Which is weird, because I frequently use a triple stack of piracetam/aniracetam/noopept to get through a day, so I guess I’m disqualified from officially competing in life.
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They are nice.
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Good vid, thanks. And: I know, right? There was even a term for the bag o’ drugs, topette, in the French, kin to the musette for the snacks. I’m sure there’s a thesis or several to be written on exactly when and how the topette became anathema, and mine is this: it only became a serious moral failing, an outrage, when an American got much, much better at it, systematically, than the Europeans…and won. Repeatedly. Which is again, kind of souring.
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The difference is that many (most? I dunno) PEDs are dangerous, or untested, or have unknown (or unpleasant) side effects. So “not wanting to take them” is generally out of valid concern for one’s health. Whereas vitamin supplements, generally, are a boost to one’s health, so I’m not sure what one’s opposition to taking them might be.
Well, from competing in high level sports, any way.
OK, I’ll admit it.
Every time I see something about Barry Bonds I think it’s about Billy Bonds. I end up confused as to why so many people from the US care about a West Ham player from the 1970-80s.
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In fairness, Harry Redknapp played for Seattle for a couple of years.
Yes, that is my point. Miasm brought up an allegedly safe class of PEDs to say that they were still “unfair” even though they’re analogous to vitamin supplements, in this context.
My point is that PEDs are banned because they are unfair.
All other considerations, including their impact on health, are secondary to the central reason for their illegality: unfairness.
You appear to be arguing that PEDs are banned (and you’ve specifically said ‘only’ banned) because of their potentially deleterious effects on health if abused.
I don’t know why you’re having such a hard time with this. Are you using some nonstandard definition of the word “unfair?”
If PEDs were allowed, what advantage would they confer that would not be available to all contestants?
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Many exercise regimens of high-performance sports are wearing the body down. Especially things like joints.
The same argument can therefore, at least to a degree, apply to training itself.
Or we could give everybody guns. If everyone had guns and could kill their opponents what advantage would that confer that would not be available to everyone?
Or we could allow bribery of officials. If everyone was allowed to bribe the officials, what advantage would that confer that would not be available to everyone?
I’m not saying you’re wrong I’m saying you’re not even wrong.
This should make things a bit more interesting then! (For reference, Chris Froome averages about 400 W on pretty steep climbs).
Being caught with one of those would make any team denials a lot less plausible, but some people say it happens (this is from the 2014 Vuelta a España, which could be explained by inertia, while others could be explained by riders being good at cycling):
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This could be handy in places where laws restrict use of electric bikes.
I saw somewhere a design of the batteries and motor set, concealed in the “saddle bags”, for some Canadian province. Looked less slick but still could pass as a regular human-powered bike.
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The same company has another version that works like that, but it wouldn’t work on races where people don’t have saddle bags. Actually, aside from the inertia argument being more plausible than wasting a battery on a downhill stretch of a long race, the way these work means that when the motor is on, the pedals have to be turning to power the wheels - a motor mounted in the hub would be much more obvious (especially if you had to change the wheel for a puncture).
One of the interesting issues is that once you try to optimise the construction of the bike, you see how much of a restriction the rule that “bikes must look more or less like they did in the 70s” is. Streamlined recumbent bikes can keep up speeds almost double that of normal bikes (91.6 km in an hour compared to 54.5 on a time trial bike, 1,219 km in 24 hours compared to 541 on a TT bike). The International Human Powered Vehicle Association is pretty cool and coordinates attempts on land, air, water, all-terrain and submersible records, while providing advice on construction and lots of links to different projects. Most of these seem to settle on the cycling motion being the most efficient way of transferring power, but it gets much more interesting when you apply this creatively to make planes, submarines, helicopters etc.
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