Teams & Riders Chris Froome Discussion Thread.

[memyselfandI]

As we're about to reach an epitome of this, can I add that Rob Hatch must be taken down and out of the kitchen in same cargo too! (I know Kirby has his quirks and features, but RH is at least as irritating)

 

[Ranagazoo]

I don't think he'll ride the Tour

 

[Mick Dundee]

(I know Kirby has his quirks and features, but RH is at least as irritating)

Agreed.
Listening to RH commentary makes me want to put my index finger through my eye, into my brain and swirl it around.

 

[Taxus4a]

He admited is going to be difficult to come back to his previopus level, even similar. I dont know if it is possible. His level in Romandie was bad, not a level to ride le Tour, and even worse than in Emirates or last year. He said pandemia affected his recovery, but his best races were just after pandemia pause,

Tour de L Ain 41
Occitanie 37

Races with a good level. So it is difficult to believe pandemia was so important. Far to improve, he looks to decline his level. That is the main problem.
Anyway, in a race with rain it is difficul to evaluate his level, becouse he is not very good with bad weather, and maybe he looked for heath and didnt do his best. So, we have to see whay he say next month about his training numbers and his weight, becouse if he do a decent Dauphine, maybe ir is possible to say he is not over yet. But today I understad, of course, people who say he is over. It looks clearly like that. But he is a man with a very strong mentality, and he will do everything in his hand to recover.

 

[Taxus4a]

I don't think he'll ride the Tour

I think he will, but with this level difficult to finish.He will ride for sure just for a publicitary issue. To have him on the star is an important publicity. I hope he get a good level for July, but is unlikely.

 

[Froome]

oh dear, he won´t ever get over that. poor Froomey. some people on the forum and on twitter are laughing at him. sad, how can he keep going with all that laughters ringing in his ears?!
ahahah
look, the teeth grinding and the anger caused to some on twitter and the forum in the last ten years are well worth some laughter now. I love him for that too

I don´t know how it will end. all I want is seeing him on the start lines. whatever he does. just *** ride on, and drive the petty non-fans mad at every wobbling pedal stroke.
he´s fat, he´s skinny, he´s paid too much, he´s too fast, he´s too slow, he deserves, he desnt deserve, he races too muchm he races too little.
some of you said everything about him these years. and it´s great. he delivered when at the top of his game, and some rides were great.
now he´s struggling, but he ain´t throwing the towel yet.
keeping going Dawg!

I have a feeling that he will be competitive in the Vuelta, not in the tour, let's see. I still believe that he can comeback to his best but it will take some time. Let's not forget that he almost died, it's a great achievement that he is still riding, it's unbelievable his mentality.

 

[Panda Claws]

But it is, because quite a few people are laughing at him for being greedy & delusional/or dishonest about his potential to win the Tour again & his team for being silly enough to fork out so much on guy who barely looks like a professional rider right now & who is ironically way worse than last year (i.e. he was better one year after his crash than he is 2 years later, ergo there's no progression).

And I find it weird how some people (his fans for example) cheer for the inflated wages of a sportsman who does nothing to justify them. And I don't think I'm alone with that sentiment.

Like Red Rick stated it's understandable that he chooses to keep cycling given the wages that are still massive even for someone like Froome. Even without the money I think this is just what Froome wants to do right now. He is still training, keeping busy, staying very fit. Froome has been cycling forever I think he simply is not ready to stop either.

You claim that Froome should retire because him being laughed at and being possibly seen as greedy and immoral even, is going to damage his reputation and the money is not worth that. But he will never stop being listed in the books about who the best cyclists ever were because of the people laughing a bit now. Everyone still respects his earlier victories. Up to a certain point it even earned him points that he tried so hard to come back from that injury. Sure, his farewell will be far less gracious than it could have been but that's about it. I doubt Froome will ever be remembered as the 'paycheck stealer' because he earned inflated wages for a few years at the end. I mean Philippe Gilbert has basically stole paychecks for half his career but that hardly ever gets mentioned.

It is a different question whether Froome should decide to retire because of moral reasons. But hardly one that is gonna garner much attention either way, I think. But yes I don't think we should necessarily cheer about that either.

 

[Taxus4a]

I have just read he was ill last days in Romandie, not after as I readed previusly, so that explain theirbad results last stages. Becouse the stage he was 53th at 43 secondw, the second harder in TdR, I think he was no so bad.

 

[Cookster15]

Let's not forget that he almost died, it's a great achievement that he is still riding, it's unbelievable his mentality.

Too many here either don’t know or under sell that he was very sick at TdR. But even before Romandie I felt it was highly unlikely Froome would come back to his best. Not at his age. His best was 2013 anyway.

Even Froome’s 2018 Giro win was a surprise if you followed that race closely. The attack of Finestre and his win on Mont Zoncolan were out of the blue compared to how he was riding in other MTFs.

 

[Pinot's goat]

Too many here either don’t know or under sell that he was very sick at TdR. But even before Romandie I felt it was highly unlikely Froome would come back to his best. Not at his age. His best was 2013 anyway.

Even Froome’s 2018 Giro win was a surprise if you followed that race closely. The attack of Finestre and his win on Mont Zoncolan were out of the blue compared to how he was riding in other MTFs.

He was suffering from the TT recon crash at that Giro and he was already coming in undercooked since he was doing the Giro-Tour double.

 

[Taxus4a]

Too many here either don’t know or under sell that he was very sick at TdR. But even before Romandie I felt it was highly unlikely Froome would come back to his best. Not at his age. His best was 2013 anyway.

Even Froome’s 2018 Giro win was a surprise if you followed that race closely. The attack of Finestre and his win on Mont Zoncolan were out of the blue compared to how he was riding in other MTFs.

He was recovering and there was a rest day. He is a rider for the 3 week. I predicted that big results and some people laughted at my. I had clear he will win that Giro, The giro has that, everything can change in the last week if you are the stronger. and last week He was the stronger, and Fenestre stage designe was perfect for him and perf3ect to put 10 minutes to everybodyif the team ride the stage as if the stage finished in Finestre. It was a great echibicion to remember longer in cycling. I think He could come back to that level, for that reason he is in cycling, but just the motivation to try it, it is enought

 

[yaco]

He was suffering from the TT recon crash at that Giro and he was already coming in undercooked since he was doing the Giro-Tour double.

The fact is that the day after his victory on Zoncolan he was dropped by the leaders - Cookster's post has validity.

 

[Pinot's goat]

The fact is that the day after his victory on Zoncolan he was dropped by the leaders - Cookster's post has validity.

The next day he clearly hadn't recovered from his effort the previous day as the stage was not that hard. Recovery improves as form improves he was still not on top form which would have been due to the crash/coming in undercooked not signs of decline imo.

 

[Taxus4a]

The fact is that the day after his victory on Zoncolan he was dropped by the leaders - Cookster's post has validity.

Different kind of stage and weather conditions.

 

[yaco]

Different kind of stage and weather conditions.

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses -

 

[Froome]

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses -

Stage of giro 2018 proves that he wasn't declining on that year. There were some factors like the crash and he didn't entered in the giro with the best possible shape.
Also, in 2019 it's possible to see on strava is trainings before the tour, and the numbers were very high like in 2013. He was doing 450 watts in efforts of 20 min.

 

[Põhja Konn]

He was suffering from the TT recon crash at that Giro and he was already coming in undercooked since he was doing the Giro-Tour double.

The problem with this theory is that there was no discernible progression in his performances prior to the Zoncolan stage. On stage 6 to Etna he was 10th, last in a group of main favourites which came in 26 seconds behind Yates and Chaves. Then 3 days later on Gran Sasso he lost 1.07 to Yates, but more crucially finished in 22nd place and losing to several of the riders he had clearly beaten earlier in the race ending up as one of the worst among the GC guys, even when the most fringe ones are being included.

Two days later, stage 11 - a hilly stage to Osimo -the story was similar. He was 23rd, 40 seconds behind Yates and among the worst even in an extended field of GC contenders. Then after 2 sprint stages came Zoncolan and suddenly Froome was the best climber in the race, even better than Yates who was consistently flying at that juncture of the Giro. To cap it off, the day after the Zonc he was back in 17th place, 1.32 behind Yates, a performance perfectly in line with what he had shown throughout the previous week.

The theory about him coming in undercooked and further put back by the crash, then gradually coming good as the race progresses may be attrative to his ardent fans, but the dynamic of his form compared to his rivals during the first two weeks of that Giro does nothing to support this. On the contrary, it further emphasizes what an outlier his performance on the Zoncolan was. Compared to race dynamics it was much more of an outlier than the more (in)famous raid on Finestre.

He did find form by the 3rd week and was consistently among the best then, but there just was no clear progression leading up to it during the previous two weeks.

 

[yaco]

Stage of giro 2018 proves that he wasn't declining on that year. There were some factors like the crash and he didn't entered in the giro with the best possible shape.
Also, in 2019 it's possible to see on strava is trainings before the tour, and the numbers were very high like in 2013. He was doing 450 watts in efforts of 20 min.

Who stated he was in decline ? Cookster made a post detailing his inconsistencies ( which could have been caused by a variety of reasons ) at the 2018 Giro. Nothing more or nothing less.

 

[geisterhome]

I have no idea who so many commentators pretend $5m+ a year is worth so much to a guy like Chris Froome, i.e. he's in the bracket of super earners already & that sort of cash is neither life changing nor extraordinary nor worth risking his reputation over.

He won his first Tour in 2013. He has 7 Grand Tour victories & a long career of sporting success. He's rich. Very rich. Super rich. He was already extremely rich before he signed with Israel.

When a millionaire businessman makes a deal which makes him a little bit richer but a whole load more unpopular, it's viewed as a bad deal. This is no different.

How high is it net worth? I doubt its much more than 20m. So 5m for a few years can actually still make a big differnce percentage wise. He has children too and they will have children...

 

[Ilmaestro99]

He didn't even say for certain he would do dauphine, the wording in his interview on Sunday was 'rest, altitude and hopefully dauphine'.

 

[Red Rick]

In my opinion he's mainly still riding to give him future certainty of having tried everything he could and leave no doubt.

 

[Pinot's goat]

He only really started racing in August last year, seems a bit premature to give up after all the initial work he did to get back on the bike.

 

[dutchdescent]

In my opinion he's mainly still riding to give him future certainty of having tried everything he could and leave no doubt.

This makes a lot of sense. Albeit something he would accept only as the ‘worst’ outcome of his comeback. I do think he expected/expects still, more.

 

[roundabout]

The problem with this theory is that there was no discernible progression in his performances prior to the Zoncolan stage. On stage 6 to Etna he was 10th, last in a group of main favourites which came in 26 seconds behind Yates and Chaves. Then 3 days later on Gran Sasso he lost 1.07 to Yates, but more crucially finished in 22nd place and losing to several of the riders he had clearly beaten earlier in the race ending up as one of the worst among the GC guys, even when the most fringe ones are being included.

Two days later, stage 11 - a hilly stage to Osimo -the story was similar. He was 23rd, 40 seconds behind Yates and among the worst even in an extended field of GC contenders. Then after 2 sprint stages came Zoncolan and suddenly Froome was the best climber in the race, even better than Yates who was consistently flying at that juncture of the Giro. To cap it off, the day after the Zonc he was back in 17th place, 1.32 behind Yates, a performance perfectly in line with what he had shown throughout the previous week.

The theory about him coming in undercooked and further put back by the crash, then gradually coming good as the race progresses may be attrative to his ardent fans, but the dynamic of his form compared to his rivals during the first two weeks of that Giro does nothing to support this. On the contrary, it further emphasizes what an outlier his performance on the Zoncolan was. Compared to race dynamics it was much more of an outlier than the more (in)famous raid on Finestre.

He did find form by the 3rd week and was consistently among the best then, but there just was no clear progression leading up to it during the previous two weeks.

Froome fell uphill the day before Gran Sasso. I think he fell on the same side as in the TT recon so that may have had an impact.

 

[PhiLiz]

Just when I thought last year was a treat, this year the Barloworld Froome returns in full force and it's getting worse.

I really hope he keeps riding and specially I'm hoping for a Tour showing. It's been quite a beautiful thing to watch.

And now is fat again too. Amazing.