Teams & Riders Chris Froome Discussion Thread.

[djpbaltimore]

Re: Re:

Froome has only won 1 gt. AC and Nibbes have both won 2 gt's since 2013. Statistically I don't see how you can say "racing the 2015 Tour 100 times, he would win the most." I think Nibbes or AC would. Anyways that's just us presenting our opinions. What I mean when I say he needs more luck is; he needs more to go right for him to win. The others can win under a more varied set of obstacles. I'm not trying to discredit his win before it happens. I don't even know if he will win so I can't discredit it...he hasn't done anything. This is just the usual speculation that we all do before a gt happens.

And oh, I don't include talk of crashes when I say Froome needs more luck to win. I think all GC riders are equally in danger of crashing. Yes some riders have better bike handling skills, but crashing can often happen regardless of how good you are at riding a bike.

For Contador, I think the Giro has to factor into the equation. Two GT victories of any kind in a season is monumental these days. The Giro-Tour double is the hardest by far.

Many posters (including many SKY and Contador fans) have been discrediting Nibali's TDF win as tainted, so now it is considered sacrosanct? I think he will be find his form by the TDF, but his mediocre results in 2015 have to be accounted for more than his results in a race without the other big three way back in 2013. Most often, the strongest climber wins. You would be the first to point out how infrequently Nibali has out-climbed Contador and Froome.

You illustrated my point about small sample size bias. Froome has a first and a second in GTs since 2013, how much statistically different is that than two first places? Not much IMO. If the TDF is raced 100 times, I think Froome would win 40%, so I actually think it is more likely that he loses (mostly because the parcours is lacking in TT).

 

[bigcog]

Re: Re:

Froome can only win if everything goes right for him (no rain,no racing before the final 5km on the final MTF, no racing on the cobbles, no crosswinds). I think Froome is least likely to win out of the big 4. Winning a GT is not just about sheer climbing force. You need to be a good racer and Nibali, Contador and also Quintana are good racers. Froome not. He's tactically incompetent and goes into meltdown once the real racing starts.

I think you're muddling in a load of stuff about Wiggins, Brailsford, Sky etc., rather than being objective about Froome. I can't think of any terrible performances by him in the rain. His 2014 Dauphiné and Tour crashes both happened in the dry. We don't really know anything about how good he is on cobbles - as far as I know the only time he raced on them was Fléche Wallonne this year where he fell but still finished ok. Crosswinds? If you mean the 2013 Tour stage he finished in the same group as Quintana.

I think you have to put the blame for tactical incompetence at the foot of the DS rather than Froome - for example when he was hanging off the back of the main group during the Vuelta last year any other team would have waited for him but Sky put Deignan and Cataldo at the front and wound the pace up.

When did he "go into meltdown when the real racing started"? He seems a lot mentally tougher than, say, Wiggins, and repeatedly fought his way back after being dropped during last year's Vuelta. Froome's mountain train has never been as dominant as Wiggin's 2012 one - they've gone missing in action quite a few times and he's generally handled it ok.

He's not a great bike handler although he descends ok, his style on the bike looks ridiculous although I dunno if he can help it given his body shape (Hesjedal is another tall rider with long arms and long legs who has no grace on a bike), but he's got a Tour win, 3 more GT podiums, and 6 week long stage race victories. Maybe what annoys people is that he shows that the stuff they hold dear - beautiful pedalling style, demon descending, jumping kerbs, floating along cobbled sections - doesn't really matter most of the time.

Didn't he crash in the wet a few kilometers before the cobbles last year? Yes he crashed the day before in the dry too.

The first crash in the TDF 2014 which did the most damage I believe, was another rider taking out his front wheel. Not a lot you can do about that.

 

[SeriousSam]

Re: Re:

Froome has only won 1 gt. AC and Nibbes have both won 2 gt's since 2013. Statistically I don't see how you can say "racing the 2015 Tour 100 times, he would win the most."

"Racing the 2015 Tour 100 times, he would win the most" is just another way of saying that his probability to win is greater than anyone else's. Talking about relative frequencies is sometimes just easier to think about. When we quantify an opinion about who's going to win as a probability, we should take into account all the information that matters, not just the number of GTs won. There's certainly no statistical reason Froome can't be the most likely to win.

There's not even a statistical reason Fuglsang can't be the most likely to win.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

Froome has only won 1 gt. AC and Nibbes have both won 2 gt's since 2013. Statistically I don't see how you can say "racing the 2015 Tour 100 times, he would win the most."

"Racing the 2015 Tour 100 times, he would win the most" is just another way of saying that his probability to win is greater than anyone else's. Talking about relative frequencies is sometimes just easier to think about. When we quantify an opinion about who's going to win as a probability, we should take into account all the information that matters, not just the number of GTs won. There's certainly no statistical reason Froome can't be the most likely to win.

There's not even a statistical reason Fuglsang can't be the most likely to win.

Disappointed you did not quote any bookmaker odds

 

[Jspear]

Re: Re:

Froome has only won 1 gt. AC and Nibbes have both won 2 gt's since 2013. Statistically I don't see how you can say "racing the 2015 Tour 100 times, he would win the most."

"Racing the 2015 Tour 100 times, he would win the most" is just another way of saying that his probability to win is greater than anyone else's. Talking about relative frequencies is sometimes just easier to think about. When we quantify an opinion about who's going to win as a probability, we should take into account all the information that matters, not just the number of GTs won. There's certainly no statistical reason Froome can't be the most likely to win.

There's not even a statistical reason Fuglsang can't be the most likely to win.

Honestly I don't get the point of talking about such a thing. It is WAY to speculative. We can't even predict what is going to happen in July, much less whats going to happen for the next 100 years.

 

[djpbaltimore]

We are not talking about racing the tour once a year for the next 100 years with the same riders, we are talking about simulating the 2015 Tour 100 times with current form to weed out the 'lucky breaks' like crashes and such. There is a big difference between the two. Analytics/ Metrics are increasingly important in US team sports, I don't see why this type of analysis should be off limits for cycling, especially when talking about 'luck'.

 

[SeriousSam]

We can predict lots of things. How often we're wrong, and by how much, just indicates how hard it is to predict it. I think you'll agree that we can predict lots of things about the Tour and be right with overwhelming probability, although it's still possible we turn out to be wrong. Take the prediction that Talansky isn't going to win the Tour. That's close to certain. Or take the prediction that one of F, Q, N, AC, Valv, Teejay, Pinot is going to win the Tour. That's very likely. We can narrow the eventual winner down to a handful of riders in advance, and be right most of the time, for most races.

Other predictions are subject to greater uncertainty. If we have to narrow it down to one rider, we're going to be wrong often, just very hard to predict. Take Froome. The favourite for many, the most likely to win, especially those that have money on the outcome, but he is still substantially more likely to lose than to win, reflecting the fact that calling the winner is pretty hard in cycling. It's easier in tennis, and even harder in golf.

 

[Lexman]

Re:

Unless Nibali is weak I don't think he will attack in unexpected places (of course putting a high pace on cobbles is expected). It is a high risk strategy which you do not need if you are as strong as in 2014
And I believe that Fuglsang will be strong but he needs a green light. Landa was insanely strong but he wasn't given one so they didn't take advantage of it

If they didn't give Landa the green light, I don't think they'll consider giving Birdsong any green light...

 

[damian13ster]

Re: Re:

Unless Nibali is weak I don't think he will attack in unexpected places (of course putting a high pace on cobbles is expected). It is a high risk strategy which you do not need if you are as strong as in 2014
And I believe that Fuglsang will be strong but he needs a green light. Landa was insanely strong but he wasn't given one so they didn't take advantage of it

If they didn't give Landa the green light, I don't think they'll consider giving Birdsong any green light...

Exactly. Thats why I don't expect much chaos from Astana. Not if Nibali is in top-climbing form

 

[Jspear]

Re:

We are not talking about racing the tour once a year for the next 100 years with the same riders, we are talking about simulating the 2015 Tour 100 times with current form to weed out the 'lucky breaks' like crashes and such. There is a big difference between the two. Analytics/ Metrics are increasingly important in US team sports, I don't see why this type of analysis should be off limits for cycling, especially when talking about 'luck'.

Fine, but simulating the 2015 Tour 100 times still doesn't really mean anything. They have one chance to ride this Tour and that is what will matter.

 

[djpbaltimore]

From a record book perspective? No, it doesn't mean anything
From a predictive perspective? Yes, it does. But it requires a grasp of statistics to understand that point.

EDIT. SeriousSam summarizes this point well in his last post.

 

[Jspear]

From a predictive perspective; do these simulations reflect reality?

 

[damian13ster]

Yes, that is how bookmaker make money. Of course it doesn't always work out since we are still talking about sport which does have randomness to it but using large sample size, simulations are effective. They use simulations to set initial odds and then the market to adjust them.

 

[djpbaltimore]

Any simulation is a merely a representation of reality based on assumptions that do not always hold in the real world. But the problem with predicting cycling are the small sample sizes and judging things off of race results only, which may only tell a fraction of the story. It would work much better if we had more physiological-based datasets. Models/ simulations are only as good (predictive) as the data you put into them.

 

[Jspear]

Re:

Yes, that is how bookmaker make money. Of course it doesn't always work out since we are still talking about sport which does have randomness to it but using large sample size, simulations are effective. They use simulations to set initial odds and then the market to adjust them.

So why are odds often wrong and reactionary?

 

[offtherecord]

Re:

We are not talking about racing the tour once a year for the next 100 years with the same riders, we are talking about simulating the 2015 Tour 100 times with current form to weed out the 'lucky breaks' like crashes and such. There is a big difference between the two. Analytics/ Metrics are increasingly important in US team sports, I don't see why this type of analysis should be off limits for cycling, especially when talking about 'luck'.

It´s about how you use the method. You can´t say ´let´s try a frequency to weed out just /for me/ unfavourable variable (in this case crash, heat/rain, an important domestique catching a bug).´ All of these have some frequency/occurrence and how often they effect the outcome.
So saying the chance is based only on wattage is to ignore that people with good racing heads have been winning against strong riders again and again.

 

[damian13ster]

Re: Re:

Yes, that is how bookmaker make money. Of course it doesn't always work out since we are still talking about sport which does have randomness to it but using large sample size, simulations are effective. They use simulations to set initial odds and then the market to adjust them.

So why are odds often wrong and reactionary?

They are very rarely wrong, and reactionary only at the beginning when you have small sample size (not many people betting yet). And its reactionary because of betters, not oddsmakers. Those just set initial odds and algorithms
Oddsmakers are best experts in their discipline there is. Just look at the financial results.

 

[djpbaltimore]

Re: Re:

It´s about how you use the method. You can´t say ´let´s try a frequency to weed out just /for me/ unfavourable variable (in this case crash, heat/rain, an important domestique catching a bug).´ All of these have some frequency/occurrence and how often they effect the outcome.
So saying the chance is based only on wattage is to ignore that people with good racing heads have been winning against strong riders again and again.

Race savvy can definitely overcome pure wattage deficits. But historically, there are not many instances in the TDF where a clearly weaker rider has beaten a stronger rider based on clever tactics. Nibali might do that this year versus Froome, but what would give him the best chance of winning is to to climb at the same speed as Froome and that is down to physiological capacity.

 

[Taxus4a]

“The thing that worries me about cobbles isn’t necessarily the riding over the cobbles bit. I’ve done Paris-Roubaix before, I know what that’s like – it’s tough. I admit I probably wouldn’t be at the very front of a cobbled stage with guys like [Fabian] Cancellara and [Thor] Hushovd. I accept I wouldn’t be able to follow them, but there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to stay with Contador, Quintana, Rodríguez and Nibali on cobbles like that.

“What worries me about cobbles are the crashes, the mechanical problems. A mechanical problem in the wrong moment of the race when things are kicking off could lead to you losing the Tour. I’m not a big fan of that. Someone shouldn’t lose the Tour due to a mechanical fault. It happens, but we’re not in the Eugène Christophe era any more. I think it’s extremely unfortunate if that happens. It’s the unknown factor that worries me about cobbles, not necessarily being dropped.”

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Re:

He is the strongest cycling with really good team. Others will need luck (right weather, crashes, chaos) to win against him

Chaos will be easy to come by. Astana will provide more than enough of that.

Seriously doubt that unless Fuglsang is ridiculously strong and they decide to have a 2nd option instead of going in with Nibali or nothing mentality like they did with Aru. But Astana will make things easier by driving the pace early and eliminating attacks. All that playing into Sky's hands since then they can up the tempo on the MTF even further

He is on the same level as Roche. Not that good. Astana's tactics suit Froome. Reducing the size of the bunch until only a handful are left. Contador's team went missing in the Giro and I expect the same in the Tour. Of course that does not mean he can't win but his team is overrated.

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Re:

Froome has only won 1 gt. AC and Nibbes have both won 2 gt's since 2013. Statistically I don't see how you can say "racing the 2015 Tour 100 times, he would win the most."

"Racing the 2015 Tour 100 times, he would win the most" is just another way of saying that his probability to win is greater than anyone else's. Talking about relative frequencies is sometimes just easier to think about. When we quantify an opinion about who's going to win as a probability, we should take into account all the information that matters, not just the number of GTs won. There's certainly no statistical reason Froome can't be the most likely to win.

There's not even a statistical reason Fuglsang can't be the most likely to win.

Disappointed you did not quote any bookmaker odds

Bookmakers often look like fools. You could have got 36/1 for Evans to win the 2011 Tour after his mediocre rides in 2009 and 2010 for different reasons of course. The four favourites are all different types of riders which is what makes the 2015 Tour an intriguing one.

 

[42x16ss]

Re: Re:

People exaggerate Froome's tactical "incompetence" here a bit I think. He goes into meltdown once the real racing starts? When has something like this actually happened? Take the stage that Costa won last week: given the weather, Froome's weak team and the fact that he was simply not that strong, I don't think his tactics were that terrible? He did not panic and tried to profit from the work of BMC and TJVG in particular. Nothing special but pretty much by the book, no?
I remember a difficult stage in the tour 2013 when he was isolated early on (the day that Porte collapsed), he survived that pretty well. His failures (Tirreno 2013, Dauphine 2014, Vuelta 2014) generally had nothing to do with tactical errors. Granted, when he is not the strongest like in last year's vuelta, he does not seem to have the tactical aptitude to make up for that, but that's hardly the same as "going into meltdown once the real racing starts".
So feel free to correct me if I'm forgetting some evidence to the contrary, but Froome tactical abilities seem quite alright to me.

I don't think I've ever said he goes into a melt down. I just don't think he handles those situations very well and loses time because of it.

Agreed. Either way Froome is certainly no Rolland when it comes to racing smarts (IMHO he's the best getting around) and it usually shows as soon as things don't go according to the script.

 

[Singer01]

Re: Re:

probably really aches for other riders fans to observe how this ugly untalented disastrously lacking all the main racing qualities but sheer power guy beats the recognized masters. that can drive crazy. properly speaking the thread dedicated to one of the greatest riders here and now looks like a million and one reasons why one doesn't want to see froome at the top

He hasn't though . He won the tour "13" Had no real competition .

Last year Bertie easily defeated him in the vuelta and also he got defeated in the dauphine. Again Bertie had no problem dispatching him out the back.
This year Bertie already beat him in TT and dropped from nearly 10k and eased up at the finish
He has already had his as% handed to him by TJ at the dauphine .
So where are all these great Victory's were he has defeated all the greatest riders ?

1 tour that he won't win no more. The GT dream of the egg faced git wizard is done.

that's one seriously selective memory you have mate.

 

[buchanan]

Re: Re:

probably really aches for other riders fans to observe how this ugly untalented disastrously lacking all the main racing qualities but sheer power guy beats the recognized masters. that can drive crazy. properly speaking the thread dedicated to one of the greatest riders here and now looks like a million and one reasons why one doesn't want to see froome at the top

He hasn't though . He won the tour "13" Had no real competition .

Last year Bertie easily defeated him in the vuelta and also he got defeated in the dauphine. Again Bertie had no problem dispatching him out the back.
This year Bertie already beat him in TT and dropped from nearly 10k and eased up at the finish
He has already had his as% handed to him by TJ at the dauphine .
So where are all these great Victory's were he has defeated all the greatest riders ?

1 tour that he won't win no more. The GT dream of the egg faced git wizard is done.

that's one seriously selective memory you have mate.

ray j is hilarious. Doesn't seem to realize Froome beat Contador at Andalusia earlier this year or that he has just beaten a high class field at the Dauphine.

 

[Wurfel]

Who will be the last man before froome in the TDF? Seems like an interesting question.... With poels, thomas, ... They have very nice riders to set the pace until there are maybe 20 or 30 riders left. Possibly the second skyman can get a good placing that way in the GC.
It looks like henao had the best preparation to be at his best for the tour, but porte, without pressure, could show some nice things too. Or will they just pull the peloton and then stop bothering a nice place in the GC?