Nice results! I have to admit that my suspicion comes from my own desires to be fast. If they’re faster than me, and they used to be slower than me, they must be doping. 
There’s a good chance they just rode a lot more than I did. Or, I still think, some of them might have not been playing the same game. And, that’s OK - I’m still racing and they, are not. 
You should go to Germany and see how they view speeding! 
As a disclaimer, this is based on my understanding of testosterone levels and I am most definitely not a doctor
Some high volume endurance athletes will have their testosterone levels severely depressed due to the volume of their training. While doing this they will still perform at a fairly high level, but be limited (primarily on recovery) due to their low testosterone levels. These people would, I think, see a substantial benefit from getting into ‘normal’ testosterone levels.
As I understand it, someone with 100 testosterone who went +500 to 600 would see substantially larger performance improvements than someone with 600 testosterone who went +500 to 1100.
As I mentioned above - I don’t know if I’m correct here. The above is based on my amateur research from when I was diagnosed with low testosterone and did a decent amount of digging into the impacts of suppressed testosterone levels as well as the impacts of getting back into normal range. FWIW my average testosterone level (tested monthly) for the past year is approximately 150 and my average w/kg over that same time frame is around 4.7. Obviously I don’t know what I would be capable of with testosterone supplementation but presumably 5+ w/kg would be fairly easily within my grasp, and perhaps substantially more
Understood.
I guess what I’m saying is if there is someone that is on TRT and beats me in a race I wouldn’t have a problem with it. Someone that is doping and creating abnormal levels of testosterone that would be a different outcome IMO.
I would have a problem with it and I think most people would.
Essentially nearly anyone can train hard enough to depress their testosterone levels. Where that limit is will vary person to person, but I believe it exists for everyone. So by permitting people to train themselves into that hole and then artificially dig themselves out of it you are still requiring that they ‘do the work’ but giving them a free pass on their genetic limits. Maybe it is a way of leveling the playing field from a certain perspective, but that is not my perspective
Do we have any empirical data that shows that moving T levels into a normal range (let’s just say average for whatever age you are) actually improves performance?
It’s also similar to the argument for EPO. Hard stage racing like the TdF has been shown to lower riders hematocrit levels. However I don’t think anyone would think it would be ok for riders to supplement with EPO to bring it back to normal levels.
There is strong data that shows testosterone replacement therapy improves body composition and sexual function and pretty good data supporting improvements in bone density. This is in patients being corrected to “normal” levels. I’m not sure if cycling specific performance has been assessed in a proper clinical trial but from everything we know about the benefits of anabolic steroids, it would be consistent that raising levels to any degree would provide benefit in terms of recovery and strength.
In the past ~1 year I’ve been on TRT, my FTP has gone from 185 to 199. I also am training at a higher TSS (MV vs LV) than before and I’ve dropped 15 lbs. Really hard to say whether or not the TRT was directly or indirectly responsible for any of that improvement because I wasn’t anywhere near my potential when I started TRT. I can say that the TRT has helped with energy levels and motivation to train harder.
If that means someone takes trt and gets them back to normal they would benefit? Yes that makes sense, but give an advantage? I just don’t how someone being normal is an advantage.
The guys with tons of genetic ability don’t want to hear about a “level playing field”. Why would they? Their genetic advantage has served them well and if you level the playing field with TRT, that essentially took away THEIR advantage, doesn’t it?
Are you being serious?
Only partly. 
Hard to argue that the rider who can naturally train/live at 650 isn’t at a huge advantage over the average guy who’s lucky to keep his T above 400, no?
Obviously TRT would preclude someone from racing in most any sanctioned event and I’m adamantly against cheating, in all forms. To that end, I don’t compete in such events. That said, I think there’s a lot of “clean” riders who have convinced themselves that TRT is this bogeyman doping regimen that is single handedly keeping them off the podium. As someone who has quite a bit of experience with TRT, I just don’t think it’s as big of a factor as some here seem to think…
Ah I see what you’re getting at. Supplement T Levels so everyone is basically at the same T level…
IF (big IF) you were ever going to allow it, in my opinion, you’d want to handle it much the way they did with hematocrit levels pre-EPO testing. Set an upper limit based on available science and not allow guys to go over that on race day. Obviously this approach is ripe with potential issues, but IMO it’s probably the best way to get it close to fair.
I would guess it’s not studied specifically
Steroid hormones pass into cells were the bind to proteins that augment gene expression. These are complicated processes and someone’s baseline testosterone level is a poor indicator of actual testosterone specific metabolic effect. What does seem evident is artificially elevating circulating testosterone improves athletic performance. Allowing riders to supplement to an arbitrary serum level without any good idea of whether or not a low level represents a “disease state” would probably confer unfair benefit to riders supplementing.
Isn’t the main factor that sets a grand tour apart from 1 day races is the ability to “naturally” recover and ride strong after 2 weeks of racing. If this was implemented, lets just have 21 1-day races throughout the year with a winner awarded at the end.
Those in TRT for health reasons I have nothing negative to say.
Those endurance athletes in TRT and racing know exactly what they’re doing. It’s called cheating no matter what.
I do agree we need to be careful with creating this boogeyman scenario. Someone beats me so they must be juicing.
How about we race ourselves and quit competing against each other.
I was just reading Jonathan Vaughters’ book One Way Ticket and that is the exact argument that his team doctors (and he himself) used to justify the introduction of EPO into his training - restoring the body to “normal” levels.
As stated earlier in this thread, hard training naturally reduces testosterone levels. If two individuals with roughly the same “normal” testosterone levels both train hard and end up with roughly the same depressed testosterone levels and one gets TRT to push their levels back to “normal” and the other doesn’t then the one who got TRT would certainly have an advantage.