Teams & Riders Chris Froome Discussion Thread.

[ray j willings]

Re: Re:

You know I'm just not feeling it this year. I want to see Froome and Bertie go at bonkers and I want to see Aru clean up but I am not feeling it.
Maybe with motor doping etc and Froome just won so easy in Auz it was just boring. cycling seems a bit flat.
its just the culture. I am not bothered if Froome kicks everyones a$$ I'm beginning to lose interest in racing full stop.
I hope Froome stays healthy for the year but I have never felt so flat about a season that really should be exciting.

Don't gauge this season by what he did in Australia. The competition there is NOTHING like he'll have in Europe.

it's not just that. Its the whole Vibe. I'm losing interest and with the motor thing as well. Its gone to far.
I was so looking forward to Froome and Bertie but after watching Froome win in aus I have sort of lost interest.
If Bertie and Aru mash it up next week its only what we expected.
Somehow the sports needs to freshen up. I mean Froome was great but I know I would have enjoyed his attack
on that last climb much more last year.
Peds I can live with but for me I don't know what is real any more. I certainly don't think Froome is using motors but it really has put a downer on it for me. I cant get excited about a Bertie victory or anyones anymore.
I dont mean to be so down about it but that's how I'm feeling about pro cycling it right now.

 

[DBotero]

Chris Froome ‏@chrisfroome 4m4 minutes ago

Perfect day for a bike ride

 

[rick james]

The big bad dawg

 

[Poursuivant]

When is he back, Catalunya ??

 

[Jspear]

Re:

When is he back, Catalunya ??

I thought PN...could be wrong.

 

[TMP402]

Re: Re:

When is he back, Catalunya ??

I thought PN...could be wrong.

He is on the PCS startlist but confusion about his next race has been noted before.

 

[DBotero]

So it's confirmed no Paris-Nice.*** it I was so eager to see him against Porte.
http://www.teamsky.com/teamsky/features/article/73039#R0tMki8UJglUVwgY.97

 

[portugal11]

froome will never start il giro only because he is horrible in bad weather. if rains in any mountain stage in tour, nairo and contador will attack for sure

 

[Taxus4a]

Re:

froome will never start il giro only because he is horrible in bad weather. if rains in any mountain stage in tour, nairo and contador will attack for sure

I am quite agree with you, but Froome has rode the Giro 2 times and finishing one. He was helping Soler and he was close to win a stage which won Gerrans. He finished 35 overall.

Of coure he is much better in hot weather, the same as Valverde, but as well as Valverde, he can be quite good with bad weather as well.

We watched last year how in a stage with rain Nibali was much better in Dauphine (Nibali is very good with rain), but anyway Froome managed to win that dauphiné. It is not going to rain every day. I think at the moment he wont be in the Giro for other things, but he will ride some time and with big options to win.

 

[rick james]

Re:

froome will never start il giro only because he is horrible in bad weather. if rains in any mountain stage in tour, nairo and contador will attack for sure

Up there with he can't ride cobbles, can't race down hill and can't race in the crosswinds....

 

[arvc40]

Sad to read Froome not doing Paris Nice. Pretty lame reading his reasoning. Logical but *** lame.

 

[Angliru]

Re: Re:

froome will never start il giro only because he is horrible in bad weather. if rains in any mountain stage in tour, nairo and contador will attack for sure

Up there with he can't ride cobbles, can't race down hill and can't race in the crosswinds....

Well he isn't horrible in bad weather but he admits that he is a "fair weather cyclist".

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

froome will never start il giro only because he is horrible in bad weather. if rains in any mountain stage in tour, nairo and contador will attack for sure

Up there with he can't ride cobbles, can't race down hill and can't race in the crosswinds....

He is worse in bad conditions, though. I've never seen him do particularly well on a cold, rainy/snowy mountain day. I'm hot conditions he's great, though.

 

[rick james]

Re: Re:

froome will never start il giro only because he is horrible in bad weather. if rains in any mountain stage in tour, nairo and contador will attack for sure

Up there with he can't ride cobbles, can't race down hill and can't race in the crosswinds....

He is worse in bad conditions, though. I've never seen him do particularly well on a cold, rainy/snowy mountain day. I'm hot conditions he's great, though.

Do we get many of them on Le tour?

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

froome will never start il giro only because he is horrible in bad weather. if rains in any mountain stage in tour, nairo and contador will attack for sure

Up there with he can't ride cobbles, can't race down hill and can't race in the crosswinds....

He is worse in bad conditions, though. I've never seen him do particularly well on a cold, rainy/snowy mountain day. I'm hot conditions he's great, though.

Do we get many of them on Le tour?

No, but the only hard rainy days I can remember he capitulated on both (Firenze, although he was in bad form, and Sant' Elpidio).

Actually, that's a lie. He did well on a couple on Romandie stages.

 

[DBotero]

Re: Re:

froome will never start il giro only because he is horrible in bad weather. if rains in any mountain stage in tour, nairo and contador will attack for sure

Up there with he can't ride cobbles, can't race down hill and can't race in the crosswinds....

He is worse in bad conditions, though. I've never seen him do particularly well on a cold, rainy/snowy mountain day. I'm hot conditions he's great, though.

I don't know if Romandie 2013,2014 and Dauphine 2013 fit your definition but you can search for those.

 

[May0maniac]

Re: Re:

froome will never start il giro only because he is horrible in bad weather. if rains in any mountain stage in tour, nairo and contador will attack for sure

Up there with he can't ride cobbles, can't race down hill and can't race in the crosswinds....

He is worse in bad conditions, though. I've never seen him do particularly well on a cold, rainy/snowy mountain day. I'm hot conditions he's great, though.

Do we get many of them on Le tour?

No, but the only hard rainy days I can remember he capitulated on both (Firenze, although he was in bad form, and Sant' Elpidio).

Actually, that's a lie. He did well on a couple on Romandie stages.

Yes, he was strong on a few of those stages, but as far as I remember he was never able to win a stage with bad weather, he got outsprinted by Spilak (he's a god among mere mortals in one week races with bad weather) and last year he was 7th on Champex-Lac as a member of the group behind Pinot and Zakarin.

 

[Ataraxus]

Re: Re:

froome will never start il giro only because he is horrible in bad weather. if rains in any mountain stage in tour, nairo and contador will attack for sure

Do we get many of them on Le tour?

No, but the only hard rainy days I can remember he capitulated on both (Firenze, although he was in bad form, and Sant' Elpidio).

Actually, that's a lie. He did well on a couple on Romandie stages.

Yes, he was strong on a few of those stages, but as far as I remember he was never able to win a stage with bad weather, he got outsprinted by Spilak (he's a god among mere mortals in one week races with bad weather) and last year he was 7th on Champex-Lac as a member of the group behind Pinot and Zakarin.

He won the l'Ospedale stage in Criterium International 2013.
And he didn't sprint for the win in Romandie 2013(Not that he would've won though)

 

[Taxus4a]

Re: Re:

froome will never start il giro only because he is horrible in bad weather. if rains in any mountain stage in tour, nairo and contador will attack for sure

Do we get many of them on Le tour?

No, but the only hard rainy days I can remember he capitulated on both (Firenze, although he was in bad form, and Sant' Elpidio).

Actually, that's a lie. He did well on a couple on Romandie stages.

Yes, he was strong on a few of those stages, but as far as I remember he was never able to win a stage with bad weather, he got outsprinted by Spilak (he's a god among mere mortals in one week races with bad weather) and last year he was 7th on Champex-Lac as a member of the group behind Pinot and Zakarin.[/quote]
He won the l'Ospedale stage in Criterium International 2013. [/quote]

QUOTE
-----------

But is a fact he is not so good with bad weather, especially rain. An for that is not clear he would have beated Nibali in that Tour, although I think so.

In Ospedale I think even it wasnt raining in the climb, althouhg the road was wet, and Froome was there in an incredible shape respect the others. Of coure Peraud, Van Garderen, Talansky, Mollema,... are good riders, but are the same kind of riders Valverde have put more time the other day in Andalucia. It is not like to fight againts Contador, Purito, Valverde or Nibali in good shape.

 

[Ataraxus]

Re: Re:

froome will never start il giro only because he is horrible in bad weather. if rains in any mountain stage in tour, nairo and contador will attack for sure

Do we get many of them on Le tour?

No, but the only hard rainy days I can remember he capitulated on both (Firenze, although he was in bad form, and Sant' Elpidio).

Actually, that's a lie. He did well on a couple on Romandie stages.

Yes, he was strong on a few of those stages, but as far as I remember he was never able to win a stage with bad weather, he got outsprinted by Spilak (he's a god among mere mortals in one week races with bad weather) and last year he was 7th on Champex-Lac as a member of the group behind Pinot and Zakarin.

He won the l'Ospedale stage in Criterium International 2013. [/quote]

QUOTE
-----------

But is a fact he is not so good with bad weather, especially rain. An for that is not clear he would have beated Nibali in that Tour, although I think so.

In Ospedale I think even it wasnt raining in the climb, althouhg the road was wet, and Froome was there in an incredible shape respect the others. Of coure Peraud, Van Garderen, Talansky, Mollema,... are good riders, but are the same kind of riders Valverde have put more time the other day in Andalucia. It is not like to fight againts Contador, Purito, Valverde or Nibali in good shape.[/quote]

Yes it was

 

[TMP402]

Criterium International 2013 was a Froome-Porte 1-2 against a pretty average field (in the top 10 were TJVG and Mollema but also Fedrigo and Bouet).

On the other hand, Romandie last year: remember the context, yes he had beaten Contador in Andalucia at the start of the season but then he had the weird Catalunya where he was awful and so kind of worked for Porte but not really and ended up 71st overall, then he crashed and finished 123rd at FW. At that point, the "Froome will never win a GT again, his body can't take it, Sky have overworked him, he's mentally weak, terrible bike handler, keeps crashing" school of opinion was rampant, and so he needed to do something in Romandie to prove he still had the ability of 2013. It was a Vuelta '14-esque yo-yoing effort at first but turned into him leading a group of the best climbers, including Quintana, at a high pace until the flat section at the end where, mission (of showing he was still able to dictate the pace of other GC contenders) accomplished, all the others in the group were easily able to pass him. Yes, he finished 7th, but if he'd kept up the effort/if there was no flat section he might have been 3rd. Consider also that his pace was too high for Nibali, Uran, Rolland, Fuglsang, Hesjedal, Costa, Peraud and many other good climbers.

 

[JRanton]

Re:

froome will never start il giro only because he is horrible in bad weather. if rains in any mountain stage in tour, nairo and contador will attack for sure

That's not true. He rides perfectly well in bad weather. There are numerous examples of this. Froome's Achilles heel is the effect riding in bad weather has on his health in the days after. For example I think he picked up his illness in last year's Tour from stage 12 to Plateau de Beille.

 

[JRanton]

Re: Re:

froome will never start il giro only because he is horrible in bad weather. if rains in any mountain stage in tour, nairo and contador will attack for sure

Up there with he can't ride cobbles, can't race down hill and can't race in the crosswinds....

He is worse in bad conditions, though. I've never seen him do particularly well on a cold, rainy/snowy mountain day. I'm hot conditions he's great, though.

Do we get many of them on Le tour?

No, but the only hard rainy days I can remember he capitulated on both (Firenze, although he was in bad form, and Sant' Elpidio).

Actually, that's a lie. He did well on a couple on Romandie stages.

He admitted himself that the problem on that Tirreno stage was the steepness of the climbs and having the wrong gearing rather than the weather.

 

[JRanton]

Re: Re:

He won the l'Ospedale stage in Criterium International 2013.
And he didn't sprint for the win in Romandie 2013(Not that he would've won though)

There was also bad weather in the stage to Risoul in the 2013 Dauphine when Froome and Porte rode away from everyone.

EDIT - And I don't think it's been mentioned that there was bad weather on the stage in Andalucia last year when he beat Contador.

 

[JRanton]

Re:

Criterium International 2013 was a Froome-Porte 1-2 against a pretty average field (in the top 10 were TJVG and Mollema but also Fedrigo and Bouet).

On the other hand, Romandie last year: remember the context, yes he had beaten Contador in Andalucia at the start of the season but then he had the weird Catalunya where he was awful and so kind of worked for Porte but not really and ended up 71st overall, then he crashed and finished 123rd at FW. At that point, the "Froome will never win a GT again, his body can't take it, Sky have overworked him, he's mentally weak, terrible bike handler, keeps crashing" school of opinion was rampant, and so he needed to do something in Romandie to prove he still had the ability of 2013. It was a Vuelta '14-esque yo-yoing effort at first but turned into him leading a group of the best climbers, including Quintana, at a high pace until the flat section at the end where, mission (of showing he was still able to dictate the pace of other GC contenders) accomplished, all the others in the group were easily able to pass him. Yes, he finished 7th, but if he'd kept up the effort/if there was no flat section he might have been 3rd. Consider also that his pace was too high for Nibali, Uran, Rolland, Fuglsang, Hesjedal, Costa, Peraud and many other good climbers.

Yeh, he was coming off illness (again caused by training in bad weather) which caused him to miss Tirreno and be extremely weak in Catalunya. I remember one stage in Catalunya when he was visibly struggling to hang on to the back of the peloton on the flat! It's weird that the strongest Froome we saw pre-Tour in 2015 was probably on that Andalucia stage when he kicked Bertie's ass. Even in the Dauphine he was far from his best although it was very encouraging how he was getting stronger day by day through four very hard days in the mountains.

And yes, I loved the whole ''Froome is mentally weak and will never win another grand tour'' crowd. Great fun.