is it fair to consider Eddy Merckx, who was caught doping three times in his career

[ridethecliche]

One can argue that being able to do more when training or recover faster between workouts would lead to training adaptations that wouldn't be possible in someone who didn't dope.

[jtakeda]

Originally Posted by carpediemracing

The thing with amphetamines or cortisone or testosterone is that although they allowed you to basically use more of your body, they didn't increase what your body could do. Meaning you'd recover faster or feel less pain or whatever, but your heart and blood were still the same - you weren't changing how much oxygen you could get to your muscles.

With EPO, blood doping, it actually changed the limits of the rider. It wasn't that EPO/boosting allowed you to use more of your body - it made your body better. This is doping at a different level. It's why suddenly speeds went up, why suddenly everyone was good.

Im not sure I understand this.

Can you explain the difference between EPO/blood doping and amphetamines, coritsone, and testosterone?

From my understanding of testosterone at least it can certainly change your body and change what youre capable of doing.

[weiwentg]

Originally Posted by jtakeda

Im not sure I understand this.

Can you explain the difference between EPO/blood doping and amphetamines, coritsone, and testosterone?

From my understanding of testosterone at least it can certainly change your body and change what youre capable of doing.

In strength athletes, testosterone is clearly a game changer. I think that I would have phrased the issue more like this: in endurance sports, blood doping is the game changing thing. It’s a night and day difference. We can’t look past that. The other stuff, including testosterone, is probably not such a game changer, and because everyone was doing it, we might be able to forgive that - not necessarily forget, just forgive.

That’s an admittedly arbitrary distinction. I honestly don’t know how much of a game changer testosterone should be for endurance sports. It clearly can’t be on par with EPO, but from Tyler’s autobiography, testosterone did seem to help them recover faster. You can argue that maybe we should draw the line to exclude testosterone. I don’t know which of the sport’s heroes that would rule out.

[soulspinner]

He is clearly the greatest. Doping has been part of the the sport and it hurts the greatest did it too. But this is a guy that could win any race.

[buddybikes]

greenies were basically jelly beans in baseball.

[Greatestalltime]

Originally Posted by weisan

Fair no.

Life isn't.

Exceptional he is.

Best all time?

Most likely.

Because times have changed.

We probably won't see another "Merckx".

Will you explain why he’s the best? Or likely the best?
What’s changed that means we won’t see another like him?

I’d like to see someone be capable of winning a sprint with the best and a Grand tour. Is that possible? Was it ever?

[Greatestalltime]

Originally Posted by soulspinner

He is clearly the greatest. Doping has been part of the the sport and it hurts the greatest did it too. But this is a guy that could win any race.

Tell me why he’s the greatest, please.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by Greatestalltime

Tell me why he’s the greatest, please.

Hard to argue with the below..

the man who started 1,800 races and won an astounding 525 of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...by_Eddy_Merckx

[jamesdak]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Hard to argue with the below..


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...by_Eddy_Merckx

^ This!!

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by Greatestalltime

Tell me why he’s the greatest, please.

His 1972 season alone shows why he's the greatest ever. Giro/Tour double, three Monuments and the Hour record.

[daker13]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

There's also a universe of difference between gobbling some uppers and advanced blood doping.

Also he seems to not be a world class asshole who ruined the lives of others.

I prefer Coppi myself. But that's the heart and not the head talking.

This topic has come up before, and though many say 'cheating is cheating,' I agree with the above--there's a world of difference between taking speed and blood doping. And then there are the grey areas. Adderall will get you suspended from the NFL, unless you have ADHD, and as we all know, lots of people have ADHD diagnoses... I believe Richard Sherman (cornerback) has ADHD, for ex.

[Lionel]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Hard to argue with the below..


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...by_Eddy_Merckx

With most other cyclists you list podiums or top 10 in grand tours. With EM you only list the wins Just incredible record.

[carpediemracing]

Originally Posted by jtakeda

Im not sure I understand this.

Can you explain the difference between EPO/blood doping and amphetamines, coritsone, and testosterone?

From my understanding of testosterone at least it can certainly change your body and change what youre capable of doing.

In cycling, at least road racing, oxygen uptake is the key. How much oxygen can you get to your muscles. Your aerobic system defines your limits. Unlike strength related sports (50m sprint in running, weight lifting, shot put, etc) cycling is an aerobic sport.

The drugs used before EPO/boosting were related to strength or managing pain.

Test/steroids helped recover quicker and build more muscle. Although they could help a rider "catch up" with training, they wouldn't necessarily make the rider better. Their oxygen uptake was still the same. So you could get to peak fitness (100%) faster, you could hold it better - a longer plateau at 100%, but it didn't change where the peak was. Super easy to detect, generally speaking. There used to be "designer" steroids that had some chemical change so technically it wasn't the actual steroid in question, but I think the category is more of a classification rather than specific drugs, so designer steroids seem to have disappeared. The one that many US track athletes used would break down during tests; it took an informant to learn that, then they started testing using a different, less destructive method (little/no heat?), and a bunch of iconic US track stars tested positive.

Amphetamines increase heart rate and mask pain. You feel like you can do more but you're not any stronger. You just burn hotter, so to speak. Your peak fitness/ability is no different, it's just that you are more likely to bump up against your limits for longer. It might help in a short event (kilo? match sprint?) but in a longer race it can be detrimental. The pros used to save it for the end of the race, as a ultra powerful pick me up. It's like having a Coke or a coffee, just supercharged. They are super easy to detect so they're generally not used.

From my understanding cortisone is a steroid, helping recovery. It also helped mask pain? Again, nothing to do with oxygen uptake. So, again, you could ride closer to your peak fitness (100%), push through in a long stage race at closer to 100%. Super easy to detect but there are many "valid reasons" to take stuff that contain cortisone so there are a lot of "excused positives".

EPO encourages your body to make more red blood cells. Therefore it can radically increase the proportion of red blood cells in your body. My mom, undergoing chemo, was at about 28% hematocrit (% red blood cells, aka HCT). A few EPO injections and some iron supplements later and she was at a Tour-like 42 or 44%, in about 2 weeks, maybe less. I think her normal hematocrit was in the 38-40 range. The max normal range is about 50-52%, but most pro racers seem to test in the mid-upper 40s. Taking EPO, you can boost this to something like 60%. In other words your peak fitness suddenly shot through the roof, you'd be at something like 140% of peak fitness.

Imagine you are making a VO2Max effort, about 20% over threshold. You can sustain it for maybe 3-5 minutes within a race, then you're done; any longer and you'd have to pull over and sit down to recover. Imagine if now that same VO2 max effort is now sustainable for an hour. That's what increasing oxygen uptake can do.

Not all riders respond to EPO the same. For example, my HCT seems to hover around 48-50%, so my (relatively poor - 200-220w FTP) aerobic power would not increase that much even if I took enough EPO to boost my HCT to a heart-attack 60% (a 20% increase for me would be 260w, which would put me right up as a stronger Cat 3). Other riders, notably Lance, apparently tested in the low 40s. Such a rider would benefit greatly from EPO. Get a rider that can't hang on climbs, boost their sustainable power by 40-50% (probably less, but in pro racing even 3-5% is huge)... suddenly you get that same rider and he's winning on climbs he used to lose 20 minutes on.

Blood boosting is the same as EPO, just using actual red blood cells instead of medicine to encourage your own body to produce red blood cells. Again, the % boost is significant, and, more importantly, there's no EPO in your body.

So in the old days the hierarchy basically stayed the same. It's just if a rider could perform later in a stage race or not. With oxygen boosting doping, many second tier racers suddenly became top contenders. It changed the landscape.

[charliedid]

Bike racing and idol worship is so weird.

[benb]

Originally Posted by bicycletricycle

They got 3 of their cheats taken from them so they have fallen behind. Battery trickery, burning oil and some fuel flow sensor manipulation. Although we will never really now the story because they made a deal to keep it secret. Oh well, I am sure they will figure out some kind of new way to stretch the rules.

Car racing cheating is totally different than bicycling doping though.

The "cheats" race teams have gotten caught with over the years very frequently have been engineering improvements that add to the knowledge needed to make better cars for the rest of us and improve the world.

They have to balance the cars becoming too fast to be safe on the tracks but to a certain degree the constant efforts to tamp out all the engineering progress is antithetical to the original spirit of that sport. The use of the sport as a proving grounds for engineering improvement was a major reason to participate.

Not the same as a cyclist using EPO or something. The medical/pharmaceutical community already knows how to use those drugs for therapeutic purposes, the cyclists are not contributing anything other than endangering their health.