Has anyone here actually tried to do 400+ watts on a bike? It is just incredible that 65-70 kg guys can keep that up for almost an hour up those mountains.

yall jelly

I don't have a powermeter

****'s expensive

How many kcal do you guys think the riders burn on average per day? And what do you think their diet during the tour is? Do they eat like 1 kilo of pasta at 9am or what?

about 8000 cal apparently

It clutters up the thread. Imagine if every NFL thread was 75% "lol, that guy is doping."

lol. not even top 20. Probably top 100.

Not everyone has team organized full ****** doping or starts a fraudulent charity. It's the scale of it in certain cases, accompanied by the self-righteous USA#1 and UK#1 we don't cheat, or if we do so does everyone else, rhetoric that is repulsive.

Cycling and track and field are the cleanest sports out there. Very few sports bother to control anything at all. These are sports where there is not much money in play. Only a handful near the top have the money to have power. It's easier to police, even as corrupt as they are. In football there are huge incentives to dope. Moving up from second division to first division some random winger makes more money than Tyson Gay. The mafia is comparatively more powerful. No one wants to expose Barca's doping program.

wat. list the 20 then

This is the most interesting part of the current dynamic imo. The narrative that Quintana, Contador and others are having a bad tour and underperforming just isn't true. Quintana's performances in the mountains so far are, according to (imo) reasonable estimates around average performance for a GC winner. Froome's level is just miles higher.

+1

Most cycling fans have 0 interest in doping speculation. I don't care what they are taking, I like watching them blast up a mountain.

I suspect most of the speculation is really team/country bias. I slightly favour Sky as a limey, but love watching any rider/team going for it, and love anything Italian, due to the heritage.

I don't really want to get into this, but Sky just do everything better than the other teams. Dave Brailsford is probably a top 5 manager in the history of any sport.

Fwiw, I'd bet Tejay is clean. I rode with him a decent amount when I was a junior and he just seemed to revile doping in the sport. That's during private conversations. It would be shocking if someone could be able to keep up that facade 24/7 around all company (though I'm not saying we were super tight).

Anyways, because enforcement is much stricter, doping is more cheating in cycling than the NFL for instance. I think everyone knows all those dudes are juiced, but how many times are people actually banned for PEDs from the league? Even if they are, what's the max they'll get? 2 games or so vs. 2 years.

I honestly feel like the best thing for cycling would be a more permissive approach to doping like that. Like, it's still technically against the rules, but you have to miss a month of racing or something if you get caught. Eh

Doping discussion doesn't really mix well with race discussion. There's just way too much information/history/rumors/opinions on the doping side. Seems like a fair request to separate it from the racing stuff. The race ends next week and the doping discussion will most likely be going on as long as people race bikes.

Same narrative and for most part dynamic since 2012. Not much has changed really.

Kevin made this doping containment thread a couple of years ago, which I thought was good but it died due to inactivity.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/46...trong-1352664/

While not getting into it is probably a good idea I'm going to go say it's definitely not everything. And while Dave obviously has his merits top 5 seems really optimistic. But all opinions of course.

Guess that sounds a lot like it was in the 80s. Always thought they should just start completely over with the whole anti-doping system. Probably allow more but require riders to declare what they do and focus on health issues more than trying to sell professional sport as something it clearly isn't.

Slightly OT, but interesting subject. Article hereabout coaches/managers, and does mention Brailsford.

if everyone were on the same stuff, no chance in hell sky would dominate this much, even if brailsford is some kind of genius (which he isnt)

look at postal. everyone had the same stuff back then. but lance had the UCI, the best doctors and the best doms. but they never did anything like what sky did the other day

i can accept that contador isnt at his peak doping at the moment, but quintana has been preparing for this tour all year long and he is the best climber of this generation.

I take it you are saying sky are doping quintana/moviestar are not? and also every year?

As Froome destroyed Quintana on Ventoux two years ago, so Q probably not best climber of generation.

theyre all doping but sky are doing something different

BTW New season of Cycling For Fun game about to start. Takes a bit of getting into, but enjoyable.

Important second there for Froome.

Froome would've been better just staying in Quintana's slipstream and blowing out his cheeks and stuff as he crossed the line, to keep up the illusion.

Was thinking he'd have to be an idiot to sprint there. Just seemed pointless and something that only annoys the competition in the long run. But then again, marginal gains and all that. Nice finish to the stage anyway.

Frenchmen and their legendary strategic sense. Totally blew it and let Cummings come back.

Good thing about today other than Quintana trying is that Valverde looks like the 3rd best climber out there which could make the Alpes interesting even though dropping Froome looks like mission impossible.

Looks like Graint Thomas forgot to eat his special breakfast today