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Will homeopathy make you a fitter, faster, healthier cyclist?
Fri, Jul 21, 2017 22:07
Do homeopathic remedies have a place in your cycling armoury?
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John wrote about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day’s work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
He worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John also wrote for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site’s main audience. He joined road.cc in 2013.
John died from cancer in 2025, changing his name to John Abbott Valentine in the months before his death.
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chrisonabike 6 minutes ago
@Rendel Harris he should get back on road.cc now it does!
Mr Blackbird 15 minutes ago
@jackcycles Matt Richardson was selected based on ability, as were his team mates. Being part of the GB Cycling Squad is an extra high pressured, cutthroat workplace. Cyclists will disagree with each other and possibly dislike each other at times, but they should still be expected to treat each other with respect and decency. It would however be really disappointing if Richardson's bad behaviour has been going on for some time, not been addressed by team management and then come to a head just before the World Championships. The adverse publicity will probably affect the entire team, particularly his fellow team sprinters.
mark1212123 19 minutes ago
@chrisonabike "so wouldn’t “exercising his speech” presumably involve saying extreme things thus training for…" lol, that made me laugh, super logic.
mark1212123 22 minutes ago
@Rendel Harris lol, yep, love it, too true, thanks.
chrisonabike 24 minutes ago
@Rendel Harris obviously exercising his legs by spinning them really fast / lifting "extreme" weights is training for cycling, so wouldn't "exercising his speech" presumably involve saying extreme things thus training for... Of course since apparently only the poster knows what was said (and it's also not beyond organisations to overreact...)? And it's not impossible that things were said that sponsors - or the notoriously touchy Chinese authorities - might object to.
chrisonabike 33 minutes ago
@Rendel Harris perhaps a Germanic literary allusion - didn't Kafka pun on that in a couple of stories ("Verkehr" - "traffic" but slang for intercourse)? At the end of "The Judgement" IIRC?
chrisonabike 41 minutes ago
@eburtthebike this reminds me of a segment of a recent notjustbikes video *. Amsterdam ran a trial modal filtering ("knip") of a much more major road. And that was also reversed. Why? "Too soon". The residents on the road all strongly approved. However traffic *did* increase a bit on neighbouring roads, and those residents were very unhappy. Conclusions? Most people *really* don't like sharing their space with lots of motor traffic. As soon as they get long enough to appreciate the difference they aren't keen to go back. However ... our current transport systems are still strongly "driveogenic". Where there is a way, people (maybe sent via the algorithms) *will* drive it. It does take some time for the system to rebalance. Or rather - for people to alter their habits eg. stop trying to "squeeze through" or "I'll chance the traffic..." Or get used to driving to the main road, along that, then to the shops, rather than cutting through... There will also always be some "demand" because most traffic we see is "passing through" - on its way from somewhere else to somewhere else. Although apparently a significant amount is people just driving round looking for (free) parking. * "Amsterdam keeps getting better" - on the progress of the Amsteram "nearly car free" plans ("Amsterdam makes room")
Rendel Harris 42 minutes ago
@mdavidford "That's not actually the sort of congestion to which we were referring, sir..."
mark1212123 53 minutes ago
@Blackthorne83 What do you mean by employing the term woke here? Are you using the original version and you consider the "snitcher" 'awake' and not asleep? Are you using the version historians use to highlight the deletion of African American history? Or are you using the term in the same way my racist reformer neighbour mantras it this past decade? For context - I have asked my neighbour what he means when he employs the term publicly. His response was as melancholy as it was revealing.
19 thoughts on “Will homeopathy make you a fitter, faster, healthier cyclist?”
It might … the placebo
It might … the placebo effect does work on some people some of the time … the precise treatment doesn’t matter … its belief that produces the required effect. Just don’t count on it working as success cannot be predicted or guaranteed. For a stronger effect you could always try a hay fever remedy.
Yes. As pointed out above, if
Yes. As pointed out above, if the complaint is psychosomatic in origin homeopathy has as much chance of working as anything else. A positive attitude and belief that something can and will be cured / improved also correlates well with improvement. So, homeopathy may have a place, but so might your horoscope
But if you believe in
But if you believe in homeopathy and you use it to enhance performance, then even though there is no medication as such to detect in a test, surely you are still morally guilty of a doping offence?
Mungecrundle wrote:
The same thing could be said about eating a banana, or an ‘energy’ bar…
caaad10 wrote:
The same thing could be said about eating a banana, or an ‘energy’ bar…— Mungecrundle
I don’t recall any person detected as a drug cheat claiming they took a bunch of pills because they were hungry.
Mungecrundle wrote:
Presumably then you will receive a homeopathic ban? Banned from one in 10^20 events.
Mungecrundle wrote:
This is along the lines of a question my daughter asked today
“If a dog farts in the woods and there’s no-one there, does it still smell?”
madcarew wrote:
This is along the lines of a question my daughter asked today
“If a dog farts in the woods and there’s no-one there, does it still smell?”— Mungecrundle
I prefer Steven Wright’s:
“If a man says something in the woods and there are no women there, is he still wrong?”
Homeopathy
Q. What do you call alternative medicine that works?
A. Medicine
Short, sharp and to the point
Short, sharp and to the point. Well put.
How are they going to test
How are they going to test for homeopathic doping? I bet they’d get loads of false positives.
Regarding the placebo affect, there must be a cheaper way of taking placebos than the high priced homeopathic “products” (water).
hawkinspeter wrote:
No, if it’s too cheap it won’t work as well … we have a tendency to believe something is better the more it costs.
nbrus wrote:
Sounds like titanium bits for bikes.
Even though homeopathy is
Even though homeopathy is pure quackery and completely useless, if a rider uses it in an attempt to improve performance, they can be banned.
6.3. Athletes’ health care providers should act in accordance with the latest recognised medical knowledge and, when available, evidence-based medicine.
DavidC wrote:
Does this also apply to swimmers? If a swimmer deliberately ingests some sea-water then they’re essentially taking every single homeopathic remedy at once including the banned substances.
I drink Homeopathic Lager
I drink Homeopathic Lager when riding my bike.
Leviathan wrote:
Really? I just don’t like the taste of Aussie lager, but if you like it…
Merely dressing up in skin
Merely dressing up in skin tight lycra, often explicitly trying to look like other grown fit men who dress in skin tight lycra, then following them around all day getting sweaty whilst looking at their arses does NOT in ANY WAY imply that cycllists are homeos….
The theory of homeopathy says
The theory of homeopathy says that the more a substance is diluted, the more effective it becomes. How come it doesn’t work for alcohol then ?