I came across this how to guide to doping in pro cycling by Realgains on the roadbikereview.com forums in July 2008. It was very informative and I didn't see anything objectionable about the post. However, the post was deleted and I believe the author was banned from the forum as a result. Fortunately, I clipped it for my collection of steroid- and doping-related articles.
I wanted to ask Realgains what has changed in pro cycling over the past 4 years since you wrote this post?
I wanted to ask Realgains what has changed in pro cycling over the past 4 years since you wrote this post?
This is how they dope..the truth!
Here it goes....I will take the flames from the kids on the forum but I am going to say it anyway.
First of all.....doping is not going to stop guys. Stop dreaming and being so idealistic and stop "buying" the BS that UCI and WADA are saying about pro cycling getting cleaner. It's only getting slightly cleaner due to paranoia ONLY. As long as millions are to be made in pro sport doping simply cannot stop. It's sad but it's true. Every one of them is dreaming of millions and maybe even getting to buy Lance's house in Barcelona
THIS IS HOW THEY DOPE
How do I know? Trust me ...I know.
HGH, IGF-1 and Actovegin are pretty much the minimum that riders take. Ok...a few might just be on HGH because after all HGH converts in the liver to IGF-1.
NONE of these drugs can be dectected....and no, UCI cannot contract out a test for HGH despite what you may have heard. They can only test IGF-1 which has a super short half life and a high degree of variability in humans. So IGF-1 cannot be reliable.
Yes, there are some riders totally clean in the TDF and more than in years past but there are not that many guys...but soon the paranoia will clear as more riders and doctors start to figure out the controls.
The top GC guys, with the "back up" and money, blood dope with their own frozen packed cells. Packed cells are pure red blood cells...the plasma is centrifuged off. To the packed cells is added a preservative and then they are dipped in liquid nitrogen and place in a deep freeze freezer with at least an inch between each bag. These bags can keep frozen for 10 bloody years!
Now for a one day classic they just come to controls with a 49% crit. They can get there with blood doping or Dynepo use(human identical epo) After morning controls they have about an hour, and sometimes a little more, to blood dope.
Units of their own blood are slammed into them with blood pumps. You can infuse a litre of packed cells in about an hour with no issue. This is at least 3 units of pure red cells. This will boost your crit by at least 5% and sometimes 8-9%! The top riders then line up at the starting line with a 55-59% crit!!!
After the race the extra blood is taken out, the plasma is spun off and the red cells are frozen as above. They end up with a 50% crit. Alternatively they can just bleed the extra blood out of you until you are at 50%.
Remember when "Lance" was so dehydrated after that one stage. Well, the guy was not dehydrated at all....he was caught with a super high crit. His doc's then said he was super dehydrated and sent him off to the motor home pronto. Control re-tested him in an hour after he was "re-hydrated" he he he and low and behold his crit was cool. Gee I wonder what they did ......they gave him a **** load saline IV along with volume expanders like Hespan to dilute his blood and drop his crit.
In grand tours you have to pass morning controls with no more than a 50% crit, just like for any race, so they either take the extra blood out of you after the stage and save for re-infusion after morning controls, or they simply jack you with IV saline and volume expanders like Hespan right before morning controls so your crit is diluted to 49-50%. You still have the same O2 carrying capacity that you had at say 56% ...the blood is just diluted down. This extra fluid also comes in handy in the stage.
If you blood dope for any length of time you must supplement with very tiny doses of epo and only via the IV route. Blood doping shuts down your own red cell production so you will have next to zero retics(immature red cells) in you ...and if control sees this they will know you are blood doping.
The trouble in this tour has come from the new ultra long acting CERA. You need only 1-2 shots per month to keep keep your crit up..and even to build crit.
Some doctors and riders thought this epo would be undetectable because of it's low sustained release....so they used it while blood doping to keep their retics up. Unfortunately if you take just the smallest amount too much(after morning controls) each day then you can get popped. The smart teams, docs, and riders, will not use CERA because it's epo comes from animal protein just like good old fashioned alpha and beta epo. The smart guys will use only Dynepo which is human identical. In micro doses you cannot be caught! If you take too much they can bust you on Dynepo by saying that you are on the stuff because your retic count will go too high too. That is what happened to Chickenman last year. He didn't actually get busted for Dynepo but they knew he was on it because retics were through the roof. He got greedy and probably ran out of frozen packed cells near the end of the race. He was worried that Contra-doper was going to catch him.
Some guys just use Dynepo alone and do not blood dope at all...but they are forced to stay at 50%crit for the tour because if they took enough to raise it higher control will know they because they will see a high retic count. So these guys just hold at 50% with IV micro doses. You can "hold" crit steady with micro doses of alpha or beta epo but it is risky...a little too much and it won't wash out by morning and you'll get popped.
So guys, almost everyone is doped to some degree. However, sprinters don't bother with blood doping. They are happy with a crit of 50% and then wheel sucking. I doubt very much that many sprinters could "keep up" to the pack even wheel sucking unless they are at at least 48% crit.
FYI....almost all men have a natural crit of 40-45%. Most endurance athletes are lowish...like 40-42%. This is due to hemodilution with plasma. The body produces more plasma as it's senses even slight dehydration for the daily grind of of training.
If you jack from 40-44% to 50% you will get about a 10% increase in sustainable power at threshold. So if you normally have a 350 watt threshold at say 70 kilo you will then get a 385 watt threshold power. This is the power you can hold for an hour all out.
This is not the biggist deal though...the biggest deal is the unreal "repeatability" you have. Also a crit of 50% helps in day to day recovery.
Now if you jack to 55% you will get at least a 12% increase in FTP and most guys can manage a 15%!!! So at the very least your 5 minute VO2 max repeat power becomes your one hour sustainable power!!! Think about that one guys. Repeatabilty of hard efforts goes through the roof. At 56-59% some guys get a 20% increase!!! So that is like going from 350 watts at 70 kilo's for an hour to 420 watts!!!
The lower your starting crit the more power increase you get...so guys like Lance and Pantani and Riis and Indurain that had crits of 40-41 got huge gains in power!
A high crit is so powerful that a "super talented' rider has NO CHANCE at all against a talented rider jacked. The best proof of this was seen in 1991 when Lemond was in the best shape of his life but epo free. Super gifted Fignon was also there and unjacked by epo. These riders were BY FAR the most talented riders that tour(sorry Indurain fans )
In 1990 Lemond won the tour even though he was not in top shape(from the horses mouth). Even though Indurain was relegated to a domestique in 90 he was considered no real threat in 91 due to his size(mountains issue). BUT...in 91 he is a freak and had WAY more power than the previous year and he kills Lemond and Fignon. Lemond can only manage a 7th place and Fignon a 6th. ALL the riders that beat them would have had NO CHANCE against these guys unjacked on epo. In fact in 90 Lremond beat them all easily.
Indurain wins...Bugno gets 2nd(well know epo user) and Chiappucci of all people gets 3rd jacked out of his tree.
When a guy gets caught why doesn't he just say this.....
"Leave me in peace; everybody takes dope" Jacque Anquetil...a class act and 5 time TDF winner!
OK...flame away ...but it's the truth.
RG
Last edited by Realgains : 2 Hours Ago at 10:28 PM.
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