2015 tour d' fukushima thread

[No_Balls]

Re:

Get mentally prepared for the worst piece of riding you'll ever see in a race: Froome as a factor on cobbles.

 

[The Hegelian]

Re: Re:

Get mentally prepared for the worst piece of riding you'll ever see in a race: Froome as a factor on cobbles.

Sort of like walking in on your parents having sex. No! Avert your eyes!

 

[ice&fire]

Re: Re:

Get mentally prepared for the worst piece of riding you'll ever see in a race: Froome as a factor on cobbles.

Checked. What's next?

 

[Quantumsoda]

Froome staying upright while everyone's crashing repeatedly?

Perhaps a new and advanced gyroscopic stem.

 

[nayr497]

He even stayed up when elbowed into the gutter!

 

[doperhopper]

Here we go, Vrooom dropping so many teammates per minute in the TTT that he had to be brailslowed down (probably by remotely controlled red flashing LED on his powermeter) - not really a surprise, but close to the absolute maximum of Chuck Norris who once dropped all teammates including himself in a TTT.

 

[No_Balls]

Re: Re:

Get mentally prepared for the worst piece of riding you'll ever see in a race: Froome as a factor on cobbles.

Checked. What's next?

What do we have to go? Let's have a look:

*Cobbles specialist. Check.
*TT-phantom. Check.
*TTT-phantom. Check.
*Hill-specialist. Check.
*Climbing god. Check.

Now we are eagerly anticipating the arrival of Froome the roleur and Froome the sprinter.

 

[AICA ribonucleotide]

Froome to win the next three stages.

 

[the sceptic]

Chris Froome felt like he was on his limit midway through his march toward the 2013 Tour de France title. Two years on, Sky’s British leader is “fresher and more prepared” for the French grand tour.

“I’m in a different position, I came into the race extremely ready two years ago, winning almost every race up until the Tour,” Froome said at a press conference.

“I felt like I was almost hanging on after the halfway mark. This year, I feel much fresher and more mentally prepared.”

 

[The Hitch]

So Sky were wrong about having the team leader do 6 month peak before the Tour being a sensible tactic?

I do wonder why they did it with both bw in 2012 and then cf in 2013. Its just so stupid and impossible without massive doping.

 

[doperhopper]

so nuclear, so radioactive... that riders are already dropping out with cancer in the first week

 

[The Hegelian]

I have to say that I haven't seen anything that nuclear yet. Yet. It's been very conservative. The GC teams have been riding very hard, but it doesn't look that radioactive. Astana have been in a different realm compared with the Giro.

The one eyebrow raising performance was Martin's stage win - but he has the pedigree to do that.

I daresay, the first bomb will be dropped today......

 

[del1962]

Re:

I have to say that I haven't seen anything that nuclear yet. Yet. It's been very conservative. The GC teams have been riding very hard, but it doesn't look that radioactive. Astana have been in a different realm compared with the Giro.

The one eyebrow raising performance was Martin's stage win - but he has the pedigree to do that.

I daresay, the first bomb will be dropped today......

Martin's victory was more opportunistic than anything else, no one that interested in chasing him down

 

[doperhopper]

Tadaaaa, hypermutant stuff today, please, hide his watts, or the UFO will land in the finish. Chernobyl level this!

 

[AICA ribonucleotide]

3 Sky riders in the top 6 on the stage. Sean Kelly admits he is in shock. Thomas can podium the tour from here.

 

[Saint Unix]

Forget Fukushima, forget Chernobyl. Forget frickin' Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That was Death Star vs. Alderaan level stuff.

 

[The Hegelian]

Re:

I have to say that I haven't seen anything that nuclear yet. Yet. It's been very conservative. The GC teams have been riding very hard, but it doesn't look that radioactive. Astana have been in a different realm compared with the Giro.

The one eyebrow raising performance was Martin's stage win - but he has the pedigree to do that.

I daresay, the first bomb will be dropped today......

Well then, so it was!

 

[meat puppet]

Skimming thru media and general public reactions to the tour de cleans, the following admittedly very rough patterns seem to suggest themselves. And there are of course exceptions, ie individuals do not fit into the groups perfectly, etc.

Abstracting from nationalities, the general public can be divided to those who call *** on cycling in general, ie. "they all dope", and those for whom Badzhillah adds the decisive (and, hilariously, only...) degree of freedom and renders Sky transformations too complex to grasp as doped BS, ie. "maybe it's possible after all, who knows really". This is quite unsurpising. Probably the reason Sky & Froome played the badzhillah card to begin with.

Cycling enthusiasts can be lumped into those who watch and those who ride (train and race) and watch. The premise is then shifted somewhat from "they all dope" to "wait a minute, maybe not all, and just look at other sports, we need evidence, new era (equipment, training, cleans, marginal gains)..."... Curiously those who only watch seem to be less willing to buy up the BS. Maybe it is because the data geeks are at an advantage in offering rationalisations, maybe it is because the watchers are more likely to look at the sports' history first and individual efforts (pixels) second, or something else. But. The operating factor in buying up press release level justifications among those who train and race appears to be projection: the fantasy of riders being able to develope, without hard limiters, by just working optimally and hard. Because if the pros can, maybe I can develop as well... This is very understandable, very hilarious and very appalling.

Paradoxically, I'd say that the social group riding competitively, using power measurement devices and data themselves, and in general supposedly having the best clue as to what is exactly going on, seem generally speaking the most likely to start repeating press releases in online commentary of the race.

 

[The Hegelian]

Just caught up with the replay. Thomas chasing down Quintana.

Thomas chasing down Quintana

That gets in the doping hall of fame in my book.

 

[Brullnux]

Re:

What happens if you watch without protection?

Acute Radioation Syndrome. The severity of the symptoms depends on just how much mutant radiation one is exposed to. This is usually measured in Gray, a unit of ionized radiation, but we can convert things to the more interpretable unit AST (Alpe ascent time) and get the following table of symptoms (Ashenden et al 2013):

>40 min. Mild nausea and boredom. Moderate chance of delusion that the riders are cleans
39-40min: Rising blood pressure due to excitement. They're going pretty quick in the bio passport era.
38-39min: Risk of asphyxiation due to excessive laughing. They are going comically quick.
<38: Full ***. Nervous breakdown. High chance of permanent disillusionment with cycling

Bit of a letdown really. After PSM I was hoping Froome could go sub 35 but he's lost some form since then, maybe his recovery isn't being helped by the medics.

 

[Scarponi]

I have a feeling if froome knows Conti is coming next year at 110% and now he knows Quintana will come hard in the 3rd week will they step it up again and break the 6.5 watt barrier on most stages

 

[the sceptic]

bump. Who will go full nuclear and do a Horner/Froome/Cobo this vuelta?

 

[BeagRigh]

Re:

bump. Who will go full nuclear and do a Horner/Froome/Cobo this vuelta?

Let's wait and see but I think this vuelta is going to require a thread or two of its own.

 

[Gung Ho Gun]

Re:

bump. Who will go full nuclear and do a Horner/Froome/Cobo this vuelta?

Vanendert!

 

[Lyon]

Will Astana be allowed to win?