Paris-Brest-Paris on EPO

blorg

http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/anabolic-steroids/aas-epo-article-outside-magazine-552736.html

Interesting story. Apparently doping was not banned in PBP at that stage but now is, as a result of this guy. Doping is still legal in Audax UK apparently :pac:

concussion

Thanks for posting the link, it's great to see a first-hand account of the effects, good and bad, of these substances.

Slideshowbob

is there testing at the marmotte?

or will there be at the Etape Hibernina?

Neither are UCI sanctioned are they?

Are there prizes for winning? how much?

ta

TinyExplosions

Slideshowbob wrote: »

is there testing at the marmotte?

or will there be at the Etape Hibernina?

Neither are UCI sanctioned are they?

Are there prizes for winning? how much?

ta

No prizes for winning and neither are sanctioned afaik

niceonetom

Interestingly, I saw no evidence of doping control at the Marmotte or other events around that time and those are timed, and very highly contested by some very serious cyclists, and there are prizes (though I don't know what) as well as the not-inconsiderable glory of winning.

...not that I'm planning anything or anything. At all. Even slightly.

TinyExplosions

niceonetom wrote: »

Interestingly, I saw no evidence of doping control at the Marmotte or other events around that time and those are timed, and very highly contested by some very serious cyclists, and there are prizes (though I don't know what) as well as the not-inconsiderable glory of winning.

...not that I'm planning anything or anything. At all. Even slightly.

Didn't know there were prizes.. if only I had 7 and a half g's

ROK ON

Slightly related. Is there testing at the club races around the country (not Ras etc) but just A4thru 1 races.
If so has anybody here been tested?

blorg

ROK ON wrote: »

Slightly related. Is there testing at the club races around the country (not Ras etc) but just A4thru 1 races.
If so has anybody here been tested?

As far as I can make out, no, there isn't, below the Ras and National Championships. Doping is banned and there is always the possibility of a control I guess but I think your chances outside these events are very very low.

As to what is and isn't a race, Bob and myself have been down that road before :pac: Continental cyclosportives are timed competitive events with a podium and prizes at the end. They really are the equivalent of a marathon in running and are certainly raced by the guys at the front. I have read before that in the Italian Gran Fondos in particular there is a fair bit of doping.

PBP and Audax on the other hand are very explicitly not races. I believe in the UK there is a specific regulation that times or a result sheet cannot be published... PBP however does publish the times.

Slideshowbob

blorg wrote: »

As far as I can make out, no, there isn't, below the Ras and National Championships. Doping is banned and there is always the possibility of a control I guess but I think your chances outside these events are very very low.

As to what is and isn't a race, Bob and myself have been down that road before :pac: Continental cyclosportives are timed competitive events with a podium and prizes at the end. They really are the equivalent of a marathon in running and are certainly raced by the guys at the front. I have read before that in the Italian Gran Fondos in particular there is a fair bit of doping.

PBP and Audax on the other hand are very explicitly not races. I believe in the UK there is a specific regulation that times or a result sheet cannot be published... PBP however does publish the times.

I recall there was testing at the Shay Elliott a few years back when the Italian won it.

I was tested years ago after a 1 day classic league race - and it goes on at Tour of Ulster too.

Would not happen at most Irish races - especially not club races - I think it costs a few hundred at least for each test

as far as i know and i am open to correction - testers could show up at any high level race in ireland at their discretion

certainly id imagine any open race that a good number of carded athletes would be in would be of interest

PS to compare marathons with cycling events is not a good comparison. I dont think there will ever be an olympic cyclosportive event but i would love to see it! ;-)

The marathon is a specific olympic event but because of its nature u can get a mix partaking in say the Dublin marathon from olympians to walkers.

as i see it - in cycling there are races as defined under UCI regs - and then randonees / cyclo sportives etc which I would not see as races.

Amongst other things races (as per UCI regs) will have restricted numbers, may have limited numbers on each team, may have team support cars, etc, randonnees etc tend not to i gather

ednwireland

doping control was at the national championships, i'm guessing they cover more than one sport (they had jackets with doping control on the back ! )

rottenhat

blorg wrote: »

PBP and Audax on the other hand are very explicitly not races. I believe in the UK there is a specific regulation that times or a result sheet cannot be published... PBP however does publish the times.

There was a recent PBP, maybe 2007, where some of the riders in one of the fast groups (the 84-hour I think) were so badly behaved in terms of rudeness to the people working the controls, throwing rubbish around the place etc, that ACP did not publish the finishing times, to stress that PBP is not a race and that nobody should be in such a hurry that they abandon the spirit of audax. You still see some sniping on the message boards about sportive riders and their alleged bad attitudes on the heels of this.

It's an interesting article certainly, although this bit

At 2 a.m., we took a break at a convenience store in Easton, Pennsylvania. It was Saturday night and the place was filled with kids coming and going to parties and dates. I got a glimpse of myself in the glass of a freezer door. I had a light on my helmet and a bunch of other blinking gizmos attached to my arms and ankles. My face looked like one of those "thousand-yard stare" photos from Vietnam.

What have I done? I wondered. I had a life once, and now I'm standing in the Easton WaWa in the middle of the night, looking like a cyborg, with thousands of dollars of drugs coursing through my veins.

might give the impression that wandering around 24-hour shops in the small hours, dressed like a clown and zombified from sleep deprivation, is not par for the course on a 600. It's only the drugs which are the unusual part. I don't think I've heard of anyone taking anything more performance-enhancing than caffeine pills on brevets.

For me it would feel a bit pointless to be doping on something like PBP - I'd actually feel the weaker for having to do it to get through an event that thousands of people even more unathletic than I am have completed on nothing more than a couple of espressos and a glass of red wine. I understand the writer's reasoning for picking PBP, but I wonder if his tandem partner knew beforehand, and what his reaction was (Bob Breedlove was a serious ultra-cyclist, with two RAAM victories on tandem and a 3rd place solo, who died in a grim accident on the 2005 RAAM - good piece on him here.)

c0rk3r

Ultracycling... yach!

blorg

Somewhat relevant to this thread, (the original one, not the race semantics one) not sure if it was posted before.

IM0

blorg wrote: »

Somewhat relevant to this thread, (the original one, not the race semantics one) not sure if it was posted before.

on the last page of that does it say "if you can see this you have gone too far congratulations you are insane"

Is the definition of sanity only reading 1 page... tops, before getting back to something more important, and insanity is actually reading it to the end

Stokolan

I enjoyed that article. But my gp wasn't to happy when I asked him could I be put on similar treatment to what was mentioned in it :P

Now to find a cheap online mexican pharmacy that will ship to Ireland.

Moflojo

blorg wrote: »

http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/anabolic-steroids/aas-epo-article-outside-magazine-552736.html

Interesting story. Apparently doping was not banned in PBP at that stage but now is, as a result of this guy. Doping is still legal in Audax UK apparently :pac:

So did anyone else read the article and wants to discuss it?

Those performance enhancers sound great, the HGH healing an old scar was especially interesting. And the excess fluid around the joints causing them to hurt less also sounds appealing.

Not sure I'd mess with the EPO though, sounds dodgy.

If morality was left out of the equation then using these performance enhancers would be a no-brainer for most top athletes.

Lumen

Moflojo wrote: »

Those performance enhancers sound great, the HGH healing an old scar was especially interesting. And the excess fluid around the joints causing them to hurt less also sounds appealing.

If there was a net physical advantage to these substances over the long term, we'd probably have evolved to produce more of them. They're not good for you.

Coronal

Lumen wrote: »

If there was a net physical advantage to these substances over the long term, we'd probably have evolved to produce more of them. They're not good for you.

Indeed. Some quick paper searching seems to come up with a lot of suggestions that HGH (for example) may not boost performance all that much, and can have some very serious longer term side effects, the symptoms of which are hard to detect.

Long term, I would doubt that we can improve massively on the tens of thousands of years that primates have been evolving for. Without resorting to the supposed Cancellara-esque motors :rolleyes:

RobFowl

ROK ON wrote: »

Slightly related. Is there testing at the club races around the country (not Ras etc) but just A4thru 1 races.
If so has anybody here been tested?

Technically anyone holding an CI racing licence can be tested at races and theoretically even out of competition.
In reality testing is limited to elite carded athletes who can be and do get regular out of competition testing and the higher level national races. All UCI ranked races ie 2.1(TOI).2.2(RAS) and one days 1.1 or 1.2 and the variations for womne, juniors and U23's ahve testing. The nationals and RAS and the most tested events in this country.
The Shay Elliot was UCI ranked for a few years so would have had mandatory testing but the club stopped applying for UCI status (mainly as the UCI charge a large fee and the race organisation has to pay for the anti-doping controls).

RobFowl

Slideshowbob wrote: »

as far as i know and i am open to correction - testers could show up at any high level race in ireland at their discretion

certainly id imagine any open race that a good number of carded athletes would be in would be of interest

This is entirely correct and is the policy in Ireland at the moment.

RobFowl

I found the OP's article very interesting (if a little scary). I have some expertise in this and know where some athletes get illicit drugs. At amateur level veterinary products and the internet are the most common as well as a few dodgy docs who tend to have reputations as being a bit dodgy anyway among their peers.

Lumen

Off-topic stuff moved to It's a race...not it's not...is too..is not..etc .

I want those minutes of my life back.