Teams & Riders Chris Froome Discussion Thread.

[Krzysztof_O]

Strategic TT tank before the Tour. The Slovenians won't be attacking him in the mountains knowing that his TT-ing is poor nowadays. And then at the end...surprise! PdBF 2.0

 

[TourOfSardinia]

It would be ironic if it takes Dawg another year to return
and meanwhile IPT get relegated and miss out on next year's TdF

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/no-panic-but-a-change-of-strategy-as-israel-premier-tech-look-to-avoid-relegation/

 

[Taxus4a]

Not a good ITT IMO. it was his best flat ITT since the crash, and the best of the team (what a weak team at Dauphine compared at Suisse), but I hoped at least a top 50. He is now better on the mountains than at ITT. It is what happened if he didn't work the discipline as far as I know last year...although he did past week...I will watch the ITT, but I think he will have to improve a little more position. Next time will be better. Anyway he is at less than 4 minutes to the leader and he has still options for a top ten if he is at the end at the level I think. Not easy, the level of the 20 better riders is hight here. I hope the team focus on that..I think the better option for them to get UCI points.

 

[tonymikejoe]

IF, (big IF) Chris Froome can improve his km/h in a TT like this by 5% then he becomes a solid top ten finisher.
IF (another big IF) he is honest about continuing improvement and a higher level being achievable then this would be a realistic possibility.

 

[Ripper]

But he was the best placed on his team so that’s good.

You mean the retirement team?

 

[Ripper]

Reading the latest comments I assumed Chris Froome's TT today at the Dauphine was an absolute disaster.
It wasn't.
Decent times today were within 38.00mins and Froome was outside that at 38.38mins.
Not great admittedly, but not poor either.
He had the best time on his Israel team, two seconds better than their own national TT champion.
Yes, we know he is down on power, Chris Froome says that himself, but do we really need the pile-on when he fails to match the performances of the top riders?

Depends on one's bias. It was a pretty crap TT given his goals, background, etc. But only a disaster if you thought he would be better or in the running for the W. Brandon M ... now there was a disaster

 

[SHAD0W93]

Weren’t we just talking about how the 3:30 time in half the distance was good and he needs longer distance for his endurance to kick in and show he can be better then other riders?

 

[red_flanders]

Not a good ITT IMO. it was his best flat ITT since the crash, and the best of the team (what a weak team at Dauphine compared at Suisse), but I hoped at least a top 50. He is now better on the mountains than at ITT. It is what happened if he didn't work the discipline as far as I know last year...although he did past week...I will watch the ITT, but I think he will have to improve a little more position. Next time will be better. Anyway he is at less than 4 minutes to the leader and he has still options for a top ten if he is at the end at the level I think. Not easy, the level of the 20 better riders is hight here. I hope the team focus on that..I think the better option for them to get UCI points.

I'd love to hear how you think he passes 28 riders to get into the top 10. Echelons where 28 guys miss the front group? Mass crash he somehow avoids? Solo break?

 

[tonymikejoe]

Time for one of Sir Dave Brailsford's favourite subjects: "pseudo science."

Let's compare Chris Froome's TT performance today vs Wout Van Aert and with the same Belgian rider at two similar-length TT's at last year's Tour de France.

Dauphine (8.6.22) : 31.9km : Froome : 49.5 km/h
Van Aert : 53.8 km/h

Tour de France (17.7.21) : 30.8km : Froome : 44.6 km/h
Van Aert : 51.5 km/h

Tour de France (30.6.21) : 27.2km : Froome : 44.9 km/h
Van Aert : 50.2 km/h

Conclusion : At the Tour de France TT's Froome was first 5.3 km/h slower than Van Aert and secondly 6.9 km/h slower.

Today, Froome was 4.3 km/h slower.

On the plus side Froome has closed the gap, but is it really significant? Dare I say his "marginal gain" is too small for fans of the 'Magic Kenyan' like myself to get too excited about.
I think, sadly it is.

 

[tonymikejoe]

With his emojis of 'gritted teeth' 'crossed fingers' and 'praying hands' before his TT today at the Dauphine it seems even Chris Froome knew he was up against it.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1534519139137687552

View: https://twitter.com/chrisfroome/status/1534519139137687552

 

[movingtarget]

The last two stages should tell all, about Froome and how much progress he has made.

 

[Salvarani]

He should just retire.

 

[tonymikejoe]

I've had a brief look at other similar-length, flattish TTs in Chris Froome's history.
If he is ever going to "get back to my old level" then one benchmark is his legendary Mont-Saint-Michel 33 km TT at the 2013 Tour de France.
There, he averaged an incredible 53.9 km/h.
Today, he averaged 49.5 km/h over 31.9 km.
When you start seeing the former speed figure then you will know he is truly BACK!

 

[dutchdescent]

The TT result was OK. In the light of his recent upward trend it fits well. If he had performed far better it would become too incredible and we would all be complaining about that.

I think he is on the up but that is not based on much. The weekend stages will tell us more again. If all keeps consistently going up, 2022 will be a good deposit in the bank toward next season at most. IF all that happens he might win something relevant to his stature of old again next season or maybe, maybe even end of this season. Lot of IFs and BUTs though.

 

[rm2021]

He´s better also in the itt, even if he finished on 64 th, at 3 min from ganna. He lost 1 min and 30 seconds to people like vingegaard, ayuso, kwiatkwoski. Last year, he lost the same amount of time to vingegaard and kwiatkowski on a itt of 16 km.
Week by week he is closing the distance to the gc favourites. A stage win in the tour could be possible. And if he continues to improve, he will fight for the victory on la vuelta.

 

[Taxus4a]

I'd love to hear how you think he passes 28 riders to get into the top 10. Echelons where 28 guys miss the front group? Mass crash he somehow avoids? Solo break?

He is 3 minutes before Roglic..possible final winner. He just have to be at those same 3 minutes, because of course 10th will be at more than 3 minutes of the winner. Of course that looks inpossible, but with 2 minutes more lost with Roglic I think he will be top ten ..lasts climb is really hard... that way I said will be difficult..but not impossible...He could pass all those people in those 2 stages...but more likely he won't be top 20...less than top 25 for me would be disappointing now..but anyway meritable all what he is doing.

I bet you a dinner he will be better than Van Aert at GC...despite he has been second at Tirreno.

 

[Sciatic]

He is 3 minutes before Roglic..possible final winner. He just have to be at those same 3 minutes, because of course 10th will be at more than 3 minutes of the winner. Of course that looks inpossible, but with 2 minutes more lost with Roglic I think he will be top ten ..lasts climb is really hard... that way I said will be difficult..but not impossible...He could pass all those people in those 2 stages...but more likely he won't be top 20...less than top 25 for me would be disappointing now..but anyway meritable all what he is doing.

I bet you a dinner he will be better than Van Aert at GC...despite he has been second at Tirreno.

 

[Taxus4a]

Time for one of Sir Dave Brailsford's favourite subjects: "pseudo science."

Let's compare Chris Froome's TT performance today vs Wout Van Aert and with the same Belgian rider at two similar-length TT's at last year's Tour de France.

Dauphine (8.6.22) : 31.9km : Froome : 49.5 km/h
Van Aert : 53.8 km/h

Tour de France (17.7.21) : 30.8km : Froome : 44.6 km/h
Van Aert : 51.5 km/h

Tour de France (30.6.21) : 27.2km : Froome : 44.9 km/h
Van Aert : 50.2 km/h

Conclusion : At the Tour de France TT's Froome was first 5.3 km/h slower than Van Aert and secondly 6.9 km/h slower.

Today, Froome was 4.3 km/h slower.

On the plus side Froome has closed the gap, but is it really significant? Dare I say his "marginal gain" is too small for fans of the 'Magic Kenyan' like myself to get too excited about.
I think, sadly it is.

I think Van Aert was better today than is those ITT..at le Tour last year he was lighter and more focused on the climbs.

 

[Parker]

I wonder how much TT work he has even done in the last couple of years. Until he gets his form back to anything like competitive, it's gojng to be very low priority. I would be surprised if Israel/Factor have even done much aero work with him, if any.

 

[red_flanders]

He is 3 minutes before Roglic..possible final winner. He just have to be at those same 3 minutes, because of course 10th will be at more than 3 minutes of the winner. Of course that looks inpossible, but with 2 minutes more lost with Roglic I think he will be top ten ..lasts climb is really hard... that way I said will be difficult..but not impossible...He could pass all those people in those 2 stages...but more likely he won't be top 20...less than top 25 for me would be disappointing now..but anyway meritable all what he is doing.

I bet you a dinner he will be better than Van Aert at GC...despite he has been second at Tirreno.

I don’t know if Van Aert will try for a high GC place but his not trying I trust more than Froome trying. Sure. If he makes top 10 I’ll eat my hat.

 

[Tonton]

IF, (big IF) Chris Froome can improve his km/h in a TT like this by 5% then he becomes a solid top ten finisher.
IF (another big IF) he is honest about continuing improvement and a higher level being achievable then this would be a realistic possibility.

To put it as a thread name: 2022 is the new 2010...

 

[gunara]

Week by week he is closing the distance to the gc favourites. A stage win in the tour could be possible. And if he continues to improve, he will fight for the victory on la vuelta.

Provide he has endless amount of time to keep improving at this rate, he can rule the world again when being twice Remco's age.

 

[Rackham]

I bet you a dinner he will be better than Van Aert at GC...despite he has been second at Tirreno.

That's a really interesting bet because there's a real possibility WvA rides gruppetto at the weekend to save his legs & not dig too deep before bigger objectives, just as he did in Paris-Nice earlier this year.

So you could be right. But Froome will lose more than another 2 minutes against Roglic between now & Sunday. I'd bet you a dinner on that. These stages are no joke:

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Within five posts i saw people claiming that he should retire immediately and people claiming he can win la vuelta. Only in the froome discussion ...

 

[glassmoon]

Within five posts i saw people claiming that he should retire immediately and people claiming he can win la vuelta. Only in the froome discussion ...

but people claiming he can win Vuelta are clearly joking or completely delusional...