Hamilton's (alledged) use of blood doping - much more primitive than EPO but (until now) undetectable. Laurent Fignon has all but admitted using drugs in the 1980's; the PDM team famously all had the stomach flu in 1991; Dr Ferrari's case book goes back to the early 90's and beyond; as many riders had one-off incredible improvements back then as they do now... should I continue?

Originally Posted by Brunswick_kate

Same issues here...apparent lack of peer review, results at this time seem to be pretty "lab dependent", subjective and interpretative nature of the analysis. As most pathology depts will admit to, some days are more cancerous than others.

And whoa, what is with this whole the "he's guilty but getting off on a technicality" bullshit I keep hearing. Sorry, the B test is not a technicality. The function of the B test is to confirm the A test findings ... to eliminate tester error, lab error, dog ate my homework error etc. Without the B test to confirm the A test, there is NO guilty.

I'm curious as to why the A test results were publicly released when the IOC obviously knew they could never supply B testing confirmation. Second, was the Vuelta doping control staff notified at any time by the IOC of this A sample result....any "You might want to check Hamilton, wink wink, nudge, nudge". That is very problematic with an interpretative testing procedure. Pretty much introduces tester bias quite nicely, which is not malice but a well documented human phenomenon. It's why people bend over backwards so hard to eliminate it.

Finally, an issue of pure curiousity...any published work on the differences in blood chemistry/physiology etc etc between physically active and sedentary persons that one can think of off hand? I know my husband often gets flagged for "trace blood in urine" in his routine physicals but on the secondary investigation, it's explained by his level of physical activity. The tests are so sensitive nowdays that they pick up everything, even what is "normal" for an athletic person.

Has anyone found any peer-reviewed published articles on this technique other than the Nov 2003 Haematologica 88:1284-1295 article? 25 post surgical patients, orthopedic surgurgical patients none the less, and this is representative of the general population?? Does anyone think that a small sample of orthopedic patients might not be a highly physically active group? And is that relevant -- straight up question, I don't know.

And what about the caveat attacted to the article in question? "In the absense of a monoclonal antibody-based panel of antisera, variations in the analytical perfomace of this test due to variablility in potency or specificity of the polyclonal antibodies remain a major concern. Rigorous standardization of the assay will be essential to obtain reliable results in different laboratories. The article was submitted for publication April 2003; it was used as a definitive testing protocol sometime prior to Aug 2004. In the intervening time, what work was done to develop the required standardization, who did it, and where is their work available for review?

I'm not saying Hamilton is innocent. I'm not saying Hamilton is guilty. However, sometimes the devil is in the details and I'd like to know a bit more about the subject.

Originally Posted by philoakley

I find your peloton theory difficult to accept. The size of the Tour peloton has remained the same for the last 15 years. The average speed is up between 1-2kmh.

Originally Posted by tamman2000

How much slower do you think you would ride if you were on a 15 year old top of the line machine, vs a current top end machine?

1.Now we have about twice as many gears providing for tighter gear spacing and wider ranges.
2.We have much smoother/easier to opperate shifting.

Those mean that the average rider spends much more time in gears well suited for the situation than they used to, and can get more power to the hub for the same energy expendature.

3.We have better aero.
4.We have lower rolling resistance tires and wheels.

The last two mean they have to get less power to the hub for the same speed.

Do you honestly believe that all of this doesn't add up to a measly 1-2 km/h?

Originally Posted by philoakley

I doubt you would be much slower on a 15 year old machine.

Originally Posted by philoakley

Anyway, it is the rider that turns the pedals that makes the biggest difference.

Originally Posted by philoakley

Aerodynamics give no meaningful advantages going up mountains.

Originally Posted by philoakley

I do honestly believe that better technology doesn't add up to 1-2kmh. As for measly, 1 kmh over 90 hours racing in the tour equates to at least a 2 hours 15 minute time defecit which I think illustrates my point quite well.

Originally Posted by tamman2000

What specifically do you think would be reasonable to expect as a speed change?
No doubt, this is correct, but for the same rider on two different bikes, there are certainly differances.
But gearing does.
2 hours 15 minutes/90 hours
== 1 hour 7 minutes 30 seconds/45 hours
== 4 and a half hours /180 hours
== 1 minute 30 seconds / 1hour

it is the percentages that are important, the duration has little to do with the argument.

Oh yeah, and:
What do you think the tech adds up to?

Originally Posted by tamman2000

it is the percentages that are important, the duration has little to do with the argument.

Originally Posted by antoineg

You completely missed the point. If someone came along and did 1kph faster than LA in this year's tour, he would have won by over 2.25 hours.

That is a lot *cough*. A 10 minute win is considered a huge blowout.

Originally Posted by antoineg

You completely missed the point. If someone came along and did 1kph faster than LA in this year's tour, he would have won by over 2.25 hours.

That is a lot *cough*. A 10 minute win is considered a huge blowout.

Originally Posted by tamman2000

yes 10 minutes is huge, and what do people do when they get a 10 minute lead?

they relax... they stop attacking on all the climbs, they start letting people who are far back attack unanswered, until their lead is in in danger.

nobody, no matter how much better than the rest of the riders, will ever win by 2.25 hours, it is just unnessisary.

Originally Posted by gntlmn

But you completely miss the point too because 1 kph faster in the peloton is far easier than 1 kph faster when not in it.

Maybe what is happening is that more riders are focusing on the Tour because of how much money is involved now compared to not long ago. Also, it's been long enough to have a whole new set of riders now, attracting a larger swath of people because of the enormous possible winnings compared to back then, when it was much more of a financial gamble for a cyclist to make a career out of it. Lemond was the first American to bring home huge cycling winnings and contract. He opened the door to a whole bunch of new riders who chose it as a career.

To raise the ending speeds, it's more important to have depth in the peloton than it is to have a stronger winner due to the overwhelming advantage of a good draft. The faster the peloton, the faster the winner.

And if you think that 1 kph improvement is like the winner riding away from the pack and finishing 2.25 hours faster, you missed the boat completely. If you placed Armstrong in the peloton back then, his final time would go down compared to now if the peloton chose to ride more conservatively then, as it may have done.

You are not understanding the impact of the draft in the Tour de France. It is the single biggest factor dictating the outcome of the race. That's why you can have great multi tour champions who finish only a few minutes from the second place rider. It takes so much more effort to ride away from the pack rather than in it.