La Flamme Rouge **off topic discussion**

magicbastarder

https://twitter.com/BillyLinehan/status/1673394589997178880

...

CramCycle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120769228#Comment_120769228

I've told this story before but many moons ago having the Chelsea doctors talk about storing Drogbas blood at a sports science conference, for infusion to aid repair and recovery. One of my co workers pointed out it was blood doping was met with looks of incredulity and dismissal. Cycling never really had a hope in the media. When Brian O'Driscoll was banging in painkillers and taking injections to play through the pain he wasn't doping but a cyclist does it and they are scum.

I am very much of the opinion that all are doping, if you can't play due to injury but your opponent can, that's the game and on the day they are better. But this BS of painting cyclists as drug fiends when they are all at it is unfair.

breezy1985

Anyone have any recent experience of taking a bike on a coach in Ireland ?

The Bus Eireann website says the bike has to be in a hold but those new blue TFI coaches on my route don't have a hold.

CramCycle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770683#Comment_120770683

Genuinely don't know, is there any space for luggage, like a rack in the seating area, on them at all?

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120771435#Comment_120771435

Ya but not one big enough for a bike. They have an open section in the front for wheelchairs, buggies etc. that I'm hoping I'm allowed use.

Trying to find out now from customer care.

CramCycle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120771464#Comment_120771464

Are Bus Eireann the operator is the other thing to check, I imagine if its a wheelchair space it will depend on the driver and the best you will get is a yes but if a wheelchair user gets on, you are getting off. Complete guess though.

Seth Brundle

I would have assumed that the default position to carry a bike on Bus Eireann would be fornthe driver to feck it underneath with the luggage

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120771471#Comment_120771471

Ya Bus Eireann said it's down to the driver.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120771473#Comment_120771473

The new accessable coaches don't have an underneath.

Idleater

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770523#Comment_120770523

I've just finished reading the Jan Ulrich book where it alludes to this too.

CramCycle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120771667#Comment_120771667

I always found it weird though, I get sports fans from certain sports not getting it, their view is black/white, they see it as some heroic thing where everything is tried to keep going in ball sports. It has always been the way, the GAA is rife with it, pain killing injections, performance enhancing drugs but it is marketed in a "hero local does everything not to let down the parish or county". Cycling on the other hand, is a mixed bag depending where in the world you live. Over here we are a lot more anti doping than our fellow fans in many countries IMO, with some seeing it as a challenge to get around, and only an issue if they get caught and even then, more fool them for getting caught. Whereas my in laws were into athletics and very competitive and they would tell me it was so obvious who was doping and they were gone within days as the testers would be waiting at the next meet. I hear stories in cycling of riders simply turning around before sign on if they get wind of testing, but other sports seem to simply not really test. The GAA for a long time simply had it banned in regards testing away from a game.

It's just weird, Joe Soap in the street I can see not getting how similar a blood bag in cycling vs a blood bag in Soccer is but sports scientists should know better but even the most prominent ones seem to glaze over with confusion when you point it out.

I gave up caring about it personally, there is always going to be someone beside me puffing an inhaler like its a cigarette at some A3 or A4 races and all I have to remember is that I know there not asthmatic but for all their efforts they are still here with me. At a more elite level, I simply don't have the energy to care, I feel bad for the young riders coming up who are cheated from a place but no one with the power to fix it truly wants too so I have just checked out of the thought process.

It obviously still annoys me based on the length of this post though.

Idleater

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120771835#Comment_120771835

Agreed

To the point of not bothering writing a lengthy reply

magicbastarder

Re the differing attitudes; is it because cycling fandom is far less 'tribal' than GAA/scoccer etc?

A teenager from ballagadereen can identify much more closely with the local GAA side than with lotto-soudal...

CramCycle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120771915#Comment_120771915

Team sports excluding cycling:

Weepsie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120771835#Comment_120771835

For the record, on the offchance I ever race, I am asthmatic.

If they were properly asthmatic, they'd know puffing it during the effort is wrong.

CramCycle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120772325#Comment_120772325

Loads of racers are, and while there are different times to take inhalers, (loads of asthmatics in my family, with very different severities (I am not, only taken one once when I had covid)) and I am fine with inhalers for asthmatic athletes. This guy wasn't, something had popped up about Team Sky and riders using inhalers recently enough. I see a rider taking one or two puffs of a preventative inhaler the morning of a race, grand. I see a guy in the peloton whipping out a blue inhaler and puffing it 20 times before he goes for a breakaway attempt, then I am more suspicious. Not only has he no clue what he is at, if you are doing that in A4, you don't grasp the concept that drugs won't turn a donkey into a racehorse.

An asthmatic taking a preventative inhaler is doing it to stay alive, not to compete. The same way a Type 1 Diabetic takes insulin. The issue in both scenarios is when non asthmatics or non diabetics take these drugs for some gain (that requires more knowledge than most of them have in my observation).

Seth Brundle

As someone who has heart problems, I carry a GTN spray (glyceryl trinitrate) around with me when exercising. If needed, I take a two sprays under my tongue (repeated twice in five minute intervals (if no joy after that, then start praying)) which apparently widens my arteries.

I've often wondered if this would give me a bit of a boost performance-wise going up hills or were I to race

cunavalos

Anyone heading to the concert in Trinity this evening. According to the set list from Limerick the following features heavily. Only fitting based on upcoming events in France ( and Spain)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt3p-F2x7rY

magicbastarder

bugger, i forgot they were playing.

magicbastarder

random musings out on the bike earlier - do taller cyclists have much advantage over shorter ones? and if so, how much is lost to increased aerodynamic drag?

JMcL

After all the NIMBYism (or Not In My Front Yard in this case I guess) on bike bunkers, I'm just back from a work trip to Brussels and they're everywhere. Furthermore, I was in the Flanders government buildings and saw the following. Guesswork with my extremely limited Dutch (no concessions to their Walloonian brethern here!) and Google Translate confirmed "plooifiets" is indeed "folding bike" they are (indoor) lockers for same. Should start a campaign to get them installed in DCC offices to see if it would cause Mannix Flynn to explode

cunavalos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120783069#Comment_120783069

GCN did a "sciencey" video on that recently.

https://youtu.be/Rp-02G6sQf0

breezy1985

Certainly wasn't an advantage to Conor Dunne when he had to change outside in front of all the fans because or the little team Ireland camper van.

De Bhál

spotted this earlier... dosn't look very secure

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120783048#Comment_120783048

Good gig. German electo nerds from the distant past and vintage cycling videos. What's not to love? Tried pasting a bit of video in but computer says no.

Weepsie

I presume they did Radio-activiy. That's their best song for me. Got to see them in Germany 14 years ago this week.

Also loved this story about Florian Schneider's reason for departure. (unfounded). Story went he and Ralf had a row over a bicyle pump

https://cyclingmagazine.ca/sections/news/remembering-kraftwerk-founder-and-cycling-fan-florian-schneider/

cunavalos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120786339#Comment_120786339

According to internet sources the following was the set list. Gutted to miss it as this is the first summer I haven't been in TCD in over a decade.

Source: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/kraftwerk/2023/trinity-college-dublin-dublin-ireland-4ba7a38e.html

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120786339#Comment_120786339

They did, complete with all the retro graphics. Excellent show, lots of people bopping to "The Robots" and "Boom Boom Tschak"

Mefistofelino

Did they do their bargain-basement photoshop of a spaceship landing outside the gig location for "Spacelab"? The only time that was ever done well was in one German gig when they went live to a German astronaut on the ISS, who duetted with them.

Idleater

For a band where 4 people stand still for a couple of hours they have amazing presence. I saw them a few years ago, and again for the 3d show. They have such a great catalog that they can mix and match a load of different ways.

smacl

If you haven't seen the Bill Bailey Kraftwerk collaboration, this should start your weekend with a chuckle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwaxWoJPUC0