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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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Rendel Harris 3 minutes ago
@theslowcyclistxx Carbon wheels correctly built for their intended purpose can take a tremendous amount of punishment, as can be seen from downhill mountain biking where carbon wheels survive massive jumps, high speed crashing over rock gardens et cetera et cetera. If this wheelset is not designed for that that's fine but then it should not be falsely marketed as being as strong as XC MTB wheels when clearly it isn't.
theslowcyclistxx 23 minutes ago
@Rendel Harris Carbon is not designed for crashing. It should be able to withstand small jumps and rough terrain, but to expect a lightweight carbon wheelset to withstand direct impact from a rock is a bit optimistic - even for a wheelset marketed as XC ready.
Rendel Harris 55 minutes ago
@theslowcyclistxx As I said above, the manufacturer claims that these wheels are "as strong as XC MTB wheels"; XC MTB involves a lot of crashing through tree roots and over fairly gnarly rocky sections, if these wheels can't cope with that sort of punishment then the manufacturers shouldn't make such claims about them. If they are only designed for well packed fine gravel roads then so be it, but they should be marketed as such and not with claims to which they clearly can't live up.
Shades 1 hour ago
As a Bath cyclist, all they really needed to do was to make the short spur of road at the NW corner 2-way for bikes (currently one-way going S; cars and bikes) and use the funds elsewhere (for active travel). Bikes could then just follow the clockwise one-way around the park; the SE corner feeds you into the cycle route that goes through town. I'd have more sympathy for the opponents (with their usual "I support active travel, but what about the children playing" platitudes ie I don't want to lose my cheap parking/rat-run) if the recent (small) protest wasn't heavily promoted by the 'cycle-haters' who regularly rage against the new bike lanes on Nextdoor. I'm conditioned to Bath traffic, but if it encourages some people out of their cars, then build it. As someone who pretty much walks or cycles around Bath all the time, I've been 'beaten-up' by Bath drivers for long enough (18 years) that anything that sticks it to them is fine by me.
eburtthebike 1 hour ago
"Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria told media, “These are some of the busiest streets in all of North America. We need to restore them to vehicle lanes to stop the congestion." It beggars belief that in this day and age, a 'transportation minister' can spout such incredible lies. Anyone with the faintest appreciation of transport knows that cycle lanes don't cause congestion: in fact, they alleviate it. Still, it's nice to know, well, not that nice, but interesting, that the utter incompetents aren't restricted to the UK. Is Doug Ford the Canadian equivalent of Trump or Nigel? Full of fake news and excrement. We could learn a thing or two from our Canadian cousins though, and start organising protests to stop the removal of bike lanes. If we can present some convoluted reasoning which showed that cycle lanes were bad for asylum seekers, we'd get lots of blokes wearing black with balaclavas supporting us.
Surreyrider 2 hours ago
Just go for 32/34 tyres instead - a lot cheaper.
theslowcyclistxx 3 hours ago
@Rendel Harris I don’t agree that a light gravel wheelset is expected to withstand impacts from rocks. Yes, it should be able to withstand potholes and also a cross country track, but if ridden directly into a rock, I would expect any carbon wheelset to be finished.
mark1a 4 hours ago
Something worth a mention in indoor cycling accessories is a rocker plate. Long rides on an indoor trainer can start to hurt after a while, and a decent rocker plate gives enough side to side and fore/aft movement to help prevent this. I acquired a TurboRocks Realplate React a year or so ago, it's very well made and the service from order to collection was excellent. It took a few weeks to get used to it, until the motion felt natural, but after that, longer sessions became much more comfortable. My current setup:
chrisonabike 4 hours ago
@eburtthebike now wondering if anyone has looked at the possible benefits of promoting cycling *goggles*, since the eyes are very easily injured but also easily protected. Presumably rather rare, but eye damage can have massive impact on someone's life...
chrisonabike 4 hours ago
The horizontal component will mean that on impact there's drag and so torque (not good) but that energy will mostly be dissipated over time (sliding) so much less peak force (ignoring torque briefly). ...but isn't the fate of many crashing motorcyclists decided when their flight / slide is checked by encountering a horizontal surface? If they do that with their head that torque could fatally damage the neck / brain, or their head / helmet then absorbs the likely much greater energy than the vertical fall. So the horizontal part matters - albeit still subject to the limited ability of currently practical helmets to help. Sounds like a good idea to wear one regardless of exactly how much it mitigates any of these risks. Not only keeps the law (and the in-laws?) happy but keeps debris out of your eyes, your ears from being blasted by so much wind, rain off your head etc. All of which would be very distracting and could well contribute to crashing in the first place. Bicycle helmets - slightly different calculation for me, since a hat and glasses do much of that and I'm rarely at wind-noise-deafening speed. Although abrasion protection is (and has been) welcome.
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 ?