EPO/Blood doping vs. height

Originally Posted by JohnDDD

I was discussing with a few friends of mine whether or not using blood doping as a tall person would be a greater advantage than using blood doping as a smaller person.

I reasoned that tall people have more blood and can thus make more red blood cells before their hematocrite is increased with 1% than the smaller person. This means that if a tall person increased his hematocrite from 40% to 60% this would mean that he had in fact gained more new red blood cells (and ways to transport oxygen) than the smaller person going from 40 to 60.

Now my friend pointed out that the taller person also had a bigger body with more muscles and thus the advantage would be equal or even less in taller persons.

Now I was looking back at the years that EPO was freely used within the peloton - say the 90s - and of course my eye fell on Miguel Indurain and Bjarne Riis. Now I do not want to suggest Indurain used blood doping, because there was never any suggestion that he might have, but Bjarne Riis is far more interesting.

Of course Riis was known - some people claim - as Mr. 60% for his high hematocrite level. He was willing to go quite far, maybe even further than others. But there must have been others who went this distance in those days and Riis was not particularly talented. He was quite an average time trialists and climber, and in 96, he suddenly won the Tour, when others, with more talent, failed.

This led me to believe that my hypothesis might be correct, that the blood-muscle rating in taller persons is actually quite good and that they have more advantage when using EPO than a smaller rider.

Could anyone back or deny my claim by using science?