Lies - Plain and Simple

I sure wish I could ride faster

It's easy, just pour water on your head


Well who knew? Apparently you can win the Tour de France simply by drinking water and pouring some over your head. This news is going to turn the athletic world upside down.

Saris Cycling Group, the makers of the Powertap bike computer has published THIS ARTICLE entitled, "Water, Plain and Simple", written by "Dr." Allen Lim that doesn't simply postulate, imply or otherwise suggest that Floyd Landis won the Tour de France with water; the article 'confirms' that water was the miracle drug that Landis used on his amazing and superhuman Stage 17 ride.

Lim begins by saying that Landis' power output that day was well within what Landis was capable of and what he had done on previous training rides so there is no need to think that performance enhancing drugs had anything to do with it. So let's begin there too, shall we? First off, Lim is a paid endorser of Saris' Powertap and has been for a few years now. Did you get that? Paid endorser. You pay, he'll say whatever you want him to say. So you need to understand that whenever Lim opens his mouth what comes out is an advertisement or some other crap designed to convince you to buy a Powertap. OK, with that out in the open let's examine Lim's comments regarding how Landis can maintain whatever wattage for whatever period of time. Lim notes that Landis had maintained higher power on prior training rides than he did on his miracle ride. The point he attempts to make is that the ride really wasn't miraculous at all - just a normal training ride for Landis. Of course we can't know what the actual power numbers were. We simply have to trust Allen Lim and his data. But even if they are real, so what? Any suggestion that because Landis' power output during a Tour ride matches that of a training ride somehow proves that Landis didn't take drugs is stupid. Hey Lim, maybe Landis was on drugs during his training rides too.

After all of the garbage regarding power output Lim then goes on to suggest that by drinking lots of water and pouring even more over his head, Landis could easily ride away from 135 of the best cyclists on the planet. Lim states that because Landis had a Powertap during Stage 17 he could watch the wattage numbers and see that whenever he poured a bottle of cold water over his head his power output went up. Lim states, "Because of the direct and immediate feedback from the power meter, Floyd came to an immediate and extraordinarily important realization during his ride -- that every time he poured ice cold water on his body, his power output went up". Whoa, Nelly! Can you believe this? During a critical moment in the Tour a discovery of such magnitude is first discovered? Never in all of the years of cycling, the millions of people riding bikes, the billions of miles ridden on bicycles over the course of history no one ever figured out that pouring water over your head could turn you into Superman. It took Floyd Landis in a desperate situation to make this amazing discovery. Thank God he had his Powertap along with him!

Lim concludes his article with two more nuggets;

1) Pouring water over Floyd's head is, "such an extraordinary advantage that it's hard to conceive of any drug that could give him such a boost. It was water, plain and simple, not testosterone that was responsible for his incredible ride."

2) Pouring water over Floyd's head had such a huge impact that, "Floyd asked me not to mention it in my daily reports, as he wanted to keep the significance of that advantage as his own".

OK, number 1 - Pouring water over your head is more powerful than testosterone or any other performance enhancing drug? Who is he kidding? I've never heard such an asinine statement made from anyone, let alone a 'scientist'. Why would any athlete subject himself to the risks of illicit drugs if all it takes is a glass of ice water? And I'm just taking a stab in the dark here - but hasn't anyone ever poured water over his head in an athletic event before? Surely someone would have noticed this immediate and extraordinary boost in power. I once poured a glass of ice cold water over my head during the run leg of a triathlon, and still finished well off the back. What has your experience been? More akin to mine than to Landis', I'm sure.

And as for #2 - What a boatload of stinking crap! Again, people pour water over their heads in races all of the time. If this was such a performance booster surely we would have figured it out before this year's Tour. So I can't imagine an actual scenario where "Dr." Lim and Floyd had an actual conversation about this super secret. But if I could imagine it, it would go something like this;

Landis: Holy crap! Did you see my power output?
Lim: I sure did. It was amazing. Where did that come from?
Landis: It was the water.
Lim: Water? What was in it?
Landis: No, just plain water. Every time I poured some on my head I felt like Superman! It was incredible!
Lim: You mean that just by pouring water on your head you could ride faster?
Landis: Yes. Isn't that amazing?
Lim: Wow! Wait until I tell my friends.
Landis: Hold on a second. We can't let anyone know about this. I'll be using this secret to win race after race. Lance and his seven Tours? Ha! I'll win ten in a row!
Lim: But I'd really like to write about this. You know, like a scientific paper or something.
Landis: No way! Not until I retire from racing. You have to promise - you won't tell anyone.
Lim: OK, I promise.

But of course the funniest part is that Lim tells us how Landis asked him not to mention it and then it becomes the cornerstone of Lim's silly article about the miracle of water. He's telling everyone!

This whole Landis affair has turned lots of people into liars.

To read "Dr." Allen Lim's article go HERE.


It's amazing how similar Floyd and Pee Wee look after pouring water over their heads.