Teams & Riders Chris Froome Discussion Thread.

[oldcrank]

Froomey should pad his palmares with more Giro
and Vuelta wins. Go for four+four+four=twelve.
I'd like to see SuperG win the World ITT next year
on home soil, but I am not sure if it is a goal of his.

 

[Amazinmets87]

Cadel Evans was older than Froome's current age when he won le tour; Peraud was 2nd at age 37. I wouldn't count Froome out just yet. I imagine he rides le Tour next year and is the bookies favorite.

 

[rlntlssly]

Re:

I dont know, we could be witnessing the end of an era.

We could be. I don't see any actual evidence.

 

[rick james]

Re:

Froome isn't going to win any time.

I know people will come with "but in the Giro". Yes, in the Giro Froome lost a lot of time because he was injured early on and it took a while for him to recover. Once recovered however, he was able to win back that time.

Here, it's not injury, it's clear fatigue. Fatigue built up from 4 gt's in a row. It's different, he can't magically improve or get less worse than his opponents. He isn't going to win back time on anyone ahead of him or just behind (Roglic) unless they really collapse.

Let’s see when he targets one Grand tour in a year

 

[Ciddaman]

According with RAI,
Froome thrown to the ground by a "gendarme" as he returned to the bus because he was mistaken for a spectator.

 

[Oliwright]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/chris-froome-crashed-by-gendarme-after-tour-de-france-stage/

Froome looks like he was about to Moscon the Gendarme.

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

I dont know, we could be witnessing the end of an era. I obviously hope that to be true since Id rather see Sky support Bernal in the mountains which would mean a much more aggressive strategy in the mountains -. like using the team to absolutely blow up the race. Sky has done that exactly three times the last 5 times Froome has ridden the TdF as captain, exluding 2014: 2013 and 2015-2018. These stages have been Ax-3-Domaines and Ventoux in 2013 and LPSM in 2015. Rest of the stages they have used their team to control the race which often results in bad racing. When they blow up the race and Froome feels good, its the best TV imagineable. Yes, despite Froome winning - same with Lance. We wanna see big time gaps and riders hurting and at that point, I dont really care who wins.

Maybe its all wishfull thinking, but nobody has defeated father time. Even Valverde (lets wait for the Vuelta tho) and Michael Jordan must admit that.

Froome isn't going to improve obviously and even though his climbing isn't as explosive as it used to be you could argue that he is riding smarter. I would like to see him do the Giro/Vuelta but he will probably do his preferred Tour/Vuelta next year. Froome is showing he is human but he has to be careful on the next mountain stage which is a long one even though it's not finishing on an MTF.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re:

I dont know, we could be witnessing the end of an era. I obviously hope that to be true since Id rather see Sky support Bernal in the mountains which would mean a much more aggressive strategy in the mountains -. like using the team to absolutely blow up the race. Sky has done that exactly three times the last 5 times Froome has ridden the TdF as captain, exluding 2014: 2013 and 2015-2018. These stages have been Ax-3-Domaines and Ventoux in 2013 and LPSM in 2015. Rest of the stages they have used their team to control the race which often results in bad racing. When they blow up the race and Froome feels good, its the best TV imagineable. Yes, despite Froome winning - same with Lance. We wanna see big time gaps and riders hurting and at that point, I dont really care who wins.

Maybe its all wishfull thinking, but nobody has defeated father time. Even Valverde (lets wait for the Vuelta tho) and Michael Jordan must admit that.

Any race could be the last one at the top for any rider a few years into his thirties. Sooner or later it is for everyone. But failing to complete a double that is widely viewed as impossible in the recent era, at the end of a streak of three GTs in 12 months doesn’t strike me as obvious evidence that the end is here quite yet.

 

[hfer07]

Re:

I dont know, we could be witnessing the end of an era.

dude: Does Froome winning 3 Grand Tours IN A ROW appear to you like he's ending his career? :Question:

 

[lartiste]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/chris-froome-crashed-by-gendarme-after-tour-de-france-stage/

Froome looks like he was about to Moscon the Gendarme.

He is happy, that the cop was french, not US, otherwise after such reaction he would end up in hospital ... .

 

[lartiste]

Re:

According with RAI,
Froome thrown to the ground by a "gendarme" as he returned to the bus because he was mistaken for a spectator.

Sad part of it if cops really throw to the ground spectators ... . Froome problem is only result of mistreating of spectators.

 

[brownbobby]

Froome is finished as a Tour contender. Thomas sure as Hell won't be leaving Sky now. He'll be team leader for next year's Tour and Froome will have the same unenviable choice Wiggins had - either be prepared to play a support role or lump it. I can't see a four time Tour/six time GT winner being prepared to play second fiddle to anyone so I guess he'll do the latter.

Either way I suspect this is the end for Froome as a serious Tour contender, even if he joins a new team, which will inevitably be weaker. I doubt Froome will do a Wiggins and spend four years generally poncing about on the bike doing lucrative but, with the odd exception, mainly meaningless stuff, content to pick up fat appearance fees. Froome is better than that.

Nah....we shouldn't forget what he's achieved in the last 12 months, age catches up with everyone eventually but its too early to say that's the case for Froome yet rather than the sheer workload of the last 12 months.

Next year will be 100% focus on TDF, he aint going to be trying for the double again so the one thing left for him to crown his career is the record equalling 5th TDF.

There's no place other than Sky he's going to be doing that, he's still the proven GT leader, at the very least he'll be given the same status as Thomas at next years Tour all things being equal.

 

[barmaher]

I don't think Froome will ever regret his sporting programme this year.

He now has a full set of GT's, and he held them at the same time. That is a massive achievement.

And he wasn't too far away from his 5th TdF. Of course he could still do it, but assuming he stays 3rd or drops to 4th, it shows it was worth the shot.

 

[Tim Booth]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/chris-froome-crashed-by-gendarme-after-tour-de-france-stage/

Froome looks like he was about to Moscon the Gendarme.

He is happy, that the cop was french, not US, otherwise after such reaction he would end up in hospital ... .

maybe the cop doesn't speak english
http://twitter.com/albertsecall/status/1022240955544596480

 

[Red Rick]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/chris-froome-crashed-by-gendarme-after-tour-de-france-stage/

Froome looks like he was about to Moscon the Gendarme.

He is happy, that the cop was french, not US, otherwise after such reaction he would end up in hospital ... .

maybe the cop doesn't speak english
http://twitter.com/albertsecall/status/1022240955544596480

Probably not, but I thought Froome speaks French, anyway this is just salt in the wound.

I wonder what Sky will do tomorrow. Obviously Thomas is the priority but if he's safe enough do they keep people with Froome to try and preserve his podium spot? Roglic is pretty likely to take in the TT though.

Also, what's next for him this year? just rest up and cruise through some small races or will he take a legit shot at them Worlds?

 

[YavorD]

Re:

I dont know, we could be witnessing the end of an era. I obviously hope that to be true since Id rather see Sky support Bernal in the mountains which would mean a much more aggressive strategy in the mountains -. like using the team to absolutely blow up the race. Sky has done that exactly three times the last 5 times Froome has ridden the TdF as captain, exluding 2014: 2013 and 2015-2018. These stages have been Ax-3-Domaines and Ventoux in 2013 and LPSM in 2015. Rest of the stages they have used their team to control the race which often results in bad racing. When they blow up the race and Froome feels good, its the best TV imagineable. Yes, despite Froome winning - same with Lance. We wanna see big time gaps and riders hurting and at that point, I dont really care who wins.

Maybe its all wishfull thinking, but nobody has defeated father time. Even Valverde (lets wait for the Vuelta tho) and Michael Jordan must admit that.

Well in all fairness 2013 was a fun race. Even without GC battle there was always a carnage at the final climbs. First Froom/Sky and at the later stage Quintana/Purito.. Other than that I didn't mind Sky, but in the last years they just turn the race into a bore fest. Hoping that the Bernal/Hart duo will be in for a way more aggressive racing in future.

 

[barmaher]

Nobody has defeated Father Time?

Tom Brady says hello.

It is way more likely that the Giro is the reason for Froome's Tour demise rather than his age. I think there is fight in the old Dawg still.

 

[Flamin]

I'm not rooting against Froome at all, but gotta say this is hilarious. All the concern beforehand about fans possibly physically harming/hindering Froome. Now he gets thrown to the ground... by a fricking cop. Oh the irony.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

Nobody has defeated Father Time?

Tom Brady says hello.

It is way more likely that the Giro is the reason for Froome's Tour demise rather than his age. I think there is fight in the old Dawg still.

I actually think there's still a nonzero chance that Froome wins this Tour. His winning conditions haven't changed all that much. All depends on the Tourmalet

On the other hand, Froome might not decline that much to next year, but he also is unlikely to get better, and his new main competitors are way better suited to deal with Froome's style of training and TT'ing than the old main competitors (Nibali, Contador, Quintana) were, and the old competitors had a very good knack for underperforming in the Tour.

A lot will depend on the route, but I don't think there's any route where Froome is the Sky high favorite

 

[VO2 Max]

Froome's whole career is too weird to make predictions based on any normal rider career patterns. But especially Froome2018 after that Giro, clearly that was not how they planned him winning the race - you can post-rationalise a late-peak approach but you can't deny that his form was very unpredictable in the mid-to-later portions of that race, and you can't deny that he took a huge gamble by anyone's standards on t19. Did he compromise his season in that last week there, perhaps increasingly believing it to be his last race of the year? Contador was in a similar situation in 2011, under a cloud, and perhaps also over-committed in the Giro. We never really saw the best of him again after that, but of course he did have to sit out most of 2012, and there had been something of a changing of the guard in the meantime with Froome's own ascent. Froome is already older than Migeulón1996 but if this really is his decline then it's certainly much less pronounced than that was. Induráin had already joined the 5 TdF wins list by then though and perhaps had less motivation to do whatever it took to stay with Riis/Ullrich/Virenque etc...

I suspect that Geraint might be sated by his Tour victory (assuming he does close things out on Sunday) and there can be a short window before Bernal is really ready to take over when Sky will give Froome another chance to get his fifth. Sky will still have the strongest team, the negativity around him will have dropped a bit, TTT right at the start will help. If the opening Pyrenees stages suit him (something like PSM of 2013) or perhaps something suitable in the Massif Central on the way south, you could see him getting a lead and Poels/Thomas/Kwiat shutting up shop and trundling round the Alps to close out another win.

 

[PeterB]

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

Nobody has defeated Father Time?

Tom Brady says hello.

It is way more likely that the Giro is the reason for Froome's Tour demise rather than his age. I think there is fight in the old Dawg still.

Tom Brady stands on a football field and throws a ball. What has that got to do with a sport like pro cycling ?

 

[SHAD0W93]

Re:

Now people will say Froome paced Demare up the climb.

 

[rick james]

seen a few, including Froome say he isn't feeling the Giro that much, yesterday was just a bad day for him...can't see that being true

 

[Oliwright]

Froome's won the last 3 GTs. We always knew that he wasn't invisible and he's lost & had bad days at other GTs in the past. As a Froome fan, I'm not disappointed at all. I'm thankful for all he's done and look forward to his racing over the next few years.

He'll be 1st or 2nd favorite for the Tour next year and he'll at least have co-leadership with G. You don't win 4/5 TDFs and loose leadership after attempting the quadruple.