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Teams & Riders Chris Froome Discussion Thread.

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Is Froome over the hill?

  • Yes.

    Votes: 26 34.7%
  • No, the GC finished 40 minutes ago but Froomie is still climbing it

    Votes: 42 56.0%
  • No he is totally winning the Vuelta

    Votes: 18 24.0%

  • Total voters
    75
So much hate for this one. should have left SKY after 2012 may have won a little less but would have been treated better by fans. Alberto was on the inhaler all the time but he's a god and it never gets mentioned. He clearly loves the sport and riding. Even the monastic lifestyle it requires. I'd rather see him try to come back and fail than give up. I get so disappointed when I see athletes quit a the peak of their powers or sooner. I still miss Kittel.
 
“In every race these days, the level is so high,” he said. “If you go to a race to try to use it as training you’re going to get spat out of the back straightaway.

“For me, having spent so much time focusing on rehab work, naturally I’m going to be behind in the race.

“Now the focus is shifting more to being race ready, getting the weight down to race weight.”

No doub he he will be fighting for the best races with Roglic and Pogacar next year. and this one he will be at a good level in some races fighthing for top ten, I dont know iof he go to Dauphine to train or to compete, but in the second case he could be top 20 I think if things go well, with no bad luck, ot close to get a stage...
 
“In every race these days, the level is so high,” he said. “If you go to a race to try to use it as training you’re going to get spat out of the back straightaway.

“For me, having spent so much time focusing on rehab work, naturally I’m going to be behind in the race.

“Now the focus is shifting more to being race ready, getting the weight down to race weight.”

No doub he he will be fighting for the best races with Roglic and Pogacar next year. and this one he will be at a good level in some races fighthing for top ten, I dont know iof he go to Dauphine to train or to compete, but in the second case he could be top 20 I think if things go well, with no bad luck, ot close to get a stage...

That would be stupid in light of his comment about doing just that.
 
“In every race these days, the level is so high,” he said. “If you go to a race to try to use it as training you’re going to get spat out of the back straightaway.

“For me, having spent so much time focusing on rehab work, naturally I’m going to be behind in the race.

“Now the focus is shifting more to being race ready, getting the weight down to race weight.”

No doub he he will be fighting for the best races with Roglic and Pogacar next year. and this one he will be at a good level in some races fighthing for top ten, I dont know iof he go to Dauphine to train or to compete, but in the second case he could be top 20 I think if things go well, with no bad luck, ot close to get a stage...

image.ashx
 
That's true but not yet.
I respect your optimism but he will be 37 and trying to come back from a massive injury. Then to try and compete when he was already fading in the GTs he was winning and relying on a powerful team that he doesn’t have. At 37 this would be on par with Armstrong or Horner. Since coming back he has finished inside the top 50 on any stage 3 times with the highest being 22nd. The competition is all stronger and younger. Heck if he was still on Ineos he might not even be the 20th best rider.
This unfortunately looks like how Andy Schleck’s career ended except Froome has a higher will power.
 
I respect your optimism but he will be 37 and trying to come back from a massive injury. Then to try and compete when he was already fading in the GTs he was winning and relying on a powerful team that he doesn’t have. At 37 this would be on par with Armstrong or Horner. Since coming back he has finished inside the top 50 on any stage 3 times with the highest being 22nd. The competition is all stronger and younger. Heck if he was still on Ineos he might not even be the 20th best rider.
This unfortunately looks like how Andy Schleck’s career ended except Froome has a higher will power.
Speaking more seriously, i know you're probably right, it will very difficult to comeback to his best, but give me a break, he is my idol, everybody as a idol, and sometimes when we talk about our idols, we put the emotion in front of reality.
I respectfully disagree that he was already fading on gts 2018. The giro went bad on the first 2 weeks because of his crash in Jerusalem and because he didn't start the giro in his best shape, to try to be in the best shape possible on last week of the giro and on the tour.
A guy that is fading can't do what he did on stage 18 of the giro, and he also won on zoncolan in the last week.
On tour 2018 he was tired after 4 consecutive tours and after all, he was in the podium.
 
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It's a sad way to go though. Froome was incredibly strong up 'till the end and probably still very close to the top of the younger GT riders. It would have made the stories of Roglic, Bernal, Pogacar, etc. all the more exciting if they actually got to beat the king in battle. Could Froome have beaten them still without the injury? He was very hard to count out for sure.
In terms of watts, froome would follow roglic and pogacar, but it would be a very close fight. I think froome of tour 2013 or froome last week of giro 2018 could beat them.
 
Speaking more seriously, i know you're probably right, it will very difficult to comeback to his best, but give me a break, he is my idol, everybody as a idol, and sometimes when we talk about our idols, we put the emotion in front of reality.
I respectfully disagree that he was already fading on gts 2018. The giro went bad on the first 2 weeks because of his crash in Jerusalem and because he didn't start the giro in his best shape, to try to be in the best shape possible on last week of the giro and on the tour.
A guy that is fading can't do what he did on stage 18 of the giro, and he also won on zoncolan in the last week.
On tour 2018 he was tired after 4 consecutive tours and after all, he was in the podium.
Like I said, I respect your optimism and I have that same optimism for Cavendish.
His Giro is a whole bucket of worms for both sides and I feel like there was more questions thrown at that then Contador’s second attempt.
Just like I said before this year for Cavendish that it is time to hang them up it is calling for Froome. Maybe he will prove the vast majority wrong.
 
Like I said, I respect your optimism and I have that same optimism for Cavendish.
His Giro is a whole bucket of worms for both sides and I feel like there was more questions thrown at that then Contador’s second attempt.
Just like I said before this year for Cavendish that it is time to hang them up it is calling for Froome. Maybe he will prove the vast majority wrong.
I have a feeling that he's gonna show something on the vuelta, but could be my emotions talking, let's see.
Like i said many times on this forum, froome should retire in the end of this season if he can't show improvements until the end of the season.
 
Two things, from video, that should do him good. He shredded some weight and is now more focused on cycling, not gym. Perfect balance, between legs, that will be hard to achieve anyway. Those climbs he did and other training on bike, that will do him some good.

Looking forward to Critérium du Dauphiné, to see how his rehabilitation is progressing. He should be a notch better.
 
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The man had a crash that nearly killed him, yet the armchair Brailsfords seem to be loving trash-talking him, mind you with ONLY 4 TdF wins he really must be shite!
Actualy Chris is not my favourite rider I find him a bit frustrating to watch however I think I can appreciate how good he can be, and if he cannot get back to his best so what? he has nothing to prove, take the money and enjoy Chris you have earned it.
 
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The man had a crash that nearly killed him, yet the armchair Brailsfords seem to be loving trash-talking him, mind you with ONLY 4 TdF wins he really must be shite!
Actualy Chris is not my favourite rider I find him a bit frustrating to watch however I think I can appreciate how good he can be, and if he cannot get back to his best so what? he has nothing to prove, take the money and enjoy Chris you have earned it.
You're defending him against arguments nobody is criticizing him with. I don't like him, I loathe his effect on racing, yet I won't criticize him for milking it for the duration of his contract. I would do the same.

I just hope he won't go so far into cycling influencing he ends up doing collabs with Alberto.
 
Two things, from video, that should do him good. He shredded some weight and is now more focused on cycling, not gym. Perfect balance, between legs, that will be hard to achieve anyway. Those climbs he did and other training on bike, that will do him some good.

Looking forward to Critérium du Dauphiné, to see how his rehabilitation is progressing. He should be a notch better.
Excellent. Perhaps he will feature in the middle third of the field.
 
More likely he was milking a goat while in the training camp? They had to manually lift buckets of water to the roof to fill the reservoir to get water pressure.

Maybe he could ask Pinot for some advice on that.
It certainly looked different to where Ineos would stay on the island ... If he shows some good improvement in the dauphine that would be a big step up. In saying that I wouldn't be surprised if he struggles again as his right leg still seems to be a lot weaker than it was pre-accident. I found it surprising in a previous video he posted his left leg was something like 25% weaker than his left leg nearly two years since his accident. I would have thought that would have been one of the first things he would have fixed, if possible, during his post accident recuperation once he was able to train again, so it does look like it's a permanent thing.
 
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