In amateur ranks? Like what?
Yes, He tried and was given a very short “No” with little to no inquiry to the situation.
doping in amateur cycling is very real, don’t kid yourselves. It is very real and part of the problem is due to the relatively low cost and easy access
Details? Asking for a friend…
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You can literally just Google it and turn up plenty of sites claiming they can ship EPO anywhere in the world. Not cheap but compared to the cost of upgrading to the latest superbike it’s relatively reasonable and likely gives you more watts for your buck! I imagine finding a gym with a bodybuilding clientele and getting to know the regulars would also turn up somebody able to source a whole variety of performance enhancing drugs. There are several journalists who have taken EPO for research purposes to write articles and appear to have been able to source it easily enough online e.g. This guy How I became a drug cheat athlete to test the system - BBC News
Not for a moment suggesting anybody do this of course! But if an amateur wanted to dope then from what I can see neither cost nor availability would be particularly big hurdles.
details… details of how I know doping is occurring? I have seen it
Where do you live? Interesting it appears to be so prevalent in your area.
I am in the northeast US
My wife’s ex-uncle was doping in the early 2000s, bicycle racing. He was winning a lot in the D/FW area, consistently placing top 3, in masters. I never asked him what he was taking, he was a bit of an egotistical guy. Unfortunately for him, he took too much of whatever and ended up stroking out years ago. He can barely walk and talk now.
I know of a couple people in the triathlon scene here that took PEDs to try and qualify for Kona.
I have no idea if testosterone works or not, but I do know of at least two doctors in the area that I live dosing it out to whoever wants to pay for it. Both doctors are gynecologists, too, yet if you are a guy and want a T pellet they will give it to you.
I am a believer that doping is more prevalent than people give it credit for.
Through 1st person and second person I know of at least 15 who race masters who use(d) at least one PED here in Phoenix. That’s just sanctioned race oriented. The guys who just do unsanctioned events or just ride who knows? Myself and a few other team mates quit a local masters team early this year after learning about a number of team mates using testosterone. Since then I’ve learned which doctor they all seem to go to. I’m just shocked how many are so cavalier with it all and seem to have an attitude like why the hell wouldn’t you?
Anywho, sure feels shitty shelling myself for teammates who are using when we beat guys like Ian Tubbs and Ben Sharpe at Valley of The Sun SR.
I also race SoCal often…only second hand knowledge, but the masters fields are legendary.
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From what I have seen for the people who use gear it is just a part of cycling and being the best they can be, no different than an upgrade to bike. The worst thing is all too often when a rider does start using they don’t do it once, they keep doing it cycling on and off longer term because they see the improvement and don’t want to go back to their normal slower self. That longer term use is what puts them at greater risk of sides
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I think it’s sad. I wouldn’t race if I thought people were doping. Personally I just race cyclocross and mtb. Were all pretty friendly and I feel I’d just know if we weren’t playing by the rules. All the guys at the sharp end of my races, race hard but don’t take themselves that seriously, we know we’re just a bunch of 40+ blokes having fun on a Sunday morning.
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It really is sad to an extent and I do not in any way condone it but I know it is happening. I do race anyway but I do it just do it for me, nothing more than that
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I raced in the mid-late 90s. I had a team mate who went from cat 4 to cat 2 in one season. Over the winter he grew thighs the size of Nelson Vails. I figure he must have been doing steroids. I’m not sure what else. He crushed the cat 4s, then crushed the 3s, and then was pack fodder as a cat 2.
At the time I was naive. I just thought that maybe he had it and we didn’t . Now I realize that you don’t grow quads like that naturally in one winter.
I was in my twenties at the time and I knew some super A-type 50+ year old masters riders. I knew some of the guys on the Subaru-Montgomery masters team. They were as fast as most cat 1-2 25 year olds. Knowing what we know about Armstrong/Subaru/Postal, they may have had some ergogenic help.
One guy in particular (not on Subaru) was probably on some kind of juice. He treated cycling like an arms race - the best wheels, the best bike, the best of everything, no expense spared to win… He was 55 and as fast as most 25 year old racers I knew at the time.
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I was also going to say that I also knew recreational riders in my club who did various anti-aging drugs. They also didn’t race but they wanted to do club rides with the big group and have a good time. I’m talking 50-60 year old guys that wanted to feel young and were taking HGH and testosterone.
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Steroids are legal to possess here in the UK and many bodybuilders are pretty open about using them. I’m fairly sure that any established member of a bodybuilding gym wouldn’t find them hard to get. I’ve not heard of amateur cyclists doping much over here, but then again, I don’t race, so why would I?
TRT/anti-aging is still rare over here and ironically (I understand) is actually quite hard to get a prescription for.
I do think there’s a grey area with guys on TRT below masters level with low testosterone as a result of a genuine medical issue. If those guys were on that legitimate prescription prior to being competitive cyclists it seems harsh to me to ban them from competition, and it wouldn’t amaze me if it was the subject of a lawsuit at some point. That said, how carefully is this stuff monitored? What’s the cutoff? It’s a minefield IMO.
best feeling in the world, showing up at a race where you know people are doped and crushing them. Hopefully it makes them quit. 
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I think it is a real problem.
I am in SoCal and race CX and XC.
I have suspicions about some of my fellow racers.
Seems most USA racers caught are in my region.
T supplementation seems to be pretty big.
I don’t race crits, so can’t speak to those. But I do think a lot of doping goes on in those Masters racers.
The biggest races I’ve done are CrossVegas. They said there would be doping tests, but at every version I went to the board said no tests for Masters.
With no testing, no fear of getting caught.
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Just imagine, you have the highway from Paris to Berlin. No signs for speed limits. Only the race director sais just 120km/h are allowed. Very seldom or no speed controls. But who will gets fastest there will win and will be rewarded.
How many would never exceed 120km/h…
That’s the situation in pro sports with substances that can’t be detected and even more in age group fields, where no to very rare doping tests even exist.
One of my classmates was really into cycling. His parents are doctors. A friend got doping substances prescribed from them for weight lifting.
Several years later this cycling class mate won a Tour de France stage. Some years later, he was convicted of doping.
When I was talking with his parents, why they prescribe doping substances, they said: everyone does it. And they prefer advising the athletes to letting the buy the substances on the black market.
Of course not „everyone“ does it. But I am pretty much disillusioned concerning any sport…
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This February USADA was present during the Tour of South Florida. The TOSF is a known hot bed for doping sanctions and it appears nothings changed.
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