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Cycling thread

scaramanga said:
And a shopping basket?

Does the mangina come with it or is that an effect of sitting in a saddle all the time ;)
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Sadly the shopping basket is an added option, you can buy those and manginas pretty cheaply at Old Greg's Cycle Emporium though.
 
This is a result of the pledge they've been asked to sign? Do other teams have a similar pledge? Shouldn't they be applauded for doing this?
 
Leeds Spur said:
This is a result of the pledge they've been asked to sign? Do other teams have a similar pledge? Shouldn't they be applauded for doing this?
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Every cyclist in 2007 tour signed an anti doping pledge
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/tdf2007/news/story?id=2927490
All it is is a piece of paper.

This is a time when people are being encouraged to come clean about their past in cycling. Everyone is hoping the UCI introduces a doping amnesty with a type of truth and reconciliation hearings. People aren't gonna publicly come clean if they lose their jobs.

Vaughters encouraged 3 of his riders to testify against Armstrong telling them they'd still have their jobs at Garmin. Without those 3 coming forward no other current cyclist would have said anything in the Armstrong testimony.

So instead of Sean Yates coming clean today and keeping his job at Sky, he's left knowing he'll be able to get some other job in cycling. Sky are spinning it like this has nothing to do with them sacking ex dopers.

Ultimately Sky are doing what best for Sky publicity wise with a silly meaningless pledge and not what best for the future of road cycling.
I'd rather see the Sky riders who are ex dopers (there definitely are as well) come out and say yes I used to dope but not anymore and continue on in Sky not doping like they havent doped for the last few years.
Its ridiculous that Brailford wouldnt have his friend Millar in the team because he's an ex doper yet employs his sister. Ultimately its PR and Spin and nothing more.

this explains the issue better than i ever could
http://www.chasingwheels.com/doping/team-sky-zero-tolerance-policy-or-how-not-to-address-reality
 
jts1882 said:
Why?
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Because he has a number of ex dopers on his team that have never been caught.
Michael Barry who rode for Sky for the last 3 seasons came clean about being an ex doper after he retired last month.
To get his lucrative Sky contract he told Brailford he never doped in his career.

THere is no difference between Millar and Barry. Just that employing a convicted ex doper is bad PR.
 
I meet Yates in april in shoreham by sea at a cycle forum, some of the younger lads raced against him on gym bike and they were racing up hills on the t.v. screens on the wall, dont ask me because i have never been in a gym in my life and i dont understand computers.

After the was a Q and A session, he freely aand openly admitted to taking epo. I have to say i could not get over how slow he talked he relly sounds like one of those junkies who ask you for change when your walking home of an evening.

Was a very interesting evening for someone like me who is a big cycling fan.

Have always said the should be life bans for anyone caught and as the french do, go for criminal charges.
 
Modric THFC said:
Because he has a number of ex dopers on his team that have never been caught.
Michael Barry who rode for Sky for the last 3 seasons came clean about being an ex doper after he retired last month.
To get his lucrative Sky contract he told Brailford he never doped in his career.

THere is no difference between Millar and Barry. Just that employing a convicted ex doper is bad PR.
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None of that answers the question about the sister?
 
I realise that this is the cycling thread, but it was here that we discussed doping in tennis, so I'll add these articles on Andy Murray and Roger Federee both saying that there is not much drug testing in tennis.

Andy Murray calls on tennis to get tough on drugs in the wake of the Lance Armstrong scandal in cycling

Andy Murray has entered the worldwide debate stimulated by the Lance Armstrong scandal, with a call for the tennis authorities to undertake more out-of-competition testing. It is the only way, he suggested, to make sure the sport is clean.

By Simon Briggs, Tennis Correspondent in Paris
11:59PM GMT 29 Oct 2012

Murray is right to question the thoroughness of tennis’s anti-doping programme. Urine samples may be taken with some regularity during tournaments, but as the mass of evidence from the US Postal cycling team demonstrates, the best way to catch drug cheats is to take them by surprise.

“You never know in any sport what’s really going on,” Murray said, as he prepared for his second-round match at the Paris Masters tomorrow. “I think the out of competition stuff could probably get better. When we’re in December and stuff, when people are training and setting their bases, I think it would be good to try and do more around that time.

“On Saturday night, we actually had a blood test. They came to the hotel late that night ** — it was completely random. I think that’s good; we’re not used to doing that many blood tests in tennis [and] it’s something that’s obviously necessary. It’s a shame for their sport [cycling] but how they managed to get away with it is incredible, for that long.”

How urgent is tennis’s desire to front up to this challenge? There are some worrying statistics, including the paltry £1.5million annual budget that the International Tennis Federation spends on its anti-doping programme, according to a 2010 interview with the head of its science and technical department.

The data published on the ITF’s website reveals that, in 2011, there were only 21 out-of-competition blood tests across the whole of the professional game. Yet this is a sport where the rewards for reaching the top run into tens of millions of pounds. The motivation is there to take any advantage available.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Murray addressed both sides of the issue.

He drew a contrast between cycling — where it’s all about “how many watts you’re producing” — and the extraordinary physical skills required by high-level tennis. There’s no drug that can teach you how to play a drop volley.

But he also pointed out that doping penalties have not always been fully enforced, citing the case of Wayne Odesnik, who was caught with eight vials of human growth hormone in his luggage in 2010. Originally handed a two-year ban, Odesnik’s sentence was later reduced.

“That’s what was frustrating for me,” Murray said, “because we’re going through all of this and they’re being too lenient with guys that are travelling with human growth hormone to other countries. It’s ridiculous.

If somebody fails a test, don’t just let them back into the sport 18 months earlier than what they should be.

“The other thing with tennis is that there’s a lot of testing at the top end,” Murray added. “But lower down there isn’t anywhere near as much. With the ‘Whereabouts’ form, I think only the top 50 singles players and maybe only the top ten doubles players have to do it.”

There is a theory that, if the ITF really wanted to make a statement, it could pick up dozens of positive tests at Challenger level. This is where the desperation is greatest, with hundreds of would-be stars struggling just to pay their travel costs.

But if a really big fish happened to be caught, would the tennis authorities be prepared to expose them? Andre Agassi’s 2009 autobiography, Open, broke the story that he had tested positive for crystal meth — a recreational drug — fully 12 years earlier. Yet the information had never escaped an inner circle of ATP executives and the independent panel who decided to accept Agassi’s “accidental ingestion” excuse.

More recently, further questions have been raised by the involvement of Luis Garcia del Moral — team doctor for US Postal during Armstrong’s heyday — in a tennis academy in Valencia where Sara Errani, David Ferrer and former world No1 Dinara Safina have all trained. However, there is no suggestion that any of these players have taken drugs.

Murray clearly does not believe that tennis has an endemic doping problem.

“Since 1990 we’ve had 65 positive tests,” he said, “and ten of those have been recreational.” But there was a warning in the recent interview that dingdong Pound, the founder of WADA, gave to USA Today.

Pound asked whether the ITF’s program, and others like it, “are actually designed to succeed or designed to fail and merely cover their butts”.
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Roger Federer wants to be drug tested more often as worries mount over anti-doping programme in tennis

Concerns over tennis’s lack of doping safeguards deepened on Sunday when Roger Federer, president of the Association of Tennis Professionals’ player council, revealed that he was not being drug tested as much now as he was in the mid-2000s.

By Simon Briggs
9:44PM GMT 04 Nov 2012

Federer’s comments came on the heels of Andy Murray’s calls for more testing to be carried out, and they reflect the lack of rigour in the sport’s defences.

The annual budget for the International Tennis Foundation’s anti-doping programme is understood to be only $1.6 million (£998,700) – a paltry sum in view of tennis’s enormous wealth.

“I feel I am being tested less now than six or seven years ago,” said Federer, who will open his Barclays ATP World Tour Finals campaign on Tuesday afternoon against Janko Tipsarevic, of Serbia.

Federer did not have the exact statistics of his own tests to hand, but ITF documents show that he was tested between five and nine times in 2011. The equivalent – if somewhat vague – figure from 2010 was “more than eight”.

“Whatever number it is, I do not think it is enough,” Federer said. “I think they should up it a little bit, or a lot. It is vital that the sport stays clean. We have had a good history in terms of that and we want to ensure it stays that way.”

The same issue was put to Novak Djokovic on Sunday, as the players came through the press-conference room in their build-up to the London tournament.

“I agree,” he said, when Federer and Murray’s comments were mentioned. “We are trying to make this sport as clean as possible, as fair as possible, and I have nothing against testing. Why not? We should do it more.”
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We know that Armstrong passed over 200 tests (500 in Lance-speak) so what chance of catching people with only sporadic random testing? The lack of serious blood testing has to be the biggest concern.
 
Anyone bought any overshoes for their cycling shoes, are they any good? My shoes are brilliant in the Summer plenty of vents but now the weather is turning my feet are suffering. I´ve already taped the vents up,stuck in some thermal insoles and am wearing 2 pairs of socks but my feet are still cold. Any recommendations for overshoes or a reasonably priced pair of winter shoes?
 
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