Page 7 - Armstrong produced 30 more watts in 2005 than 1999

04-08.-2005, 04:40 PM

#91

stormer94

Registered User

Join Date: May 2004

Location: Montana

Posts: 415

Re: Putting out more watts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by VeloFlash

Average is a mean between the peaks and troughs.

For a 40k TT depends on the course. A flat course will provide a more consistent power output but, even so, you will find the results moving around.

On a hilly course you cannot reproduce the uphill power on the downhills and, on some steep downhills, the aero tuck is faster.

An average may have a comparative use on regular course. But you will have to analyse the data to see why the average varied.

Do you feel then that it would be fair to compare riders on a similar course, using a watt average as a base for comparison?

__________________
-------
"Was" 39 year old guy Blood pressure: 143/84, Resting Pulse: 68, weight: 230
"summer 2004" 40 year old guy. Blood pressure: 121/66, Resting pulse: 45, weight: 175
1-1-2005 Blood pressure: 115/55, Resting pulse: 44, weight: 170
6-1-2005 Blood pressure: 105/52, resting pulse: 40, weight: 175
40k-TT, 1:05

04-08.-2005, 04:53 PM

#92

VeloFlash

Registered User

Join Date: Feb 2003

Posts: 696

Re: Putting out more watts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stormer94

Do you feel then that it would be fair to compare riders on a similar course, using a watt average as a base for comparison?

I believe if you compared individual power averages with TT times you will have mixed results.

You would have to factor in weight (for hills), bike and equipment aero efficiency, tyre/tire rolling resistance, the aero position of the rider and drag.

Too many variations between different riders, their equipment and riding style would result in inconsistent outcomes.

__________________
VF

"Remember, even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat"

06-08.-2005, 01:19 AM

#93

frenchcycling

Registered User

Join Date: Jul 2005

Posts: 102

Re: Armstrong produced 30 more watts in 2005 than 1999

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimmer23

This thread, as well as the others of the same kind, I find to be hysterical. I have one question to ask: WHO CARES? These are athletes we're talking about here people! They're NOT role models. They're not heroes. They're not brain surgeons. They're not politicians working on nuclear test-ban treaties. They ride bikes fast for a living - from point A to point B. They hit baseballs and throw touchdowns. Who cares what they use to get there? Flyer, you loser, why all the hatred and animosity? From the tone and style of your posts, I'm surprised if you even own a bike, let alone how to work one to make it go forward.

Why care? I'm not a doper. I never would consider it. Nor am I an advocate. But these are professional athletes. They do many many things that "normal" people wouldn't do. Do you want to ride a bike every day for hundreds of k at a time and maintain an unbelievably strict diet and have no other life than on the bike? Not me, sorry. Much like those of us who work 90 hours a week - many people just wouldn't do it, but you do to get ahead in certain professions. Is the stress of certain professions a health risk? Sure it is. Do firefighters and policemen and soldiers put their health at risk to do a job? Sure they do. There are tradeoffs to everything worthwhile in life. If the pros want to use drugs and advanced nutrition and insane training to get to the top of their chosen profession, and they've figured out a way to get by the tests (which they surely have), then why not? Do you think you would like to live life on their diets and training and 3% bodyfat and surely constant crashes and advance onset arthritis? Not me, I'd rather expend my energy towards other things. It's a choice and a tradeoff - I will never win the TDF. Oh well. It's a choice everyone must make, and if the playing field is indeed as level in cycling as it would seem to be, then what exactly is the problem?

Is it "cheating" that has you all riled up Flyer? What exactly is cheating but a set of rules made up by others who think they know how to promote the idea of "fair" play? Do you advocate rules in war? I shoot first then you and so on and so forth? How about in business? Employees are only allowed to work so many hours. Or how about in science? You're only allowed to use so much of your intelligence and not allowed to study to enhance your knowledge.
There are of course exceptions to all of the above (Geneva Convention, workplace safety compliance, etc.), as there are in cycling. For instance you're not allowed to get into a car and drive past all the other riders to gain time. These exceptions are made to keep the activity within the bounds of war, business, science, sport (you can't use a bazooka to launch home runs in baseball). But no drugs for athletes looking to squeeze every last bit of performance from their bodies? Come on. You'd have athletes all with 20% body fat on 30lb steel bikes with early 20th century hardware before you know it. What's next, limits on training? Only allowed to ride a certain distance per week? It's like the conversation on the UCI minimum weight rule. It's all completely ridiculous. Ride what you ride, do what you do - who cares? You want to be a pro cyclist? Well then, you're signing up to the risks inherent in the sport. And if you want to be the best and you're not incredibly gifted, or lucky, or both, then you know what you have to do. Life's a bitch - deal with it or go work in McDonalds.

This discussion is retarded. Let the athletes do what they do best - entertain - and not care how they get there. I don't. LA is an incredible specimen of fitness, intensity, and endurance. Do I care how he did it? No. Am I sure there are other cyclists using more advanced methods of doping and drugging and finding the loopholes? Sure there are. He just happened to have a good base and a good combination of whatever, to rise to the top of his sport. Science, training, technology - all is and should be fair play. Afterall, if I'm not mistaken the goal is still to win isn't it?

well written, i agree with a lot of it. but its just so much fun to point fingers!

__________________
it never get easier, you just get faster.

01-10.-2005, 05:15 AM	#94
bikeguy Registered User Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Jyvaskyla, Finland Posts: 665	Re: Armstrong produced 30 more watts in 2005 than 1999 In response to Stormer94's post about Floyd Landis's 198 watts avg during the Pau-Revel stage. I took another look at Landis's performance during this stage, and I am amazed. Hey, look at the details.. click that link for the details and you'll see that Landis averaged 371 watts over a 15 minute period during that stage, during a ride up a mountain pass. Anybody here who can do 371 watts for 15 minutes after riding for 5 hrs and 45 minutes? Holy ****, I'd be begging for mercy riding at 150 watts... oh, yeah, he only weighs what, 66 kg. Probably weighs closer to 63 kg at the end of the stage.

02-11.-2005, 04:35 AM

#95

garnetstar

Registered User

Join Date: Oct 2005

Posts: 26

The corticosteroid test

Quote:

Originally Posted by VeloFlash

You are saying "Do you mean the corticoid creme that tested for below the illegal amount?".

The UCI banned list indicates glucocorticosteroids as prohibited period without a doping violation threshold. So if you are saying there is a level at which use of glucocorticosteroid is acceptable under UCI doping rules you have been misinformed.

In support of this fact, USPS, according to Emma O'Reilly, arranged for a backdated prescription to attempt to sanitise the use of glucocorticosteroid. Why go to this trouble if, as you claim, it was below the doping violation threshold?

A prescription, genuine or backdated, does not substitute for a TUE certificate arranged and approved before the use of the prohibited substance to conform to the UCI anti-doping rules.

Fact is LA failed a drug test without a TUE for this drug and should have been sanctioned.

What is meant in this case by the cortiosteroid "threshold" level is not a threshold blood or urine level that is considered legal and OK. It's the threshold corticosteroid detection limit of the text.

The official rules on the corticosteroid test are, or were, that a level of 6.0 of whatever units they use, or greater, was a positive test for corticosteroids. Any level below 6.0 was below the test's reliable corticosteroid detection limit, and is therefore not a positive result. The 6.0 level is therefore the test's threshold value/level.

Armstrong's corticosteroid level in that particular 1999 test was 0.2. So, no, this was not a positive, being well below the 6.0 threshold level for which the test can detect a reliable positive.

This being the case, Armstrong can still truthfully say that he has never tested positive, and that he has never failed a drug test.

Since he didn't fail that test, would he still require this TUE that is required if you want to test positive for a drug without incurring penalities? If not, if you only have to have a pre-produced TUE if you test positive, then the argument that the UCI turned a blind eye to this because Armstrong was the yellow jersey wouldn't be correct. They wouldn't have had to have a TUE unless he wanted to be able to test positive and not incur sanctions, or just if he did test positive, if I understand rightly.

If that's incorrect, if he had to produce the TUE even if he was only using this "cream", which woul not prodcue a positive result, then of course that would be a violation such as you speak of.

This says nothing at all about why a prescription was produced, or if whatever is claimed about that prescription being backdated is true, or if it's reasonable to believe that Armstrong was using a cortisone cream, or anything of that kind. So, this does not prove that Armstrong was not using corticosteroids in 1999.

It proves that he did not test positive for corticosteroid on that particular occasion, and that's all.

I hope I'm being clear about the vast difference between detecting any kind of signal on a test (any test, for anything), and detecting a signal that is above the test's threshold detection limit. Only when the signal's intensity, or level, is above that test's threshold detection limit, can it be said or even known, that the drug is actually present.

If the signal intensity or level is below the threshold detection limit, then that drug cannot be said to be present. A signal that's below the limit is usually caused by inherent noise in the test, or by a thousand other things, and doesn't mean in any way that any drug at all is present.

So, actually not only did that particular 1999 Armstrong sample not test positive, it did not have, by this test, any corticosteroid present at all.

Last edited by garnetstar : 02-11.-2005 at 06:19 AM.

07-11.-2005, 04:33 PM	#96
VeloFlash Registered User Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 696	Re: Armstrong produced 30 more watts in 2005 than 1999 The UCI had a real problem on its hands in the 1999 TdF. The corticosteroid test was introduced 10 days before the 1999 TF. Not only did LA fail the test but about 16 other riders. The UCI did not want another Festina scandal that occurred the previous year. The way out was the T/E ratio (testosterone/epitestosterone) which in a normal drug free person is about 1:1 but is considered detecting the use of steroids if it exceeds 6:1, now reduced to 4:1. Here is a comment by a scientist on the T/E ratio. The T/E ratio is manipulated by drug takers so it is within non suspicious parameters. LA's level of 0.2 is suspect as he would have no testosterone to recover and may indicate suspicions of an over manipulation. The article doesn't make a few things clear. First, the statement, "But the traces were below the threshold ratio of 6" implies that any ratio is suggestive of doping, but only ratios of greater than 6 are considered positive. It wasn't the traces that were below threshold, it was the T/E ratio. Everybody has a T/E ratio, regardless of whether he/she has been taking a synthetic steroid, and the ratio of 0.2 for Lance, and the ratios of 1.5, 1.6, etc., for other riders, are completely within the normal range. They alone provide no evidence whatsoever for doping. For example, one study of normal subjects, non-athletes, found an average T/E ratio of 1.33. Elevated ratios, greater than six, suggest taking an exogenous steroid, which increases T excretion and decreases E excretion, but even the study of control subjects found 2% with these elevated levels, which might have been false positives. So all the guilt rests on the finding of triamcinolone acetonide in the urine. Unless someone can prove that the body makes this substance, that really is very damning evidence of taking it in some form. Again, the low T/E ratio does not mean that this substance was present in very small amounts in the urine. It just means that it wasn't present in the body in high enough amounts to trigger the elevated T/E effect. I presume this is why Lance was able to claim that it came from a topical cream. If it wasn't elevating the T/E level, it presumably wasn't present in high enough amounts to affect performance. Finally, the last quote by some doctor, "If they are late corticoids, the low levels is not surprising, since their spread in the body happens more slowly and their tracability becomes harder," is referring to another test for steroids. The T/E ratio is not foolproof. As I mentioned above, some people may have naturally high ratios, and conversely, others may have low levels even when they are taking steroids. Athletes can also take epitestosterone to increase the E excreted, thus lowering the T/E ratio and counteracting the effects of the steroid. So another test, referrred to in the story, involves looking at the ratio of two isotopes, carbon-13 and carbon-12. C-12 is by far the more common everywhere, but there is some C-13 present in organic matter. It is somewhat less in the plant substances that are used to synthesize steroids, so if an athlete takes a synthetic steroid, when it is metabolized and converted to other products, the latter will all have a low 13/12 ratio, which can be determined. I think the doctor meant that if the particular steroids examined were far down on the body's synthetic pathway (late) much of the low 13/12 effect would be lost, since the further down, the more input from precursors within the body with normal 13/12 ratios. But in any case, the main point is that this statement cannot refer to the low T/E level of Lance and the other riders. __________________ VF "Remember, even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat"

27-07.-2006, 09:49 AM	#97
morgenstar Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 1	Re: Armstrong produced 30 more watts in 2005 than 1999 VeloFlash, where did you find these sources?

29-07.-2006, 06:20 AM

#98

VeloFlash

Registered User

Join Date: Feb 2003

Posts: 696

Re: Armstrong produced 30 more watts in 2005 than 1999

Quote:

Originally Posted by morgenstar

VeloFlash, where did you find these sources?

It was on the US domiciled Daily Peloton Forum old board which was hacked and no longer exists - R.I.P. There were three boards. The current board - which has been down for about 3 days (Landis sympathy?

), the old board which was hacked. And the old, old board which is being currently used, hopefully, temporarily.

The contributor is, I believe, a US medical scientist and is well respected for his views.

__________________
VF

"Remember, even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat"

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode