Blood Doping and the Speed Limit

On any given bike ride, the subject of Floyd Landis, Lance Armstrong, and their accusations of blood doping will come up. We worry about whether this will destroy cycling and people's enthusiasm to go out, buy a bike, and start riding.

The latest news in this ongoing saga is that Frankie Andreu, who is from this area, admitted to EPO use way back when, before it was banned. He, of course, never saw his teammate Armstrong take anything, and he eventually stopped once it was banned. We still wonder whether Floyd's explanation is really true, and for all the accusations that skirt around Armstrong, you'd gotta think that he's either a target, or he's really beaten the system.

So here's one explanation on how riders could be beating the system. Take Floyd's case: The testosterone/epitestosterone test says that a rider is over the limit when the ratio is 4:1. Normal ratios are around 1:1. Well, why not just take enough so that your ratio is 3:1 so that you don't trip the test? Keep analyzing urine samples on your own to make sure that you're taking the right amount. I'm sure every test allows a threshold to protect "normal" fluctuations in the bloodstream, so all the rider has to do is dope up to the limits and not go over.

Also, cyclists seem to have a number of medical problems already, which require them to take doping products. 60 of 105 tour riders had some sort of legal medical excuse such as asthma for their excess medication. It's amazing how so many ailing athletes can actually ride a bike at that level.

I equate this to speed limit enforcement on the highway. The speed limit on the nearby highway is 70mph, but I know that everyone on the highway speeds, so I just won't go fast enough to trip the cop's attention, which might be at 80-85mph or more. So I'll cruise past the radar detector at my 77mph and the trooper won't even blink. I didn't get caught, but I was still speeding, right?

So, there's my theory. All cyclists are taking legal and illegal supplements to help extend the limits of their bodies. This probably is true of many pro athletes. They also know exactly how much to take so that they will not trip the tests, and they manage to stay one step ahead of the testers. We hope that someday procedures improve so that we can detect exactly what's going on, but until then, we'll have to deal with these accusations and denials.