I Hate to do this but Brad Wiggins

[franciep10]

The guy has been the revelation of the tour and he has been very impressive, but this is a guy who was a prologue rider at best, now he's one of the best stage racers in the world, go in a time machine go back two years ago and tell your past self that brad wiggins will be a bona-fide podium contender in the TDF, and you would slap your future self in the face. What I'm hearing is that he has lost weight so he is a much better climber, that makes sense as I am a much better climber now at 39 than when i was at 25, because I lost weight, but the side effect is that I don't have the power I used to have so I lack in the time trial. Now brad wiggins has become a climber while keeping his time trial ability after losing about 8 kilos, Now that sounds like the excuse for a certain rider, when he became the revelation of the tour.

[rolfrae]

Saying he was a prologue rider at best suggests that he had no other sporting success. Remember he has numerous Olympic and track gold medals to his name. I have been a cycling fan long enough to be burnt so I won't/can't 100% advocate any rider but Wiggins hasn't been sitting on his **** smoking dope and listening to Paul Weller for the past few years. He's one of the best track riders of his generation and has shifted focus. There has always been quality to this athlete.

[franciep10]

I was talking about his performance on the road, i know how great he is as a track racer.

[rolfrae]

I was talking about his performance on the road, i know how great he is as a track racer.

So we agree that he has a proven pedigree as a top cyclist, albeit on the boards and not the road. He has shifted focus (specialty) and appears still to be a top cyclist. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt, only because he has long been outspoken in his criticism of doping, has been in the British Cycling team and is on the Garmin team, both of which have a strict anti-doping ethos and additional blood monitoring. As I said on another thread, if he lets me (us) down I will drive down to England and kick his skinny ****.

[blackcat]

I was talking about his performance on the road, i know how great he is as a track racer.

I have to disagree. The track lacks the depth. Who has any doubt that a fit Cancellara and Hushovd would pump Wiggin's on the pursuit if they had the track skillset and the soupless.

He won a chrono in something like Dunkirk and Sarthe, and that was it, apart from pumping Raisin in a two-up CA break sprint at l'Avenir and the prologue in the same year.

I thought and want to think he is clean. But as Boardman said "if it is too good to be true, it probably is".

[the truth.]

we have to hope.
there has to be a time where we start hoping, start trusting.

In my view the world class engine with the lighter body is the current leader of the tour de france.
1 and 2 our astana LADS- i may be optimistic but im not stupid.

[blackcat]

we have to hope.
there has to be a time where we start hoping, start trusting.

In my view the world class engine with the lighter body is the current leader of the tour de france.
1 and 2 our astana LADS- i may be optimistic but im not stupid.

disagree. without skepticism, you have the status quo, and who wants that. Trouble is, parse the difference between a finger pointing hue and cry, and advancing a drug free agenda. I probably come across as wanting him burned at the stake, but that in itself, is not natural justice, in terms of universality tenet. Why should Landis and Vino hold the can, for the entire sport.

[Porkpie]

I remember watching wiggins at the Good Friday track meeting at herne hill a few years back ( pre-olympic golds i think 2002)
He just rode away from a ultra classy field of mostly road pros, I thought then when he was giving it everything just how smooth he was.
I'm just surprised it took this long for him to get back to what he has the natural talent for.


But just think if Brad had gotten in an early break and gained 5 or 8 minutes like Claudio Chiappucci did when he first came to head of the game in 1991 ??

[Jamsque]

It is right to say that he has never had these kind of results on the road before, because he hasn't. What is wrong is to then jump to the conclusion that the reason he wasn't having these results before is purely because he was lacking in physical ability.

If you have watched interviews with Dave Brailsford, Bob Stapleton and Jonathan Vaughters this Tour, you will have heard them all say pretty much exactly the same thing about Wiggins: they have always known from the numbers he puts out in training that he had the physical ability to ride like this, but he did not have the right attitude, motivation or focus.

Wiggins has said himself that after becoming an Olympic champion and world record holder at the age of 24 he felt that he had made it to the top and lost a lot of his drive to keep improving himself, and sort of got stuck in a rut with track racing because he didn't have the self-confidence to commit to road racing.

I understand that, given how the last few years of cycling have gone, it is natural to be suspicious of riders that seem to suddenly perform at a higher level, but I think Wiggo has the pedigree to justify it.

Of course, there is a chance that I'm wrong, but if Wiggo is dirty then the super pessimists (you know who you are) must be right, and the entire pro peleton must be filthy, and I'm not willing to believe that. So if he ever tests positive I will be putting the boot in with rolfrae.

[rolfrae]

So if he ever tests positive I will be putting the boot in with rolfrae.

Wiggo, you have been warned!:D

[pmcg76]

I said in a previous post regarding Wiggins that it was too early to be suspicious as this had been a very easy Tour so far, however, after yesterday he is on the edge of my suspicious radar. I know all the reasons he has improved but to be at such a high level is impressive.

I have always believed Garmin & Wiggins to be clean(er) so he will stay on the edge of my radar until the end of the Tour as we still have had only two real stages with just one mountain in those stages, tue & wed will be the litmus test. It would be interesting to know what Paul Kimmage thinks as he spent the 08 Tour with Garmin and believed in them.

[**Uru**]

Sooner of later, the "we are clean" label will be torn off Garmin. It is only a matter of time.

[dimspace]

as we seem to have about three is brad doping threads im just going to repost what i said in the other regarding my opinoin that brad is riding clean, or cleaner than many and his performances not being that surprising..

[SIZE="2"]it not an anglo thing, i think perhaps the brits have followed bradleys career a litte more closely than the non brits who see this as a surprise...

us brits arent actually THAT surprised at his performances, i wasnt expecting him top 3, but i thought top ten or twenty was a serious option after his improvements in the giro, i even posted a few weeks before the tour that in the beaumont trophy although effectively an amateur event the way he time trialled away from the field, he looked fitter, leaner and in better form than i had ever seen him.. I think it just comes from better rider knowledge personally.. I actualy beleive that garmin are the cleanest team in the pelaton...

For the record i also think cancellara is clean, i just think hes a freak of nature.. If cancellara starts dancing up mountains then i will be suspicious, or i will be if he continues to tt the way he does being pretty much a power based rider. .

as for the other brits, having seen charlies performances in the mountains im pretty sure he is clean too.. But its not a brit thing, on a domestic level i love watching the two downings and christian house ride, but if they arent jacked up to the eyeballs im father christmas..[/SIZE]

[A moron]

Now brad wiggins has become a climber while keeping his time trial ability after losing about 8 kilos, Now that sounds like the excuse for a certain rider, when he became the revelation of the tour.

No professional rider could ever lose 8kg just like that - impossible! Everyone has a more or less professional life style, with 15-30h of training/week. How could anyone race as a pro for years being 8kg too fat?:rolleyes:

Moreover, you cannot just say "I'd love to lose a bit of weight here and there". Your body has a particular amout of muscles which you won't lose unless you suffer from anorexia...
I'd say 1-2kg's sounds reasonable... anything else is just a myth!
And generally: The older you are, the bigger your amount of muscles gets usually...

Anyways, the Garmin page tells me Wiggins is 77kg... He has never been 85kg!

[A moron]

For the record i also think cancellara is clean, i just think hes a freak of nature...[/SIZE][/I]

Best joke I have heard for ages:D

He's 100% NOT clean... He might be the worst doper in the whole bunch!
I've raced him, and I have friends who raced him... No way that guy is clean!

Besides: Do you think nearly winning the mountains stages of Tour de Suisse is just a piece of cake any 80kg (rouleur) rider could achieve?:rolleyes:

The same goes for wiggins by the way...

[benlondon]

I was talking about his performance on the road, i know how great he is as a track racer.

Well 2nd in the 2005 TT World Championship is a pretty good road performance!

(Officially finished 7th but Andrei Kashechkin, Alexander Vinokourov and Ruben Plaza have all subsequently been banned for doping. Michael Rogers (the winner that day) was working with Dr Ferrari at the time and is now nowhere in time trials and Jose Gutierrez (also ahead of him) was heavily implicated in Operación Puerto. So the only rider ahead of him without major question marks was Cancellero aka the best time triallist in the world.

[131313]

No professional rider could ever lose 8kg just like that - impossible! Everyone has a more or less professional life style, with 15-30h of training/week. How could anyone race as a pro for years being 8kg too fat?:rolleyes:

Moreover, you cannot just say "I'd love to lose a bit of weight here and there". Your body has a particular amout of muscles which you won't lose unless you suffer from anorexia...
I'd say 1-2kg's sounds reasonable... anything else is just a myth!
And generally: The older you are, the bigger your amount of muscles gets usually...

Anyways, the Garmin page tells me Wiggins is 77kg... He has never been 85kg!

serious question: what is it with this forum and some of the posts, such as this?? Have you actually seen what this guy looks like right now? I know pics have been posted on this very forum, so I'm sure you have. Does it really look like he's lost 1-2kg??, or have the photos been altered?? I've seen him up-close and personal, and he's easily 7-8 kg lighter than he was on High Road.

As far as weigh loss affecting power output, I'm not people people who suggest that really have much of an idea about the components of producing power in an endurance cycling. Hint: it's not muscular strength.

Lastly, people talk about his track background as if he was a 200 meter sprinter or something? Endurance track cycling relies on the same energy systems as road cycling. It really isn't that complicated.

I don't know if he's clean or not, I don't know him (though I believe he is). I do know several of his teammates quite well and I do believe they're clean (and are strongly pressured from the team to ride clean at all costs)--despite what you read on here.

What I will say though is that 'he's just a track cyclist', 'he's only lost 1-2 kg' and 'no one can lose 7 kg and put out the same power' are total BS reasons for accusing someone of doping.

[Parrot23]

Just for argument's sake, is is possible that Bradley's weight loss is due to reikki? I mean, if we are comparing the unlikely with the unlikely.

Both are unlikely, but plausible, and both (weight loss and reikki) seem to have worked, albeit in two different riders' cases.

Do we disbelieve both, and which view is tainted by self-interest?

The first question with Brad is how much of his power he's maintained (clearly he's lost significantly more weight than power) and whether this is plausible. Maybe we'll see in the TT.

Second, can he maintain his climbing? So far he's very cautious and saying "One day at a time, one day at a time," because 1 or 2 climbing performances on non-consecutive days don't make you a GC rider, as Wiggo himself knows given his experience in the Giro (where he cracked badly after initially climbing well). Maybe we'll see.

It's still a little early. Let's see by Paris.

[Cobber]

serious question: what is it with this forum and some of the posts, such as this?? Have you actually seen what this guy looks like right now? I know pics have been posted on this very forum, so I'm sure you have. Does it really look like he's lost 1-2kg??, or have the photos been altered?? I've seen him up-close and personal, and he's easily 7-8 kg lighter than he was on High Road.

As far as weigh loss affecting power output, I'm not people people who suggest that really have much of an idea about the components of producing power in an endurance cycling. Hint: it's not muscular strength.

Lastly, people talk about his track background as if he was a 200 meter sprinter or something? Endurance track cycling relies on the same energy systems as road cycling. It really isn't that complicated.

I don't know if he's clean or not, I don't know him (though I believe he is). I do know several of his teammates quite well and I do believe they're clean (and are strongly pressured from the team to ride clean at all costs)--despite what you read on here.

What I will say though is that 'he's just a track cyclist', 'he's only lost 1-2 kg' and 'no one can lose 7 kg and put out the same power' are total BS reasons for accusing someone of doping.

+1...... Wiggo is clean until proven otherwise as far as I am concerned. I have seen nothing that would lead me to believe otherwise in this TdF so far.

[Greyhound Velo]

No professional rider could ever lose 8kg just like that - impossible! Everyone has a more or less professional life style, with 15-30h of training/week. How could anyone race as a pro for years being 8kg too fat?:rolleyes:

He wasn't 8kg "too fat", he was built like a track pro. I've never been a professional, but I have raced at the top amateur level of track cycling in the US and know a thing or two about training. In my last season of competition (2000) I wanted to improve my results on the road and in mountain biking, so I started to carefully monitor my diet and stopped all upper body work. I went from 76kg to 69kg over the course of 6 months, and my body fat percentage never varied from 5.5% throughout the season. I wasn't fat when I started, I was just carrying too much muscle weight in places I didn't need it, just like Wiggins was.

Strangely enough my climbing ability improved drastically, and I still posted my personal best time in the last 40k TT of the season. Power loss isn't a problem, as long as you make an appropriate change in your training plan to match your changes to diet. I assume a professional like Wiggo knows this, as would the real Hayden Roulston .