I was more referring to weight doping, trainer doping, etc., but yes, I absolutely believe lots of amateurs will take every advantage they can get, just for bragging rights. Humans are curious beasts.
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Social media and “influencers” seem to be driving PED use and other forms of cheating among people most of us would consider rank amateurs who have no good reason to ‘cheat’. Sites like natty or not reviews | NattyOrNot.com and Home Page - MarathonInvestigation are eye-openers.
Everyone wants to be an ‘influencer’, even if its only among their circle of Facebook friends.
These are interesting. Does anybody know anything about Peptides?..I think I heard Joe Rogan mention these a couple of times.
If the risk profile of these drugs was ok, it would be nice to take something to enhance recovery, promote joint regeneration, muscle growth…Im still relatively young, but 10-15 years down the road I can see the benefits.
So I would take all of these if the risk profile was good and the improvement in quality of life was considerable. But I wouldn’t take them for the sole purpose of being faster on the bike.
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If you’re not racing, take what you like IMO - for health/quality of life purposes, to qualify that statement. I know there are strong advocates that most men over 40 should be on some sort of hormone replacement. I don’t know much about it, tbh; it’s not pushed in the UK really.
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I’d say there is no way to know, since barely any testing goes on. But I doubt very many average joes/ weekend racers are bothering to dope. If you can’t bother to train more than 5 hours a week are you really doping ? I think a fair number of regionally and nationally competitive masters racers are dopers.
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There is a massive amount of doping in high school sports, football seemingly leading the way. Almost every week, a parent freely admits to me that they have their kid on “just a bit of testosterone” to help him bulk up for next season.
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I think it is far more common than most people think. I am 48 and race masters track and road in Australia. We are tested only at the national championships (nowhere else that I am aware of) and occasionally a rider will go positive.
I have been around the sport a long time and I occasionally see a performance from another rider that makes me very suspicious.
In 2017 I came second in the Individual Pursuit at the World Masters Games. I was beaten by an Argentinian who was busted for steroid use not long after. That still bugs me no end to this day. Every time I look at my sliver medal I think about that dirtbag!
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I don’t know about cycling, but a friend of mine used to be a gym instructor while she was studying. For her Master’s thesis, she did research on doping in the gym, and according to her, about a third (!) of the men in the gym were on some illicit substance.
Even though I love cycling, doping turned me off of competitive cycling until recently. I didn’t even want to consider competing in a sport where you apparently couldn’t be competitive without doping. I vividly remember thinking that basically every well-known cyclist of the late 1990s and early 2000s was on something.
I have also heard credible second-hand stories about doping in other sports like successful national teams in downhill skiing (credible, because of who was telling the story to me and who the person was he told the story about).
The best antidote in my opinion is to place more value on winning fairly than on winning.
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He was racing Downhill MTB events, lol?
I don’t “feel sorry” for these guys. They probably felt great taking these drugs and saw great benefits to their recovery, training and maybe their sex life too. The “faux” concern for some rando’s health is bizarre too. But, whatever. Judging by the list of shit he was taking I’m guessing he was using for more than bike riding, probably doing other sports/hobbies as well with that disparate list.
Assume everyone dopes. Particularly people paid to do this. It’s easier to enjoy genetic (altered) freaks doing some activity when you know the truth. It’s all WWE in the end.
I love how people are like “why would you spend money on this stuff” for little gains. Then go to another thread and discuss how they need $2,000 wheels to make them (supposedly) xx seconds faster at 45kph, lol.
I don’t know, that’s just the view of some fat loser on a cheap bike with no chance of even winning a stop sign sprint…I guess if my Masters State Champs Cat 4 Criterium jersey hung in the balance I’d not want Winthrop the Attorney pipping me at the line caused he dosed his Andro perfectly.
Just think of all the shit this guy has taken and not been caught with. Sheesh!
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If I understand correctly, GHRP-6 and CJC-1295 (growth hormone secretagogues) get your body to produce more growth hormone beyond what it naturally would, analogous to how EPO increases red blood cell production.
I think the thread and article titles are misleading, he didn’t test positive for the ten substances. According to the article he got popped for some and was tipped off for others and also tied to other compounds during the investigation. He didn’t test positive to all 10 at the same time.
To me, they don’t make sense to take all at once. Some of the compounds in combination, yes (ex: test and nandrolone and/or DHEA and/or Anastrozole.) But for the GH secretagogues and IGF-1 experimenting in sequence and trying alternatives to see if there is a better effect makes more sense to me. I find it kind of interesting that there are 3 anabolic agents, 6 growth hormone related agents and 1 aromatase inhibitor (I think.)
If you find this stuff interesting the ‘More Plates More Dates’ youtube channel covers these kinds of things and has a nice breakdown of the Russian doping program around the time of the Sochi Olympics. If you are okay with the f-bombs.
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This
Also, as somebody who is fighting tooth and nail against Father Time to maintain my power on the bike, I can understand the temptation. Race for 35 years, hit your mid fifties, then you’ll understand.
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Shoot I’ve raced for only 2 years and barely hit 50! And I understand. I’m down 20 watts from my peak in 2018, lol. I’ve gone off a cliff…need twice as much rest, slower (gaining weight exacerbated all of this) can’t sustain efforts, HR seems WAY higher on average, no “buzz” for cycling.
Sucks. Hell if there were no long term affects, I’d take “something” to get back to where I was 3 years ago which was at 2.9 w/kg and feel better overall.
Easy for me to give up on this, I was never very good at it and when it came to racing I was laughably bad it.
Yeah, I see the allure.
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i don’t really expect to understand the mindset/motivation of every athlete who dopes. Once you stop looking at it from the purely objective standpoint of what you’re allowed to do and it starts being a question of risk assessment- i.e. “is it worth it?” you’re going to get a lot of differing views- just look at how people responded to pandemic restrictions.
From that perspective, while there’s perhaps less of a motive for an amateur to dope there’s also less consequence. While a positive test isn’t something I would necessarily want my future employers/ dating prospects/whatever to know about, it’s also highly unlikely that it would impact my academic standing, career or social life outside of cycling. It’s simply too distantly related to the other areas of my life for most people to know or overly care about. (unless I got busted taking, like, a really ridiculous amount of drugs and someone wrote a moderately popular article about it 
)
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I’m so naive 
I look at amateur and pro sports and I honestly believe that everyone is playing by the ‘rules’. Maybe I’m thicker than two short planks and I walk through life with my rose-tinted glasses permanently on?
If I lined up for every race thinking that at least one rider was ‘doping’, I’d drive myself crazy.
Cycling is fun. I don’t understand why someone in the amateur ranks needs to go to such lengths. That said, I have my line in the sand, they have theirs. If local riders and racers become known for this type of behaviour, I’d be disappointed for sure.
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Or what the correct ratio of different sugars is to fuel, whether or not you should take cretinine or collagen for recovery, and if caffeine or beet root juice has more benefits. Everybody is interested in enhancing their performance, some just draw the limits of whats ok somewhere else.
Plus some people think that exactly because they are not professionals and just out for a bit of fun, that it doesn’t if they don’t follow the rules to the letter.
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Daprodustat
Roxadustat
Vadadustat
And more gaining a lot of approvals recently. GSK made good headway in 2020.
OP got me interested again in this area last night, went for a look around. Not much has changed really, same old expensive vials on offer, but these oral drugs would be a game changer for opening up access to guys who don’t like to face the needle.
Will also be significantly easier to attain.
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It’s not even the money as such: it’s the effort, the difficulty (?) sourcing it, the potential health issues, the possible legal repercussions. Seems a lot of downside for not much upside, at least IMO. Whereas if I go out and buy some new wheels, for example, my only risk is my other half getting annoyed 
I can start to see how the risk/reward profile skews when you start talking about ££££ in sponsorship money and winnings, (relative) fame, job security, having a doctor supervise your doping etc. I can also understand how doping could be normalised by some in that world.
But to go on the dark net and inject god knows what to come 3rd in the local cat 2? Nah.
I have no interest (and money, lol) in doping, but I imagine that if you are on the right forum, sourcing drugs is similar to asking “what brand of maltodextrose” or “anybody ever bought of bellatisports”. Plus I believe in the US there are (legal) doctors where you can just go and say, “I want some performance enhancing drugs, please”. Not all of course, but hose forums will probably tell you where they are. Healthcare is a for-profit business for them, and it’s not their place to question your morals. (In the UK I can’t imagine asking a doc that!)
But my main point was, people do it because they want to enhance their performance, not necessarily because they want to win or even win by cheating. They just see it as part of training, imo.
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Another weird one is academics. I’m in a fairly competitive degree program and it’s not uncommon to come across “PED’s” (not sure what else you’d call them) for the purpose of enhancing concentration/memory, staying up longer, etc. I think it’s just a facet of human nature, and it goes way beyond sports.
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