a look back at Big Mig -> doping aside, the dude just ooozed class on the bike

[wallymann]

cap: perfect.
position: perfect.
bike: steel, perfect.
groupset: record, perfect.
expression: sphinx-like.
blood: molasses-like... ;-)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-01k7JeCilT4/UNQizxuXhcI/AAAAAAAAC98/hQxatBW7Quk/s1600/indurainrosa.jpg

[azrider]

Those socks tho.....;)

[Tony Edwards]

Agree on all turns. PEDs or not, Indurain was a thoroughbred.

[Bstone]

Back when men were men and bikes were made from steel.

[Fivethumbs]

Back when grand tour winners would also compete in and win one day classics.

[ultraman6970]

You need to add abraham olano here.

[bcroslin]

http://ep.imgci.com/PICTURES/CMS/10700/10756.jpg

[pbarry]

Femur length = wheelbase: Biological advantage. :)

The guy has al�ways had class.

[Llewellyn]

A class act from an era that has sadly passed

[campy man]

Still enjoy watching videos of Big Mig's TDF wins.

Sad day watching a juiced up Riis & Festina riders ruin Indurain's finish in Pamplona in 96 TDF. :butt:

[regularguy412]

cap: perfect.
position: perfect.
bike: steel, perfect.
groupset: record, perfect.
expression: sphinx-like.
blood: molasses-like... ;-)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-01k7JeCilT4/UNQizxuXhcI/AAAAAAAAC98/hQxatBW7Quk/s1600/indurainrosa.jpg


And a couple more stats, if I remember correctly:

Resting Heart Rate: 28 bpm (Average Human: 60 bpm)

Pulmonary Volume: 11 liters (Average Human: 8 liters)

Mike in AR:beer:

[mg2ride]

"doping aside"

And so it begins for future Governor Armstrong.

[Llewellyn]

"doping aside"

And so it begins for future Governor Armstrong.


Now now, let's not taint the conversation. This is about Big Mig :hello:

[avalonracing]

That period really was a high point for bikes in terms of craftsmanship, elegance and reliability. I miss when a bike could be considered "current" and "high-end" for more than a month or two.

[rustychisel]

Now now, let's not taint the conversation. This is about Big Mig :hello:

Hmmmm, agree about Indurain's pedigree as a bike rider, but to begin looking for a stain free champion you're gonna have go to back a bit further.

[Elefantino]

Those Pegorellos were beautiful.

[Lanternrouge]

For me, Indurain makes me reminisce about an era when I was young and naive and didn't really think about all the prevalance of doping. It did seem that for the most part, he was doing everything right on a bike and that was really awesome to watch.

[Hawker]

cap: perfect.
position: perfect.
bike: steel, perfect.
groupset: record, perfect.
expression: sphinx-like.
blood: molasses-like... ;-)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-01k7JeCilT4/UNQizxuXhcI/AAAAAAAAC98/hQxatBW7Quk/s1600/indurainrosa.jpg

And a manly man can wear pink without apologies.

[2wheelwill]

I remembers his Tour wins as awesome but kinda boring to watch because he was so dominant....and quiet and unassuming. No controversy, police raids or talk about PEDs. Ah the good old days!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Wakatel_Luum]

Still enjoy watching videos of Big Mig's TDF wins.



Sad day watching a juiced up Riis & Festina riders ruin Indurain's finish in Pamplona in 96 TDF. :butt:


Indurain got from Riis what he gave to LeMond, Fignon etc back in 1991...change of new guard coincided with drugs...

But yes he was modest and oozed in class...

[jlwdm]

I remembers his Tour wins as awesome but kinda boring to watch because he was so dominant....and quiet and unassuming. No controversy, police raids or talk about PEDs. Ah the good old days!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Only dominant in the time trials.

Jeff

[BdaGhisallo]

Only dominant in the time trials.

Jeff


He could turn it on in the mountains when he needed to. His ride to Hautacam in 1994 and his solo chase of Zulle at La Plagne in 1995 showed that when he wanted to or needed to, he could lay down some heavy horsepower when the road tipped up.

[Auk]

Hmmmm, agree about Indurain's pedigree as a bike rider, but to begin looking for a stain free champion you're gonna have go to back a bit further.


Yes, as in before riders were paid to ride or paid for winning races. They were practicing "state of the art" routines back when it was still fixed gear and the mountain roads were still dirt.

[marciero]

I did not follow the sport during his reign, though I have seen some race videos. I recall him mostly dominating in time trials and then riding defensively in mountains.

Not to again bring up that other rider whose reign followed a few years later, but I recall Phil Ligget saying on numerous occasions (he and Paul Sherwen often said the same things repeatedly) that Indurain was the one who gave the latter rider the idea about high cadence. I thought that unlikely given that Mig pushed big gears at lower cadences, and also because I never heard anything suggesting that those two had a mentor/mentee rapport.

[93legendti]

He could turn it on in the mountains when he needed to. His ride to Hautacam in 1994 and his solo chase of Zulle at La Plagne in 1995 showed that when he wanted to or needed to, he could lay down some heavy horsepower when the road tipped up.
Yup.
One year he turned it on on Alpe D'Huez and shocked Jalabert or Leblanc when he caught them. Another time on Ventoux he rode all the challengers off his wheel.
In 1993, Rominger attacked him on every finishing mountain and couldn't crack him.

He won 5 in a row. If he couldn't climb, he would have been lucky to win 1.

There was even a stage, into Liege? Where he and Bruyneel rode off the front of the group.

If another rider weighed what Mig did and didn't need to win Mtn stages, he wouldn't expend needless energy collecting Mtn stages.



"(Miguel is) very strong, incredible," Rominger said. "It's not possible to attack him. He always stays on your wheel. You have to be strong to get away and then accelerate before he can come back."
When Chiappucci and Co. faltered on the steep climbs up the snow-covered peaks, Indurain moved away effortlessly, as if on a training ride.
"Knowing that Bugno and Chiappucci were left behind, it was interesting to force the pace," Indurain said.
Rominger, who has matured into one of the world's best riders, led most of the day, but could not shake Indurain. He tried to force the pace with a series of attacks on the final climb over the daunting 8,680-foot Col du Galibier, which included an ascent of 11 miles at an average grade of about 7%.
But Indurain responded each time and took several turns at the front of a five-man group, which included Mejia, Andy Hampsten of Boulder, Colo., and Zenon Jaskula
http://articles.latimes.com/1993-07-15/sports/sp-13136_1_mountain-stage

He did the Giro Tour double two years in a road. Look at who finished 2nd and third to him in the Grand Tours he won- usually climbers.

[MattTuck]

And a couple more stats, if I remember correctly:

Resting Heart Rate: 28 bpm (Average Human: 60 bpm)

Pulmonary Volume: 11 liters (Average Human: 8 liters)

Mike in AR:beer:

Not saying he wasn't an outlier, but wouldn't the correct frame of reference be other people who are 6-2? as opposed to just the average human, that could include all the folks who are 5-2 and 100 pounds?

I believe bigger people have a slower heart rate than smaller people (certainly true for animals) and I could see size being a big contributor to the amount of blood you have :)

[tv_vt]

Zenon Jaskula. Now there's a name you don't see very often. He and Piotr Ugrumov (sp?) finished top 3 at the Tour, and I've never heard of them before or since.

Let's put it this way -- at the end of a mtn stage he had won - I think it was his third mtn stage win in a row - his eyes looked so glazed over, I could've sworn he was stoned out of his mind. Think it was the first time I wondered about what was really going on...

[regularguy412]

Not saying he wasn't an outlier, but wouldn't the correct frame of reference be other people who are 6-2? as opposed to just the average human, that could include all the folks who are 5-2 and 100 pounds?

I believe bigger people have a slower heart rate than smaller people (certainly true for animals) and I could see size being a big contributor to the amount of blood you have :)

Yup. And the percentage of hemoglobin therein.

Mike in AR:beer:

[don compton]

Not saying he wasn't an outlier, but wouldn't the correct frame of reference be other people who are 6-2? as opposed to just the average human, that could include all the folks who are 5-2 and 100 pounds?

I believe bigger people have a slower heart rate than smaller people (certainly true for animals) and I could see size being a big contributor to the amount of blood you have :)
Is this backed by science?:confused:

[Jgrooms]

Still enjoy watching videos of Big Mig's TDF wins.



Sad day watching a juiced up Riis & Festina riders ruin Indurain's finish in Pamplona in 96 TDF. :butt:


And the juiced up Mig had some bad days in 96. So it was all equal.

[MattTuck]

Is this backed by science?:confused:

Larger animals definitely have slower heart rates than smaller animals. That is backed up by science. Not sure if it translates to smaller individuals in one species compared to larger individuals in that same species.

On the topic of pulmonary volume, it seems common sense that taking two individuals with similar body composition, but different heights, that the taller of the two would have bigger lungs.

Indeed, a quick googling of the subject yields this graph: The squares indicate Total Lung Capacity. So, it would seem that my hypothesis is backed by some science. (Here's the link to the article: Link (http://jap.physiology.org/content/83/2/668))

http://d13geadg2uyg93.cloudfront.net//content/jap/83/2/668/F9.medium.gif

My bigger point was that comparing an outlier in two dimensions (height and athletic performance) to the human average isn't very meaningful. It should be compared with a base rate that is more meaningful (sample of skinny men that are the same height/weight), so that the difference is seen in context.

[Mark McM]

He could turn it on in the mountains when he needed to. His ride to Hautacam in 1994 and his solo chase of Zulle at La Plagne in 1995 showed that when he wanted to or needed to, he could lay down some heavy horsepower when the road tipped up.

Yes, Indurain could climb very well, but he was never the best climber in the peloton, even on his best days. During his 5 Tour de France wins, he never won a road stage, only TTs. He took criticism over his lack of road stage wins to heart, and several times tried very hard to win a tour road stage (both flat and mountain top), but he was always bested at the finish.

[benb]

The 28bpm resting heart rate nonsense is suspect I think... you heard a lot of that about he who shall not be named too. Either those metrics are/were fake to offer some kind of thing to believe in other than PEDs, or the metrics were taken while the rider was actively using PEDs... the low resting HR in particular seems directly influenced by the favorite 1990s/2000s blood boster.

I really missed Indurain.. knew who he was but had no access to watch cycling on TV at all in that era. I think I might have seen 10 minutes of one of the Tours he won on TV over at my neighbors house.. his parents had come over from Italy and his dad watched cycling like crazy.

[Formulasaab]

I agree that comparing his pulmonary volume to others of his "stature" is the best way for a relevant stat.

But regarding his "outlier" status... I recall reading somewhere that his somewhat uncharacteristic (for a top flight grand tour winning bike racer) paunch was a result of his large lungs somewhat displacing his stomach and other organs. Does anyone else remember reading that?

[ghcs]

I agree that comparing his pulmonary volume to others of his "stature" is the best way for a relevant stat.

But regarding his "outlier" status... I recall reading somewhere that his somewhat uncharacteristic (for a top flight grand tour winning bike racer) paunch was a result of his large lungs somewhat displacing his stomach and other organs. Does anyone else remember reading that?

Yes, I remember hearing this too, but I don't know if someone said it to me or I read it. I have subsequently claimed it as an explanation for my own 'athletic' physique.

[rain dogs]

The 28bpm resting heart rate nonsense is suspect I think... you heard a lot of that about he who shall not be named too. Either those metrics are/were fake to offer some kind of thing to believe in other than PEDs....

Difference with Indurain is he has been subject to many public studies, and was again at 46yrs old - now a guy who rides very recreationally and weighs 15kg more than his fighting weight. He didn't just make up numbers, but others saw that they could as a means to cloud the counter argument.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22868823

Indurain is an absolute beast. Unless people think it's some grand conspiracy that still goes on 17 years after his retirement.

If people believe Wiggins can do it all clean, why should it be impossible for other athletes to get near Brad's clean performances? Brad is essentially this gen's BigMig (-6kg) and today the competition now is tighter, better trained, with less room for the "freak" advantages. Likely, if the TdF's Indurain won, didn't average 200km of TT's... and only had ~40-60km like today, Indurain wouldn't have won any.

At points in all sport history, you have the 7ft basketball players suddenly flooding into a basketball league of 6fters. PED's involved or not. Cycling, unfortunately, has a strong correlation with performance and doping since day one. But fast doesn't always = doping. Or, if it does, we still have major problems because records are falling like crazy, even this year.

[mcteague]

As I have mentioned on other posts related to Indurain, he used to be a domestique for Pedro Delgado and did little winning. Suddenly, he was winning tour after tour and, as a big guy, kept up in the mountains with the climbers. 2+2 still equals 4 in my book. Had to be juiced to the gills.

Tim

[93legendti]

In 1989, Mig showed his class in the mountains:

"
CAUTERETS, France Greg LeMond of Minneapolis retained the lead in the Tour de France Monday after the first mountain stage of the 23-day cycling race.
He stuck to the leaders along a route that went up and down four mountains. The riders finished at an elevation of 4,330 feet along the French-Spanish frontier.
LeMond finished eighth in the stage, almost two minutes behind Miguel Indurain of Spain, who won the stage in 4 hours 32 minutes 36 seconds.
LeMond wasn't concerned when Indurain went ahead.
"It wasn't for me to ride behind Indurain," he said. "He is more than seven minutes behind in the standings."
LeMond was more concerned with how his body would hold up through the difficult mountain passes. At last month's Tour of Italy, he faltered in the steep stages."
http://articles.latimes.com/1989-07-11/sports/sp-3617_1_lemond-tour-france

[saab2000]

As I have mentioned on other posts related to Indurain, he used to be a domestique for Pedro Delgado and did little winning. Suddenly, he was winning tour after tour and, as a big guy, kept up in the mountains with the climbers. 2+2 still equals 4 in my book. Had to be juiced to the gills.

Tim

He wasn't so much a domestique as he was the prince in waiting. Everyone knew his high level talent exceeded even Delgado's. He started his first Tour de France in 1985 at the age of 20 and every year improved greatly.

As to whether or not he was 'juiced to the gills', the sport was what the sport was and it is what it is. It's never been a bread and water sport and it never will be a bread and water sport.

[CunegoFan]

He wasn't so much a domestique as he was the prince in waiting. Everyone knew his high level talent exceeded even Delgado's. He started his first Tour de France in 1985 at the age of 20 and every year improved greatly.

As to whether or not he was 'juiced to the gills', the sport was what the sport was and it is what it is. It's never been a bread and water sport and it never will be a bread and water sport.

Indurain started working with Dr. Conconi in 1986 shortly after winning the Tour of the Future. At that time Conconi's research emphasis was on blood transfusions. At the end of the 80's he switched from transfusions to performance ehancement with EPO. This was funded by the Italian government through its Olympic agency. Ostensibly Dr. Conconi (and his protege, Dr. Ferrari) was using amateur test subjects but in reality his test subjects were professional cyclists. The result was Bugno, Chiapucci, and Indurain. Argentin and Roche were also part of the stable. At some point after he began winning TdFs, Indurain switched to another doctor but I don't recall the year.

I don't know which is funnier, the notion that Indurain was clean or Wiggins.

[saab2000]

Indurain started working with Dr. Conconi in 1986 shortly after winning the Tour of the Future. At that time Conconi's research emphasis was on blood transfusions. At the end of the 80's he switched from transfusions to performance ehancement with EPO. This was funded by the Italian government through its Olympic agency. Ostensibly Dr. Conconi (and his protege, Dr. Ferrari) was using amateur test subjects but in reality his test subjects were professional cyclists. The result was Bugno, Chiapucci, and Indurain. Argentin and Roche were also part of the stable. At some point after he began winning TdFs, Indurain switched to another doctor but I don't recall the year.

I don't know which is funnier, the notion that Indurain was clean or Wiggins.

I'm not questioning this as it sounds plausible, but what are your sources?

I know it was going on and we've all heard rumors and innuendo but I'm curious how you know this in such detail.

It's not a secret that Dr. Conconi was a figure but he was also a big name in understanding human physiology at the time. Many friends of mine in Switzerland were familiar with the 'Conconi Test' to determine ultimate physical capability in numerical terms. This was in the early to mid-1990s and I heard much talk about increasing red blood cell count.

For any rider during that era to say they didn't know about doping, and several have done just that, is simply laughable.

[Kirk007]

At the 2000 LAF Ride for the Roses in Austin, I had the opportunity to ride in a group with Indurain, his brother and another of his friends. He was very cordial but quiet, except when riding uphill - I know this because I was riding up one when I heard what can best be described as locomotive breath on my wheel. It was Big Mig belly breathing.

[CunegoFan]

I'm not questioning this as it sounds plausible, but what are your sources?

I know it was going on and we've all heard rumors and innuendo but I'm curious how you know this in such detail.

There have been a number of investigations in Italy delving into the work of Conconi and Ferrari. Many files that both doctors kept were seized and examined. All sorts of interesting stuff was revealed, like the hematocrit increases of riders on Team Gewiss and the ties between Conconi and Team Carrera. The CONI and IOC funding of Conconi's work was a big scandal. In an amazing bit of chutzpah, he was being paid to develop a test for EPO but was using the funding to dope professional cyclists, who were also paying Conconi for his services. Some nice double dipping there.


For any rider during that era to say they didn't know about doping, and several have done just that, is simply laughable.

Except for LeMond. His Sgt. Schultz act has him unaware that all his major rivals were doping.

[aingeru]

Indurain started working with Dr. Conconi in 1986 shortly after winning the Tour of the Future. At that time Conconi's research emphasis was on blood transfusions. At the end of the 80's he switched from transfusions to performance ehancement with EPO. This was funded by the Italian government through its Olympic agency. Ostensibly Dr. Conconi (and his protege, Dr. Ferrari) was using amateur test subjects but in reality his test subjects were professional cyclists. The result was Bugno, Chiapucci, and Indurain. Argentin and Roche were also part of the stable. At some point after he began winning TdFs, Indurain switched to another doctor but I don't recall the year.

I don't know which is funnier, the notion that Indurain was clean or Wiggins.


Indurain's doctor was Sabino Padilla.

[beeatnik]

back when 175 pound men were men and bikes were made from steel.

fify

[CunegoFan]

Indurain's doctor was Sabino Padilla.

Yeah. Padilla was the doctor at Banesto. Indurain continued to work with the University at Ferrara at least through the early 90s. What the breakdown in responsibilities between Padilla and Conconi is unknown. Perhaps it was similar to Ferrari and Postal's doctors, where Ferrari was essentially a consultant and the team doctor's handled the implementation.