Re: "It's Not About the Drugs"

B. Lafferty wrote:

> Other than criticising Baker's syntax, you do agree that there is a good
> correlation between VO2Max and climbing, don't you?

No. Look at Chung's plot. From rider to rider there are
substantial variations. And see the discussion he and Ernst Noch
had about how normalizing VO2 at LT by weight doesn't take
the variations out the right way.

> Are you saying that
> cadence doesn't relate to power output and efficiency?

Only in a secondary way. Jeezus, haven't we been over this a
zillion times in past years? Power is the important output.
Higher cadence is a strategy for getting the same power output
with lower force, so it postpones fatigue. It is not a magic
recipe for success.

> Are you saying that
> increased cadence doen't require increased O2 uptake?

AFAIK, it does. But it's also trainable, and clearly preferences
vary greatly among riders.

> > Do you have any idea what form of doping or other cheating
> > would increase efficiency (defined here as power over oxygen
> > uptake)? This is a sincere question. Modern forms of doping
> > like EPO have concentrated on increasing oxygen capacity
> > through increasing hematocrit, not increasing efficiency.
>
> Are you saying that a rider will not be aided in climbing with more
> sustainable power by using EPO? How about autologous blood boosting?

Read the question. EPO or blood doping will increase power
because they increase hematocrit, increasing oxygen carrying
capacity, which means increasing VO2. So they are not increasing
effiency as such. Although I said that power-to-VO2 ratio has a
lot of variation from rider to rider, in a given rider, if you
turn up the knob, the volume gets louder, so to speak.
Use of EPO or blood doping should show up as increased power and
increased VO2. I sort of suspect one reason Coyle published the
article was to defend Armstrong by showing that his VO2 had
not increased suspiciously.

> > I really think Armstrong psyched you out. He has you right
> > where he wants his rivals - obsessed with the possibly-mythical
> > "*** That Will Kill Them," like Bartali sneaking after Coppi
> > to pick up his empty bottle and have it analyzed. When Bartali
> > found it was only water, that did worse for his morale than if
> > it had been any magic potion.
>
> Hardly. It isn't just Armstrong, as Vayer points out. The same questions
> also apply to Ullrich, Pantani, Indurain, Virenque and a number of other
> riders putting out sustained climbing wattages of 400+.

Okay, but somebody here keeps asking about Armstrong in particular,
even though he dosn't race bikes anymore. I still think Vayer's
argument boils down to "it isn't physically possible," but he
doesn't really know what is physically possible. Even Pantani
only went up the Alpe 15% faster than Coppi, who had a heavier
bike and presumably no EPO.

.