Teams & Riders Chris Froome Discussion Thread.

[pastronef]

Re:

@pastronef [ quote] the funny thing is Froome haters cheering for Zakarin. his alter ego in weight, riding style and sudden super powers in 2015

Waiting to see when he will beat Contador if the love story will continue :)


Chris Froome must be OK the man himself made a joke about his stem

https://twitter.com/chrisfroome/status/725770067422666752

ehehe, good point

nice to see he jokes about today. nice attitude, different from the people happy for his bad performance
he also thanks Nieve for his help in another tweet.

 

[PremierAndrew]

If puts on a decent show at the Tour and both olympic TT and RR, then I'll happily accept it. But otherwise, it's not good at all to see guys like Froome disrespecting all these races before the Tour

 

[Pricey_sky]

Re:

If puts on a decent show at the Tour and both olympic TT and RR, then I'll happily accept it. But otherwise, it's not good at all to see guys like Froome disrespecting all these races before the Tour

Well he respected the Herald Sun Tour and put on a great show for the local Aussies

 

[blackmamba]

Considering Froome took it easy yesterday and saved his legs compared to the rest he competed against today, taking 0 seconds on Quintana in a TT is bad for his standards theres no way around it.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Must admit, better than I had expected after yesterday, but still, for his standards, a poor TT.

 

[Gloin22]

Re:

Considering Froome took it easy yesterday and saved his legs compared to the rest he competed against today, taking 0 seconds on Quintana in a TT is bad for his standards theres no way around it.

Meh can hardly blame him. Tour will not be won in TT. There's little point training too much in TT for him. And has been the case sine winter of 2014. His TT is just okay from what it used to be in 2012.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Re:

Considering Froome took it easy yesterday and saved his legs compared to the rest he competed against today, taking 0 seconds on Quintana in a TT is bad for his standards theres no way around it.

Meh can hardly blame him. Tour will not be won in TT. There's little point training too much in TT for him. And has been the case sine winter of 2014. His TT is just okay from what it used to be in 2012.

But wasnt the Olympic ITT a goal for him this year?

 

[DBotero]

Not good enough even in the TT.Being at Quintana level in an TT is not encouraging at all.He's got a lot of work to do until Dauphine.

 

[blackmamba]

Re: Re:

Considering Froome took it easy yesterday and saved his legs compared to the rest he competed against today, taking 0 seconds on Quintana in a TT is bad for his standards theres no way around it.

Meh can hardly blame him. Tour will not be won in TT. There's little point training too much in TT for him. And has been the case sine winter of 2014. His TT is just okay from what it used to be in 2012.

But wasnt the Olympic ITT a goal for him this year?

Yes it is and he + Brailsford has both said he has put in more TT in his traning this year beacuse of it.

 

[Gloin22]

Re: Re:

Considering Froome took it easy yesterday and saved his legs compared to the rest he competed against today, taking 0 seconds on Quintana in a TT is bad for his standards theres no way around it.

Meh can hardly blame him. Tour will not be won in TT. There's little point training too much in TT for him. And has been the case sine winter of 2014. His TT is just okay from what it used to be in 2012.

But wasnt the Olympic ITT a goal for him this year?

Yes it is and he + Brailsford has both said he has put in more TT in his traning this year beacuse of it.

More doesn't mean much in such context, more can mean 10% compared to last year, where he had basically zero.

No way he can win gold, there's too many specialists that will be taking it easy at Tour, with that approach won't be surprising he finishes 2nd in Tour and out of medals at Olympics. This isn't 2012 anymore.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Re:

Considering Froome took it easy yesterday and saved his legs compared to the rest he competed against today, taking 0 seconds on Quintana in a TT is bad for his standards theres no way around it.

Meh can hardly blame him. Tour will not be won in TT. There's little point training too much in TT for him. And has been the case sine winter of 2014. His TT is just okay from what it used to be in 2012.

But wasnt the Olympic ITT a goal for him this year?

Yes it is and he + Brailsford has both said he has put in more TT in his traning this year beacuse of it.

More doesn't mean much in such context, more can mean 10% compared to last year, where he had basically zero.

No way he can win gold, there's too many specialists that will be taking it easy at Tour, with that approach won't be surprising he finishes 2nd in Tour and out of medals at Olympics. This isn't 2012 anymore.

I'n not sure. I think if he would generally be in 2012/13 shape and would train for the Olympics he would definitely have a good chance. The thing is that if he would train TT's and be in 2012/13 one would expect him to completely crush riders like Quintana today, but it didnt happen.

 

[blackmamba]

Its not if he would, he IS training more TT in his program this year.

 

[PremierAndrew]

Are you trying to suggest Froome is anywhere near decent form? The fact that he's finished top 5 on an ITT in this kind of form is rather intimidating actually. As was Dumoulin's ride, considering his recent stomach problems. Those two are going to smoke the field at Rio (expect Uran to put in a solid performance too)

 

[blackmamba]

Re:

Are you trying to suggest Froome is anywhere near decent form? The fact that he's finished top 5 on an ITT in this kind of form is rather intimidating actually. As was Dumoulin's ride, considering his recent stomach problems. Those two are going to smoke the field at Rio (expect Uran to put in a solid performance too)

Im not suggesting anything im saying hes way below par than he SHOULD be here, however if you understand that or not I couldnt care less about

 

[ray j willings]

Re: Re:

[/quote]
I'n not sure. I think if he would generally be in 2012/13 shape and would train for the Olympics he would definitely have a good chance. The thing is that if he would train TT's and be in 2012/13 one would expect him to completely crush riders like Quintana today, but it didnt happen.[/quote]

He's now up against riders on form and healthy . He's not a strong enough climber and even a flat tt he would not gain much or even lose small bits of time.
I think he will be fine come the dauphine / tour [ I hope so] but you will see like in 2014 when Bertie crushed him.
He's not strong enough over 3 weeks against the very best.

Today was not to bad in reality , it had a climb, that's always going to be a weak point for him against stronger climbers. That's why he can't pull out those time gaps like he used to. Once the road go's up then his flat tt advantage go's out of the window.

 

[ray j willings]

Re:

Are you trying to suggest Froome is anywhere near decent form? The fact that he's finished top 5 on an ITT in this kind of form is rather intimidating actually. As was Dumoulin's ride, considering his recent stomach problems. Those two are going to smoke the field at Rio (expect Uran to put in a solid performance too)

 

[Põhja Konn]

Which today's ITT showed, was that his general level have not really improved since Catalunya. That is weird because it represents a radical change of a winning formula (in case it is a planned approach).
Normally, one doesn't change the winning formula unless its absolutely necessary.

Even last year when he was mediocre in Romandie, he made significant improvement between Catalunya and Romandie. If I was a Froome fan, I would start worrying a bit.

I hope he has no ill-timed punctures or other bad luck, so we could see how strong he is on a MTF.

 

[Gigs_98]

Would be quite funny if he wins tomorrow

 

[Jspear]

Would be quite funny if he wins tomorrow

They could let him get in a breakaway. He's no threat to the overall.

 

[Red Rick]

Think this is about Froome's base level. Somewhere in the top 10 whilst being totally average. Prior to 2014, it was either total craphalzia or total mutant. Tomorrow we'll see some climbing form.

 

[SeriousSam]

"It was a really good effort from Froomey today in the time trial," said Sport Director Nicolas Portal after the stage.

"It was a course of two halves. The climb at the start was key, and then the descent was also really important, so it was not easy to pick the correct gearing. The descent was not particularly technical it was just very, very fast. There were a couple of really quick corners and in a couple of places the fastest line was between two traffic islands. There were just a few guys quicker than Froomey on the climb and then he was able to take some time out of Quintana on the descent. It's all good practice.

"Tomorrow it's a mountain stage so we will speak to the guys and look to make a plan. For us the GC is no longer possible so we'd really like to go and there and try to fight for a stage win. We will see how Froomey and G are feeling during the stage and see what we can do."

 

[Angliru]

Re:

Are you trying to suggest Froome is anywhere near decent form? The fact that he's finished top 5 on an ITT in this kind of form is rather intimidating actually. As was Dumoulin's ride, considering his recent stomach problems. Those two are going to smoke the field at Rio (expect Uran to put in a solid performance too)

It would be impressive if he had finished with the rest of the gc contenders yesterday. Instead he came in 17 minutes down. He shut it down completely on the previous stage, I'm assuming so that he could have an advantage in today's itt and hopefully win it. It didn't happen. I have no idea what his form is at this point in the season and the team start list gives no indication of who the leader is since they're listed alphabetically.

 

[Angliru]

Re:

Are you trying to suggest Froome is anywhere near decent form? The fact that he's finished top 5 on an ITT in this kind of form is rather intimidating actually. As was Dumoulin's ride, considering his recent stomach problems. Those two are going to smoke the field at Rio (expect Uran to put in a solid performance too)

He came in a quarter of an hour behind his rivals in the previous stage. He really should have won the itt with that type of energy saved for today.

 

[AlexNYC]

Since his objectives this year are the Tour and the Olympics, it makes complete sense that his preparation differs from other years where his only real objective is the Tour.

In a normal year, he's already in great shape at Romandie, Dauphine, and the first two weeks of the Tour; whereas he's usually fading by the Tour's third week. If he wants to win the Tour and the Olympics RR or ITT, the normal year pattern won't work.

Whether what he's doing will work or not, we'll need to wait and see; but I'm pretty sure he's doing it consciously.

 

[Vasilis]

Re:

Since his objectives this year are the Tour and the Olympics, it makes complete sense that his preparation differs from other years where his only real objective is the Tour.

In a normal year, he's already in great shape at Romandie, Dauphine, and the first two weeks of the Tour; whereas he's usually fading by the Tour's third week. If he wants to win the Tour and the Olympics RR or ITT, the normal year pattern won't work.

Whether what he's doing will work or not, we'll need to wait and see; but I'm pretty sure he's doing it consciously.

He may also give the Vuelta another crack this year, so his form may look more like 2012, when he wasn't even top 100 in Romandie, but then he finished 4th in the Dauphiné, was the strongest climber of the Tour and competed at the Vuelta as well. He faded in the last week then, but maybe he is a couple of years stronger, so he may do well. The Dauphiné will be a real indicator, as it has always been a mirror of his Tour performance (2012 - close in both, 2013 - win in both, 2014 - crash in both, 2015 - win in both).