Going Postal

The Blue Train

The Blue Train...harder than anyone else.
EPO, transfusions, whatever.
The drug use in cycling used to be like taking supplements. I think it's impossible for me to sit here and judge anyone. It had to be done; legal or not, if you wanted to win in that era.
I think this blood boosting has changed the sport. Not in that it has tarnished it, rather it has showed what is possible. A lot of barriers are mental. I'd say in distance rides, the long distances in training are important but most of the benefit would be from knowing you could ride x distance at x pace. If someone hypnotized you and made you believe you could do it you could provided you could do that pace for say half the distance.
We've all been there. The end of a ride whether it is 200km or 100km, the last few km seem like hell. Now imagine if you were doing a 100km and someone told you that you have to do another 100. You'd cry. Reverse this. You're going for 200km and they shorten it to 100km and you know right from the start, the last 20km will still take forever in your mind.
What training does as much as or more than the physical aspect of it is tell your brain that everything will be ok.
This is what happened when the 4 minute mile was broken. People knew they could go by it and did.
Same with doping in cycling. The average speeds jumped dramatically in the EPO era.
Now, these speeds are creeping up again. People have the wattage and the training logs from the EPO days. I know that being able to go through the looking glass on a ride adds more speed than training. The drugs enabled people to see the other side of the looking glass. Once you saw it and realized you could get there it was only a matter of believing you could in your head.