Please.....Let's not hold Landis out as any great fountain of wisdom.

Leaving aside his questionable intelligence, he is also the guy who tried to blackmail Lemond by exposing deep, personal secrets.

You'll excuse me if I don't think much of his opinions (even if I happen to agree with some aspects of what he said).

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We didn't we held him out as a fountain of humor


I guarantee his IQ is above average


He was in the sport, and is one of the few people actually spewing about how it works. I would listen.

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Beware the man with nothing left to lose, for he's the one to whom the truth bears no threat. Sure he's had a checkered past and made plenty of ridiculous statements, but the veracity of his claims has tended to rise in inverse proportion to how much he has left to protect.

All good stuff.

But the question in my mind, is what are these guys on? Still epo? Or a new undetectable compound?



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You guys are both confusing the veracity of his statements re: his involvement in the past vs. the value of his opinions now.

And let me be clear - I think Flandis got jobbed by the system, both the actual system and Omertà. I am sympathetic to his plight, but not who he is as a person.

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They still aren't climbing any faster than the pre-epo guys did*, so that is good.

*or not much, you have to adjust for the fact that equipment is better in most, but not all, ways than it was pre EPO, so it is an imperfect comparison

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Aren't they climbing about as fast as the epo peloton did?


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They are, which is why people are rightly skeptical. The bio passport means you can't blatantly dope anymore, but you can microdose EPO and do small infusions to top up your hematocrit with little chance of getting caught.

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I think he's saying that could partly be attributed to equipment. I'm sure the training and nutrition is probably a bit better these days also.

Floyd is great, he's one of the only riders that speaks "unfiltered"

I am sure you are serious.

But it's weird, whenever I now hear the phrase,"the training and nutrition is better these days", I can think of only thing:
that the phrase is a 'cover' for drugs.


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While on a long ride a triathlete friend asked me if I thought that the peloton had cleared up from drugs.

I am sad to say no way, that everyone is running 100% clean.

Not to falsely accuse the pro's but:
1. race times never slowed down, so if EPO helped so much, how come?
- Waiting on the study that says that EPO was all fake and give Lance his crap back ha!
2. once you get on the spotlight suddenly you are superstar (not always).
- A lot of folks went from being good to superstar status in light speed. (lots of training?)


Anyone has seen the newbie beating Cavendish(getting old and slow?) in the Sprint down in San Luis? Not normal....

why not just let athletes dope if they want to? you know that there are people out there developing new PEDs and testing them on willing or not so willing athletes in most sports. its like calling college athletes student/athletes. think about the research on head trauma in football, hockey, etc. it's more about bad PR that cycling has gotten a bad rap for doping than they are using more PEDs than athletes in other sports.

On a 'moral' level, I have no problem with this. The problems come with the various concoctions. Athletes are and will be dropping dead. Even more so if sports become more of a free for all. All this nasty sh*t athletes take have short and long-term side effects, some of them are death and/or cancer. Then, if the rules change, we have to change how we cheer: it will no longer be, "Go Lance ! Go Levi !" but instead, "Go Amgen ! Go Pfizer !" A doped sport is profoundly uninteresting to watch. Another thing, if you have a son or daughter who starts to excel at a young age in a sport, knowing the sport is legally doped, do you encourage them to further excel and go pro? I sure as hell would not. Even Mike Ditka wouldn't want his kids playing football, I think he knows something.


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You're assement is not wrong, but I think that there is more to consider. Training IS better. Not only that, but riders don't show up at the tour with nearly as much racing in their legs as they did in the Lemond era. Riders now have better training methods (the legit ones), more focused preparation, and are not as worn down at the start of the Tour as in the past. Also bikes are light years better than in the Lemond era. Greg won the tour in '85 on a bike that probably weighed on the order of 20-21 pounds, with 32 spoke aluminum rims. Not to mention that it probably had a 7 speed freewheel with a 39x23 low gear whereas now guys have a 39x26 (at least) to save their legs more and a bike that weighs about 5-6 pounds less.

So where does the EPO era fit in? Indurain's bikes were probably very similar to Lemond's, but Armstrongs were probably somewhere in the middle. (Let's be realistic, Indurain was the start of the EPO era as far as grand tours go.) I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Armstrong's 1999 Tour bike weighed in at around 18 pounds or so. Remember that he rode Ksryium wheels which by modern standards aren't particularly light or aero.

So, to accurately compare climbing times between eras you have to take the following factors into account.
1. Equipment. Modern bikes are lighter, more comfortable and more aerodynamic.
2. Clothing. Modern clothing is more comfortable and more aero. Helmets are light and cooling, but EPO era guys didn't wear helmets...
3. Preparation. Legitimate preparation. Modern GT riders are better prepared at the start of the Tour than Lemond era guys, but probably similar to Armstrong era guys. But as a whole, the peloton is probably better prepared at the start of the Tour than even the Armstrong era.
4. Tactics. You can't compare climb times in a vacuum. Lemond's Alpe d'Huez time (182.5 km stage) is pedestrian, but he had been off the front for probably 80 km or more and he rode at a pace to be with his team mate. It's difficult to compare it to an 15.5 km ITT (Armstrong) or in a controlled race where the leader hit the bottom of the Alpe in a pack (Armstrong (209 km), Pantani (203 km)), to Pierre Rolland in 2011 (110 km). Not to mention what was on the line for the GC big hitters. Is that where he made his move for the jersey or was it a stage with a break off the front the the GC leaders just rode to control each other?
5. Where in the Tour was this climb? By this wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/...lpe_d%27Huez#Winners Alpe d'Huez has been anywhere from the 8th stage to the 20th stage. That makes a difference. Also, what was that particular stage like? Was it 110 km with basically one climb like in 2011 or was it a 3 or 4 pass 200 km slog like in other years.

My point is that comparing climb times in the Tour de France is not at all like comparing 10,000 times on the track. There are lots of variable and I think that people put more weight into just the raw climbing time that is appropriate.

That doesn't mean I believe that the modern peloton is pure as the driven snow. But the idea that you can or can't deduce that Froome or Nibali is doping based on comparing climbs in the Tour to the past is just way too fraught with errors.

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Landis: One of the only people telling it like it is.

Really. Anyone who does not question the transformation of Wiggins, Froome, Porte, and Rogers at Sky is either British or an idiot, probably both because I don't think idiots not in the UK are dumb enough to believe this fairy tale.

Froome is climbing as fast as Armstrong. He broke Armstrong's Madone record. Porte was a few seconds behind. Neither of those guys were beating full grown men as a teenager, so I am not buying into the risible theory that Froome is the greatest talent the sport has ever seen (even though he could barely get a pro contract before he transformed and his own team manager rated him as the worst rider on the team).

and these where LA's talking points when he was climbing like man on Drugs too....they might not be SUPER doped but doped none the less.

Agreed.

But what are they on? Microdoses? Something new?


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I think drug assisted weight loss is part of it. For climbing, a 10% decrease in weight can match the performance gains from EPO. But I also think there is something else going on. Sky was flying. No one could match them for two years. Now the others have caught up. I don't believe the official propaganda that says none of the lazy continentals knew how to train until Sky came along.

But that would assume you can keep up your power output.
Because, if you're already very light, and then drop another 10%, that's gotta affect power output.

I think it is something else ... not sure what though.


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Dang, more good stuff from floyd, this time about lemond:

“I would never pretend to know what I'd do in Greg's shoes. Nor do I know all of what went on between him and Armstrong,” Landis told Cyclingnews. “I can certainly empathize with his personal distaste for Armstrong. However, his inconsistent treatment of riders who doped is troubling and undercuts his argument that Armstrong should be banned for life.”

Landis points to an episode from last year in which LeMond was seen at the Tour de France with former winners Miguel Indurain and Bernard Hinault.

“For example just last year he was seen waiving to crowds from a VIP car at the Tour along with Indurain and Hinault. Greg himself claims to have quit racing in the early 90s because EPO showed up and that is exactly when Indurain began winning. If clean riders were a victim of doping in the Armstrong era and he was a victim of doping in the early 90s then it defies reason why those two should be treated so differently,” Landis said.

“And for those who still have faith in the Indurain years, consider LeMond's comments last year that Pantani was one of the greatest ever. I think that should speak for itself. His wildly varying positions on different dopers are bizarre and indefensible. Greg needs to decide if he’s anti-doping or anti-Lance.”

Direct link:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/...ng-lacks-consistency

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Yeah, it is not like Flandis doesn't have his own axe to grind against Lemond.

His comments re: consistency thus ring more than a bit hollow.

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Axe to grind or not they are good points.

Not really....hypocritical perhaps.

Flandis is as much anti-Lance as he portends Lemond is. All his actions were driven by his desire to expose LA and get revenge. It had nothing to do with being anti-doping.

The fact of the matter is that Flandis needs to make comments like this to stay in the limelight. But his pot o' gold is coming and then he will slink away.

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When he gets his pot of gold he will get the last laugh. The fact is Armstrong made a mistake in crossing Landis. For all his faults, and we know Landis fights dirty, Landis deserves credit for bringing down Armstrong and the rest. Don't forget it was only the threat of prison which made all the others confess. Sang like canaries when confronted by federal agent Jeff Novitzky.

I don't think he has ever been anti-dope, I don't think he cares about a clean sport. Just fairness (not rules)....and I'll bet the press finds him. Revenge driven yes, looking for the lime light. That's not what FL is about....

That is how it should work with riders who are already at anorexic weight.

But take Wiggins. For all the myths of his time trialing prowess, he had a pretty piss poor record against top dogs on the road in time trials. I don't think he ever won a long time trial before he transformed. He supposedly loses a ton of weight so he can climb then becomes the best or second best time trialist in the world. His statements on weight don't even make sense. His people will say he needs to gain weight to gain power for P-R or the track but the best he has ever been was when he was at freaky low weight. Heck, Wiggins never placed in the top 100 of the Tour before 2009.

Froome had a similar drop in weight and increase in trime trialing ability. He started out as a total chump and his team said they never put him in a wind tunnel until after his transformation.

Rogers when he was at Sky said he was the lightest he had been since he was sixteen but had increased his FTP by 7%, and Rogers was a client of Dr. Ferrari and on a team with a teamwide doping program (T-Mobile) before he went to Sky.

OK, so you agree he is a hypocrite. Glad we could clear that up.

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That is why I like Landis. He makes it clear that he does not feel bad about doping, that doping in cycling was the way it was and that what was required to race against other people who were doping. I do not believe for a second these sob stories by riders who are caught and pretend they are sorry. Worse are the ones who try to blame their decisions on others. "The big bad Bruyneel tied me down and forced me to dope. He also forced me to take $15K a year in salary, less money than I could have made working at Micky D's. Wah wah wah."

"Worse are the ones who try to blame their decisions on others. "The big bad Bruyneel tied me down and forced me to dope."

It's never my fault! Love that.....

Wiggins transformation happened before he went to Sky.

nice videos like this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbO_te8cv7c

Wiggins never really trained properly in the past. He was good but never brilliant and riding clean. Once the blatant doping was out of the sport - he had a chance to do well and he took it.

Remember all the ex Disco riders getting busted ? That's not happened with ex Sky riders.

Wiggins was not training with Garmin. JV has said that Wiggins was off on his own with BC people, so you cannot pass the blame onto Garmin.


Oh, brother. Wiggins accepted salary as a road pro for seven years before he finally decided he might want to train a bit? Really? And it turns out that when he does bother to train then he is just as good as dopers? So why didn't he train in the first place? It would not have mattered if everyone else was doping because he still would have been a contender. Is this really the explanation being trotted out by the true believers?

Landis hit the nail on the head. What we have seen from certain riders, in words and deed, does not make a lot of sense in a supposedly clean era.

You might be right, but what is your evidence or proof? Is it like porn, where you know doped riding when you see it?

My point is that what I see on this and many other forums is a bunch of dip shits who don't really know all that much about cycling, but point out one factoid as proof that rider x is doping.

I do not know whether Froome, Porte, Wiggins, Nibali, etc. are doping or not. I don't have any evidence that they are and I don't have any evidence that they aren't so I am unwilling to assert one way or the other. You on the other hand have the same set of facts as me and yet you KNOW they are doping.

All I'm saying is that comparing climbing speed on a particular climb in the Tour de France or even on a training ride from 15 years ago to today is WAY more complicated than just looking at the time. And anybody who uses that as evidence is doing way to much hand waving in their argument and not enough (really any) science to prove one way or another.

Things that prove doping include, a positive test, a confession, testimony from somebody who has witnessed the doping. Things that do not prove doping. "Wow, look how fast he's climbing."

Everybody is entitled to their OPINION as to whether or not somebody is doping. But when you state opinion as fact, you just look like an idiot.

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Looking at Wiggins' palmares, I don't quite agree.

He took 7th in Road World TT in 2005. 10th in 2007. And won a bunch of minor TTs. That's at the same time he was pretty dominant in track, and track was his primary goal. His emergence as a road rider occurred after he quit track.

But even when he was doing focusing track, he could still crack the top 10 twice at TT Worlds. It's totally plausible he could jump from top 10 to top-3-ish.

Not saying he's not a doper. Just saying that you're going to have to do a lot better than trotting out his TT results since he was basically a world class TTer out of the gate. And then one of the top 3 in the world once he focused on it.

Only time will tell, it took a lot of years for for the LA hammer to drop, and the riders found positive has not fallen off. So not too much has changed (this would include all sport) .

AICAR in combo with GW1516. The russians have been dinged for the latter, not sure there is a test for the former. It's become common when you see someone go epically gaunt all of sudden (recently: cough* richie porte* cough) to assume it's this combo.

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Awesome. Win a couple of races now, get cancer in the near future. Not exactly a win-win. More like crazy.


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That combo is already 5-7 years old.

Probably 1-2 generations back of what gives you an edge nowadays.

Clearly, no one commenting about Wiggins has much to do with British Cycling.

If you did, you would know that Wiggins has indeed had a problem in the past - with alcohol. After the Athens (and Beijing) Olympics, he spent six months plus inside a bottle, and this has been a regular feature of his career until about 2009. This is common knowledge among anyone who has met Wiggins, but obviously not something that we shout from the roof.

Remember that when Wiggins did win the Tour, he had no really steep climbs to contend with (and we saw how easily Froome dropped him) and won it on his TT prowess. He never underwent the sort of transformation we saw with Armstrong, who for all his faults, did not spend entire years pissed..

As for Landis, I remember when he joined the Daily Peloton forum to proclaim his innocence for something that he was clearly guilty for. He is every bit as psychotic as Armstrong although does a better impression of being normal.

I think most people will still have a healthy skeptism, regardless of their domicile.

As an aside, could you find the UK on one of those American atlases you all have ;-)

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29 years and counting

They are on their bikes. Riding 6 - 8 hours a day.

(Sorry, couldn't resist). ;-P

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Didn't the Daily Peloton discontinue the discussion forums?

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nslckevin wrote:

Things that prove doping include, a positive test, a confession, testimony from somebody who has witnessed the doping. Things that do not prove doping. "Wow, look how fast he's climbing."

I've said this before on ST and I'll say it again. Here are three things that we've been told that can't all be true:

• "...the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen." (USADA)
• EPO can provide up to "...a 20 percent power gain!" (Vaughters)
• The current top riders are clean. (not sure if you are saying this or not but some are)

Why can't they all be true? Because hill climb times are about the same. Sure, it matters what the wind was, where in the race, stage, etc the climb appeared, but there are too many observations to fall back on those explanations now. Day in and day out, no matter where the climb falls, on average climb speeds are in the same ball park as they were before. Certainly they are nowhere near 20% slower. The peloton slowed bit for a year or two, but they are now back to about where they were before.


So at least one of the bullets above is false. I actually think they're all false.

I wouldn't place any faith on anything Floyd says even now. Just because you find some of his statements more credible now than you did before doesn't mean you should extend that credibility to things you can't verify. The guy has proven he will say anything if he thinks it is in his interest. He does come up with some good one-liners though!

Floyd really reminds me of Canseco in baseball. No one likes them but they keep talking and the things they say end up being true. Just because no one likes them doesn't mean they are lying. They may suck as humans and they may slant things to reflect their own point of view, but it gets harder and harder to ignore what they are saying.

I'd love to believe that endurance sports are clean, but every time I see a great performance I always get the same feeling that I did when Nina Kraft blew the field away at Kona. That just ain't right.

You can't just say let them dope. If you do that, you are making anyone who wants to compete dope. We know doping works, to compete you would have to dope.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

We know "...the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen" was complete bullshit. It was rhetoric put out by Tygart to vilify his targets and get his name in the news. USPS' program was not even the most sophisticated among the various teams the witnesses rode for.

Storing your blood in an apartment closet to be watched over by an injured teammate with a high school education (USPS) is more sophicated than storing it at a University watched over by PhDs (T-Mobile)? Really?

USPS' program seems quite limited compared to teams like Liberty Seguros. USPS was only interested in doping part of the team that was needed for the Tour. The Operation Puerto records show LS and Kelme had pretty much every rider on a program for every race of the year.

Care to point out anything Landis has said since he decided to come clean that you think is a lie?

Well, except for the fact that Floyd wrote a book that even he will admit is filled with lies.

That's a good question. I can't think of a specific recent statement that I think of as an outright falsehood. However, Floyd has definitely manipulated the truth to suit his purpose, and I think that behavior continues. He lied back then when it suited him: his legal defense fund, the book he wrote are good examples. A lot of people might lie a bit in such a situation, but these are extraordinary lengths to go to. I had dinner with him back around 2009, when he was just starting riding again. He was definitely not anti-doping at that time. On the contrary, he was lashing out against all the anti-doping forces trying to keep people like him out of the sport. (Remember Rock Racing?) Fast forward one year after that and suddenly he has to "clear my conscience" and "no longer wants to be part of the problem". I don't believe that crap for one second. Floyd does what's best for Floyd. Just because telling the truth happens to be convenient sometimes doesn't mean he won't change tune when it's not. But yeah I don't know if any of the stories he's peddling these days are true, half-true, or false. I just don't trust him.

Just curious....did you say "that just ain't right" when Chrissie shattered PNF's (once) course record @ Roth, or when she then shattered her own record the following year? Or when she arrived essentially out of nowhere and dominated IM distance races?

It is pretty easy to point the finger at Kraft when the evidence proves she doped, but how come no one ever questions Chrissie's dominance?

and no, I am not saying CW doped.....but people love to look at performances and say "DOPE!!" but for some reason Chrissie avoids this accusation. I find the difference interesting.

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Plenty have.

Personally, I question anyone who dominates a sport. One thing that this whole deal has taught me is to be a massive cynic.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

So you have nothing other than you are shocked people act in their own interest.

Landis has been clear about why he came forward: If he could still be part of the sport then he felt he could live with the lying but when he was blackballed there was no reason to continue protecting everyone.

Again, I'll take Landis' and Armstrong's honesty about whether they would dope again in the same situation over those continuing to lie about how they feel bad about doping (JV's crew).

Some of you guys seem to be acting personally butthurt by Floyd and it's clouding your logic... You "don't trust him?" So he's a morally bereft scuzzball, BFD ~ it's not like he's asking permission to date my daughter. You cite examples of him being dishonest back in 2009, which just as I originally pointed out was back when he still had some shred of a livelihood left to try and cling to, so of course he was trying to protect what he thought he still could. Duh.

But you can't just simply write him off as a Liar and then dismiss anything else he has to say without looking at the merit of a claim (or lack thereof). If he originally lied about doping when he first got busted, and now says he was lying back then, it's a logical impossibility that both claims can be false; one of them mathematically HAS to be true. Yes, sorry it makes your brain hurt that a known liar can turn around and say things that are in fact true, but there it is. So which is more plausible: He was lying to save his job or what was left of it then (c.2006-2009 or thereabouts), or he really was clean all along and now he's just blowing smoke about doping back in the day so he can get some fresh publicity? Really?

Nobody's saying he's a great guy, only that (just like Canseco) there's no point in lying to protect The System once he's no longer part of it, so adjust your filters accordingly.

"He was lying to save his job or what was left of it"

Like we all would (or have ) to save your lively-hood.....and Floyd is a nice guy with sense of humor.

I would say I fear that what she did wasn't clean. I really want these guys to be clean and to have the amazing performances to be valid. I'm not betting my house on it.

I have very low confidence that the field in any endurance sport is clean, so by extension I have to fear the winner is not either. I don't find them to be morally repugnant like some do, if I were in the same position I cannot say for certain that I would not do the same, especially if I thought my competitors were doing the same.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

If fraud and blackmail make your list of characteristics for a "nice guy", we clearly have different standards.

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I would say it more like a trap animal fighting for he's life at one point. I'll give him a pass....

as I do to, Levi, Tyler, Etc. Etc......

Yeah, Olympic Gold Medalist and World Champion pursuiters are generally poor time trialers. I'm not saying Wiggins is clean but at least take some time to be informed about his background.

Landis. He makes some good points. He also lied about doping, then bilked people out of money to fraudently defend himself. Quite an honorable individual, do you think he'll use whistleblower winnings to repay those debts?

Maybe you should take the time to actually inform yourself about Wiggins performance on the road. It was not great until he had his transformation, hence all the laughable excuses like Wiggins never bothered to train for the road.


Seeing as how Landis has a deferred prosecution agreement contingent on repayment, I'll have to go with yes. LA will involuntarily end up repaying everyone who was dumb enough to think a Tour winner who had tested positive was not doping.

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As I said, we clearly have different standards.

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He won smaller stage races and placed high in prologues and TTs before his first switch to track, then more stage wins and top 10s at worlds TT prior to joining Garmin. That he had had a steady rise and progression of results all the way until 2012 when he basically won everything--with a dominant TT and surviving in the mountains--isn't a huge leap.

Believe what you want but at least get the facts straight.

20% power is a very different thing than 20% speed. Just saying. You'd have to do some math using the gradient, estimate rider weight, estimated power, etc, to calculate difference in speed. The difference in speed will be considerably smaller in magnitude than the difference in power.

It's difficult to find data on the benefits of EPO on power. There is one study that showed a 13% increase in power. Though it wasn't a perfect study because the test subjects weren't blinded - they knew they were taking EPO.

20%, I'd speculate, is a bit of an exaggeration, but possibly by not all that much.

The first statement is a judgment call. Though I think the "successful" claim is probably definitively true if you measure success by major wins.

For the last, I think the top riders are what I call "cleanish." Which is to say, dopers, but at a significantly reduced level from the 90's. It's more of a state of regulated doping vs. a free-for-all.

I think plenty of people have rubbed their chins when observing CW's dominance - moving from self confessed 'muppet' to Kona champion in 18 months. In any case, I saw her cutting about in Bristol last summer; she still looks like she could make a comeback tomorrow.

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29 years and counting

Get your facts right. Those small stage races were early season races with no climbing and no TdF level contenders involved.

What steady progression? He never placed in the top 100 of the Tour until 2009. He never won a long time trial against top competition until 2012. Suddenly in 2012, he wins everything he enters then says he doesn't think he can bother training for the Tour again. Name a rider who won the TdF then proclaimed he did not want to train for it again. It was just damned strange.

You would be hard pressed to find another rider, other than Froome, with a more bizarre "progression" to dominant Tour winner. The fact that two anomalies are on the same team that hired a dope doctor is suspicious as hell.

Not sure that quote is mine.

The relationship between power and speed on steep climbs is almost linear and more predictable than on other terrain, but still has a level of uncertainty due to factors mentioned earlier in this thread and some that I have pointed out before on my blog. Looking at the TdF ADH data, the speed differential of top riders was a bit more than 10% between pre-EPO and the full retard eras.

EPO has other benefits apart from increasing threshold power for climbs such as this. Aside from recovery, consider the slope of the MMP curve is pretty flat at longer durations, so think about what even modest improvements in threshold mean for ones endurance at sub-threshold power.

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http://www.cyclecoach.com
http://www.aerocoach.com.au

Alp d'huez is only around 8%, and the 20ish MPH speeds are certainly enough for significant aero drag, so I bet the relationship isn't quite linear for those guys.

They are riding at ~20km/h, not mph.

At those speeds and power on such a gradient, the speed-power relationship nearly linear.

This is you would expect since the increase in gravitational potential energy accounts for 85+% of the total energy demand, and the power required to increase gravitational potential is linear with speed (and linear with mass).

Power to overcome changes in potential energy = bike velocity x total mass x acceleration due to gravity x sin(arctan(gradient))

Accounting for all resistance forces in play, for these speeds/powers on 8% gradient:
1% increase in power = 0.84% increase in speed
5% increase in power = 4.1% increase in speed
10% increase in power = 8.2% increase in speed.

That's nearly linear.

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http://www.cyclecoach.com
http://www.aerocoach.com.au

Woops! My bad. When is the rest of the world going to get in line with 'Murican units?

Perhaps ask the pilot of Air Canada flight 143 what he thinks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

Because the pilot would use knots as a his unit as speed?

The big difference between CW and the likes of Wiggo and Froome is that CW rose to dominance very quickly after becoming a pro and not like the others who were in the sport as a pro for years and years prior to winning the TdF. This means improvements in training, gear, ect. are likely to have had a huge impact on her raise where as the same argument is really weak for Wiggo. Its easier to imagine how large fitness gains can be made without drugs when the jump is from amateur to fully supported pro rather than fully supported pro to pro supported by a team proud of 'taking advantage of all marginal gains'. Doesn't prove shes was clean by a long shot but does bypass many of the questions surrounding how some of the top peleton guys suddenly got so good.