2016 'PRO' cycling discussion.

[DanW]

Copnall refers to keeping the blood thin when using EPO to not die (putting it bluntly!)

[wingguy]

doping noob question: so what's with the running up and down the stairs?

Super doped athletes can have blood so thick and resting heart rates so low that they were worried about blood starting to clot in the veins in between heartbeats in deep sleep. Therefore they were regularly woken and moved around in the middle of the night to speed up the heart rate and break up any mini clots developing.

[Norregard]

I don't really understand why some people are yelling for budget caps to save professional cycling (by restoring the balance and denting a one team dominance like Sky). Surely what professional cycling needs is more money, not less? Plenty of cycling teams aren't able to plan long term because of the flawed financial structure of the sport. Each year you get a host of teams chopping and changing team names, sponsors, budgets and riders. And when a big sponsor pulls the plug (for example Tinkoff or IAMcycling this year), suddenly a lot of riders find themselves out of contract with no place to go.

So when a big sponsor like Sky (or a smaller sponsor like Lotto) commits for the long term surely this is a good thing and not something you'd want to discourage by enforcing a budget cap.

Ofcourse ideally you'd want the financial gap between the richest and poorest to be smaller, or for other teams to be able to also rely on long term sponsorship deals, but in the end it should be up to the UCI to strive for bigger financial sustainability of professional cycling. All a budget cap is going to do is handicap Sky or Katusha, without solving any of the underlying issues.

[xena]

EPO thickens the Blood " volume" . In its early usage there were lots of deaths.
I have no idea what athletes are taking now. Look at SARMS for example and how targeted they are to a given benefit. For teams athletes with big money then I would imagine custom drugs may be the norm.
Going back to EPO. If athletes, maninly endurance athletes are using it they would be micro dosing.
taking small amounts on a daily and undectable but with the same benefits as higher doses and no side effects whatsoever.

[rainerhq]

@Tdf
Fakk, Gorilla not Sagan

[spud]

what happened to Kittle? Had 4 teammates with him with 1K to go, then he disappeared from the front of the field. Nowhere in the sprint.

Also, will Movistar permit Quintana to spend 2 months training at home before the tour next year? He did one race prior to the tour, provided very little commercial value to the team in the lead up to the tour, and he produced one of the most quiet and uninspiring efforts in his history.

[TurboKoo]

Kittel disappeared earlier due to not being able to hold the wheel. Etixx chose inside line and there was no place for him.

[Dr.Dos]

Fantastic leadout performance by Lotto-Soudal (again), André deserves it so much.

[Norregard]

Poor Tony Martin. Abandoned the race 44km from the finish line.

[rainerhq]

So...?

[Herb5998]

I think you guys are missing the point of a salary cap, it will only work with revenue sharing. Y

Yes big riders demand big contracts, that's the same in salary capped sports. It's the management of the budget for the rest of the team that truly is a challenge.

Look at what happens to super bowl winning Teams budget wise after a win..... The managers who can find great value in players generally can get the team back to that level.


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[prendrefeu]

Budget caps work for parity. Period.
A team can still hire big-contract riders, but like every other team they'll need to manage their budget - which includes all the other riders (balanced team? unbalanced team? that's the DS's choice going into the year), and along with that they'll need to manage their budget in terms of accommodations/equipment/etc:. Yes some teams can have better equipment then others, again it's a matter of the DS determining where the money should be spent and how well.

Profit sharing from broadcasts will help determine this.

Teams will remain competitive throughout the season. Competition will be more balanced as factors balance themselves out (super stars vs. equipment vs. facilities from the team vs. supporting domestiques vs. specialists, etc:.). Super star riders still have the ability to show off their talent, of course! Like any other sport where there is a cap (such as NHL, NFL, etc:.) however a bit like F1 in their addressing the issues of parity in equipment I believe the budget should be applied to the entire function of the team. Equipment factors into it.

[Skylark]

doping noob question: so what's with the running up and down the stairs?

This shows EPO isn't happening these days. Generation Z is already far removed from the topic.

Certainly in terms of the likes of CF, he has something else going instead. Like skin and bone.

[Skylark]

Probably to keep the blood pumping around. There are also stories of Riis in his doping era that they had to turn him around in his bed every few hours at night to make sure his blood kept going.

That is an odd story. You know what watchmen are like overnight? They're all asleep themselves.

[mattr]

Problem with budget capping is that even at the big tours and major classics there will be many riders there who are on the UCI minimum wage. The big wage earners are a very very very small percentage of the total. Compounding that, the big wages aren't actually that huge in the grand scheme of things. Most of the money is endorsements and personal/team sponsorship, which you will struggle to control.

And as for the running up and down the stairs, back in the 90's there were regular tales of extra hotel rooms being provided on the tour for a turbo room for the riders to use in the night to keep the blood going......