how many of your are willing to give up coffee or good food?

[Pastashop]

lookit, esteemed phorumites,

coffee is widely accepted, nay, ingrained in our culture, and you're free to have as many espressos a day as you like. nobody will do a blood test on you before or after you take an MCAT or a GRE exam to see if you've used this performance enhancing substance.

(mind you, it is illegal above certain concentrations for cycling competition)

should i then walk around beating my chest for doing as well as you on that test *without* having that triple espresso beforehand?

oh, forgot - coffee is available to everyone but EPO isn't... unfair advantage and all that..

right.

what about good food vs. bad food?.. why don't you eat those $0.99 cent hamburgers for a couple of weeks, while i get me some organically farmed roast beef on whole weat for lunch, with fancy granola with yogurt every morning. then we'll do a time trial. will you condemn me for eating performance-enhancing food?.. i mean, some people just plain can't afford it!

i don't know what to do about the sport of cycling in general. but perhaps we can take cues from the world of Keirin racing. someone more knowledgeable than i can tell the whole story, but if that's not as pure as it gets, i don't know what is.

in the meanwhile, frankly, i'd suggest you keep your doping accusations to yourself. unless of course you get by on bread crumbs and rainwater while working diligently at yer deskjob, debating between brushed titanium and subtle green carbon for your next Serotta.

-p

PS: sorry to go off like that. i don't really hate anyone here, but it's downright exasperating when people start pointing fingers at athletes who are just doing the same things most of us have been conditioned on doing in every day life - seeking a competitive advantage and pushing ourselves further.

[Jeff N.]

I'll give up coffee and good food....its BEER where I draw the line! Jeff N.

[dirtdigger88]

but the burning question is. . . am I still allowed to have sex- and if so will someone please tell my wife :p

jason

[Kevin]

Jason,

Wives just don't understand.

Kevin

[dnovo]

But some wives do . . . ("You are just like the rest of them, seven or eight quickes and then out with the boys!!!" God, I miss Madeline Kahn.) Dave N. (Sorry, no Lake pictures this morning. Just the normal, bland, beautiful sunrise. Not a cloud in the sky, quiet, just a few ripples on the water. Two hours on the bike and now a shower and out on the boat. Then home for FIVE DAMN HOURS OF PREPPING A REPLY ON A REMOVAL ISSUE!!!!! Oh well, who said life was going to be perfect.)

[Kevin]

DaveN,

You need to get some quality associates. If you find any, let me know. I need them too.

Kevin

[Climb01742]

pasta--
equating injecting EPO with injesting an expensive organically grown tomato is absurd.
in both my personal, athletic and business life i will compete fiercely but i will not cheat.
arguing philosophical and ethical relativism is a cop-out.
in sport, there is right and wrong.
training your ass off is right. taking drugs is wrong.
saying a rider who eats food from a farm stand is intentionally cheating against a rider who eats at mickey d's is absurd.
living our lives, and making ethical arguments, is all about drawing subtle but important distinctions.
my rant isn't against you, pasta, but your argument.

[dnovo]

Tell me about it, Kevin, I have four good associates now. Could use ten more. The problem is that the client wants you, and not some 'associate.' ("I hired you, #$)@*^* and not some damn kid." Of course, one of the 'kids' is a lawyer who was licensed a year before me and has almost as much time in the reviewing courts as I do, but do the clients care? Of course not.) Dave N.

[Pastashop]

Climb,

i don't think it's a cop-out argument, and i think we really ought to think of it in those terms.

a farm-grown tomato may seem like a bit of an exaggeration... and of course nobody talks about "rampant caffeine doping" that goes on before every board meeting, high-level academic institutions, etc., while that is in fact what is happening.

i've had several colleagues tell me that they either "can't live without it" or "hate the stuff, and only use it for *special occasions*, like important meetings or finishing a report before a deadline."

we can pretend like it ain't the same, but i recon it's equivalent to "juicing up" before a Worlds time trial

another instance.

the US military (really, all militaries) sponsors a great deal of research into performance-enhancing substances, their short and long-term side-effects, etc., and systematically administers said products to the troops. most people tacitly approve of this via taxes, etc.

we do the same in sports, with $200 tickets and endorsement contracts. just that some substances happen to be more controlled than others, and the reasons are cultural and political.

i'm not saying we ought to ok doping. just saying we should be more honest about it. as it is, LeBlanc's decision is a perfectly natural knee-jerk reaction that mirrors the reaction of the public, for whome the show is staged. we can try justifying it, but we're the ones putting pressure on the team directors, who put the pressure on the team doctors and riders. not saying that punishing the offending rider is bad either, but it seems that we're just making a scape-goat out of a guy who was stupid enough to get caught. and that's dishonest.

[oracle]

that is perhaps the most non sequitur thing i have ever read.

oracle

[Pastashop]

EPO is a naturally occuring hormone. injecting it just boosts its levels beyond what the body can do. done carelessly, it can be dangerous.... but in small doses, it may be ok, right?

vitamin D is something our body naturally produces when the skin's exposed to sunlight. we spend too much time in our damn offices, writing to this phorum, so we need a boost... so, our milk is "laced" with vitam D. but it ain't doping, is it?.. why not?

why's it that asthma medication for an asthmatic rider is ok, given doctor's approval, but the same medication's not ok if you weren't diagnosed?.. i mean, let the asthmatic specialize in chess instead, and let the cycling sport be for just the naturally gifted....

or is that not fair?..

can i take Zertec or Allegra to do my daily work during the spring and summer, or should i be penalized out of "contention?"

or what about Viagra users?.. ("doc, it's for a friend...") should they be tested out of the "competition?"

seems like the whole human race regularly engages in thwarting "natural" selection and boosting "natural" function...

geez, half the folks here seem to be lawyers of some sort, but they sure like to be the jury on this topic...

[Pastashop]

that is perhaps the most non sequitar thing i have ever read.

oracle


http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=nonsequitur&x=0&y=0

[stackie]

can i take Zertec or Allegra to do my daily work during the spring and summer, or should i be penalized out of "contention?"

http://www.zyrtec.com

[Pastashop]

[shaq-d]

just some comments..

(1) doing well on the GRE and MCAT and LSAT means you should NOT take coffee. most of the people i know who do that do badly. go in relaxed, and you'll ace those tests. go in tweaked and you're bound to over-think and second-guess and wanna take a piss while you're diong the last 5 questions of a section. bad situation.

(2) you eat your organic crap, i'll eat spinach and salmon (or catfish for the poor), and i'm pretty sure i'll still be healthier. throw in some skim milk and eggs.

(3) not sure we're accusing... we simply suspect them of doing so, and we have good reason to do so.

sd

[shaq-d]

EPO is a naturally occuring hormone. injecting it just boosts its levels beyond what the body can do. done carelessly, it can be dangerous.... but in small doses, it may be ok, right?

vitamin D is something our body naturally produces when the skin's exposed to sunlight. we spend too much time in our damn offices, writing to this phorum, so we need a boost... so, our milk is "laced" with vitam D. but it ain't doping, is it?.. why not?

why's it that asthma medication for an asthmatic rider is ok, given doctor's approval, but the same medication's not ok if you weren't diagnosed?.. i mean, let the asthmatic specialize in chess instead, and let the cycling sport be for just the naturally gifted....

geez, half the folks here seem to be lawyers of some sort, but they sure like to be the jury on this topic...

or former philosophers and bioethicists. no one is arguing doing drugs is wrong because it's not natural. the "naturalist fallacy" is well-known and we're not making that here either.

we (as if i can speak for "we") think drugs are an unfair and ultimately unhealthy advantage. that's why if you're an asthmatic you should be "brought back to level" with an asthma medicine. as for vitamin d and the rest, that's nothing to do with sport. if you wanna compare sport and what we do in real life, that's a whole other bag of worms and the comparisons are very hard to do. in many sports you can kill people with real intent to injure with no penalty. not quite in real life. i'm not sure what you're arguing though. you said previously you're not arguing that drugs are okay, and yet in the above that seems to be your very point.

sd

[Russell]

i eat; therefore, i nap