"It's Not About the Drugs"

Kyle Legate wrote:

Now that he's retired and no longer relies on trade secrets, making
public his training journals and US Postal/Discovery team doctor notes
(they can't be confdential if the patient wishes them disclosed, can
they?) will go a long way to determine if there were any wasps involved.
Transparency is the way to go, but LANCE is anything but transparent.

You have to join Carmichael Training Systems and upgrade to
CTS Elite Level 5 Alpha Defcon 3 before you can even talk about
whether that **** even exists for you to see.

Robert Chung wrote:
Well, the volume of posting always drops off after July.
I wonder how the rbr volume and the US interest in bike racing
will taper off next year.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...s.racing/about

Already a one-third drop from last year.

Clearly Armstrong, always a step ahead, saw the decline coming
and knew when it was time to get out.

"Sandy" wrote in message
...
Dans le message de
k.net,
B. Lafferty a réfléchi, et puis a déclaré :
"bill callas" wrote in message
nk.net...
You wrote in one of your articles "With doping allegations levelled
at every Tour winner since Hinault...". Obviously, this would then
include Greg LeMond. What allegations were leveled at him? It
would be interesting to know since he has been so outspoken against
drug use.

Per Benjo Maso:

1989: The miraculous resurrexion of Greg Lemond. He suffered from
anemia, but claimed to have been cured by an iron injection. Not many
people believe him. The rumor says he used blood-doping. Or was it
EPO?

Let's just look at your message :

You cite, without comment, Benjo. Benjo offers no actual opinion, only
bizarre speculation. He could just as well have implicated Cheerios as
the revitalizing potion. He cites no sources, while he could have done,
and says "not many people" buy that. Which particular people, one can
ask, fairly. Benjo, shame on you, really.

So you ladle a selected passage. devoid of real value, and want us to buy
that the entire system is based on drugs.

I used to do better on Cheerios for breakfast. Maybe someone should
investigate General Mills.

Screw it, this is a bunch of crap. I think it wiser to stick with
reported FACTS. Armstrong is phenomenal - as in phenomenon. Whether you
like him or not is personal, and fabricating excuses for the phenomenon is
not the same as saying he is not a pleasant personality, from your point
of view.

Why shame on me? What I offered was not " a bizarre speculation" at all.
What I said was that not many people believed Lemond, which is quite true.
For instance, I remember an article of a doctor in a Belgian newspaper,
saying it is impossible to cure anemia with iron-injections in so little
time as Lemond claimed. Journalist in the Dutch and French press showed the
same scepticism.So did the riders I knew. Most of the sceptics suggested the
possibility of blood-doping, propably because it had been used by the
American Olympic team in 1984. A few years later several people suggested
Lemond might have one of the first riders to use epo. One of them - if we
may believe Walsh - was a certain Lance Armstrong, who asserted that
"everybody knows it". Does that mean that it is proven that Lemnond used
blood-doping, epo or another kind of doping? No, of course not, and I didn't
say it was. What I wrote was that there was "a rumor", and I might have said
also "a very strong rumor".

Benjo

B. Lafferty wrote:

There has to be some point at which the correlation between VO2Max and
wattage becomes suspect. Would an athlete with a VO2Max of 82, 80 78 or 76
be physiologically capable of outputs like Armstrong, Ullrich and or
Pantani? Would a clean rider with a VO2Max of 90 not be able to put out
similar wattages with similar training methods?

You are thinking like a prosecutor, not a scientist. There is fairly
little correlation between VO2Max and power. There might be some
point at which it becomes suspect - maybe if I showed up to the club
TT and did 420 watts average on my beer-and-cheese training regimen -
but only in a very crude sense. Armstrong's VO2max is pretty high.
His VO2 at LT, which is the important number in Chung's chart, is
quite high. The difference between a really good rider and the best
is less than 10 percent (for example, the Lim article I referenced
earlier). Physiology is not engineering: even numbers that are
considered well-correlated will generally have scatter that is
greater than 10 percent.

Besides, Vayer and you are leveling the accusations. Shouldn't he
have the burden of demonstrating the correlations, not Chung or the
rest of us rbr hacks?

If there were no problem at
all with the questions raised by Vayer, I doubt you would see the contorted
explainations offered by Eddie Coyle in his recent journal article.
Explaining Armstrong's increased effeciency by speculating as to Type II to
Type I muscle conversion with no human studies proving that possible or
likely and with NO biopsy of Armstrong's muscles is spohistry at best.
Further explaining the increased efficiency on the basis of using altitude
tents or rooms begs the question of whether or not Armstrong's efficiency
was increased by other means such as EPO as has been alleged by some and for
which Dr. Ferrari has subsequently had a related sporting fraud conviction.

Coyle doesn't seem to have any particularly firm explanation for why
Armstrong seems to have a high LT (or low lactate concentration at
nominal LT). OTOH, this also doesn't seem like the "contorted" cover
up for doping that you want it to be. What doping practices
increase efficiency? EPO or other hematocrit boosters (including
altitude tents) generally increase VO2max (and VO2LT). That is how
they enhance performance.

Cooglie only lurks here intermittently, why don't you email
him the English translation and ask him?

If Andy wants to comment, I have no doubt that he can obtain a copy of
Vayer's analysis in French or English without my having to email it to him.

But you're so interested in the answer, perhaps you should
ask him. He might be sitting forlorn by his computer (or pedaling
his Velodyne in front of his computer) wondering why no one
from rbr ever calls.

wrote:


You are thinking like a prosecutor, not a scientist. There is fairly
little correlation between VO2Max and power. There might be some
point at which it becomes suspect - maybe if I showed up to the club
TT and did 420 watts average on my beer-and-cheese training regimen -
but only in a very crude sense. Armstrong's VO2max is pretty high.
His VO2 at LT, which is the important number in Chung's chart, is
quite high. The difference between a really good rider and the best
is less than 10 percent (for example, the Lim article I referenced
earlier). Physiology is not engineering: even numbers that are
considered well-correlated will generally have scatter that is
greater than 10 percent.


One question: Shouldn't VO2Max be correlated not to Power, but to
Power/Weight?

wrote in message
oups.com...
B. Lafferty wrote:

There has to be some point at which the correlation between VO2Max and
wattage becomes suspect. Would an athlete with a VO2Max of 82, 80 78 or
76
be physiologically capable of outputs like Armstrong, Ullrich and or
Pantani? Would a clean rider with a VO2Max of 90 not be able to put out
similar wattages with similar training methods?

You are thinking like a prosecutor, not a scientist. There is fairly
little correlation between VO2Max and power. There might be some
point at which it becomes suspect - maybe if I showed up to the club
TT and did 420 watts average on my beer-and-cheese training regimen -
but only in a very crude sense. Armstrong's VO2max is pretty high.

82 as tested by Coyle. Quite average for an elite cyclist.

His VO2 at LT, which is the important number in Chung's chart, is
quite high.

The number?


The difference between a really good rider and the best
is less than 10 percent (for example, the Lim article I referenced
earlier). Physiology is not engineering: even numbers that are
considered well-correlated will generally have scatter that is
greater than 10 percent.

Besides, Vayer and you are leveling the accusations. Shouldn't he
have the burden of demonstrating the correlations, not Chung or the
rest of us rbr hacks?

Vayer has leveled accusations, I've asked questions seeking explainations.
That's quite different.


If there were no problem at
all with the questions raised by Vayer, I doubt you would see the
contorted
explainations offered by Eddie Coyle in his recent journal article.
Explaining Armstrong's increased effeciency by speculating as to Type II
to
Type I muscle conversion with no human studies proving that possible or
likely and with NO biopsy of Armstrong's muscles is spohistry at best.
Further explaining the increased efficiency on the basis of using
altitude
tents or rooms begs the question of whether or not Armstrong's efficiency
was increased by other means such as EPO as has been alleged by some and
for
which Dr. Ferrari has subsequently had a related sporting fraud
conviction.

Coyle doesn't seem to have any particularly firm explanation for why
Armstrong seems to have a high LT (or low lactate concentration at
nominal LT).

Indeed he doesn't

OTOH, this also doesn't seem like the "contorted" cover
up for doping that you want it to be. What doping practices
increase efficiency? EPO or other hematocrit boosters (including
altitude tents) generally increase VO2max (and VO2LT). That is how
they enhance performance.

Yes, EPO, or autologous blood boosting will increase both measurements of
VO2Max. Yes, performance is thereby enhanced. What was Ferrari linked to
in his sporting fraud conviction? Advice about EPO?


Cooglie only lurks here intermittently, why don't you email
him the English translation and ask him?

If Andy wants to comment, I have no doubt that he can obtain a copy of
Vayer's analysis in French or English without my having to email it to
him.

But you're so interested in the answer, perhaps you should
ask him. He might be sitting forlorn by his computer (or pedaling
his Velodyne in front of his computer) wondering why no one
from rbr ever calls.

I'll wait until he's off his Velodyne. :-)

Ernst wondered:

One question: Shouldn't VO2Max be correlated not to Power, but to
Power/Weight?

Start here and read a few of the following posts:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...b4e8ce6?hl=fr&

Snipped for brevity

It's fairly well known that VO2 Max is NOT a good predictor of
athletic performance and that power output at anaerobic threshold
is.
Some athletes can obtain a higher percentage of VO2max at AT. There
is plenty of scientific research to support this. VO2 max also does
not take into account gross efficiency.

Thus the journal article by Eddie Coyle that really doesn't explain
(or prove) a natural basis for Armstrong's increased efficiency.

He does in this one.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...97&query_hl=13

That's the article I've been referring to. He doesn't. I suggest
that you read the entire article.

I have read the entire article. It does explain the reasons for
Armstrong's improved performance with some very good correlations (e.g.
increase in type I fiber and increase in cadence). Add in his drop in
body mass and the result of many years of intensive training etc. Is it
the use of the term "remarkable" that leads you to think otherwise?

Phil H

Robert Chung wrote:

Brian, don't make me come back early from my vacation and slap you
upside your head. I'm grumpy enough typing on a foreign keyboard.

If you were over here in America, you'd have been back from
vacation for a week already! Get back to work, you cheese-eating
enemy of the free market. Why do you hate freedom?

"Philip Holman" wrote in message
...

Snipped for brevity

It's fairly well known that VO2 Max is NOT a good predictor of
athletic performance and that power output at anaerobic threshold is.
Some athletes can obtain a higher percentage of VO2max at AT. There
is plenty of scientific research to support this. VO2 max also does
not take into account gross efficiency.

Thus the journal article by Eddie Coyle that really doesn't explain
(or prove) a natural basis for Armstrong's increased efficiency.

He does in this one.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...97&query_hl=13

That's the article I've been referring to. He doesn't. I suggest that
you read the entire article.

I have read the entire article. It does explain the reasons for
Armstrong's improved performance with some very good correlations (e.g.
increase in type I fiber and increase in cadence). Add in his drop in body
mass and the result of many years of intensive training etc. Is it the use
of the term "remarkable" that leads you to think otherwise?

Phil H

Read it again.