Get paid to ride up Mont Ventoux ... while on EPO

Researchers in the Netherlands are looking for experienced male cyclists who are willing to participate in a study that will include riding up Mont Ventoux on EPO to assess the blood boosting agent’s effect on results.

The appeal for “48 healthy, well-trained male cyclists aged between 18 and 45 years” has been launched on the website Proofpersoen – in English, “test subject.”

The study by the Centre for Human Drug Research (CHDR) in Leiden seeks to investigate “the effect of recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO) on the bike performance and potential side effects in well-trained cyclists.”

Researchers conducting it maintain that while EPO is banned under the World Anti-Doping Code, a “comprehensive literature search showed however that there has been no adequate research into the effects of EPO for cyclists.

“Our conclusion is therefore that it is not proven that EPO has a performance-enhancing effect in professional cyclists. This study should provide clarity in the matter.”

Participants in the study will be paid €860.00 as well as travel expenses, and will also get a three-day trip to Mont Ventoux as part of the trial.

Under the three-month trial, which runs from March to June, 24 particpants will have EPO administered by means of subcutaneous injection, while the other 24 will be given a placebo.

The study consists of a testing and training, research 15 days (three hours each), a race of 150 km with finish at Mont Ventoux and a follow-up inspection. During the 8-week treatment period, you should continue with your training. The examination lasts a total of 12 weeks.

Subjects will need to make 15 three-hour visits to the CHDR followed by a 150-kilometre race that ends at the summit of Mont Ventoux – which in July will also host the finish of the Bastille Day stage of the Tour de France.

In 2012, shortly after Lance Armstrong was banned, in an article published in the British Journal of Pharmacology, Adam Cohen, the CHDR’s professor in clinical pharmacology, said it was “rather naïve” to believe a cyclist could win a race purely as a result of taking EPO.

> Study claims no evidence that EPO boosts performance of elite cyclists

The article, based on the results of 13 previous studies carried out between 1991 and 2010, said there is “no scientific evidence that it does enhance performance, but there is evidence that using it in sport could place a user’s health and life at risk.”

“An elite cyclist runs on technique, on muscle power which is supplied by oxygen and glucose and amino acids and foods, on team tactics, on weather, on millions of things,” said Cohen.

“To assume that one of these factors, which is delivery of oxygen to tissue, is going to clinch the whole thing, is rather naïve.”

As we have said before, however, that doesn’t seem to address the question of what difference taking EPO makes when comparing two elite cyclists of equal ability.

It’s difficult to see how the new research will be able to address that either, since for obvious reasons current elite cyclists won’t exactly be queuing up to take part.

So participants are likely to be club cyclists (who would be advised afterwards to steer clear of a Gran Fondo or anywhere else there might be anti-doping controls) and perhaps ex-pros.