Clean Aussie Pro's

[The Hegelian]

Are you saying that only pure climbers are "natural" GT talents???

How are you going to explain The Badger's palmares?

GT talents are, generally, all rounders who recover very well. Pure climbers are the exception here, not the rule.

 

[The Hegelian]

I'd say Goss is the most interesting clinic question on this list.

Is it:
a/ He was on it, now he's off it?
b/ He was off it, now everyone is on it?
or
c/ His rapid descent from monument winner and green jersey contender into complete mediocrity has no relationship at all with doping?

It surely couldn't be c. So what does Goss tell us about this decade?

 

[del1962]

Re:

Are you saying that only pure climbers are "natural" GT talents???

How are you going to explain The Badger's palmares?

GT talents are, generally, all rounders who recover very well. Pure climbers are the exception here, not the rule.

The Tour was very different in Badgers day much more time trialing, less mountain top finishes. Probably would have suited someone like Evans

 

[ray j willings]

Could some of your views be more about the way we perceive a climber. The way we have a visual image and perception of a climber.
When we see Merckx or Mig climb for instance, they do not fit into the "almost romantic" image we have of climbers.

I have to say were does Froome sit. Even Froomes fan boys have to admit he looks like a gangly mess on a bike but can still climb with the very best.

IMO I still feel Armstrong was the best climber we have ever seen at the tour. His times are still some of the best and he was never really put to the sword in his best years, except by Pantani, and we all know about the mid race call to Ferrari.
Without that call it may well have been so different.

 

[Gung Ho Gun]

Re:

I'd say Goss is the most interesting clinic question on this list.

Is it:
a/ He was on it, now he's off it?
b/ He was off it, now everyone is on it?
or
c/ His rapid descent from monument winner and green jersey contender into complete mediocrity has no relationship at all with doping?

It surely couldn't be c. So what does Goss tell us about this decade?

I'd go for a combination of all three. He's doping less, others are doping more, and other factors (injuries / lazyness / mental issues / ...) as well

 

[sniper]

Re:

Are you saying that only pure climbers are "natural" GT talents???

How are you going to explain The Badger's palmares?

GT talents are, generally, all rounders who recover very well. Pure climbers are the exception here, not the rule.

I was indeed speaking about Evans as a climber (see the post to which hrotha responded).
I was labelling him a mediocre talent mainly on the basis of his poor climbing style viz. a notable lack of souplesse when going uphill.
Not saying he didn't go fast uphill, he did, and that's exactly the point: I'd argue he compensated for a lack of natural climbing talent by doping outrageously.

 

[TheGreenMonkey]

Re:

I'd say Goss is the most interesting clinic question on this list.

Is it:
a/ He was on it, now he's off it?
b/ He was off it, now everyone is on it?
or
c/ His rapid descent from monument winner and green jersey contender into complete mediocrity has no relationship at all with doping?

It surely couldn't be c. So what does Goss tell us about this decade?

My thoughts is Goss is a very fortunate monument winner, not saying he didn't deserve it but he was on a great day of great form and everything went right for him. If he is not at his absolute peak of peaks he does not make it the finish to sprint for the win. Doping would have played a role but whether he got an extra boost that day is impossible to know.

 

[goggalor]

Re:

indeed he proved he could climb.
even though his physique and technique don't seem to suit climbing at all.
his climbing style never looked very natural. It looked Riis-ish.
Did you ever see Evans accellerate out of the saddle the way a Pantani or a Contador did? Of course not. Not a natural climber. The word 'souplesse' just doesn't apply to Cadel. More like a powerhouse.
Not normal to see him climb with the likes of Contador.

Does it really surprise you that this guy became a decent climber?

 

[sniper]

good fotos.
later in his carreer (including the year he won the tour) he looked much beefier.
in fact the contrast is quite remarkable. I wonder what that could point towards...

and regardless of weight, i don't think he has a very gracious climbing style.
it's not pleasing to the eye. The way somebody looks when he plays an instrument is part of my assessment of whether that person is talented or not.

 

[sniper]

Note the similarities.
Both beefed up.
Similarly muscular legs.
Both not natural climbers.
Both very good allrounders.

 

[therhodeo]

Any actual evidence for Hansen?

 

[oldcrank]

Matthew Dellavedova
#hustlelikedelly

 

[Dear Wiggo]

I'd say Evans was a natural climber (show me a MTB champion who isn't) who put on some weight to be a better TTer. The additional weight affected his climbing as you would expect.

The opposite of the new breed of climber who can TT like Cancellara or Martin and then drop them for 10s of minutes on the climbs.

Not saying he's clean. I'll also admit it irks me to read someone say Evans was "mediocre" and I can only really point to national pride as the source of irking, as I had to Wiki his results to confirm or deny the mediocrity, but those results, particularly in the Giro, which is a climber's race, prove (IMO) otherwise.

 

[MellowJohnny]

I think Evans was a very talented rider for the record, he worked harder than a lot to minimize his losses and was unlucky at times.

Hansen is an interesting one, he did the hard yards coming from Triathlon to an Amateur Austrian team but then maybe he is tainted by joining T-Mobile, Then again so are many.

I wonder whether his 3 GTs in a year every year is the closest and most consistent thing a clean pro can achieve at the moment?

 

[blackcat]

Re:

I'd say Evans was a natural climber (show me a MTB champion who isn't) who put on some weight to be a better TTer. The additional weight affected his climbing as you would expect.

The opposite of the new breed of climber who can TT like Cancellara or Martin and then drop them for 10s of minutes on the climbs.

Not saying he's clean. I'll also admit it irks me to read someone say Evans was "mediocre" and I can only really point to national pride as the source of irking, as I had to Wiki his results to confirm or deny the mediocrity, but those results, particularly in the Giro, which is a climber's race, prove (IMO) otherwise.

Wiggo, but you know that in about 95 or 96, he stepped on Robbie Mcewen's chrono bike at jnr worlds, cos it was the only chrono bike that would fit him, and he rode to second or third in the jnr worlds, i think an aussie mate had won, josh collingwood, think he became a doctor in medicine.

now i appreciate the talent pool or catchment in the jnr worlds may not necessarily be "junior worlds qua world juniors", but still, he beat all you could beat, apart from one or two, at that really frail physique.

like sniper, i look at that young kid and think that is a waif, how the heck did he add muscle to the frame as a pro cyclist. it does intimate, if he went down the route that froome and wiggins and to a lesser extent nibali, the current russian, went on, taking those peptides, the GW, the Aicar, the lipotropin/AOD, he would have stripped away all of that muscle he put on.

I wanna see some more shots of the ponytail Horner at Francaise des Jeux in about 2000, and earlier when he was 20 and see the comparison to the physique he had about 6 years ago, the year before the climbing breakthrough at the Tour of Cali where Matthhew Busche or whoever worked for him for the Tour of Cali win where he chrono was really disappointing, but he had lost about 10lbs and became the lean model of Wiggins and Froome. I think Nibali has dropped about 5lbs, he has not gone too crazy, his chrono has paired back a little, but he is not crazy thin!

The thing with Wiggo and Froome their chrono was never hurt, they could still turn up at the Worlds or the Olympics and win. wen, Wiggo had never been a great tter in the first ten years of his career. Atleast under John Robertson in his firdt TdF Froome came top 20 in both, or around 20 in the second won, and well in the teens in the reverse. Before he lost the weight in the last 4 years.

one thing often missed in the timetrials in three week tours, is the intra tour doping and the motomen top-ups and supplies. testo, insulin, and a blood refill or microdosed epo very important for second and third weeks. Look at the top 10 in the timetrials. mrs edita rumsas peeps

 

[blackcat]

did anyone mention Stuey mate?

 

[movingtarget]

Merckx was never a natural climber neither was Lemond or Indurain. Evans was not a natural climber in the classic sense and did not have the acceleration of the smaller Spanish riders. The older races also were very different. TTs were often longer as were the average stages. Pure climbers did not win as often as they do now, with shorter stages and a couple of MTFs where the race is won and lost and shorter TTs plus two rest days in every GT now, I think years ago they only had one. Merckx made sure that even the flat stages were hard and had the team to exploit it. Tactics were much more daring back then as well. If Merckx lost time on an MTF he would attack on the flat the next day. When do you ever see that now ? Hardly ever.

As for physique and TT riding. The typical pursuit champion that switches to the road these days, looks like a greyhound. The older pursuit riders were much bulkier. Partly down to training techniques and diet. Some of them make it on the road and then some like the Meyer brothers and Bobridge don't live up to the hype for different reasons. Dennis looks like he will be more successful than the others although O'Grady had a good career. I was surprised that Wiggins ended up winning a Tour more so than Evans but I suppose it's a slippery slope writing people off because of their past and their body shape as proven before.

 

[blackcat]

movingtarget have a look at the physique of martin vinnicombe, no bigger that ed clancy or steven burke

 

[sniper]

lol. Evans in 2002. He was 25 already there, ffs.
How did he put on that much muscle afterwards?
the difference is ridiculous. I'm guessing HGH, mainly, in addition with steroids.

http://www.ridemedia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Evans-2002_YS.jpg

That said, he did have a strong Giro in 2002, being a slender athlete.
I concede that that is suggestive of some climbing talent.

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

super lean to that Volvo team

super lean. ok, he was prolly 21.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

I googled top pic, says it was from 1996 - he would have been 19.5. Barely an adult.

So 2nd pic is 6 years later.

 

[sniper]

check out this pic (too large to post):
http://www.ridemedia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Evans-2002_YS.jpg
he was 25 there.
talking about a transformation.
good lord.

 

[hrotha]

What's so hard about putting on muscle when you're a super lean cyclist type? The hard part is losing it.

 

[The Hegelian]

Re: Re:

Are you saying that only pure climbers are "natural" GT talents???

How are you going to explain The Badger's palmares?

GT talents are, generally, all rounders who recover very well. Pure climbers are the exception here, not the rule.

I was indeed speaking about Evans as a climber (see the post to which hrotha responded).
I was labelling him a mediocre talent mainly on the basis of his poor climbing style viz. a notable lack of souplesse when going uphill.
Not saying he didn't go fast uphill, he did, and that's exactly the point: I'd argue he compensated for a lack of natural climbing talent by doping outrageously.

Sure. The point I'm making is that there is a very large difference between a GT rider who is better at TT's using their diesel engine to limit losses to the goats up climbs, and the complete EPO transformation of someone who would otherwise lose 30+ minutes on a climbing stage into an uphill genius.

I think Jalabert and Armstrong were the exemplars of the latter. Indurain is a more open question: he was very good in 1990 when he was riding for Delgado (on the juice then? Perhaps, perhaps not), but good enough for 5 straight without help? Very unlikely.

To put Evans in that camp is a bit illogical - it just misses a whole category of rider. i.e. anyone who wins GT's and isn't a goat must, by definition be doping. Evans may well have been, but this isn't a very convincing reason to think so.

 

[sniper]

Re:

What's so hard about putting on muscle when you're a super lean cyclist type? The hard part is losing it.

I could be wrong but I'd say that's pretty hard to do without muscle-growth PEDs.
give me an example of another athlete who gained that much muscle in the period between, say, his 25th and his 30th.
Did you see the pic i posted?
http://www.ridemedia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Evans-2002_YS.jpg
He's 25 there.
Compare it to this:

The size of his thighs has like doubled.
looks like rampant HGH abuse to me.