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Mont Ventoux (licensed CC BY ND 2.0 by Nicolas Aix on Flickr)EPO of no effect in bike races, claim researchers who staged Mont Ventoux race
Researchers in the Netherlands say that EPO appears to have no effect on well-trained cyclists in a race after they staged one on Mont Ventoux this weekend in which half the participants had been injected with the banned substance, with the rest given a placebo.
Some 48 male amateur cyclists from the Netherlands participated in the race, arranged by the Centre for Human Drug Research (CHDR) in Leiden, which is investigating “the effect of recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO) on the bike performance and potential side effects in well-trained cyclists.”
> Get paid to ride up Mont Ventoux – on EPO
The riders, none of whom know whether they had been given EPO or a placebo, had already ridden 120km before tackling Mont Ventoux during the weekend’s race.
According to a report on NOS.nl, the group that had been injected with a placebo took an average of 1 hour, 37 minutes and 45 seconds to complete the ascent, but those riding on EPO were on average 38 seconds slower.
The team carrying out the research, who launched the study because they had doubts about the performance enhancing benefits of EPO say that their initial impression from the race is that it makes no difference in a race situation, and point out that their investigation is the first to seek to gauge its impact in such a scenario.
Clearly, these are preliminary findings only, and it will be several months before the study is published in a scientific journal.
One point of note however is that among those who had been given EPO, only 38 per cent believed afterwards that they fell into that group; among those given a placebo, 74 per cent thought they had been riding with the aid of EPO.
The trial lasted three months, with participants making 15 three-hour visits to the CHDR and undergoing an eight week course of EPO or the placebo, depending on the group they fell into, while continuing to train normally.
The research facility has questioned the benefits of EPO for improving performance in cycling before.
In 2012, after Lance Armstrong was banned from sport for life, CHDR professor in clinical pharmacology Adam Cohen, writing in the British Journal of Pharmacology, insisted it was “rather naïve” to believe a race could be won solely due to a rider taking EPO.
> Study claims no evidence that EPO boosts performance of elite cyclists
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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47 comments
EPO increases red blood cell production over a period of time so injecting people at the bottom of a mountain before they ride up it and saying there is no effect is fucking daft and about as unscientific you can get.
Using average times on one test as the headline number is very strange. Surely they must have done the route off the juice and then on it. Since, obviously what matters is the improvement, not the times in and of themselves.
Perhaps all the folk on EPO had been out bashing the KOMS on all their local segments in the lead up to the race so were a bit burnt out.
This is a ridiculous story!
How can time taken up a climb determine whether EPO works or not? Differences in body weight can make a huge difference and influence climbing time so why on earth would you use that as your test? Unless of course, all those involved in the test have exactly the same weight, height, FTP, haemocrit and identical training plans.
Power to weight is at its most important on climbs so a 100kg climber ascending at the same pace as a 65kg climber is putting out much more power and more power is what EPO is likely to give you (through the increased training load and intensity it provides), not necessarily speed.
Also, have they ever done the climb before? How does the two groups pre and post times up the climb measure up?
What the headline should be saying is simply that "taking EPO doesn't necessarily make you faster!"
Without having read the original Dutch story, which may have much more detail, this is just a complete non-story
Christ on a bike, someone shoot me now!!!!!
I'm surprised at these findings. But what I find puzzling is why they didn't test hermatocrit rather than the speed up a given mountain. Surely, in the aid of science, it would be better to use as many fixed variables as possible (and so do an FTP test in a laboratory), and test improvements in wattage and hermatocrit?!
This may prove something about the placebo effect more than it does about EPO as it stands. Or, perhaps the experiment was meant to look at 'human' factors such as perceived effort and response to PEDs. Either way, this doesn't seem to me the most scientific approach and I remain unconvinced of its findings as reported here......
I think there are a few things to consider
firstly if you took the top few % of athletes all equally physiologically talented, but used EPO would they have been able to train/prepare better - effectively a marginal gain rather than maximal gain
Also, EPO enables someone to keep heamocritt RBC levels high through out a three week stage race, rather than see diminishing levels keeping performance levels highe
athletes of the time felt it was possible to be competitive over one day races without EPO - simulating what they had seen here, basically saying a properly trained and recovered athlete could beat a lit one over 1 day but prob not over 21 days consecutively.
EPO will enable someone to keep their RBC high when emaciated through strict dieting (I.e. Pantani - slice of watermelon) so it would enable someone to get their weight down but keep their athletic performance high through training.
Tyler Hamilton in his book describes that when you took a bag in the effort was still as painful etc etc, but you just had to push yourself harder than before and the body would cope with it - similar to a placebo effect, these guys thought they weren't juiced so didn't necasserily perform maximal levels of intensity, just as hard as they thought they were used to going etc - as discussed above. Generally you would assume 'Pros' can go to the levels of complete exhaustion with their efforts through years of mental conditioning to fatigue and bloody mindedness
Perceived effort is one of the reasons I got a power meter. How you feel and what the meter says are often very different. Some days you can feel rubbish but the figures look good and it boosts you on, where as before I'd have coasted a bit more.
I thought it was the case that substances like EPO, taken over a prolonged period, allow people to train harder and longer. So the major impact of EPO is not on the racing itself, but rather on increased intensity it enables you to bring to training, which you then bring to races...???
Interesting but my understanding is that to get the proper benefit of EPO, you need to take it for a number of weeks rather than a one off dose?
The article actually says that "The trial lasted three months, with participants making 15 three-hour visits to the CHDR and undergoing an eight week course of EPO or the placebo, depending on the group they fell into, while continuing to train normally.", so it wasn't just a one off dose (that was my first understanding of the article as well
)
However, what I find tricky is the "while continuing to train normally" bit. I always thought that taking EPO would allow you to train harder, and that extra training would be what allows you to go faster (not the EPO itself). So, from my understanding, if a bunch of guys had taken EPO but didn't train harder (they have their lives, etc.) they woulnd't go faster. Is that wrong?
There has to be a control problem here or something. There's no way EPO doesn't boost performance. In an article I read recently a guy who was taking EPO, HGH and testosterone saw a boost of 70w on his FTP. When Dwayne Johnson (the rock) was 18 he took steroids "once" and said they don't work. Look at that chap now and tell me steroids don't work.
It's pretty obvious what the Rock's cooking!
And there definatelly no control issues with "I read recently a guy... "
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/dan-stevens-gives-eviden.... Here's the link, read it yourself smartarse.
This is no scientific study but he undoubtedly saw performance gains while using EPO. Do you seriously think people use it for no reason Mike?
Well that's at least a couple of titles Armstrong really won then!
Agreed....why am I your only like???????????????????????????????
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