Let 'em Dope

Bret said:

Quoted message said:

I've already encountered enough masters fattie riders (who were
suddenly able to simply ride away from incredibly fit (and fast)
fields) to satisfy my fill.

You can identify dopers by their speed alone?. You should alert [censored]
Pound. He could use your services.

Quoted message said:

Are there masters riders willing to dope
to win a friggin folding tire? You'd better believe it.

There may well be some doping in masters racing. I've heard some rumors
but have no personal knowedge of doping ever. If there is, it has
little to do with prizes. What region are you talking about?

Bret

Bret, there is [censored] of it. While most of the young 20 year old
cat 2's are [censored] poor, a fairly huge chunk of masters fatties are not.
And many of them have HUGE egos. When you race with specific people
over the course of 10-20 years, you tend to know their strengths and
weaknesses (and their personalities) rather well. You also learn a lot
about their character. When one of your fellow riders goes from being
a competitive and consistent "top 15" finisher for a decade, and then
you see him suddenly able to rocket away from the peloton at-will, you
know something is up. Especially if you know his obsessive desire to
win, and have watched him practically breaking his hand as he punches
his stem after not crossing the line first. I then multiply this by
about 10-15 guys I've known over the years. It does not matter what
region you are from. I've been part of three distinct racing districts
in my life (admittedly, most are in very populated areas) and all have
the same thing going on. Same personalities.

Anyone remember Phil Guarnacia(sp?), "The world's strongest man"? He
rode in the SoCal area in the 80's (probably earlier too). After
winning dozens of masters races, district and national championships,
we came to find that he was in fact more than a decade younger than
he'd purported himself to be. Muscles as big as a Mack truck. An
obvious "juicer". That kind of guy.

Quoted message said:

It'll come out first through the black market, and that'll
make it expensive. Grad students may be cheap, but
Legate will know the pros can pay (not to mention the
Masters Fatties)

These guys can afford it. Their ambitions extend beyond the limits of
their own skin too.

gym.gravity said:

Quoted message said:

It'll come out first through the black market, and that'll
make it expensive. Grad students may be cheap, but
Legate will know the pros can pay (not to mention the
Masters Fatties)

These guys can afford it. Their ambitions extend beyond the limits of
their own skin too.

forgot to add the link:

http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200606/champions-club-1.html

Quoted message said:

Bret, there is [censored] of it. While most of the young 20 year old
cat 2's are [censored] poor, a fairly huge chunk of masters fatties are not.
And many of them have HUGE egos.

http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200606/champions-club-1.html

Jonathan v.d. Sluis said:

Oh no you don't. People went on about Pantani being 'that little cancer'
until he was dead in a hotel room. And now that it's shown that the rest
of the field was doped too, including those once considered to be the
heroes against his villainy, I hope the oh-so-morally upright from then
continue to express their admirable armchair viewpoints and pursue the
same agenda until all riders gone.

<snip>

Dumbass -

I'm a Pantani-basher and it's not because of the drugs.

It's the person. Pantani = loser.

thanks,

K. Gringioni.

jeremy said:

Interesting opinions in Wednesday's Mailbag at VeloNews:

http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/10149.0.html

Why not let 'em dope? What is the philosophy behind testing all the
riders? Are we trying to protect their health? Are we trying to
maintain a level playing field?

What do we care about their health? American football players beat
their bodies to death and often have major health problems after they
retire. We don't have any rules to regulate the amount of damage
American football players do to themselves during each game. Boxers
suffer from getting hit so often (see Muhammad Ali) and we still allow
them to fight. How is doping any different?

If we did allow everyone to dope, how would the playing field NOT be
level? Pros have access to just about anything, especially ProTour
teams with multi-million dollar budgets. Access wouldn't be a problem.
If everyone does it, then how would the playing field not be level?

I say EPO and blood reinfusions for everyone.

jeremy

I said this a few years ago and got totally flamed. I guess now that
everybody has a favorite that is under suspicion the attitude is
changing.

In the end, legal doping would be safer than what is going on now.
After all, in expert hands 'it is no more dangerous than orange juice.'

Quoted message said:

It does not matter what
region you are from. I've been part of three distinct racing districts
in my life (admittedly, most are in very populated areas) and all have
the same thing going on. Same personalities.

I don't think it's that bad where I am (CO since 1983). If there are
more than a few guys doing it in the masters, they're being very
discreat about it. I know that it's possible to be clean and
competitive here.

Bret

gym.gravity said:

Quoted message said:

Bret, there is [censored] of it. While most of the young 20 year old
cat 2's are [censored] poor, a fairly huge chunk of masters fatties are not.
And many of them have HUGE egos.

http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200606/champions-club-1.html

Yikes! The only good thing about that article was that they let Les
have his say. Thanks for the link.

Bret

"Kurgan Gringioni" <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Jonathan v.d. Sluis said:

Oh no you don't. People went on about Pantani being 'that little cancer'
until he was dead in a hotel room. And now that it's shown that the rest
of the field was doped too, including those once considered to be the
heroes against his villainy, I hope the oh-so-morally upright from then
continue to express their admirable armchair viewpoints and pursue the
same agenda until all riders gone.

<snip>

Dumbass -

I'm a Pantani-basher and it's not because of the drugs.

It's the person. Pantani = loser.

Wow, your particular brand of 'winner' must really be something then.

Quoted message said:

thanks,

K. Gringioni.

Jonathan v.d. Sluis a écrit :

Quoted message said:

"Kurgan Gringioni" <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Jonathan v.d. Sluis said:

Oh no you don't. People went on about Pantani being 'that little cancer'
until he was dead in a hotel room. And now that it's shown that the rest
of the field was doped too, including those once considered to be the
heroes against his villainy, I hope the oh-so-morally upright from then
continue to express their admirable armchair viewpoints and pursue the
same agenda until all riders gone.

<snip>

Dumbass -

I'm a Pantani-basher and it's not because of the drugs.

It's the person. Pantani = loser.

Wow, your particular brand of 'winner' must really be something then.

It's in his mirror.

Kurgan Gringioni said:

Gene doping will be cheap. The actual procedure for making a gene
alteration is relatively simple. It's graduate student level lab work.

The hard part is identifying which genes to change, ie. what the
effects of the change will be, and what side effects will accompany the
gene alteration.

The harder part is figuring out how to regulate the spatial and temoral
expression of the gene, and the strength of expression from whatever
promoter you put behind it. And, also importantly, how to inactivate the
gene once the athlete is retired. Identifying which genes would be good
candidates (the EPO gene is pretty much a no brainer) is relatively easy
compared to the task of titrating the correct dose of gene product.

Sandy <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Jonathan v.d. Sluis a écrit :

Quoted message said:

"Kurgan Gringioni" <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

....

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm a Pantani-basher and it's not because of the drugs.

It's the person. Pantani = loser.

Wow, your particular brand of 'winner' must really be something then.

It's in his mirror.

Seriously, I don't think that's true. All those people who are so
incredibly critical of the personalities of people like Hamilton, Virenque,
Pantani, Armstrong, Simoni, or whoever you can think of, should have an
easy time finding fault with the person they know best of all. They can't
be happy when looking in the mirror. Which is a pity.

Jonathan v.d. Sluis said:

Seriously, I don't think that's true. All those people who are so
incredibly critical of the personalities of people like Hamilton, Virenque,
Pantani, Armstrong, Simoni, or whoever you can think of, should have an
easy time finding fault with the person they know best of all. They can't
be happy when looking in the mirror. Which is a pity.

Its a pity only if you look in the mirror for the purpose of being
happy. Some of us do it to shave and comb our hair and get happy some
other way or ways. Most of which, a mirror would simply get in the
way.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

Curtis L. Russell <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Jonathan v.d. Sluis said:

Seriously, I don't think that's true. All those people who are so
incredibly critical of the personalities of people like Hamilton,
Virenque, Pantani, Armstrong, Simoni, or whoever you can think of,
should have an easy time finding fault with the person they know best
of all. They can't be happy when looking in the mirror. Which is a
pity.

Its a pity only if you look in the mirror for the purpose of being
happy.

You mean you never made faces in front of a mirror?? It's not the *only*
reason ofcourse, but still...

Quoted message said:

Some of us do it to shave and comb our hair and get happy some
other way or ways. Most of which, a mirror would simply get in the
way.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

Jonathan v.d. Sluis said:

Quoted message said:

Its a pity only if you look in the mirror for the purpose of being
happy.

You mean you never made faces in front of a mirror?? It's not the *only*
reason ofcourse, but still...

I save four or five seconds. I start with a 'made face'. Its not so
funny, now. Maybe I need to point my nose left to right instead of its
current right to left...

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

Bret said:

Quoted message said:

http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200606/champions-club-1.html

Yikes! The only good thing about that article was that they let Les
have his say. Thanks for the link.

Yes, they did let me put in my two bits but got part of the story wrong.
Here is my response, which they probably won't print.

--------------------
To: [email hidden]
Subject: Billionaire Bike Club

Your generally accurate article on the Billionaire Bike Club (June 2006)
misstates the outcome of our first lawsuit against USA Cycling. The
article says, "Longtime USAC board member Les Earnest, a Stanford
professor, filed a lawsuit aimed at stopping Weisel's group, which he
accused of manipulating USA Cycling bylaws, but the case was settled out
of court." In fact, that lawsuit was not settled -- we won outright in
the appellate court. As a result, Weisel and his moneyed colleagues were
immediately ousted from their seats on the USA Cycling board. However
Chief Operating Officer Steve Johnson, acting on behalf of the Weisel
cabal, then conducted an outrageously crooked election aimed at
consolidating their takeover, so we sued again. It was evident that we
would win that one too but it would take more years to get through the
appeal process, with the cabal's expenses still being paid by USA
Cycling at the expense of its members. We finally decided to settled
that case out of court on very favorable terms that cannot be disclosed,
as usual.

I acknowledge that your staff did try to fact-check the article by
sending me an email, but that was just after I departed for Egypt to
watch a solar eclipse and tour that fascinating country. I responded
promptly upon my return but that was apparently too late. Also, I am not
"a Stanford professor" but a "senior research scientist emeritus." I was
executive officer of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
(SAIL) for many years and, among other things, initiated the first robot
vehicle project there. You may have noticed that Stanley, the winner of
the robot vehicle race across the Nevada desert last year, was created
by the modern SAIL under the leadership of Sebastian Thrun. However that
happened long after I retired.

Les Earnest

"Kyle Legate" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Kurgan Gringioni said:

Gene doping will be cheap. The actual procedure for making a gene
alteration is relatively simple. It's graduate student level lab work.

The hard part is identifying which genes to change, ie. what the
effects of the change will be, and what side effects will accompany the
gene alteration.

The harder part is figuring out how to regulate the spatial and temoral
expression of the gene, and the strength of expression from whatever
promoter you put behind it. And, also importantly, how to inactivate the
gene once the athlete is retired. Identifying which genes would be good
candidates (the EPO gene is pretty much a no brainer) is relatively easy
compared to the task of titrating the correct dose of gene product.

So, Kyle, which gene is the EPO gene? And since the hematocrit varies over a
large change during a season what do you suppose triggers EPO production?
And if you turn the EPO gene on all the time what do you propose would be
the result? And since the maximum limit for hematocrit for a rider to race
in the UCI is 50% with exclusions allowed in special cases for up to 54% how
precisely would you propose that you could arrange any of this?

"Jonathan v.d. Sluis" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Seriously, I don't think that's true. All those people who are so
incredibly critical of the personalities of people like Hamilton,
Virenque,
Pantani, Armstrong, Simoni, or whoever you can think of, should have an
easy time finding fault with the person they know best of all. They can't
be happy when looking in the mirror. Which is a pity.

Good observation Jon.

gym.gravity said:

Quoted message said:

Bret, there is [censored] of it. While most of the young 20 year old
cat 2's are [censored] poor, a fairly huge chunk of masters fatties are not.
And many of them have HUGE egos.

http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200606/champions-club-1.html

BTW, if this article represents the pinnacle of masters fattidom, you
all need to cut me some slack since I was involved in the lawsuit
against these guys that's mentioned in the article.

Bret

Jonathan v.d. Sluis said:

Quoted message said:

Dumbass -

I'm a Pantani-basher and it's not because of the drugs.

It's the person. Pantani = loser.

Wow, your particular brand of 'winner' must really be something then.

Dumbass -

Whomever said anything about winners? I said Pantani was a loser. The
way he went out bears that out.

If he didn't have $$$$ from his cycling talent he would have been no
different from the homeless people who sleep, eat and [censored] in the
street.

thanks,

K. Gringioni.