WADA leaks

[Digby]

Losing weight and thus losing power on the flats would of course be offset in that there's less of you to force through the air, and the rider is the worst aerodynamic feature on the bike.

It's not offset by very much, if anything at all. You need to lose an awful lot of weight to reduce your frontal area by a significant amount.
How much of a reduction in frontal area reduction do you think Wiggins achieved through muscle mass loss proximal to an injection site? Bear in mind that we are talking about the "aero tuck" not the shopper position.

Not much can mean quite a lot at elite sport level.

[Stones of granite]

Losing weight and thus losing power on the flats would of course be offset in that there's less of you to force through the air, and the rider is the worst aerodynamic feature on the bike.

It's not offset by very much, if anything at all. You need to lose an awful lot of weight to reduce your frontal area by a significant amount.
How much of a reduction in frontal area reduction do you think Wiggins achieved through muscle mass loss proximal to an injection site? Bear in mind that we are talking about the "aero tuck" not the shopper position.

Not much can mean quite a lot at elite sport level.

Do some research. You can't reduce enough frontal area through losing a few pounds in weight to compensate for losing even a few watts of power.

[Stones of granite]

The maths are explained here:
http://www.cyclingpowerlab.com/CyclingAerodynamics.aspx

In essence, if maintaining a constant speed, the reduction in power has to be matched by a reduction in frontal surface area, so if power is reduced from 250W to 240W, a reduction of 4%, then frontal area would also have to be reduced by 4%.

Do you really see a reduction in 4% of frontal surface area of the rider below as a result of proximal muscle mass loss from an injection?

[Digby]

It's not offset by very much, if anything at all. You need to lose an awful lot of weight to reduce your frontal area by a significant amount.
How much of a reduction in frontal area reduction do you think Wiggins achieved through muscle mass loss proximal to an injection site? Bear in mind that we are talking about the "aero tuck" not the shopper position.

Not much can mean quite a lot at elite sport level.

Do some research. You can't reduce enough frontal area through losing a few pounds in weight to compensate for losing even a few watts of power.

So if offsets rather than fully offsets. Which perhaps means I could've been clear about that, but there we go. One thing I've been told, which mayn't be true, is that if you lose a bit of weight it's easier to get into a better tuck position which can enable you to be more aerodynamic whilst not seeing the same drop in capability to deliver power, that may also provide an offset.

Also I don't need to do any research, I'm perfectly okay assuming they're all drugs cheats which may or mayn't lead me to watch more or less of a given sport. The various sports are putting themselves out there in part as entertainment packages, so perhaps there's an onus on them to be open and educational, but there's no requirement for the sport's fan to take an informed position, indeed in many ways ill-informed rants down the pub are part of the fun.

[WaspInWales]

Losing weight and thus losing power on the flats would of course be offset in that there's less of you to force through the air, and the rider is the worst aerodynamic feature on the bike.

I know the square root of feck all about any of this.

However ([emoji57] ) in the olympics that dutch girl won gold despite carrying a shit load of extra timber which clearly didn't affect her aerodynamicity. I know that's track cycling etc but it was obvious that, when you're bent over the handle bars, having extra weight around your middle doesn't affect how you get thru the air to that big of an extent.

Aerodynamicity.

She was 7 months pregnant!

As you mentioned that was track cycling and it was also a sprint. Whilst she doesn't have the typical upper body mass of a sprinter, she is incredibly powerful. Her somewhat lack of aerodynamics compared to her rivals is off-set by her power. She also comes from an elite BMX background and the best BMX cyclists can put out some amazing power.

[Stones of granite]

Not much can mean quite a lot at elite sport level.

Do some research. You can't reduce enough frontal area through losing a few pounds in weight to compensate for losing even a few watts of power.

So if offsets rather than fully offsets. Which perhaps means I could've been clear about that, but there we go. One thing I've been told, which mayn't be true, is that if you lose a bit of weight it's easier to get into a better tuck position which can enable you to be more aerodynamic whilst not seeing the same drop in capability to deliver power, that may also provide an offset.

Also I don't need to do any research, I'm perfectly okay assuming they're all drugs cheats which may or mayn't lead me to watch more or less of a given sport. The various sports are putting themselves out there in part as entertainment packages, so perhaps there's an onus on them to be open and educational, but there's no requirement for the sport's fan to take an informed position, indeed in many ways ill-informed rants down the pub are part of the fun.

Ok, there's no point in discussing it further then, you've mind your mind up regardless of the facts.

If you think that Rugby is any cleaner, then I think you're going to be disappointed. There are very many Rugby players with TUEs, and not a few going down the illegal route.

[Stones of granite]

Losing weight and thus losing power on the flats would of course be offset in that there's less of you to force through the air, and the rider is the worst aerodynamic feature on the bike.

I know the square root of feck all about any of this.

However ([emoji57] ) in the olympics that dutch girl won gold despite carrying a shit load of extra timber which clearly didn't affect her aerodynamicity. I know that's track cycling etc but it was obvious that, when you're bent over the handle bars, having extra weight around your middle doesn't affect how you get thru the air to that big of an extent.

Aerodynamicity.

She was 7 months pregnant!

As you mentioned that was track cycling and it was also a sprint. Whilst she doesn't have the typical upper body mass of a sprinter, she is incredibly powerful. Her somewhat lack of aerodynamics compared to her rivals is off-set by her power. She also comes from an elite BMX background and the best BMX cyclists can put out some amazing power.

A track Sprint is a very different beast from a 40km TT.

Actually, why am I bothering, you all seem to know more about cycling than I do, especially those that don't even cycle to the shops, never mind actually compete on the fucking things.

[WaspInWales]

A track Sprint is a very different beast from a 40km TT.

Actually, why am I bothering, you all seem to know more about cycling than I do, especially those that don't even cycle to the shops, never mind actually compete on the fucking things.

Do you compete then?

[Digby]

Do some research. You can't reduce enough frontal area through losing a few pounds in weight to compensate for losing even a few watts of power.

So if offsets rather than fully offsets. Which perhaps means I could've been clear about that, but there we go. One thing I've been told, which mayn't be true, is that if you lose a bit of weight it's easier to get into a better tuck position which can enable you to be more aerodynamic whilst not seeing the same drop in capability to deliver power, that may also provide an offset.

Also I don't need to do any research, I'm perfectly okay assuming they're all drugs cheats which may or mayn't lead me to watch more or less of a given sport. The various sports are putting themselves out there in part as entertainment packages, so perhaps there's an onus on them to be open and educational, but there's no requirement for the sport's fan to take an informed position, indeed in many ways ill-informed rants down the pub are part of the fun.

Ok, there's no point in discussing it further then, you've mind your mind up regardless of the facts.

If you think that Rugby is any cleaner, then I think you're going to be disappointed. There are very many Rugby players with TUEs, and not a few going down the illegal route.

And there is there will be an offset. Not a massive offset, but there will be one, and if they weren't interest in marginal gains they mayn't worry about shaving legs and what not.

I also don't think I said rugby was cleaner, more I said I basically assume everyone is cheating, and that doesn't seem remotely the same thing.

[paddy no 11]

No I dont believe rugby is cleaner, but your insistence that wiggins is credible because there is doping in rugby is preposterous. Geert Linders man its in your face, why cant you see it? Sky not cosying up to david walsh anymore, wont even give him an interview now after he was embedded for moinths with them

[Stones of granite]

A track Sprint is a very different beast from a 40km TT.

Actually, why am I bothering, you all seem to know more about cycling than I do, especially those that don't even cycle to the shops, never mind actually compete on the fucking things.

Do you compete then?

In triathlons, yes. Essentially time trials on the bike leg.
I do a few sportives a year as well.

[Stones of granite]

No I dont believe rugby is cleaner, but your insistence that wiggins is credible because there is doping in rugby is preposterous. Geert Linders man its in your face, why cant you see it? Sky not cosying up to david walsh anymore, wont even give him an interview now after he was embedded for moinths with them

You know, if that's what I'd actually written, I'd agree with you. But seeing as I didn't write anything remotely like that I'm just going to leave it at: Fuck off clown.

[Stones of granite]

So if offsets rather than fully offsets. Which perhaps means I could've been clear about that, but there we go. One thing I've been told, which mayn't be true, is that if you lose a bit of weight it's easier to get into a better tuck position which can enable you to be more aerodynamic whilst not seeing the same drop in capability to deliver power, that may also provide an offset.

Also I don't need to do any research, I'm perfectly okay assuming they're all drugs cheats which may or mayn't lead me to watch more or less of a given sport. The various sports are putting themselves out there in part as entertainment packages, so perhaps there's an onus on them to be open and educational, but there's no requirement for the sport's fan to take an informed position, indeed in many ways ill-informed rants down the pub are part of the fun.

Ok, there's no point in discussing it further then, you've mind your mind up regardless of the facts.

If you think that Rugby is any cleaner, then I think you're going to be disappointed. There are very many Rugby players with TUEs, and not a few going down the illegal route.

And there is there will be an offset. Not a massive offset, but there will be one, and if they weren't interest in marginal gains they mayn't worry about shaving legs and what not.

I also don't think I said rugby was cleaner, more I said I basically assume everyone is cheating, and that doesn't seem remotely the same thing.

What you said was that if you thought that the participants were drugs cheats then you would watch less of it.

There are drugs cheats in cycling. Wiggins may well be one of them. I haven't seen any strong evidence of it yet. The allegations based on these TUEs are ridiculous, but I know you all know better than me. There are also drugs cheats in Rugby, so you may want to consider how much Rugby you watch. I bet you don't.

Regarding the offset thing. At the end of the day, what is to be gained by losing power through weight loss to have that loss only partially (and I maintain it is tending to zero) offset by a supposed aerodynamic benefit. You're still going slower.

[Donny osmond]

I know the square root of feck all about any of this.

However ([emoji57] ) in the olympics that dutch girl won gold despite carrying a shit load of extra timber which clearly didn't affect her aerodynamicity. I know that's track cycling etc but it was obvious that, when you're bent over the handle bars, having extra weight around your middle doesn't affect how you get thru the air to that big of an extent.

Aerodynamicity.

She was 7 months pregnant!

As you mentioned that was track cycling and it was also a sprint. Whilst she doesn't have the typical upper body mass of a sprinter, she is incredibly powerful. Her somewhat lack of aerodynamics compared to her rivals is off-set by her power. She also comes from an elite BMX background and the best BMX cyclists can put out some amazing power.

A track Sprint is a very different beast from a 40km TT.

Actually, why am I bothering, you all seem to know more about cycling than I do, especially those that don't even cycle to the shops, never mind actually compete on the fucking things.

Wasps : thanks I was beginning to think no one cared about aerodynamicity.

SoG : I know I struggle to keep up, but was I not agreeing with you about the presence/absence of mass not really affecting aerodynamicity? Thats what I meant anyway. Was that your point? Feck it, my natural inertia has really buggered me up in this discussion.

[WaspInWales]

A track Sprint is a very different beast from a 40km TT.

Actually, why am I bothering, you all seem to know more about cycling than I do, especially those that don't even cycle to the shops, never mind actually compete on the fucking things.

Do you compete then?

In triathlons, yes. Essentially time trials on the bike leg.
I do a few sportives a year as well.

Cool. I've just started running again after a few years lay off due to shin splints. Just as I'm starting to enjoy it and getting back into the swing of things, the shin splints are starting to come back! Only been going out twice a week for between 5-10k on trails and some tarmac. May reduce it to once a week to see if that helps. If not, I'll just have to settle with a few hundred km on the bike for my weekly efforts.

[Stones of granite]

She was 7 months pregnant!

As you mentioned that was track cycling and it was also a sprint. Whilst she doesn't have the typical upper body mass of a sprinter, she is incredibly powerful. Her somewhat lack of aerodynamics compared to her rivals is off-set by her power. She also comes from an elite BMX background and the best BMX cyclists can put out some amazing power.

A track Sprint is a very different beast from a 40km TT.

Actually, why am I bothering, you all seem to know more about cycling than I do, especially those that don't even cycle to the shops, never mind actually compete on the fucking things.

Wasps : thanks I was beginning to think no one cared about aerodynamicity.

SoG : I know I struggle to keep up, but was I not agreeing with you about the presence/absence of mass not really affecting aerodynamicity? Thats what I meant anyway. Was that your point? Feck it, my natural inertia has really buggered me up in this discussion.

So, different disciplines require different things. In an individual track sprint, two things are key - tactics and outright power. Aerodynamics hardly come in to it because the actual distance cycled at speed is very short. It's explosive power that wins it.

On a road Time Trial the objective is to keep as high a pace as possible over the distance, which in the TdF etc is normally 40km. The two key things here are power and aerodynamics. The riders adopt an aero tuck to get as streamlined as possible as almost all the power they generate goes to fighting air resistance (assume it's a totally flat course at the moment, they're not always). For the rider this means generating maximum power for between 50 minutes and an hour for the pros.

On a flat section, aerodynamics are not generally as important as the riders draft each other, but sprinting power often comes into play on break-aways. It gets highly tactical, and team tactics generally provide an advantage.

On hills, weight is key, obviously, but power is important too as breakaway tactics are often used to try and "break" competitors. Aerodynamics don't really come into it much. You would think that they might play a roll on downhills, and they do to an extent, but these stages are won or lost on the climb.

ETA: In triathlon, my (summer) sport, the bike leg is essentially a time trial. No drafting is allowed except at the Pro ITU events (another story!) and therefore the triathlon community makes a big effort to understand aerodynamics. If you get it right, you can save a lot of time on your bike split, or alternatively can save energy by slightly reducing your effort in the hope of getting a better run split.
I am in the position where my running is shite, so I go all out on the bike and stumble about like Jonny Brownlee on the Bucky on the run.

[Stones of granite]

Do you compete then?

In triathlons, yes. Essentially time trials on the bike leg.
I do a few sportives a year as well.

Cool. I've just started running again after a few years lay off due to shin splints. Just as I'm starting to enjoy it and getting back into the swing of things, the shin splints are starting to come back! Only been going out twice a week for between 5-10k on trails and some tarmac. May reduce it to once a week to see if that helps. If not, I'll just have to settle with a few hundred km on the bike for my weekly efforts.

Shin splints are a bugger. Have you tried getting orthotics fitted? I lost two seasons through plantar fasciitis, so I know how frustrating these things are.

[paddy no 11]

LOL the sky fanboy has to resort to insults, your the same as the armstrong crowd before.

[Stones of granite]

LOL the sky fanboy has to resort to insults, your the same as the armstrong crowd before.

Oh, what a surprise, another pointless, empty post. Have you got anything all Paddy or are you going to continue misquoting and making up shit?

[Big D]

No I dont believe rugby is cleaner, but your insistence that wiggins is credible because there is doping in rugby is preposterous. Geert Linders man its in your face, why cant you see it? Sky not cosying up to david walsh anymore, wont even give him an interview now after he was embedded for moinths with them

Sky aren't talking to anyone on this one. Worth noting that he has also said on twitter he believes Sky are committed to a clean sport.

Interestingly this leak has shown, in contrast to Wiggins, that as far as information that has been made public Chris Froome has been fully open. When tested the metrics used were slightly down on when he was tested as a newcomer to the sport.

[Digby]

What you said was that if you thought that the participants were drugs cheats then you would watch less of it.

No, I didn't. What I said was it may or mayn't lead me to watch more or less of a given sport. Essentially I'm likely to react differently to different sports.

[Mellsblue]

According to Sir Chris Hoy it's all about the power to aerodynamics ratio on the track. Even in the sprint events. Hence the larger Dutch girl winning a gold and a bronze despite looking completely the wrong shape.

I know nothing about these injections but if they strip muscle mass that close to a race it would be counter productive. I read an article earlier in the summer and Sky spend the early season training camps in the mountains of the Canary Islands slowly stripping themselves down to race weight, in an incredible specific way. Even down to training their bodies to strip the correct sort of weight, ie fat not muscle. It's a balance between fuelling themselves so they can get enough miles in whilst simultaneously losing the weight. I doubt a team as organised as Sky, in fact I doubt any Pro Tour team, would arrive at grand tour and suddenly realise they needed to lose weight. Especially as the loss of muscle mass/weight couldn't be guaranteed to balance out. Cyclist at that level are so finally tuned that losing muscle strength in the wrong place will lead to huge loses in performance and possibly lead to injury. An article I read years ago was about Wiggins and Sky's realisation that maximising loss of weight wasn't the holy grail. For some reason they experimented with gaining a few lbs by strengthening/building up Wiggins' core muscles and performance improved, including on the climbs.

To cut a long story short, Sky wouldn't want Wiggins to strip muscle mass just prior to a race.

[Stones of granite]

According to Sir Chris Hoy it's all about the power to aerodynamics ratio on the track. Even in the sprint events. Hence the larger Dutch girl winning a gold and a bronze despite looking completely the wrong shape.

I know nothing about these injections but if they strip muscle mass that close to a race it would be counter productive. I read an article earlier in the summer and Sky spend the early season training camps in the mountains of the Canary Islands slowly stripping themselves down to race weight, in an incredible specific way. Even down to training their bodies to strip the correct sort of weight, ie fat not muscle. It's a balance between fuelling themselves so they can get enough miles in whilst simultaneously losing the weight. I doubt a team as organised as Sky, in fact I doubt any Pro Tour team, would arrive at grand tour and suddenly realise they needed to lose weight. Especially as the loss of muscle mass/weight couldn't be guaranteed to balance out. Cyclist at that level are so finally tuned that losing muscle strength in the wrong place will lead to huge loses in performance and possibly lead to injury. An article I read years ago was about Wiggins and Sky's realisation that maximising loss of weight wasn't the holy grail. For some reason they experimented with gaining a few lbs by strengthening/building up Wiggins' core muscles and performance improved, including on the climbs.

To cut a long story short, Sky wouldn't want Wiggins to strip muscle mass just prior to a race.

Absolutely, although even in track events, the emphasis between power and aerodynamics alters, and there is a difference between power and power endurance. In the individual sprint, outright power is vital, in the team pursuit aerodynamics increases in importance, and power endurance is vital.

[switchskier]

The odd thing about this argument is that I actually think that both sides are right in a way. I don't think (currently) that Wiggins deliberately cheated to win the 2012 tour or any of the long list of races that he won that year. The route had a 50km time trial right at the end that everyone supposed was going to be pivotal (it turned out not to be) and in that scenario the win would usually go to the rider with the strongest team (to save as much strength as possible to that point), best recovery and ability to time trial. Sky were obviously the first at that point in time. Wiggins recovery was proven in his time at Garmin and destroying power to lose weight wouldn't be a good tactical call if made at the start of the race. So it doesn't make logical sense to me.

However part of the problem here is the lack of transparency and none of the cycling teams are much helping themselves. I'd love it if the UCI would just go ahead and publish all TUE's online, a week after they were granted. The administrative burden would be minimal and it would force riders to consider the importance of the race to them against any potential backlash. Transparency is key and though cycling is getting better it's not there yet. TUE's also aren't power or performance data so I'm not sure what the objections would be.

Finally Sky are already pretty unpopular with a lot of cycling fans. To give a mass generalisation cycling fans (especially French ones) are romantics who love to see long range attacks and heroic failure. Sky don't sit well with that, though Froomes aggressive ride this year helped. Signing Eillisonde will help, especially if he gets some freedom to go chase stages. What will be fascinating to see is how he improves at Sky next year as I fully expect him to given the archaic way that FDJ train.

[Mellsblue]

However part of the problem here is the lack of transparency and none of the cycling teams are much helping themselves. I'd love it if the UCI would just go ahead and publish all TUE's online, a week after they were granted. The administrative burden would be minimal and it would force riders to consider the importance of the race to them against any potential backlash. Transparency is key and though cycling is getting better it's not there yet. TUE's also aren't power or performance data so I'm not sure what the objections would be.

This is a very good idea and, as you say, would be easy to implement............it is therefore unlikely to happen. What is it with incompetent world governing bodies.