the sceptic said:new clean era working out great for JV's boys today. Did anyone get within 10 minutes of Dawg on a single MTF?
hrotha said:I love that, despite all the hate JV gets, this thread is still based on the premise that his guys are clean(ish).![]()
It's a good question.thehog said:Has Cannodale actually won anything or come close this year? How does this team function?
2 victories (stage at Tour du Haut Var and GP Industria & Artigianato di Larciano).thehog said:Has Cannodale actually won anything or come close this year? How does this team function?
CheckMyPecs said:2 victories (stage at Tour du Haut Var and GP Industria & Artigianato di Larciano).thehog said:Has Cannodale actually won anything or come close this year? How does this team function?
No fewer victories than LottoNL.thehog said:CheckMyPecs said:2 victories (stage at Tour du Haut Var and GP Industria & Artigianato di Larciano).thehog said:Has Cannodale actually won anything or come close this year? How does this team function?
Thank god, they won a stage at JTLs old stomping ground. They certainly are worthy of ProTour status![]()
zigmeister said:^ROFL....true. But Blegians and their teams never had or will dope.
sniper said:It's a good question.thehog said:Has Cannodale actually won anything or come close this year? How does this team function?
They have dopers, ex-dopers, repentant dopers, unrepentant dopers, doping docs, and dope fixers in all layers of the team.
Still they can't keep up.
That said, the season is still young.
thehog said:zigmeister said:^ROFL....true. But Blegians and their teams never had or will dope.
Big wins by Cannodale, all that time spent up in Tiede has really paid off![]()
vedrafjord said:sniper said:It's a good question.thehog said:Has Cannodale actually won anything or come close this year? How does this team function?
They have dopers, ex-dopers, repentant dopers, unrepentant dopers, doping docs, and dope fixers in all layers of the team.
Still they can't keep up.
That said, the season is still young.
Pretty simple really: there are no more wily old US Postal guys left, and the team now consists of:
- A ton of kids (because they are cheap and JV is cheap) - by sheer numbers one of these should come good eventually
- A bunch of mostly domestique-level Americans who will target TOC/Utah/Colorado to keep the sponsors happy and probably do OK there
- Their GC hopes - Uran, Rolland, Talansky - who'll ultimately be a success or failure based on grand tour results, although if I was a gambling man I wouldn't be splashing the cash on any of them
I think the merger was a poor bit of business as it seemed to the untrained eye (team name, jersey colour) that they were the ones getting bought out, plus their results nosedived.
It's hard to pull apart where doping ends and talent starts (and vice versa), but maybe it's a bit of both - their roster is not that strong these days, plus maybe "machine calibration" level doping doesn't cut it any more - for example my gut says 2015 Hesjedal wasn't far off 2012 Hesjedal, but the 2015 Giro seemed a lot crazier than the 2012 Giro. I know he finished fifth, but that was after being written off as a GC threat and being allowed claw back time through several breakaways.
good post indeed.vedrafjord said:...
Pretty simple really: there are no more wily old US Postal guys left, and the team now consists of:
- A ton of kids (because they are cheap and JV is cheap) - by sheer numbers one of these should come good eventually
- A bunch of mostly domestique-level Americans who will target TOC/Utah/Colorado to keep the sponsors happy and probably do OK there
- Their GC hopes - Uran, Rolland, Talansky - who'll ultimately be a success or failure based on grand tour results, although if I was a gambling man I wouldn't be splashing the cash on any of them
I think the merger was a poor bit of business as it seemed to the untrained eye (team name, jersey colour) that they were the ones getting bought out, plus their results nosedived.
It's hard to pull apart where doping ends and talent starts (and vice versa), but maybe it's a bit of both - their roster is not that strong these days, plus maybe "machine calibration" level doping doesn't cut it any more - for example my gut says 2015 Hesjedal wasn't far off 2012 Hesjedal, but the 2015 Giro seemed a lot crazier than the 2012 Giro. I know he finished fifth, but that was after being written off as a GC threat and being allowed claw back time through several breakaways.
sniper said:good post indeed.vedrafjord said:...
Pretty simple really: there are no more wily old US Postal guys left, and the team now consists of:
- A ton of kids (because they are cheap and JV is cheap) - by sheer numbers one of these should come good eventually
- A bunch of mostly domestique-level Americans who will target TOC/Utah/Colorado to keep the sponsors happy and probably do OK there
- Their GC hopes - Uran, Rolland, Talansky - who'll ultimately be a success or failure based on grand tour results, although if I was a gambling man I wouldn't be splashing the cash on any of them
I think the merger was a poor bit of business as it seemed to the untrained eye (team name, jersey colour) that they were the ones getting bought out, plus their results nosedived.
It's hard to pull apart where doping ends and talent starts (and vice versa), but maybe it's a bit of both - their roster is not that strong these days, plus maybe "machine calibration" level doping doesn't cut it any more - for example my gut says 2015 Hesjedal wasn't far off 2012 Hesjedal, but the 2015 Giro seemed a lot crazier than the 2012 Giro. I know he finished fifth, but that was after being written off as a GC threat and being allowed claw back time through several breakaways.
on the topic of machine calibration, i looked it up and he really has used that excuse three times.
- usps 1999
- wiggins 2009
- hesjedal 2012
notably, as sources for the info he referenced "uci" in 1999, "gripper" in 2009, and "rossi" in 2012.
and of course uci gave him his 50+ hct exemption in 1999.
i think he was one of the first. And we know how many followed suit, guys like Cioni, Wegelius, Contador.
this guy deserves credit for completely changing the nature of procycling's antidoping PR, sugarcoating it with epic levels of disregard for the intelligence of cycling fans.
Even much of Walsh's pro-Sky talk wasn't original. He borrowed many of his arguments from JV.
thehog said:sniper said:good post indeed.vedrafjord said:...
Pretty simple really: there are no more wily old US Postal guys left, and the team now consists of:
- A ton of kids (because they are cheap and JV is cheap) - by sheer numbers one of these should come good eventually
- A bunch of mostly domestique-level Americans who will target TOC/Utah/Colorado to keep the sponsors happy and probably do OK there
- Their GC hopes - Uran, Rolland, Talansky - who'll ultimately be a success or failure based on grand tour results, although if I was a gambling man I wouldn't be splashing the cash on any of them
I think the merger was a poor bit of business as it seemed to the untrained eye (team name, jersey colour) that they were the ones getting bought out, plus their results nosedived.
It's hard to pull apart where doping ends and talent starts (and vice versa), but maybe it's a bit of both - their roster is not that strong these days, plus maybe "machine calibration" level doping doesn't cut it any more - for example my gut says 2015 Hesjedal wasn't far off 2012 Hesjedal, but the 2015 Giro seemed a lot crazier than the 2012 Giro. I know he finished fifth, but that was after being written off as a GC threat and being allowed claw back time through several breakaways.
on the topic of machine calibration, i looked it up and he really has used that excuse three times.
- usps 1999
- wiggins 2009
- hesjedal 2012
notably, as sources for the info he referenced "uci" in 1999, "gripper" in 2009, and "rossi" in 2012.
and of course uci gave him his 50+ hct exemption in 1999.
i think he was one of the first. And we know how many followed suit, guys like Cioni, Wegelius, Contador.
this guy deserves credit for completely changing the nature of procycling's antidoping PR, sugarcoating it with epic levels of disregard for the intelligence of cycling fans.
Even much of Walsh's pro-Sky talk wasn't original. He borrowed many of his arguments from JV.
Couldn't have written it better myself. He does have an audience though, who buy it hook, line and sinker.
Maxiton said:Indeed. But that being the case it begs the question: why hasn't he had a Tour winner yet? I mean, if JV wrote the script, why does some other team get to win with it and not his own?
vedrafjord said:Maxiton said:Indeed. But that being the case it begs the question: why hasn't he had a Tour winner yet? I mean, if JV wrote the script, why does some other team get to win with it and not his own?
Because the other teams are doping too? Also to win the Tour you need either one crazy talented GC guy, or a very talented GC guy plus a good mountain train, which is beyond the Slipstream budget. To be honest, that's more of a feature than a bug, as a Tour win would bring a lot of antidoping scrutiny to the team and there'd be questions about how they could beat Astana et al.
JV has figured out a niche, which is you don't have to win everything if you position yourself as the good guy and the underdog. He's tried to get fans to support the team rather than the riders. Being able to go to sponsors and say "you can sponsor us and there won't be a massive scandal that blows up in your face" is a big thing. He reminds me of certain tech companies who act like they're the future but are just a rag-tag bunch held together by a big ego. He's the kind of boss who'd put a foosball table in the office, order pizza in the evenings, and get everyone drunk on Friday evening, rather than pay his staff well and give them time off. He portrays the team as a tight-nit family, but when riders have outlived their use he's been pretty cold about getting rid of them. Also stuff like naming the Tour team at the last minute (hey, we're like those Agile software guys!).
My question is how long will it keep the show on the road? They remind me a bit of the Jordan F1 team, who had a similar highly visible owner/manager, who managed costs by using lots of young drivers and a few veterans, who played up their underdog status etc. They managed 14 years, but a cycling team's lifetime is generally a lot less than that.