• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

Teams & Riders Chris Froome Discussion Thread.

Page 653 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

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
Sad but true.
If he doesnt show these days a better level Horner is right, He has no level now to do a decent job and finish on time or to be in brakaways in an exigent race as TdF. But I think he could have help to the team on the flat anyway. and with an improvement, in a race of endirance, he can be quite well at the third week and to be in breaks...
But who knows..he is still on time to be the leader of the team, I cant rol that out yet
 
See this is another example of not being honest with his fans. Let's call it passive dishonesty... He says "I'm not going to win TDF this year" which is a true statement and to the untrained eye seems like an honest one. But take a look under the hood and this statement implies the following:
  1. His form is so close to being a contender that only now less than a month before the start of the tour it became apparent he's not going to make it.
  2. He may win something else this year.
  3. He may win TDF next year.
These are the messages he seeks to transmit to his fans (the way I see it) and all of them are pretty far from the factual truth. An honest statement from him would be "I'm very far from making a recovery to the point that ISN may benefit from my attendance of the race in any meaningful way other than PR. It's looking more and more likely that I won't be fit to be a domestique any time soon". Of course he can't produce such statement as it would be a PR nightmare so I think the best option for him would be to simply be quiet and not mention TDF and victory in the same sentence anymore.

BTW I'm actually rooting for the guy - it gives me no satisfaction to see the guy my age not being able to fully recover from an injury. But his approach to handling the situation (setting lower goals, better PR, more honest evaluation of his condition) should change IMO.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: SHAD0W93
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.

So apart from not agreeing on people trash-talking Froome, you agree with me!
 
I didn't realise that it had become necessary for people whom noone thought likely to so do to make such an announcement.

So, in the interests of full disclosure, I, Armchair Cyclist, will not win the Tour de France this year.
 
See this is another example of not being honest with his fans. Let's call it passive dishonesty... He says "I'm not going to win TDF this year" which is a true statement and to the untrained eye seems like an honest one. But take a look under the hood and this statement implies the following:
  1. His form is so close to being a contender that only now less than a month before the start of the tour it became apparent he's not going to make it.
  2. He may win something else this year.
  3. He may win TDF next year.
I don't know if he's dishonest with his fans or if he's deluding himself. Froome really seems to be training like a mad dawg, if you go by his latest video. Assuming that wasn't all for show. Would be hilarious if it was, though.
 
Froome really seems to be training like a mad dawg, if you go by his latest video. Assuming that wasn't all for show. Would be hilarious if it was, though.
All that he showed in that video is nothing more than a standard training regime of a pro cyclist. I couldn't notice any special madness there :D
The only mad thing there, was the way he did his strength exercises, using his physio or whoever as the training equipement. It was so ridiculous that I couldn't belive it was real. Because if his main problem now and the reason that he's not making any progress is the that his muscles in right leg are still significantly lacking strength and power, then I'd expect him to focus more on that and choose a place for a training camp where he has access to normal gym etc. He was focused on strength training a lot in the pre-season period (when he was in US), but apparently that was still not enough.

Strength training and intense cycling workouts don't go well together. It's very hard to make a good progress in gym when you ride everyday 4-6hrs. At the same time intense weight training negatively impacts cycling performance so it's kind of a vicious cycle.
If he wants to have full power back in his injured leg he has to focus much more on the gym stuff. But now the races came and it's not possible to do that. And no matter how hard you'll train on a bike, if you lack 20% of power in one leg, at this level of racing, you won't be able to acheive anything.

Idk, like I said, maybe he should focus first on getting the power in his leg back. Imo this is one of the main limiting factors and an explanation for his poor performance, because if not that, a rider like him should be able to at least stay with the main group on the climbs like we've had so far in Dauphine.

One more thing. I'm really curious how this power imbalance between his right and left leg actually looks on the bike. That he has those 20% or whatever value less power in injured leg, we know this from specific isometric test, which he showed in the previous video. But that surely doesn't translate 1:1 into the bike. Pros have dual sided power meters so they can see how much power they produce with each leg and I'd like to see some values from him.
 
Last edited:
I didn't realise that it had become necessary for people whom noone thought likely to so do to make such an announcement.

So, in the interests of full disclosure, I, Armchair Cyclist, will not win the Tour de France this year.
Erm, from what I could make out he was asked the question and answered it. What's he supposed to do in that situation, say no comment ? It wasn't some grand announcement ...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Poursuivant
All that he showed in that video is nothing more than a standard training regime of a pro cyclist. I couldn't notice any special madness there :D
The only mad thing there, was the way he did his strength exercises, using his physio or whoever as the training equipement. It was so ridiculous that I couldn't belive it was real. Because if his main problem now and the reason that he's not making any progress is the that his muscles in right leg are still significantly lacking strength and power, then I'd expect him to focus more on that and choose a place for a training camp where he has access to normal gym etc. He was focused on strength training a lot in the pre-season period (when he was in US), but apparently that was still not enough.

Strength training and intense cycling workouts don't go well together. It's very hard to make a good progress in gym when you ride everyday 4-6hrs. At the same time intense weight training negatively impacts cycling performance so it's kind of a vicious cycle.
If he wants to have full power back in his injured leg he has to focus much more on the gym stuff. But now the races came and it's not possible to do that. And no matter how hard you'll train on a bike, if you lack 20% of power in one leg, at this level of racing, you won't be able to acheive anything.

Idk, like I said, maybe he should focus first on getting the power in his leg back. Imo this is one of the main limiting factors and an explanation for his poor performance, because if not that, a rider like him should be able to at least stay with the main group on the climbs like we've had so far in Dauphine.

One more thing. I'm really curious how this power imbalance between his right and left leg actually looks on the bike. That he has those 20% or whatever value less power in injured leg, we know this from specific isometric test, which he showed in the previous video. But that surely doesn't translate 1:1 into the bike. Pros have dual sided power meters so they can see how much power they produce with each leg and I'd like to see some values from him.
Yep, he needs to fix that or improve that weak leg if he can at all. Given he had a double compound fracture of the femur and they would have sliced into various muscles such as the quadracep etc when fixing the fractures presumably causing scarring and possibly nerve damage, plus any damage caused by the accident trauma itself, whether that is possible is another thing altogether.
 
  • Like
Reactions: limak_

TRENDING THREADS