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Teams & Riders Chris Froome Discussion Thread.

Page 652 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

Is Froome over the hill?

  • Yes.

    Votes: 26 35.1%
  • No, the GC finished 40 minutes ago but Froomie is still climbing it

    Votes: 42 56.8%
  • No he is totally winning the Vuelta

    Votes: 17 23.0%

  • Total voters
    74
Vuelta 2013 champ Chris Horner is worse than us! Here's his latest Chris Froome pile-in after yesterday's time trial :
"He had a nightmare of a TT. 16k is not a very long TT. Chris Froome will take off from the ramp and get caught by his minute man. Froome will finish 2 minutes at least down.
"It's a nightmare scenario for ISN. Four time TdF winner, Giro, Vuelta winner, man we are talking about a legend here and he just keeps going bad.
"The first 3 stages went bad and today's TT.
"This is what he does. He's a big guy, powering through these 16k should be no problem and he's just losing more and more time.
"There's absolutely no doubt in my mind there's no way he'll be ready to take start at the TdF.
"Some people have asked should he switch and take stage wins at the TdF. He doesn't have the legs to even be in a breakaway and win from the breakaway, certainly he won't be capable of riding for GC.
"In my mind if ISN have a very solid eighth rider I don't think Froome should even be at this TdF.
"A heartbreak for us fans. We'd love to see Froome up there battling it out for a chance of winning a record 5th TdF, but I don't see it happening.
"At this point in time he's going to have to focus on his health, his recovery and I'd bring him in for races further down when his form is better and then bring him to the bigger races.
"You gotta believe ISN have other guys who can take his place, that could possibly win stages or help someone like Michael Woods when we get into the deep mountains at the TdF.
"I just don't see where Froome can be any kind of help for ISN at the TdF"

Sad but true.
 
Against my better judgement, I won't yet write him off - but understand those that are doing so. He doesn't appear to be making progress in competitive races, despite what his training numbers may say. However, maybe it's going to be an extremely long road back - and patience is needed.....
 
Against my better judgement, I won't yet write him off - but understand those that are doing so. He doesn't appear to be making progress in competitive races, despite what his training numbers may say. However, maybe it's going to be an extremely long road back - and patience is needed.....

I don't believe in any significant divergence between his racing and training numbers (unless it's a long race, where recovery is needed). There's no reason for sucking so much in a short 20-30 minute TT effort when your AnT power is good.
 
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I don't believe in any divergence between his racing and training numbers (unless it's a long race, where recovery is needed). There's no reason for sucking so much in a short 20-30 minute TT effort when your AnT power is good.
I do wish him all the best, but I agree with you here. Especially the fact that his style was completely different from the one from his prime, standing up like a small climber instead of the controlled sitting position he is comfortable with. It looked like he gave it all and that is very concerning.
I believe that a lot of us would like to see him take a last stage victory and then ending his career, but I don't see how at the moment, not even from a small breakaway in a UCI-race.
 
He got through the 2020 Tour without any major hiccups for once, didnt crash, didnt get sick. Thats a big part of finishing 3rd. If, say a Quintana, Buchmann, Bernal or Pinot made it in top shape to Paris, he could have finished 7th and we would think finally he has managed to ride a decent, accident free GT but his 7th place indicates how he unfortunately is past his best now.

I think that's underselling the form Porte was in. He lost time in the wind early through poor positioning, and only lost to Pogacar and Roglic, both of whom are beasts and would have put all those names above to the sword all day long. If Porte rode like that in other years he would have done very well IMO, regardless of how in form the others were.
 
Porte in 2020 TDF was what I expected if he had not crashed in 2017 and 2018.

Porte at his best was dominating one week stage races and climbing with Froome. His ceiling suggested massive potential if he could hold things together for 3 weeks. In 2020 he finally did hold things together and, whilst his performance was decent, I don't think it was up to the standard he showed during his best years of working for Froome. I personally feel that Porte did actually start declining a couple of years ago, even if his form has by no means dropped off a cliff.
 
Israel Start-Up Nation director Rik Verbrugghe told Belgian newspaper La Dernière Heure that the four-time winner was not guaranteed a spot in the team’s eight-man line-up.
"He is a huge champion for whom I have a lot of respect, but his participation in the Tour de France is by no means self-evident," Verbrugge said.
"I expect there will be some clarity during this Dauphiné. He has made constant progress since the start of the season, but we would have liked his progress to be more exponential."
 
I think that's underselling the form Porte was in. He lost time in the wind early through poor positioning, and only lost to Pogacar and Roglic, both of whom are beasts and would have put all those names above to the sword all day long. If Porte rode like that in other years he would have done very well IMO, regardless of how in form the others were.

Yes no doubt he was very good. What I meant is that we cant assume that he was in the shape of his life just cos that 3rd place is his best ever GT result. He might have been in (slightly) better form those times he DNF or worked in support of an other rider.
 
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He got through the 2020 Tour without any major hiccups for once, didnt crash, didnt get sick. Thats a big part of finishing 3rd. If, say a Quintana, Buchmann, Bernal or Pinot made it in top shape to Paris, he could have finished 7th and we would think finally he has managed to ride a decent, accident free GT but his 7th place indicates how he unfortunately is past his best now.

Would 4 of them sneak into the 2'31'' gap that Roglic had on Porte at the end? Or maybe someone would have beaten Roglic? Or maybe even Pogacar?

It was a rather passively raced Tour in all, but in total Porte lost 1'16'' in actual time to Roglic in stages other than the wind one.

Edit: in actual time on road stages, TT not included
 
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He got through the 2020 Tour without any major hiccups for once, didnt crash, didnt get sick. Thats a big part of finishing 3rd. If, say a Quintana, Buchmann, Bernal or Pinot made it in top shape to Paris, he could have finished 7th and we would think finally he has managed to ride a decent, accident free GT but his 7th place indicates how he unfortunately is past his best now.

For sure, I have always been quite fond of Porte, thinking if he could have held things together he would be now a GT winner.
Unfortunately things didn't work for him all that well, as it didn't for many others, but he has always shown massive potential (imo).

Financially i believe his years at Sky were very good, yet competitively in GTs he might also wonder what could his career have been if he left his gregario role to be a GT contender in other team sooner.
 
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I don't believe in any significant divergence between his racing and training numbers (unless it's a long race, where recovery is needed). There's no reason for sucking so much in a short 20-30 minute TT effort when your AnT power is good.
There's some divergence between racing and training numbers by what i saw on his strava. For example, he did in 5min and 30 seconds a climb of 2.3 km at 10%, that's a good performance, and in racing you won't get dropped in a similar climb. The problem is that on racing, the speed is more high during the stage.
 
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There's some divergence between racing and training numbers by what i saw on his strava. For example, he did in 5min and 30 seconds a climb of 2.3 km at 10%, that's a good performance, and in racing you won't get dropped in a similar climb. The problem is that on racing, the speed is more high during the stage.

Do you have a strava link because that is possibly the most absurd thing I've heard in this thread (and that's saying a lot!). Quick calc gives me approx 670 watts for that climb!!!! If that were true he'd be obliterating pantanis records!
 
Would 4 of them sneak into the 2'31'' gap that Roglic had on Porte at the end? Or maybe someone would have beaten Roglic? Or maybe even Pogacar?

It was a rather passively raced Tour in all, but in total Porte lost 1'16'' in actual time to Roglic in stages other than the wind one.

Edit: in actual time on road stages, TT not included

It would have been a much different race if those 4 would have been in top shape, dont think we could assume the time gaps would have stayed the same.
 
Do you have a strava link because that is possibly the most absurd thing I've heard in this thread (and that's saying a lot!). Quick calc gives me approx 670 watts for that climb!!!! If that were true he'd be obliterating pantanis records!
I can't put the link here. But go see it. "Carretera general de vilaflor climb" 2.2 km at 10.4% in 5min and 37 seconds on 16th may.

That's only about 550w as porte weighs say 60, bike 7. 2200m with 230m elevation in 337sec is around 550w.
 
It would have been a much different race if those 4 would have been in top shape, dont think we could assume the time gaps would have stayed the same.

Well, one can come up with any hypothetical scenario. Point is that Porte was not far away from second so this is the reason why it is rather difficult to believe that he could have been as low as 7th had everything gone well for all the others.
 

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