Barend de Arend

Devil's advocate: If you need medicine, should you just sit on the couch and watch TV? Wait, you're not allowed the watch TV, because the medication you're on are eye drops. Where do you draw the line? When are you allowed to live a life?

If the meds were right, can the doc sue for bringing his name in disrepute? If the meds were right, and did not contain a banned substance? If the meds were right, contained a banned substance, but the cyclist was correctly informed?

If I saw all the evidence, there's a chance I'd believe it. The stocktake sheet for one. We'll never see all the evidence, though. The appeals board might see all the evidence, but now you're opening up: - doctor patient confidentiality - doctor malpractice problems - name smearing, libel, etc. My guess is any good lawyer would prevent all the evidence from coming out, so we'd get a "he said, she said..." scenario. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof... Note that if the doc did provide the wrong meds, the cyclist is lucky: he wasn't allergic to the wrong medsthe wrong meds didn't make him sickerthe wrong meds weren't neutralthe wrong meds, by chance, still cured his ailment (how often is this true ???)the wrong meds were banned

I'm assuming a field medic, doc or pharmacy would have a stock list and do a stock take. This seems to be a common practice. It should be possible to check if this doc did a stock take. So if the meds were wrong, the doc would know a few days later that the wrong meds got provided to someone. If the stock-take is any good you would be able to narrow it down to just a few patients since you can check which med you've got one too much of. Ethical docs would try to track it or notify patients for side-effects. Non-ethical docs would imply a whole big can of worms.

Because they're medics first, and race medics second. If you fall and break your leg, do you want the painkillers, or don't you?

Checking is easy Obtaining a TUE if it's warranted is not so easy.

Most top-level pro cycling teams will have a doctor that is very familiar with drugs that are likely to receive a TUE, and work with the UCI and/or WADA in obtaining a short-term TUE for an emergency. Most GPs are not aware. The process isn't easy for a normal GP or a normal guy in the street. If "race medic" means a ER24 or other paramedic, then they might not know. However, they should know the drugs prescribed, and should inform the patient of the drugs provided. At the very least to check for allergies.

Time to update your settings, or calibrate your power meter.

A good course has multiple places

Started in B, 2h39. No seeding due to some medical problems last year. Most of the way I wasn't in the red. I did help pull (because I wasn't in the red) 61kg, quarq power meter. avg. power: 177 watts, NP: 206 avg hr: 152 avg cadence: 87 max power: 795 (no breaks, no sprint) max hr: 170 max cadence: 124 max 20min: 213 watts. Interestingly this was probably the race I was the least stressed in (mentally) in a long time.

It changes the "feel" on your skin -- the amount of UV light received. We're 2km up, and that's 2km less of "thick" atmosphere. More importantly, we're close to the equator, and that's more direct sunlight, so the sunlight travels less through the atmosphere, and there's more UV. The sky should also be lighter here, less blue, due to less rayleigh scattering. I've got no idea what the actual % difference is.

Entry delivery as opposed to pickup You used to offer this. Or just let me print a number -- especially if there isn't a goody bag anyway. The MTB route split short/long in more than one place. In at least one of those places there were marshalls shouting something like "short left, long right." Despite their best efforts, it caused minor confusion. Coloured arrows, or a big sign would've helped. If you can't add technical terrain, lemme know, so I can try a cross bike.

As per usual, it depends Usually <30 seconds if it's a double paceline. If it's a single -- think team-time-trial --, the stronger rider(s) sit a little bit longer. This allows the weaker riders to recover more, and keeps more riders in play. In a double paceline the rider next to you could be weaker, so don't interrupt the flow. If it's windy, the difference between work and rest will be amplified, so the time spent in front changes. If they're teammates you can tell them to slow a bit. If they're opponents never, ever tell them the pace is too hot. If you're just starting, you'll have a tendency to feel hero, and stay in front too long. Don't do this. If you need a break, rather stay at the back and skip a few pulls than interrupting the speed or the flow. Don't skip every pull, or everyone will skip every pull. Try and chew a bar or drink at the back, not the front. And now you're ready to learn about swapping the rotation direction when the wind direction changes (or you go around a corner, and therefore the wind changes), and whether you should gutter in a cross-head or cross-tail wind.

Good ride, as always. Thanks for having a decent amount of marshalls, for having a longer elite and vets race, and for adding a mtb event. Also thanks for getting it right on mixing long and short routes (both races), without a real problem. It's when you don't experience any problems, that you often don't realise how difficult it is to get it that far.

I'm a very happy customer of Peach on the 1st. I can highly recommend the intermediate class to build a lot of knowledge and gain a little bit more confidence in both your equipment and yourself. Peach, it was fun!

What I did: Buy a 25mm pvc pipe (you can get them anywhere), and cut a few cm of pipe out and jam it between the rails horizontally. Now you can mount any bicycle light to that PVC pipe, because 25mm is basically a narrow seatpost. I'll try and take photos tomorrow. The bike is in the shop today. I did that because of a dropper post.

Various wrist-based monitors have various problems during exercise. One of them is that the watch bounces around if you swing your arms, and then it will underread. The iwatch is pretty bad according to dcrainmaker, and fitbit is being sued for this. http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2016/02/apple-watch-review.html http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10724270/fitbit-lawsuit-charge-hr-surge-incomplete-heart-rate-tracking

Watch or handcuffs? It could be interesting if everyone returned their watch. Since Disco changed the rules, I assume this is possible. Then Disco will have a storeroom with a few thousand watches that no-one uses that they have to pay for. I don't think it's going to happen, but I'd pay to watch it happen.

It's mostly chicory.

I do that without hitting tripple digits

Known problem. The manufacturers have worked around the problem (polar, garmin, goldencheetah,...) There are cut-outs (0 for a bit, depending on hardware), drops (wrist based HR monitor), recording hicups (1 sec vs. "smart" recording) Now Discovery is re-discovering that it ain't so easy. Again. In IT it's called NIH-syndrome (Not Invented Here.) But really the 220-max is laughable. They desperately need a sport scientist or cardiologist. Personally, I don't care. It didn't work two years ago (livingvitality). It doesn't work now. It didn't matter two years ago. It doesn't matter now.

I can understand people being angry. I only get to change the contract once a year, they get to change it whenever they feel like it... For me, though, it's more of the same. I've been through this before. I used to use their livingvitality (??) site that kept ignoring anything I uploaded. I used to use polarpersonaltrainer 5+ years ago, that konked out. And remember having to enter races through saactive? That was terrible. Discovery can't make up their mind.

It takes a few weeks. Faster or slower depending on the case and doctors involved. You can fast track it if you're on a team with a team doctor that knows all the ins and outs. You can fast track it if you've got an acute condition (eg. crashed in a stage race.); it's slower for chronic conditions. It's definitely daunting if you're working with a doctor that has never done it (as I did.) I ended up taking a few weeks off racing anyway before the process was resolved. SAIDS basically sends your doctor's motivation to another doctor, and they vet the motivation. It can go backwards and forwards a few times. I'd like the process to be simpler; I'd like to be out of the loop (I don't understand the medical jargon anyway.); I'd like it to be precise, so my doctor can actually understand their motivation. I certainly want the turnaround to be before the illness is fixed. I want all these things, but I don't have them right now and the rules apply right now. I accept that, because it doesn't affect my income.

We don't know who bungled ("we" might know, but I don't.) Did Yolande know she needed a TUE? Who was supposed to tell her? If she's pro, she's supposed to know.Did she assume a TUE for year 1 was valid in year 2 and 3?Did she apply for the TUE, but race before she got one?Did she get one, but forget to present it when being tested?Did she get one, present it, and it wasn't deemed good enough?Did she get one for drug A, and the doc switched her to generic B?

No. You apply at SAIDS. SAIDS issues it. At the end of a race, SAIDS does the tests, and you present the TUE to SAIDS when you're tested. If you're positive (bad word in this context), SAIDS notifies CSA (and, I presume, SASCOC) I'm not sure CSA is involved until the very end. At least, in theory. It's not CSAs responsibility to get your doctor and SAIDS to talk. It's yours. And you could end up feeling like a middle-man in a broken telephone game. I did. If you end up without a TUE when you need one, it's your responsibility. If you do need a TUE, I urge you to speak to both SAIDS and CSA (and TSA or any other sporting body in SA where you participate.) Do not take my word for it.