That’s been happening for 50+ years. We’ve all “benefited” from that.
It’s actually easier now to avoid that than it ever has been, with locally sourced, organic foods, being in vogue.
In Simpson’s defence, the first anti-doping laws were only introduced in 1965, testing started in 1966, he died in 1967. It was a very different time, for the majority of his career what we think of now as cheating was simply part of the sport, and even after the rules changed it would have taken quite a few years for attitudes in the peloton to change. From what I understand (well before my time!) anti-doping back then was more about rider safety than about rider performance.
Could be, but on that front I worry more about the wider health implications. Kids going through puberty early, etc…
As @hoffman900 notes, that’s definitely improving though.
That’s certainly fair enough. To me though the magic of cycling exploits exists independently of the doping discussion, so I don’t really combine the two.
And Fwiw my focus isn’t even on Pog mainly. Something in the peloton has changed drastically in the past year plus, and it’s really apparent. Not the old training, equipment and nutrition has evolved thing, but an absolute light switch has been thrown overnight. And that’s what really piques my curiosity more than any individual.
I actually don’t think the tactics are the same. When you can get some EPO or a fresh batch of blood after a hard stage then you can burn matches a lot more recklessly with less consideration for what impact that’s going to have in the days and weeks to come. I haven’t listened to that podcast in a few years, but I do remember Lance in particular seemed pretty ignorant of how racing has changed and riders are having to measure their efforts more. E.g. in the 2018 Giro he was saying by the end of the first week that Yates was unbeatable, where more informed commentators were already wondering whether it was wise to be burning so many matches for relatively modest time gains. To be fair Hincapie seemed to be much more informed on current cycling tactics and riders. Was already getting fed up of Lance and I can’t bear Bruyneel, so when he started featuring more heavily I stopped listening, but assume he would also at least be more knowledgeable.
Another thing to counter the suspicions about Pog: don’t you think Wout Van Aert and MVDP are similarly phenomenal racers that are way above the rest?
They just so happen to be better at different types of races, not climbers and therefore not GC contenders in TDF.
If WVA and MVDP had focused their whole careers on TDF GC instead of CX and the classics, maybe they would beat Pog.
And those are just other pro cyclists. How many non-pros or non-cyclists out there could beat Pog if they had the desire, dedication and training that he has? We’ll never know.
Couldn’t agree more. It’s not any one rider, it’s the change in the field. It’s an incredibly exciting time to be a cycling fan, the racing is incredible…but I go in eyes wide open. I’ve heard all these excuses before.
I find the worst culprits are friends who only really loosely follow cycling during the Tour, maybe occasionally dip into other Grand Tours or the Olympics. They often started following it in the Lance era, never understood why I was so insistent at the time that Lance must be doping, and since Lance was caught have now flipped to the complete opposite direction and just assume that anybody who wins in cycling must be doping. So having spent most of a decade trying to educate them on how pervasive doping was in cycling and how positive I was that Lance was a cheat, I now find myself in the other corner. For example last week a friend was telling everybody that Pogacar must be doping because he’d done EXACTLY what Landis did in 2006, and I was trying to explain that losing time on a flattish stage to riders who aren’t a GC threat is completely different to losing time on a mountain stage to all your top GC rivals. Which is not the same as saying Pogacar is clean or cycling is clean of course.
But they both drank Jack Daniels, right? 
I actually think it’s the opposite. I kind of debated commenting on it in the other TdF thread but thought better of it, but now that it’s out here, the TR forum in general has a more casual level of fan, for want of a better word. I will go to pains to stress this isn’t an attack or or put down in any way, shape of form. Truly. It’s just less engaged than some other places. The thread about Nate not knowing Pippo Ganna is pretty illustrative, myriad people chimed in they did not know who he was either, and Ganna is one of the biggest and brightest storylines in cycling over the past couple years. And there is a strong correlation to those who didn’t know him and those who lean to the cycling is clean side of the fence. This doesn’t mean they aren’t as passionate/good/engaged about cycling as anyone else, just they don’t follow pro racing as closely, and that’s the issue here.
Just my personal WAG, I’d say an average engaged cycling fan watches 120+ days of racing a year, not counting CX season. I don’t think most people here watch more than a couple classics and GTs. And that’s not dipping into longevity, which may have an even more outside impact on perspective. I came into cycling watching LeMond (I’m an OG Lance hater btw), and I watched the EPO era hit in real time. I see striking similarities now and it is worrying.
Possibly, but there’s also allowable thresholds for things like trenbolone that tend to turn up in food sources, and when ingested unknowingly they are in smaller concentrations and with a far shorter half life, so I don’t think that’s on the same level in terms of performance.
If anything it sort of opens the door for doping protocols that involve microdosing such that the athlete is just under the limit without getting busted, which interestingly might have benefitted from a period of reduced/suspended testing given the short half-lives of many modern PEDs.
I don’t think there’s a reliable test for blood doping yet either (?)
For F**** sake man I live in Philadelphia and was much happier right before I read that! Unless you’re saying that if I keep drinking this crap water I’ll maybe get faster?
I don’t get close to watching 120 days per year unfortunately! But I probably have some level of engagement with pro cycling at least every other day, whether that’s watching some of a race live, listening to a podcast, reading an article, catching some highlights.
Out of interest, if you’re seeing striking similarities between the current era and the EPO era, how did you view the ~2008-2019 era?
The least enhanced of my lifetime other than the very first racing I watched! I think there was plenty of micro dose and TUE abuse, but overall, definitely cleaner than anything 20 years prior.
Interesting but, I’m not following. Can you elaborate? Light switch meaning…
Yeah, I’m nowhere near that…though I might be closer if you count all the ones where I fell asleep until the last 30 minutes 
I wonder if that might be somewhat influenced by culture/location and accessibility? Where I live rugby is quite big so it’s not uncommon to have that on in the background, but when it comes to cycling you’re down a subscription cost and a night’s sleep.
I think there are two things at play here re: doping comparisons
#1. Comparison of times to the doping era of LA
#2. Comparison of incredible performances relative to other competitors
I actually want to focus on the time comparison part which I think is a red herring in a lot of ways.
There have been substantial improvements on the equipment, fueling and aerodynamic end in the past 10-15 years that when looking at exceptional talents, should be taking into account:
- Bikes are more aero
- Chains are faster and more optimized
- Drivetrains are faster and more optimized
- Jerseys are more aero
- Fueling is better
- Tires are better and roll faster with less resistance
- Wheels are more aero
- Helmets are more aero
- Power modeling and race tactics are more sophisticated
When I look at this, I think we are conservatively looking at 10-20w of gain in efficiency, if not more. A grand tour yellow jersey winner should be roughly equal with the doping era just looking at the equipment gains alone. And while we’ve seen some fast times, we haven’t see anything that really takes a huge chunk out of the LA era yet.
As for #2, we are only a week in to the tour. I’m not ready to write the story either way until I see how the fatigue plays out.
From what I understand, the recovery was one of the other big benefits to the doping era and if we see folks continue to sustain crazy levels of performance into the last days of the tour, that will likely be a big sign.
Everyone can put in huge efforts and have amazing days on the bike. Doing it day in and day out as fatigue builds will certainly build my suspicion.
Sure, but this isn’t a new argument either. We heard the same about past generations being faster due to equipment changes. Heck, even with Lance declaring “it’s not about the bike”, Trek became a massive brand. How many Pinarello’s with funky forks did Big Mig sell because he was faster? Marketing is a huge part of cycling. How many wheels did Zipp sell because rider X was fast and rode Zipp? One of the most popular forums in all of cycling focuses on Weight Weenies and we were all buying lighter stems. And then it was Aero. And discs vs rims. Rims are WAYYYYYY faster and no pro will ever ride them…oh, wait, Rider Y won a race on discs? Well, certainly Specialized was right when they went tubeless, right? Oh, wait, the new Specialized wheels aren’t tubeless?
Do bikes get better over time? Of course. But I don’t believe that’s what we’re seeing here any more than I believe Rider Z has a better training plan and started it when he was younger. Or diets (remember when Sky was racing Keto?). Or HRMs. Or power meters.
I wonder …
… if Roglic hadn’t crashed; if a healthy Egan Bernal were at the Tour … would we be looking at Pogacar’s performance with the same level of skepticism?
Maybe it’s just that, he has no worthy competition to make it look balanced?
Froome had Quintana to chase him around the Alps for a couple of his wins. But those two were clearly on another level and maybe balanced out our perception … the salbutamol issue notwithstanding.
The sad thing is, the best thing that could happen to Pogacar right now in terms of calming the speculation is for him to have bad day on a hill. And maybe he will. But he hasn’t even shown a flicker of weakness … Bernal basically barnstormed the Giro, but there was at least a day, or a moment, when he looked like he might crack.
Just thinking out loud …
Plasticizer test. I think blood doping in competition is almost a no go these days