Doping Education / Good Reads

austinbyrne21

I've just finished reading the Marco Pantani book, it's one hell of an eye-opening read.

I'm just looking for other books of this ilk to educate myself more about doping culture behind cycling and cycling in general. Any good recommendations?

Also, just a couple of items from this book caught my attention that someone out there might be able to shed some light on...

1. The author, something Rendell, somewhat hints at implicating Stephen Roche from when he was on the same team as Pantani. Has this ever been proved as fact or not?

2. With the whole doubt that surrounds LA, is it not just as simple to find in his blood samples that his "haemotricit" (totally spelled wrong but I'm a disaster for glancing over words I can't pronounce) and see if he's over the old limit of 50% or the newer limit? 48% I think.

I understand I might sound very naive about the whole situation but that's why I'm looking for advice on good books. I think Kimmage's will be next. And my second point above is in no way a defence of LA. I'm still amazed that he used to piss pass Pantani on the mountains while Marco himself doped to his eyeballs.

Oh, and Pantani... What a read! Fantastic and troubled character.

AstraMonti

Rough Ride - Paul Kimmage
From Lance to Landis - David Walsh
Bad Blood: The Secret Life of the Tour de France - Jeremy Whittle

RobFowl

austinbyrne21 wrote: »

1. The author, something Rendell, somewhat hints at implicating Stephen Roche from when he was on the same team as Pantani. Has this ever been proved as fact or not?

2. With the whole doubt that surrounds LA, is it not just as simple to find in his blood samples that his "haemotricit" (totally spelled wrong but I'm a disaster for glancing over words I can't pronounce) and see if he's over the old limit of 50% or the newer limit? 48% I think.

Roche never tested positive but an Italian court in a case against Dr Ferrari or Conconi (not sure which) declared that there was enough evidence to say that Roche was using EPO in his second spell at Carrera.
Roche vigously denies this.

The 50% haematocrit limit is still the same but it's less relevant now as there are tests for EPO (at the time the 50% was introduced there were no accurate tests for EPO).

austinbyrne21

RobFowl wrote: »

The 50% haematocrit limit is still the same but it's less relevant now as there are tests for EPO (at the time the 50% was introduced there were no accurate tests for EPO).

Just to clarifly... Nowadays, it's a far more detailed analysis when blood testing?

RobFowl

austinbyrne21 wrote: »

Just to clarifly... Nowadays, it's a far more detailed analysis when blood testing?

Yes the biological passport looks at trends and multiple different values in the blood profile. There is also an accurate urine test for EPO (although it's only able to detect EPO for about 2-3 days after taking and allegedly not accurate with small doses of EPO).

concussion

Robin Parisotto, one of the AIS scientists who developed the blood test for EPO wrote a very good book entitled 'Blood Sports'. It's well worth a read if you want more info on EPO use and detection.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Sports-Robin-Parisotto/dp/1740663667

penexpers

AstraMonti wrote: »

From Lance to Landis - David Walsh

I have thought about buying and reading this but I get the impression from some of the reviews that there's very little fact in the book and that it's mostly opinion mixed with some third party stories to back it up. Would this be accurate?

The reason I enjoyed the Pantani book a lot is that it was mostly based on facts.

Robotito

Just finished 'The Secret Race' by Tyler Hamilton & Daniel Coyle, it's a great read...just wondering what would be the next book people would recommend to read on this subject

spoke2cun

It's a shame, but it seems that any book about cycling over the last number of years seems to be more about doping than cycling itself.

Robotito

Robotito wrote: »

Just finished 'The Secret Race' by Tyler Hamilton & Daniel Coyle, it's a great read...just wondering what would be the next book people would recommend to read on this subject

+1

This is a good read

Harrybelafonte

Why not read some of the excellent biographies and autobiographies instead of concentratin in doping. There have been excellent releases in the last few years detailing the lives if Fausto Coppi, Eddiy Merckx, Laurent Fignon, etc

There's more to cycling than the TDF and doping. There's more to cycling than the last 25 years.

Planet X

Currently reading "A Clean Break: My Story", Christophe Bassons and Benoît Hopquin.
Festina days.......

magicbastarder

currently reading david millar's book. it's reasonably enjoyable.

happytramp

'Slaying the badger' is incredibly entertaining. Reads like a political thriller.

dastardly00

Has anyone ever had the chance to read L.A. Confidentiel: Les secrets de Lance Armstrong by Pierre Balester and David Walsh.

It would be interesting to read since it was the first book published to link Lance with doping.

furiousox

If only we had a dedicated cycling books discussion/review/recommendation thread....:D

Sinbad_NI

Robotito wrote: »

Just finished 'The Secret Race' by Tyler Hamilton & Daniel Coyle, it's a great read...just wondering what would be the next book people would recommend to read on this subject

I really enjoyed this one as well. Enlightening.

DKmac

Breaking the chain by Willy Voet
Game of Shadows by Mark Fainaru Wada
Rough Ride by Paul Kimmage
LA Confidentiel by David Walsh translated and available online
The Secret Race by Tyler Hamilton

kumate_champ07

this is worth listening to - Victor Conte interview

http://podbay.fm/show/360084272/e/1350596035?autostart=1



http://ec.libsyn.com/p/0/f/8/0f8cf668211baea0/p277.mp3?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d06cb8f31d3c05e3229&c_id=5058989

right click 'save link as' for the above to download audio file

petethedrummer

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

this is worth listening to - Victor Conte interview

http://podbay.fm/show/360084272/e/1350596035?autostart=1



http://ec.libsyn.com/p/0/f/8/0f8cf668211baea0/p277.mp3?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d06cb8f31d3c05e3229&c_id=5058989

right click 'save link as' for the above to download audio file

Never heard that before. Great link.

Koobcam

dastardly00 wrote: »

Has anyone ever had the chance to read L.A. Confidentiel: Les secrets de Lance Armstrong by Pierre Balester and David Walsh.

It would be interesting to read since it was the first book published to link Lance with doping.

Read a bit of it a couple of years back while the whole Armstrong thing was still working its way through the media. I also spent quite a bit of time reading the testimonies of the various riders to USADA, lots of interesting revelations there about doping practices. If you google 'usada reasoned decision armstrong', you'll find a whole bunch of stuff from people like the Andreus, Vandevelde, Hincapie, ete etc. I think Jesus Manzano is also worth a google as he was saying stuff about organised doping in Kelme as far back as 2004.

Another loosely-related article of interest would be this one from today's Guardian. I wonder if we might see teams harvesting the blood of their young neo-pros in order to get a few more years out of their ageing champions??

dastardly00

Koobcam wrote: »

Read a bit of it a couple of years back while the whole Armstrong thing was still working its way through the media. I also spent quite a bit of time reading the testimonies of the various riders to USADA, lots of interesting revelations there about doping practices. If you google 'usada reasoned decision armstrong', you'll find a whole bunch of stuff from people like the Andreus, Vandevelde, Hincapie, ete etc. I think Jesus Manzano is also worth a google as he was saying stuff about organised doping in Kelme as far back as 2004.

Yeah I've read pretty much all of USADA's Reasoned Decision so I suppose wouldn't be expecting to learn anything new from L.A. Confidentiel. It's more the thought process of the authors and how they were building the story around Armstrong that interests me.

Plastik

Bought Thomas Dekker's book, The Descent, yesterday and got through it in an evening. Quite short, only a little over 200 pages. It's ghost written fairly well and manages to convey how out of control he was in all aspects of his life. More or less straight into all the shenanigans you want to read about after a couple of chapters instead of an endless biographical monologue. Seemed to be a few sly barbs in there towards some of the modern riders, though maybe that was just my own reading of it rather than something that he deliberately tried to convey.

greenspurs

Are you more interseted in the doping than the cycling !???

A couple of fiction ones out there -

" Its not about the Bike " - Lance...
" Every Second Counts " - Lance...

and some "proper" ones also:
Hunger - King Kelly
Domestique - Charly Wegelius
The Secret Race - Tyler Hamilton

Plastik

Yep, the doping interests me more than the something like Kellys Hunger which from memory (and I'm struggling here because it was an instantly forgettable book) was endlessly boring. Kelly covers his two doping positives in about 3 pages and doesn't feel the need to address the subject anywhere else in the book. One of those books that you lend to someone and don't care if you ever get it back, which is what I did.

Tomorrow, We Ride, by Jean Bobet is a brilliant little read if you want to read a nice book about cycling.

magicbastarder

a lot of cycling biographies can be like kelly's - the childhood and early years tend to be the more interesting ones, and then you descend into chapter after chapter of 'that year i did well in race X and not in race Y, but the year after i did badly in race X and put in a good showing in race Y and the year after *that* i did well in them both...'

Macy0161

greenspurs wrote: »

and some "proper" ones also:
Hunger - King Kelly
Domestique - Charly Wegelius
The Secret Race - Tyler Hamilton

I enjoyed all three tbh. Sure David Walsh had already explained aways Kelly's positives in A Man For All Seasons...

Weepsie

David Miller's book is rubbish.

It's basically, troubled growing up between parents, found cycling, went pro, forced into doping, never wanted to, glad I got caught, I hate doping and dopers, reformed man..

Doesn't ever really take any responsibility for his own actions throughout and tries to force the reader to pity him throughout.

It's also not written quite as well as other books anyway

Fignons book is brilliant, he doesn't hold back on what he thinks.

Lantern Rouge is great too

Macy0161

Plastik wrote: »

Bought Thomas Dekker's book, The Descent, yesterday and got through it in an evening. Quite short, only a little over 200 pages. It's ghost written fairly well and manages to convey how out of control he was in all aspects of his life. More or less straight into all the shenanigans you want to read about after a couple of chapters instead of an endless biographical monologue. Seemed to be a few sly barbs in there towards some of the modern riders, though maybe that was just my own reading of it rather than something that he deliberately tried to convey.

Cycling news had a podcast interview with him in the last week or so. That, along with an apparent Kimmage recommendation, have it on the list.

Currently reading the Indurain biog, "Relentless" by Aladair Fotheringham. At the point Reynolds "invested" in a trip to Italy, but says they'll be more on that later...

dragratchet

A Dog in a Hat - Joe Parkin. racing and a bit of doping in belgium. great read.

magicbastarder

has anyone seen this? not specifically about cycling, though there are a few shots of cyclists used in the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXoRdSTrR-4