Ultracycling

@plentyfatty from AMR thread

Also, there was a guy with video crew in the same race apparently and they copped no shit? I mean I think her TABR 'pairing' with Evan was bollocks but it does seem like she's being attacked in this particular race because she might be making cash out of the sport like he's been doing the last few years.

Did the winner get DQ'd because his kid held the hose for him before the finish? (see Lael's film).

This should really be in the Ultra thread, not AMR. Moved.

Moved from AMR

I couldn't really care about either lael or Jay, I don't know either of them so no interest in taking side with either.

For me, the difference is if film crew only follow one rider rather than covering the race.

Practically, they can only cover riders who are vaguely near each other and need to make a story so can't cover everyone.

And I thought you didn't take out aliases?

Thanks for moving it.

her TABR 'pairing' with Evan

I'm pretty new to this, any more info that you can share? Not that it matters for the TD case. Just curious.

Did the winner get DQ'd because his kid held the hose for him before the finish?

Yeah, there are many such little things we could pick on. It's just common sense to let it be. Don't know why common sense doesn't work in e.g. Lael's situation :)

Read round about here:
https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/273281/?offset=1100

Search for Levan in the TABR thread. She rode a bunch of the race with Evan Deustch.

@frank9755 @hippy yeah, that's dodgy... I don't know if I'd want her (edit: or Evan) disqualified had I been involved in the race, but I'd have never done it if I were in her or Evan's shoes.

Following on from the conversation about sleep in the AMR, is there any suggestion that such punishing sleep schedules might increase the likelihood of riders taking alertness drugs like modafinil etc? Obviously this strikes me as undesirable but it would be pretty hard to check up on and the incentives would increase if races became a “staying awake” competition.

Yeah, it's extremely likely people are already using shit like this. The Inspired to Ride, Trans Am film with 'the Italians' had a bit where it was hinted at by Juliana Buhring (it didn't seem to be in jest but who knows). It's tested for over here in CTT events (a 12hr "champ" was busted for Modafinil specifically) but no one does testing in ultras unless they're the big supported ones like RAAM and RAA, etc.

yeah, I didn't follow the entire lael controversy but it's a bit shady as he doesn't even want to expand on his own "business" side of things. Also, a lot of use of the word "assume" in his side of the story..

Yeah, as @hippy wrote. I suspect people are exploiting this shit already. I don't like it and might end up doing only longer races where this becomes unsustainable. However, then another "performance-enhancing" drug comes to play: pain killers.

I guess this sport is between a rock and a hard place. Either regulation comes in and then I'm unsure how they'll take responsibility for safety on open roads etc., or it remains deregulated and people will simply "cheat" (if we can call pill-taking cheating).

One thing that could be implementable would be complete transparency. That is: you must make all your training data public if you want to start in a race. Strava data would do to begin with. Later, this could be improved on. The idea being that of a biological passport (except more basic & cheaper). Then enthusiasts could crunch data and see how off-the-scales crazy a performance was given the stuff a person does in training. If someone consistently races "above his/her" abilities, then suspicion would exist. If that's good or bad, I'm not sure. What to do with it, I'm also not sure :).

Good thought but I can't see it somehow!

We don't even have that kind of thing for CTT events. Some people want privacy, don't all want to share everything.

Plus how would you define something as off the scale, by time or by Watts?
Some guy riding across europe at c 120W when he trained at 200W is hardly going to raise an alarm is he?
Or, if you look at time, you find someone like skinny didn't ride more than 6 hours in training, then he rides 18 hours a day for 8-9 days!

Yeah, I can't say I have it figured out :). Of course, all you wrote are valid obstacles. But...

What I meant was that there would be no official checking. Just official requirement to share data. So there would be no definition for off-the-scale. However, data pool would grow over time. You wouldn't be able to do much at the start. But a few years in, you could see if someone's performance, given their training, was a 10% outlier among all racers, or it was an 80% outlier. You could consider many dimensions, HR, power, volume (in time, in distance), intensity, type of rides (mtb, road, etc.), cross training, etc. You would have access to people's previous races, so if training didn't change but performance jumped, you could be suspicious.

Sophistication of the analysis would grow over time. For instance, I'd be keen to contribute to such software! It'd be kept open source for transparency -- so the analyses can be trusted.

Of course, I see the problem with equipment like power meters costing hundreds of euros, heart rate sensors being off on the wrist, etc. But, no data is always worse than a bit of data. And to be fair, the front runners all have fancy gadgets.

Or, if you look at time, you find someone like skinny didn't ride more than 6 hours in training, then he rides 18 hours a day for 8-9 days!

Yeah, that's a good example. So one half-baked thought would be to consider it off the scale if others couldn't come close to such performance with such training. Then you could also consider it off the scale only if he was training that way before but his performance was rubbish until this last race. Nothing changed in training, but race performance jumped? Hmm.

I'm not saying I have answers, but seems like incrementally, community could build software tools for analysing data for irregularities if the data existed.

Also, there need to be no bans or DQs. It's enough if an analysis is published. Just consider Lael's performance at TABR (was it?) where she paired up with Evan. She wasn't DQed, but there's a permanent (fictional) asterisk next to her win. That would be enough for now :).

I think you've got stuck on a probelm that doesnt really exist.

Quite possibly! Or in other words - I hope so. But we just don't know, because as of now, we cannot know. There are no checks. Public data would somewhat settle the problem between regulation and deregulation that the sport seems to be heading towards. And it would be a compromise.

Public data wouldn't prove anything. I dont mean to be rude, but your lack of racing experiance is showing as you dont grasp the difference between training and racing and how it all works. Also any testing of someone who's raced would be pretty invalid, racing would throw bio markers all over the place.

The best way to cheat wouldn't be taking drugs, it would be getting a taxi, cutting corners, supply drops.

It's so hard a few drugs wont make it much easier.

@frank9755 has a good grasp and always explains things well. I'm too tired to put it all into words.

Isn't HR off the charts anyway after 2 days racing?

Also, where do you draw the line in pill-taking? If I would join a race like that (not to win anyway so doesn't matter), I'd hardly consider taking Ibuprofen cheating. Ibuprofen also makes your hr higher, no?

Public data wouldn't prove anything.

Correct. There's no need to prove anything. So that's OK.

your lack of racing experiance is showing as you dont grasp the difference between training and racing and how it all works

That's very likely indeed. Criticise the hell out of this, it's only helpful.

any testing of someone who's raced would be pretty invalid, racing would throw bio markers all over the place

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by this. If you're saying that racing itself causes an irregularity in the data - that's OK. Over time, you could predict these things and they wouldn't be "irregular" anymore.

The best was go cheat wouldn't be taking drugs, it would be getting a taxi, cutting corners, supply drops.

Those ways to cheat have the biggest impact, true, but are also easy to detect. So people are unlikely to opt for them (it's risky). Supply drops would be a good way to cheat?

It's so hard a few drugs wont make it much easier.

You could say that about TdF, Giro, Vuelta, ...

Isn't HR off the charts anyway after 2 days racing?

No, it's predictably low. Off the charts means "unpredictably", against expectations. It'd be off the charts if someone could push at 170bpm on the uphills on day 5.

I'd hardly consider taking Ibuprofen cheating.

Ibuprofen manages pain for you, where pain management is supposed to be one of the key aspects of the race. If nothing else, it certainly makes the mental side of the race much easier when the pain comes. Way more impactful than riding with someone for long periods of time. And the latter is forbidden.

That said, I can't think of a way to detect pain killers from performance data alone. So it'd probably go unchecked...

Ibuprofen is fucking bad news for ultra racing and bad news in general. Avoid.

Lael has suffered a bit because she is open on how she won. She still put in an amazing ride regardless.

Thanks for the explanation

Into another google dark hole I go... Why the fuck does my doctor love these :/