Teams & Riders Bahrain

[luckyboy]

Wow that article is quite strong. But yes it's quite obvious around the team

 

[Alexandre B.]

Padun literally found Jesus.

 

[Mayomaniac]

how bad were the last two days? This bad:

L’Ukrainien Mark Padun, double vainqueur d’étape en montagne, crée un malaise sur le Dauphiné

Sans grandes références en haute-montagne, l’Ukrainien de l’équipe Bahrain a remporté à la surprise générale les deux dernières étape du Cri

www.leparisien.fr

Looking at how well Gadu and the AG2R guys are climbing I don't buy the classic "poor French" narrative either, reality is probably a lot more nuanced.

 

[OldCranky]

Posters banding about 5.8-6 W/kg as typical means nothing and misses the point
Its not the power to weight alone ...its for how long and in what conditions
Hell I could probably doo 6 W/Kg for a few minutes


Padun " climbed today Col de Joux Plane at ~6,0 w/kg in 34 min 53 sec, the fastest time recorded since 2000. He was quicker than the group of favourites despite riding alone from the breakaway. "

That is not an improvement from nowhere that is an annihilation of everyone else

And it is well dodgy

I dont care how nice he is or how much his Mom or Jesus wants him to win
You dont improve like this from no where
You lose 4.5 Kg in 2 weeks (itself suspect) and suddenly you are the new Indurain )

I lost 4.5 kilos in 2 weeks last year.

I was in hospital with renal failure...

 

[Fergoose]

I loved the enthusiastic and energetic celebrations in the last km. Mark 'Pudding' Pudan has displayed the level of intelligence and craftiness of an infant who denies having eaten cake when their face is smeared in chocolate. It suggests he has no restraint whatsoever and we may get some more giggles before long.

I honestly thought Haig was going to win the overall too, punching well beyond his weight (although he had a couple of decent Vueltas in his youth, this is a whole new level). Bahrain are imbeciles shooting their bolt so visibly outside of a GT. Either that or they are incredibly confident they can withstand any level of scrutiny or that scrutiny is much reduced during Covid19. It's like committing an armed robbery in a charity shop when the bank is next door.

Personal highlight today was anti-doping hero Dave Millar explaining how Pudan had lost weight and was discovering what he was capable of mere minutes after pointing out that the key climb featured in the Floyd Landis circus stage where everyone expected Landis to be pegged back on said climb. I detected no irony.

 

[Danskebjerge]

Mark Padun's two wins are the most suspicious thing happening on the World Tour since .... since Horner? #glowinginthedark

 

[Ripper]

Mark Padun's two wins are the most suspicious thing happening on the World Tour since .... since Horner? #glowinginthedark

glowinginthefuckingdark

 

[Danskebjerge]

Eastern European guy who has no contract for next year suddenly wins two stages in a major stage race, outpacing established climbers Konrad and Vingegaard by one and a half minute.

It's ridiculous, and a bit sad for Dauphiné.

 

[Netserk]

Eastern European guy

Thank *** he wasn't African, eh?

 

[ciranda]

Why does it matter where he's from?

In some ways the opposition to Padun's level is like saying you can only be a great cyclist if you go through the system in say Great Britain or Belgium. That somehow talent is only believable if picked up on early by DSM, FDJ, SEG, Jumbo development etc. There's a subtext about nationality to some of these opinions.

Like I never notice outrage that a tiny skinny guy like Tom Pidcock has incredible power to sprint and win against guys like van Aert in the toughest races. It's not super weird that the same van Aert is strongest in every kind of race from the start of august until the end of october. It's not super weird how no name guys from Sunweb and Ineos destroyed the Giro third week last year.

But it is super unbelievable that Alexei Lutsenko can win a time trial on a perfect course for him and difficult for the specialists or that someone from Ukraine has a natural talent for going uphill.

It's obvious that Mark must be very gifted physically since he got the opportunity to go to Italy early. And oh look, he actually was competitive from the start and got results, then slowed down by injuries. Sunday's performance was not exceptional, Vingegaard is not in great shape and Konrad is not a real top mountain guy. Saturday's performance yeah that was crazy strong, for sure, still it's not a surprise he got some strong results at this point.

 

[zlev11]

honestly thank god for this guy or that stage today would've been piss boring with the Ineos train suffocating the race just like in the good ol days

 

[Cookster15]

That says more about you then about Padun, though.

So you are across every pro in the peloton? I think his and Bahrain’s performance says it all. Caruso in the Giro too.

A new level means you get noticed by more people. The TdF will be very interesting.

 

[Escarabajo]

In my opinion nothing is clearly off. He is 24 years old. This is pretty normal to have breakthrough performance at that age. Not everyone are Remco or MVdP-like wonderkids. Also he didn't do any "alien" performance. He was just riding along for 5 stages, staying fresh and then threw everything he got for the last two stages. And he hit jackpot. He won't be able to do that on TdF, because there will be 20-40 other guys in their top form, trying to do the same thing. Dauphine is World Tour, but it is still training race for most top guys.



Yep, today it was around 5.8-5.9 W/kg. Still normal.

The problem is that this is the Bahrain thread, not the Padun thread. We can take one stage in isolation. Two, we start to wonder. Then the history. Then Caruso. Then Haig. If you take one in isolation you might be able to defend it. The problem is when you start to add them all together. But let's wait to see what happens later.

 

[Pirazziattacks]

Then lets put the somewhat subjective W/kg measure aside (no one knows his exact weight, we don't have a Padun Strava).

LA PLAGNE | #Dauphine

until roundabout
15.21 km, 7.74 %, 1178 m

Tour de France 1995 | 40:49 | Miguel Indurain
Dauphine 2021 | 41:24 | Mark Padun

Indurain dropped Pantani and Gotti by 2:30 and Rominger/Chiapucci/Virenque by 4:00 that day. VAM of 1695. Are we seriously arguing that this is not an absolutely eormous performance?

If Padun wanted to beat Indurain's time he should've gained 4.5 kg instead. I'll never understand how someone at close to my height and weight could climb like that.

Anyway I wonder what the explanation will be if Padun maintains this level. High cadence and looking at your power numbers is dead. It's all about this innovative new low cadence, don't look at your power numbers approach. Other teams are just behind the curve.

 

[Cookster15]

glowinginthefuckingdark

Still seems to have some apologists though.

 

[yaco]

The problem is that this is the Bahrain thread, not the Padun thread. We can take one stage in isolation. Two, we start to wonder. Then the history. Then Caruso. Then Haig. If you take one in isolation you might be able to defend it. The problem is when you start to add them all together. But let's wait to see what happens later.

Haig's performance was perfectly in line with his progression since turning pro - Haig had two seconds in stage races in Spain before the lockdown in 2020 and was 4th in PN in 2019.

 

[BlueRoads]

Haig's performance was perfectly in line with his progression since turning pro - Haig had two seconds in stage races in Spain before the lockdown in 2020 and was 4th in PN in 2019.

Like Escarabajo said, it's looking at the whole picture, and although Padun is certainly the most outstanding example, who after Caruso's suspicious second place directed the light towards the team so much, that there's no possibility to look away, this is obviously Bahrain, including Haig, Caruso, Tratnik, possibly Mäder as well. Doesn't mean these guys don't have any talent. Haig's performance would just be a positive surprise without looking at the others, but with Padun in the picture it becomes very suspicious.

 

[saganftw]

Padun literally found Jesus.

but its pronounced "hay-SOOS" and its a name of his doctor

Haig had at least decency to show his climbing abilities before, he was mountain domestique for Yates & Yates and he was brought to bahrain as such (maybe with hope he gets even better), his performance on his own is within limits of believable as he wasnt much better than established GC guys, on the other hand Padun without any history destroyed competition TWICE - and yes the word "destroyed" is appropriate

tour de france cannot come soon enough, seems like 3-4 teams got their hands on nuclear launch codes and they arent afraid of using them

 

[F_Cance]

Looking at how well Gadu and the AG2R guys are climbing I don't buy the classic "poor French" narrative either, reality is probably a lot more nuanced.

Sure. Not thinking that they are clean. It's just that Padun/Bahrain are blatantly obvious and going way over the top, so that others start to speak about it.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

so what's next? Domian Novak destroying the peloton in Suisse?

 

[limak_]

Anyway I wonder what the explanation will be if Padun maintains this level. High cadence and looking at your power numbers is dead. It's all about this innovative new low cadence, don't look at your power numbers approach. Other teams are just behind the curve.

That is also what drew my attention. I mean, the guy was griding 60 rpm all the time, if you looked at him you wouldn't say he's going fast. he looked so "heavy". I know every rider has his own style, preferred cadence etc. but Padun looked so inefficient on his bike, that it made his performance even more ridiculous.

 

[SafeBet]

so what's next? Domian Novak destroying the peloton in Suisse?

Well he was climbing with the very best in last Giro's third week so it wouldn't surprise me one bit.

 

[SafeBet]

Why shouldn't he repeat it today? He showed yesterday that he was the strongest rider uphill in the race, today he was in a big breakaway and had to beat Konrad and Vingegaard. He was fast, sure -- but I didn't expect his legs to disappear overnight.

Consistency has been his biggest issue since turning pro. So, while in general I would agree with you, watching him being the fastest rider uphill for two consecutive days in a very competitive field (he was faster than the peloton on Joux Plane) was a real surprise.

 

[Fantastico]

Like I never notice outrage that a tiny skinny guy like Tom Pidcock has incredible power to sprint and win against guys like van Aert in the toughest races. It's not super weird that the same van Aert is strongest in every kind of race from the start of august until the end of october. It's not super weird how no name guys from Sunweb and Ineos destroyed the Giro third week last year.

While I agree with you that sometimes nationality seems to play a role in these kind of dicussions for some people (which it shouldn't), I completely disagree with the rest of your post.

Of course, it was weird how Ineos and Sunweb destroyed the Giro third week last year and how van Aert climbed in the TdF. Actually, this has been discussed quite a lot here in the clinic. If you are not aware of these discussions, you seem to suffer from the same kind of selective perception that you criticize others for.

 

[will-10]

It's got nothing to do with Konrad and Vingegaard, in all honesty. You could see how quick the Ineos train were going, it was an elite group at the top of the Joux-Plane, yet they lost time to Padun.

Col de Joux-Plane
2021:11,6 km@8,5%---34:53---average speed 19.95 km/h(Mark Padun)
---35:06---average speed 19.83 km/h(Jack Haig)
---35:11---average speed 19.78 km/h(Thomas-Porte-Lutsenko-Lopez-I.Izagirre-Gaudu-O'Connor-Kelderman)

That didn't even happen the last time we saw someone go extremely fast up the Joux-Plane after being in the break all day.

2006:11,6 km@8,5%---35:47---average speed 19.45 km/h(Carlos Sastre)
---36:39---average speed 18.99 km/h(Christophe Moreau)
---36:59---average speed 18.82 km/h(Damiano Cunego)
---37:00---average speed 18.81 km/h(Floyd Landis)
---37:33---average speed 18.54 km/h(Boogerd-F.Schleck-Pereiro-Zubeldia-

I'm not overly convinced on the "whole team is taking the piss" thing just yet. Haig has had a fairly "normal" progression so far and I'm not convinced there's been a big step since he joined Bahrain - this week could be the start of that though with the Tour in mind. Caruso has been consistently good for a very long time, albeit not quite as good as we saw in May. Mader hasn't done anything completely outrageous yet. I think if the whole team had taken a step up they wouldn't have been running out of guys in the final for Colbrelli all week, then arguably he could have won four stages and the last two for Padun....