2012 Tour de France: Stage 17, Bagnères-de-Luchon - Peyragudes 143.5KM

[BillytheKid]

Kudos to Tejay and Horner on the day.

 

[TRDean]

One would hope so.

This ^^

 

[Danilot]

Ok fanboy, im sure most neutral cyclist fans and people who understand cycling better clearly know Froome could have exploded Wiggins

I wanted Nibali to win the Tour, not Wiggins. So the only fanboi here is you with your blind love of Froome.

As for understanding cycling better, I'm a retired pro and a veteran of 2 Tours de France, 9 Giros d'Italia and 5 Vueltas a España, so I'll treat comments from silly armchair pundits like you with the utter contempt they deserve.

You cannot judge a Grand Tour rider based on a 5-second attack, end of.

 

[Walkman]

This is garbage. I gotta watch the best rider look back 30 times in the last 3k of the final mountain stage and ultimately not win the stage to avoid making Wiggins look like a b*tch. F*ck the team. Ride away and show who's boss

At some point, like today, I'd say Froome, whom I actually really like, is a complete idiot. Just ****ing GO!! Seriously, what the HECK is that man doing?! This is waaaaaaay more ****ed up than Kloden towing LA around France in 2009.

MAN. THE. ****. UP. FROOME!

 

[Sørensen]

What's wrong with supporting a team from your own country. As for a July watcher, you couldn't be more wrong - Just because I haven't commented on this forum before now doesn't mean I'm new to cycling.

What Froome debacle? A bit of show-boating from Chris Froome hardly makes Sky a bad disease. Why were the two of them out ahead in the first place? Because Wiggins had put the hammer down. As for team instructions which this is clearly a case of, you seem to be suggesting that this is something new. So it was just coincidence that five BMC riders rode in together yesterday? Or that Frank never waited for Andy.

It's a team sport. That means team instructions. Sky have never hidden from the fact that they are all in for Wiggins. Froome knew that when he re-signed his contract. It's a team sport, that requires team discipline. Sky have demonstrated that they are the best at discipline which is why they are 1-2. What happened with Froome was just a demonstration of that discipline.

Because you and your fellow posters can only talk about one thing and it's Sky and Wiggins. We never see you pay respect to other riders of different nationalities. I admire the riders for how they race and what they achieve, not because of nationality...

We all want riders from our own countries to do well and nothing wrong with cheering for them, but if you can't talk or pay your respect to anyone else. then you are just a tw@t. Sadly this is the case for a lot (not all) of the brit posters on this forum. I think that's why people are getting fed up by it.

 

[Armanius]

I gotta say its his own fault , because he went for money with Sky . He could easily have got a lower salary contract elsewhere , but he decided to go for money. Now he should pay the consequences.

I'm not 100% convinced that a Froome on any other team, but Sky, would have been equally successful or as potent. The other Sky riders did a heck of a job doing most of the work for BOTH Wiggins and Froome for the most part of the TDF. Froome had to work hard for Wiggins on 3 or 4 stages.

Replace Evans with Froome in BMC, and Wiggins would have more likely than not won the TDF this year -- all other things having remained the same. Just food for thought.

 

[Boardslide]

Froome and especially his G/f should stop these silly antics and twitter campaigns and remember the loyalty Sky has shown him over the last couple of years during his illnesses when he wasn't able to ride but they have still kept faith. Now is the time to repay that trust and do his job as agreed well before the tour started. We all know he's the best at this moment in time but that's life.

 

[jilbiker]

I gotta say its his own fault , because he went for money with Sky . He could easily have got a lower salary contract elsewhere , but he decided to go for money. Now he should pay the consequences.

TOTALLY AGREE! I was shocked after the Vuelta debacle that he still stayed at Sky. Very bad decision I said, and I think now he would agree. I think the remedy is to hand in his resignation letter and tell them he will go to CAS or court to get out of this contract. Money cannot buy you happiness...well you can be miserable in comfort...ha-ha

 

[Froome19]

Chris Froome certainly gave all the riders in the peloton a lesson in freewheeling today.

 

[El Pistolero]

And on it goes....

I don't like Sky, I really don't, but it's not for me to question their motives. Froome knew, well in advance of this Tour what he was going to be required to do has part of his job description. It is, further, documented that he was given offers to jump ship following last year's Vuelta.

He chose to continue on at Sky as a Super Domestique. And now his g/f is *****ing on twitter and he hasn't got the decency to stick with the choice he freely made. Frankly, those "I'm looking over my shoulder at you boss" antics were the actions of a spoilt brat.

I don't know whether some here have noticed, but there are TRADE TEAMS out there. If Sky want Boris Johnson to be dragged up a mountain because they think it's good for business, that's their call and no one else's.

If you want a Peoples Democratic Republic of Cycling, say so. Take away sponsorship and the job is done. And good luck with that.

Rant over....

I don't want democracy. As Alexander the Great once (supposedly) said when asked an important question: Hoti to kratisto.

 

[The Sheep]

I wanted Nibali to win the Tour, not Wiggins. So the only fanboi here is you with your blind love of Froome.

As for understanding cycling better, I'm a retired pro and a veteran of 2 Tours de France, 9 Giros d'Italia and 5 Vueltas a España, so I'll treat comments from silly armchair pundits like you with the utter contempt they deserve.

You cannot judge a Grand Tour rider based on a 5-second attack, end of.

Are you Di Luca?

 

[JimPanzen]

i wanted nibali to win the tour, not wiggins. So the only fanboi here is you with your blind love of froome.

As for understanding cycling better, i'm a retired pro and a veteran of 2 tours de france, 9 giros d'italia and 5 vueltas a españa, so i'll treat comments from silly armchair pundits like you with the utter contempt they deserve.

You cannot judge a grand tour rider based on a 5-second attack, end of.

Boooom!!!

 

[Pricey_sky]

Because you and your fellow posters can only talk about one thing and it's Sky and Wiggins. We never see you pay respect to other riders of different nationalities. I admire the riders for how they race and what they achieve, not because of nationality...

We all want riders from our own countries to do well and nothing wrong with cheering for them, but if you can't talk or pay your respect to anyone else. then you are just a tw@t. Sadly this is the case for a lot (not all) of the brit posters on this forum. I think that's why people are getting fed up by it.

My favourite rider is Jens Voigt. Was really praying for him to win Stage 10 but 3rd was a great effort. An Englishmen who's favourite rider is German who would have thought it...

 

[burning]

I wanted Nibali to win the Tour, not Wiggins. So the only fanboi here is you with your blind love of Froome.

As for understanding cycling better, I'm a retired pro and a veteran of 2 Tours de France, 9 Giros d'Italia and 5 Vueltas a España, so I'll treat comments from silly armchair pundits like you with the utter contempt they deserve.

You cannot judge a Grand Tour rider based on a 5-second attack, end of.

So, who are you?

 

[djlovesyou]

I think that's why people are getting fed up by it.

It's hardly happened. Anyone who's even mentioned that they're happy that SKY are winning (they don't even need to be rabid SKY fans, that we've been hearing about but not seeing) gets aggressively shouted down by the 'haterz'.

It seems perfectly acceptable to be a very vocal and aggressive hater of a team/rider (not just SKY) but as soon as you're vocal in support of a team/rider (again not just SKY, but at this moment they're the focus) you get all sorts of grief for ruining the forum.

Seems a bit odd to me.

 

[jilbiker]

Froome and especially his G/f should stop these silly antics and twitter campaigns and remember the loyalty Sky has shown him over the last couple of years during his illnesses when he wasn't able to ride but they have still kept faith. Now is the time to repay that trust and do his job as agreed well before the tour started. We all know he's the best at this moment in time but that's life.

Thats irrelevant. This is business. Loyalty counts for zero in business. If loyalty counts, your "friendly" manager will not lay you off when the company is ready to reduce costs. Its about the bottom line, what you make as TDF winner in endorsements etc is VERY different from "podium" place second. Sky took care of him because there was potential for better business not cos they loved his cologne. They would dump him in a flash if he went sour. likewise he shouldn't think twice about dumping them especially now...

 

[Danilot]

Are you Di Luca?

I'm not Di Luca. This said, I won't be answering any further posts that attempt to discover my specific identity. I will reveal it if and when I feel like it.

 

[Carl0880]

Froome has a massive kick but not a sustainable one. Just look at his victory on Pena Cabarga. Wiggins riding tempo would comfortably limit his loses to under 2mins.

OYu also wouldhave to look at Froome would have company when he attack like on the Peyresourde, he could have Nibali, and followed him on the descent which owuld have made up time, and so on. Many of us will agree that they think Froome could have won the tour, but everything is theatrical. What if Contador was here? What if another one of SKy's domestique crashed and abandoned the tour like Sistov (Sp?) . What if Andy Shleck was here at normal peakness. His TT would suck, but his team would have ridden a tough tempo. Whatwould have happened if VDB was not caught up behind the massive wreck on st. 6 i believe. VDB looked strong most days, but having been saddled with a 2 minute gap thank to that wreck, he started handicap plus the TT. There are always going to be unanswered questions.


The Way I look at it, is Wiggins was not the worse TDF winner, that would go to Oscar Periero and Roger Walkowiak (Sp?), both won because they were freely given a bunch of time on the stage. I am sure they are others, but these are the 2 come to mind. Wiggins is the best TT of the contenders, and took advantage of a tour more tailored to TTs, even if most of us thought it was too heavily skewed. He was a Top 5 climber in the race, (I would rate Froome, Nibali and VDB better so far.)

He may be one of the more undeserving winners. The difference is Oscar and Roger may have been given all the time, but they both valient fought afterwards to hang on to the deficit giving to them and take advantage of the opportunity. He may have appeared on the front of the group a total of 10 km the entire tour. This is different from Indurain because eventhough he didn't attack in the mountains, as soon as a danger man got too far away Indurain would come to the front to push the pace to keep him in check.

With all this being said, He did enough to win the Tour. May not be popular, and I wont view him as a Tour winner in the class of other recent one time winners like Sastre, Pantani, Ullrich, but he is a winner of the Tour barring anything unforeseen.

 

[mscaviy2601]

Because you and your fellow posters can only talk about one thing and it's Sky and Wiggins. We never see you pay respect to other riders of different nationalities. I admire the riders for how they race and what they achieve, not because of nationality...

We all want riders from our own countries to do well and nothing wrong with cheering for them, but if you can't talk or pay your respect to anyone else. then you are just a tw@t. Sadly this is the case for a lot (not all) of the brit posters on this forum. I think that's why people are getting fed up by it.

I respect nearly all the riders in the tour. I'm half British, half Manx so of course I'm more interested in Sky than the other teams but in truth I love cycling. I'll quite happily watch a tour (or any other race) without any British, Manx or Sky involvement.


the real tw@ts have been the idiotic anti-Sky people on this forum. All the clinic allegations without any evidence, all the really dumb predictions about how Wiggins weakens in the third week etc, the Froome implosion. There's a lot of so-called, self-styled experts here who have serious quantities of egg on their collective faces with their 'predictions' as to what was going to happen in this tour with respect to Sky and Wiggins. They've all pretty much got just about everything wrong.

It's this dumbness that is also making people pretty fed-up.

 

[Sørensen]

My favourite rider is Jens Voigt. Was really praying for him to win Stage 10 but 3rd was a great effort. An Englishmen who's favourite rider is German who would have thought it...

That's the only non British rider you could remember from the top of your head? Everybody loves Jens and rightfully so...

 

[Waterloo Sunrise]

Sky pays Wiggins even more to do his "job". Froome should leave Sky asap. Wiggins won't be winning much anymore then.

OK, time to calm down. Brad won PN & Romandie without any meaningful help from Froome, and for all the excitable posting, he was still better than anyone other than Froome climbing in this Tour. You may have spotted him dropping all the guys who were supposed to drop him on that last rise.

 

[burning]

I'm not Di Luca. This said, I won't be answering any further posts that attempt to discover my specific identity. I will reveal it if and when I feel like it.

To be honest, people can easily reverse-engineer your identity from your GT participations, I doubt there will be more riders with exactly same amount of GT experience

 

[Jaunty Monty]

I'm not 100% convinced that a Froome on any other team, but Sky, would have been equally successful or as potent. The other Sky riders did a heck of a job doing most of the work for BOTH Wiggins and Froome for the most part of the TDF. Froome had to work hard for Wiggins on 3 or 4 stages.

+1

If following the wheels uphill makes things so much easier then why is Wiggins consistently the only person able to stick with Froome.

 

[Richeypen]

OYu also wouldhave to look at Froome would have company when he attack like on the Peyresourde, he could have Nibali, and followed him on the descent which owuld have made up time, and so on. Many of us will agree that they think Froome could have won the tour, but everything is theatrical. What if Contador was here? What if another one of SKy's domestique crashed and abandoned the tour like Sistov (Sp?) . What if Andy Shleck was here at normal peakness. His TT would suck, but his team would have ridden a tough tempo. Whatwould have happened if VDB was not caught up behind the massive wreck on st. 6 i believe. VDB looked strong most days, but having been saddled with a 2 minute gap thank to that wreck, he started handicap plus the TT. There are always going to be unanswered questions.

So completely ignoring the point I made then

Why quote me if it has nothing to do with my post?

 

[El Pistolero]

OK, time to calm down. Brad won PN & Romandie without any meaningful help from Froome, and for all the excitable posting, he was still better than anyone other than Froome climbing in this Tour. You may have spotted him dropping all the guys who were supposed to drop him on that last rise.

Alberto Contador, Samuel Sanchez, Andy Schleck, etc were supposed to drop him(and they would've dropped Wiggins easily, don't kid your self), but they weren't here. What we saw was the weakest Tour field since '99.

Wiggins was just lucky that Froome was out of shape for those early stage races. Next year will be very different.