Dan Martin - "Now I know you can win clean"

[Benotti69]

Dan Martin is a clean as anyone else in the peloton. Not very.

 

[noddy69]

Re:

Dan Martin is a clean as anyone else in the peloton. Not very.

If you start from a place where everyone is doping then this is true.

 

[Angliru]

Re:

kimmage is best ignored

...easily done with ones head in the sand. Is it since he became a critic of Sky or just in general?

 

[ontheroad]

Another classics rider dropping mountain goats for fun late in his career.

 

[Cookster15]

Re:

Another classics rider dropping mountain goats for fun late in his career.

He cut his back to shreds two days ago. Whatever he is on it is also a good pain killer. Tramadol?

 

[vedrafjord]

Re:

Another classics rider dropping mountain goats for fun late in his career.

What? Another climber dropping other climbers, who's always been a climber and does well in classics like Liege and Lombardia that involve a similar amount of climbing to a GT queen stage.

2008 1st overall Route du Sud
2009 2nd overall Volta a Catalunya
2010 1st overall Tour de Pologne, 1st stage 5
2011 1st Stage 9 Vuelta a España
2011 2nd overall Tour de Pologne, 1st Stage 6
2011 2nd Giro di Lombardia
2012 5th Liège–Bastogne–Liège
2013 1st overall Volta a Catalunya, 1st Stage 4
2013 1st Liège–Bastogne–Liège
2013 1st Stage 9 Tour de France
2013 4th Giro di Lombardia
2014 1st Giro di Lombardia
2014 2nd La Flèche Wallonne
2014 7th Overall Vuelta a España
2016 3rd overall Volta a Catalunya, 1st Stage 3
2016 3rd La Flèche Wallonne
2016 3rd overall Critérium du Dauphiné
2016 9th overall Tour de France
2017 2nd Liège–Bastogne–Liège
2017 2nd La Flèche Wallonne
2017 3rd overall Paris–Nice
2017 3rd overall Critérium du Dauphiné
2017 6th overall Tour de France
2018 1st Stage 6 Tour de France
2018 4th overall Critérium du Dauphiné, 1st Stage 5

That's a very consistent palmares - an even mix of mountain stages, high GC placings, and hilly classics more or less since he turned pro. Doesn't mean he's clean of course - living in Andorra is highly suspicious, and reading the names of the last two decades of LBL winners is like a who's who of doping - but he's never dropped 10kg or had an overnight transformation. Plus his dad was a pro cyclist and his uncle is a Triple Crown winner. It's very different to some like Thomas, who converted from a specialist in 4km indoor TTTs to being able to outclimb a 5 ft 5 altitude native like Quintana on multi-mountain stages.

 

[samhocking]

Climbing in a GT is not about just climbing though is it. The climbing is off the back of being an all-rounder over multiple days. GT racing finds the best all-rounder not climber. That's why pretty much every Tour winner especially is around the 70kg mark, not 55kg mark.

 

[noddy69]

Re:

Climbing in a GT is not about just climbing though is it. The climbing is off the back of being an all-rounder over multiple days. GT racing finds the best all-rounder not climber. That's why pretty much every Tour winner especially is around the 70kg mark, not 55kg mark.

Thats bull..Evans,Contador,Le Monde,Delgado, Nibali,Hinaut....all low 60's

Even the logic behind what all rounder guys are doing to the climbers is bull....they all ride numerous days,the smaller climbers should be better on the big climbs, Its not bloody rocket science

 

[vedrafjord]

Re:

Climbing in a GT is not about just climbing though is it. The climbing is off the back of being an all-rounder over multiple days. GT racing finds the best all-rounder not climber. That's why pretty much every Tour winner especially is around the 70kg mark, not 55kg mark.

My reply here is the same as my reply in the Quintana thread - there has been a sustained and steady decline in flat ITT kilometres in GTs over the last 3.5 decades which has massively benefited light climbers going for GC (and people who make themselves light by means fair or foul), and people can't do full gas blood doping any more, so the upper weight limit on GT winners is Dumoulin/Wiggins in their trim state not Riis/Indurain, and the median weights have shifted down accordingly as well.

Part of this has been ASO trying to give the most realistic other contenders (such as Bardet and Quintana) a fighting chance to beat Froome. A bigger part is that nobody has found a way to make TTs into good TV (it's mostly grinding out watts vs other 'time trial' sports that are speed and skill like Alpine skiing), and the ratings for TT stages tend to be poor (this ignores that flat TTs make the mountain stages better by forcing pure climbers to attack from further out to regain time).

Another factor I didn't mention in the other thread as it's less of a thing in the Tour: the Vuelta has gone for more and more muritos, and both the Giro and Vuelta have increasingly featured crazy steep long climbs like Angliru, Zoncolan, Mortirolo where pure climbers can put minutes into all-rounders.

This can change again however - if there is a TTer who can smash Froome/Thomas and equal them in the mountains (especially if they're French) there's a chance ASO will start to swing the other way. Don't bank on it though - they put a TTT in this year even though it was obvious it'd give the Sky riders a minute over most of their rivals.

What does this mean in this Tour, where Quintana and Martin finished in the main GC group in a stage with 21km of Roubaix cobbles, and the current Tour podium after three days in the Alps are all 6ft tall including a track rider, a TT specialist, and a super-late bloomer? As The Hitch quotes Bassons in his signature: "I get the impression that history is repeating itself: riders who are supposed to be rouleurs are climbing passes at the front of the race, and those who are supposed to be climbers are riding time trials at more than 50 kilometres per hour."