A post on the LewRockwell.com blog caught my attention. Peter Jon White and I both share a love for the sport of cycling, and I have some additional points to add to his note to Lew. First off, it’s great to see the New Criterion covering this topic. Lance Armstrong’s series of successes has brought this sport much of the glory that it deserves.
But Peter mixes apples and oranges a bit here, in comparing the Race Across America (RAAM) to the Tour de France. RAAM, and similar ultra-endurance races, are just that: ultra-endurance events, and that whole scene is a subculture of professional bicycle racing. Where the Tour is a haven for professional racers with tremendous speed, climbing ability, technical skills, pedaling efficiency, time-trialing ability, and sprinting ability, events like RAAM are for the endurance obsessed. That is, those with magnificent aerobic ability, not anaerobic, and their only goal is to go further, and in less time. Their training reflects these goals.
The endurance freaks are spectacular, indeed, in terms of what they accomplish, but comparing them to racers on the professional cycling circuit is like comparing powerlifters to bodybuilders. The two are trying to accomplish very different goals. RAAM is brutal, but the average RAAM rider does not endure the level of training nor daily torture, pain, and professional stress that a Tour rider does.
Most of the Tour racers, when leading up to the Tour, compete in many months of brutal races in which they prepare themselves, mentally and physically, to ride against the fastest riders in the world. American guys like Lemond and Armstrong rode/ride in the most brutal mountains of Europe for many months prior to the big race. Endurance riders commit themselves to a few oddball events, or even one event, and that is their entire focus.
The author, Robert Messenger, mentions Miguel Indurain. This was a guy (a Spaniard) so fit, with a heart so efficient, that his resting heart rate was said to be about 28 beats per minute, about 40-50 bpm slower than an average man his age. I *believe* - though not entirely positive - this is the lowest known heart rate ever recorded. Andy Hampsten, an American and former 7-11 rider (in the great days before the government sponsored the US team), was said to have suffered from flus, mucus buildup, coughing, and generally, horrible sickness during much of the off-season, which was common for all these guys. They are so healthy they are always sick.
In regards to the allegations that Lance Armstrong has been using performance-enhancing drugs:
One of the major obstacles may be the mental distractions posed by a recently published French-language book that includes allegations that Armstrong has used performance-enhancing drugs. The book, titled "L.A. Confidential: the Secrets of Lance Armstrong," includes claims of doping made by Armstrong’s former assistant, Emma O’Reilly. In the book, O’Reilly claims Armstrong once asked her to dispose of used syringes and to give him makeup to conceal needle marks on his right arm.
A French court on June 21 rejected an attempt by Armstrong - no stranger to accusations of drug use - to force the publisher of the book to insert his denial of the allegations.
From the New Criterion piece, let me quote a quote by former cycling great Jacques Anquetil (5-time Tour champion): “You’d have to be an imbecile or a hypocrite to imagine that a professional cyclist who rides 235 days a year can hold himself together without stimulants.”