- Mar 7, 2009
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With regard to release of data, I can understand why a team don't release it straight away. In the context of what I do as a day job as an accountant, I can understand that a team may want time to digest the information first to draw accurate conclusions around what actually happened and what the implications of it are. I would never release financial information (be it revenue or profit) without kicking the tyres on it beforehand, as any number of conclusions can be drawn without the results being put into the right context. For example some may draw that being up £1m in P1 flows through to being up £12m across the full year simply by looking at the number. There are, of course, a whole raft of reasons why this may not be the case, and it is my job to put the numbers into the context in which they must be read. Maybe Sky want to do the same, and Niki Terpstra doesn't. Of course this also gives me time to put a certain spin on the numbers...which Sky almost certainly also do.
- Apr 30, 2011
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Of course they are entitled not to release the relevant data. It's not like many scream for Nibali or Quintana to do so.
The difference is of course though that Sky have proclaimed themselves the beginning of a new clean era and told from the onset that they were going to be especially transparent. But they do not set higher standards for themselves than there are for others, in fact they have significantly lower standards. Yet completely unable to admit to that.
"What more can we do?" eh...
The difference is of course though that Sky have proclaimed themselves the beginning of a new clean era and told from the onset that they were going to be especially transparent. But they do not set higher standards for themselves than there are for others, in fact they have significantly lower standards. Yet completely unable to admit to that.
"What more can we do?" eh...
Re:
So ... you’re more pissed that they reneged on promised uber transparency ... rather than being pissed at not releasing their data .... like most teams do/don’t?
Netserk said:
So ... you’re more pissed that they reneged on promised uber transparency ... rather than being pissed at not releasing their data .... like most teams do/don’t?
- Sep 27, 2017
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Re: Re:
Not normal = anybody who is faster than me (definitely doping)
Alpe73 said:brownbobby said:Eh @Alpe73
I'll take up the open invite.....there is certainly at least one person, likely many more on here far more qualified and capable than me in this regard, but i've been coached, and in recent years doing a bit of coaching of my own using power files. Nothing serious, just low level stuff, but i can find my way around a power file...
Here's the thing, from most pro power/HR files, i will be likely able to make a 'credible' argument for:
Doping
Clean
Motor
No Motor
Normal
Not Normal
All of these from the same power file. Just depends what spin i wanted to put on it really.
Been coached, eh? That explains, maybe a little?, the 3 scoops of Ventoux/ day, n’est ce pas???
In your mind and knowledge, does “Not Normal” automatically mean ... “doped” ... or ... anomalous/red flag?
Not normal = anybody who is faster than me (definitely doping)
- May 26, 2010
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It is not possible for a human. Considering all his comptitors are doping how can it be normal for a human.
What complete utter ***.
Since when did any human do the GT clean in the modern era and show what was possible. I mean Coppi in the 50s was taking everything he could get his hands on and it has not changed since then.
Possible for a human, yes with loads of PEDs and a motor.
Puhleeeaaaseeee.
macbindle said:
It is not possible for a human. Considering all his comptitors are doping how can it be normal for a human.
What complete utter ***.
Since when did any human do the GT clean in the modern era and show what was possible. I mean Coppi in the 50s was taking everything he could get his hands on and it has not changed since then.
Possible for a human, yes with loads of PEDs and a motor.
Puhleeeaaaseeee.
- Jan 23, 2016
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I know personal anecdotes are genrally frowned upon here, but im going to recollect one that i think has some relevance to this debate..
A few years ago i had the good fortune to spend a couple of weeks riding in a partcularly scenic and mountainous part of the world; with a group of people, some i knew well, some i'd never met before.
Hopefully its not just me, but when i get on a bike, i'm like a big kid, i've gotta try and be the first to the top of every climb (this inevitably leads to many disappointments) but on this particular trip it transpired that there was another member of the group who was just like me and we were pretty evenly matched in terms of ambition and ability it seemed. Game on.
Here's the link...over the course of just a few days, just from paying attention to my own power as we were having our middle aged duels up the mountains, i was able to get a pretty good idea of what i had to do to win our little personal 'race'. I figured that if i rode at a certain power for around 5 minutes, it would be too much for my 'rival'. He'd try to follow but eventually have to drop off. Truth is, i couldn't have held that power for much longer than 5 minutes, but no matter, he didn't know that and in 5 minutes the damage was done, i could drop the watts down a bit to maintain my lead, and every night in the bar the bragging rights were mine. It became easy and predictable.
Now in one day races, stage hunts and similar where tactics and group dynamics play a much bigger part i can see why data is perhaps not so important.
But in GC's, when it comes down to select groups, only the team leaders left battling it out on the decisive MTF's....
Imagine how decisive it would be, knowing the watts you needed to put out and for how long to break everyone else. Imagine if rather than my rudimentary guesswork of my 'rivals' abilities, i had a team of sports scientists able to plot out in detail the power profile of any rider i was competing against, across say 1,2,5,10 and 20 minute intervals.
I can absolutely understand why GC riders would not want their rivals to have a full picture of their data. And its got nothing to do with any kind of doping cover up.
A few years ago i had the good fortune to spend a couple of weeks riding in a partcularly scenic and mountainous part of the world; with a group of people, some i knew well, some i'd never met before.
Hopefully its not just me, but when i get on a bike, i'm like a big kid, i've gotta try and be the first to the top of every climb (this inevitably leads to many disappointments) but on this particular trip it transpired that there was another member of the group who was just like me and we were pretty evenly matched in terms of ambition and ability it seemed. Game on.
Here's the link...over the course of just a few days, just from paying attention to my own power as we were having our middle aged duels up the mountains, i was able to get a pretty good idea of what i had to do to win our little personal 'race'. I figured that if i rode at a certain power for around 5 minutes, it would be too much for my 'rival'. He'd try to follow but eventually have to drop off. Truth is, i couldn't have held that power for much longer than 5 minutes, but no matter, he didn't know that and in 5 minutes the damage was done, i could drop the watts down a bit to maintain my lead, and every night in the bar the bragging rights were mine. It became easy and predictable.
Now in one day races, stage hunts and similar where tactics and group dynamics play a much bigger part i can see why data is perhaps not so important.
But in GC's, when it comes down to select groups, only the team leaders left battling it out on the decisive MTF's....
Imagine how decisive it would be, knowing the watts you needed to put out and for how long to break everyone else. Imagine if rather than my rudimentary guesswork of my 'rivals' abilities, i had a team of sports scientists able to plot out in detail the power profile of any rider i was competing against, across say 1,2,5,10 and 20 minute intervals.
I can absolutely understand why GC riders would not want their rivals to have a full picture of their data. And its got nothing to do with any kind of doping cover up.
- Dec 22, 2017
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Well yes. Sky tactics. Hit a sweet spot pace where you can just about sustain it without blowing, so that any rivals have to go into the red if they want to go faster for any length of time. Everybody knows the score, USPS did it too. The question is, how is it that Froome is the one sustaining this pace for the longest given that a few years back he was a bit of a donkey...
Re:
so If I understand what your saying, you're saying that armed with Froome's power numbers...all I need to do is replicate those..and...bang GT winner...nice
hell...I'm going to go crazy and ride with more 5 watts more...shhhhhh don't tell anyone that bit
brownbobby said:
so If I understand what your saying, you're saying that armed with Froome's power numbers...all I need to do is replicate those..and...bang GT winner...nice
hell...I'm going to go crazy and ride with more 5 watts more...shhhhhh don't tell anyone that bit
- Jan 23, 2016
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Re:
:razz:
IMO, he moved from bread and water to a little more stronger stuff. Came out as the best in the business.
Isn't that the million dollar question?macbindle said:
:razz:
IMO, he moved from bread and water to a little more stronger stuff. Came out as the best in the business.
- Jan 23, 2016
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Re:
Why would a GC guy share his data which can be used against them quite effectively?
You can find vulnerabilities to exploit and use them in the future races.
Totally agree.brownbobby said:
Why would a GC guy share his data which can be used against them quite effectively?
You can find vulnerabilities to exploit and use them in the future races.
- Jul 15, 2013
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Re: Re:
Remember Richie Porte winning Paris-Nice because "they knew exactly how many watts he had to produce" on the Col d'Eze. They knew it from Wiggins' win. Imagine if other teams had the same knowledge.gillan1969 said:brownbobby said:
so If I understand what your saying, you're saying that armed with Froome's power numbers...all I need to do is replicate those..and...bang GT winner...nice
hell...I'm going to go crazy and ride with more 5 watts more...shhhhhh don't tell anyone that bit
- Sep 27, 2017
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Re: Re:
No, what I'm saying is armed with someone else's power profile, I'd know over which time period (ie 1minute, 5 minutes etc) I was going to have the best chance of successfully attacking them. Power profiles are not always linear.
Of course knowing what you need to do doesn't mean you're capable of doing it, but it's better than not knowing what you need to do in the first place.
gillan1969 said:brownbobby said:
so If I understand what your saying, you're saying that armed with Froome's power numbers...all I need to do is replicate those..and...bang GT winner...nice
hell...I'm going to go crazy and ride with more 5 watts more...shhhhhh don't tell anyone that bit
No, what I'm saying is armed with someone else's power profile, I'd know over which time period (ie 1minute, 5 minutes etc) I was going to have the best chance of successfully attacking them. Power profiles are not always linear.
Of course knowing what you need to do doesn't mean you're capable of doing it, but it's better than not knowing what you need to do in the first place.
Re: Re:
'Best' - that's kind of the nub of it, isn't it? And the source of a lot of the frustration and the dislike of Froome the concept, if not the person. Because there's no question that on results and performance alone doped Froome is clearly the best GC rider of his generation, just as Armstrong was of his, as long as you accept that it's still a field where doping is very common if not universal (if only Froome doped and most of his rivals didn't then it would be easy to simply argue that his advantage is purely chemcial, but of course that's unlikely). Except that Froome's dominance and advantage over his rival's is arguably even greater, to the point where you probably have to go back to Hinault or Merckx to find comparisons. Whether or not he dopes differently to his main rivals, or the same, the results are not in doubt, and as an example of what a human is capable of with the right training, support, work ethic and chemical assistance, there have been few equals.
Except that this seems wrong, it upsets our expectations. His early career is wrong, his progression is wrong, the way he sits on his bike is wrong, his pedalling style is weird, his power to weight is absurd, etc. etc. When we look at the sport and try to determine who is really the best, the athlete par excellence, can this really be it?
Some fans are happy to say 'yes' to that. But if you don't think so then it becomes rather more difficult in first determining a) why Froome isn't the best, and B) by what criteria you determine who is instead. People can make good cases for why it should be a Nibali, Quintana, Valverde, or even someone like a George Bennett who might actually even be clean but who still delivers relatively impressive results (should that indeed be true), but they are all suppositions and estimates. This is compounded by the doping 'lottery', where some athletes respond better to performance-enhancing products and procedures than others, largely through sheer luck, plus doping is one more way of advantaging those with bigger financial clout. Ultimately we don't know who the best GC riders, however you measure that other than by pure results, are. The tragedy of cycling, and probably of most individual athletic sports, is that we simply don't know and can't know which riders are naturally superior. All we can do is determine who performs best within the context, constructs and cultural norms of the particular sport, and simply make up our own minds and estimates about the 'real picture', if we choose to.
So I've no problem with people who simply think that Froome is the 'best' within the context of pro cycling as it is, as long as they're realistic about roughly how he got there. Personally I don't subscribe to that view, largely because the role of doping in creating his performances and advantage seems to me to be significant, to the point where it appears simply not right to me to think of him as the best out there on any other criteria than sheer results and power output. But I couldn't really say which riders it is instead. I have some thoughts and theories, but nothing more than that. It's just something to entertain, whilst watching and (sometimes) enjoying the show. 'Tis the nature of the beast.
silvergrenade said:
'Best' - that's kind of the nub of it, isn't it? And the source of a lot of the frustration and the dislike of Froome the concept, if not the person. Because there's no question that on results and performance alone doped Froome is clearly the best GC rider of his generation, just as Armstrong was of his, as long as you accept that it's still a field where doping is very common if not universal (if only Froome doped and most of his rivals didn't then it would be easy to simply argue that his advantage is purely chemcial, but of course that's unlikely). Except that Froome's dominance and advantage over his rival's is arguably even greater, to the point where you probably have to go back to Hinault or Merckx to find comparisons. Whether or not he dopes differently to his main rivals, or the same, the results are not in doubt, and as an example of what a human is capable of with the right training, support, work ethic and chemical assistance, there have been few equals.
Except that this seems wrong, it upsets our expectations. His early career is wrong, his progression is wrong, the way he sits on his bike is wrong, his pedalling style is weird, his power to weight is absurd, etc. etc. When we look at the sport and try to determine who is really the best, the athlete par excellence, can this really be it?
Some fans are happy to say 'yes' to that. But if you don't think so then it becomes rather more difficult in first determining a) why Froome isn't the best, and B) by what criteria you determine who is instead. People can make good cases for why it should be a Nibali, Quintana, Valverde, or even someone like a George Bennett who might actually even be clean but who still delivers relatively impressive results (should that indeed be true), but they are all suppositions and estimates. This is compounded by the doping 'lottery', where some athletes respond better to performance-enhancing products and procedures than others, largely through sheer luck, plus doping is one more way of advantaging those with bigger financial clout. Ultimately we don't know who the best GC riders, however you measure that other than by pure results, are. The tragedy of cycling, and probably of most individual athletic sports, is that we simply don't know and can't know which riders are naturally superior. All we can do is determine who performs best within the context, constructs and cultural norms of the particular sport, and simply make up our own minds and estimates about the 'real picture', if we choose to.
So I've no problem with people who simply think that Froome is the 'best' within the context of pro cycling as it is, as long as they're realistic about roughly how he got there. Personally I don't subscribe to that view, largely because the role of doping in creating his performances and advantage seems to me to be significant, to the point where it appears simply not right to me to think of him as the best out there on any other criteria than sheer results and power output. But I couldn't really say which riders it is instead. I have some thoughts and theories, but nothing more than that. It's just something to entertain, whilst watching and (sometimes) enjoying the show. 'Tis the nature of the beast.
- Jan 23, 2016
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Re: Re:
And on that criteria he's by far the best, most dominant and most consistent that he has no rivals.
There's Froome up top
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
and the rest. Ofc how long that remains, no one knows. Maybe the Giro was it and he wont win any more GTs. Maybe he would.
Such is the quality of the man.
PS: Great post though. Constructive critism is always welcome.
Thats the only criteria that matters tbh.Mamil said:
And on that criteria he's by far the best, most dominant and most consistent that he has no rivals.
There's Froome up top
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
and the rest. Ofc how long that remains, no one knows. Maybe the Giro was it and he wont win any more GTs. Maybe he would.
Such is the quality of the man.
PS: Great post though. Constructive critism is always welcome.
- Feb 14, 2014
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Re: Re:
The lack of transparency and unwillingness to hold themselves to the high standards they set as part of their mission statement back when the team was first founded is obviously very much related to this thread. They've shown their hypocrisy when it comes to transparency, just like they've shown similar when it comes to the zero tolerance policy and the no needle rule.
At a certain point all these broken promises get old, and them harping on about how they're keeping these promises despite the mountain of evidence that says the opposite gets annoying. Sky are both louder about their cleanliness than most teams and dirtier than most teams. It's the sort of hypocrisy they deserve to be called out on.
Well, they've shown themselves willing to continuously lie about how transparent they are. To use a Sir Dave-ism, you don't lie on a Monday, but not on a Tuesday. Liars gonna lie. What else are they lying about?Alpe73 said:
The lack of transparency and unwillingness to hold themselves to the high standards they set as part of their mission statement back when the team was first founded is obviously very much related to this thread. They've shown their hypocrisy when it comes to transparency, just like they've shown similar when it comes to the zero tolerance policy and the no needle rule.
At a certain point all these broken promises get old, and them harping on about how they're keeping these promises despite the mountain of evidence that says the opposite gets annoying. Sky are both louder about their cleanliness than most teams and dirtier than most teams. It's the sort of hypocrisy they deserve to be called out on.
- Jul 24, 2016
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Re: Re:
We're the paragon of minutiae-driven exactitude, cutting-edge compilers of vanguard methods (always above board), uncompromising in our standards, demanding adherence to the highest ethical principles and practices, unwavering in our tireless work ethic, insistent on continuous perfection of every clean training detail known to sports and humanity. And transparency -- Mon dieu! We're all about transparency. Gotta have it. But yeah, about that jiffy bag, no worries. Doc's laptop? Uh, yeah, well that got lost, sorry. And records? what records? Uh, yeah, about those testosterone patches, that was a mis-delivery. TUEs? We didn't believe in them, but ah, if you've got a sore knee, the tramadol works wonders (and so many of our guys get sore knees). Yeah, that asthma bug is a real buzz-kill, too. Thank goodness for Salbutamol . . . don't even need a TUE for it. But listen, we're completely intolerant of dopers and anyone associated with that foul practice, that's one thing we can agree on. Leinders? Yeah, who could have known it when we hired the dude? Can you believe it? What? Motors? Hey now! That is completely over the line. Come on, you know us better than that.
We're the paragon of minutiae-driven exactitude, cutting-edge compilers of vanguard methods (always above board), uncompromising in our standards, demanding adherence to the highest ethical principles and practices, unwavering in our tireless work ethic, insistent on continuous perfection of every clean training detail known to sports and humanity. And transparency -- Mon dieu! We're all about transparency. Gotta have it. But yeah, about that jiffy bag, no worries. Doc's laptop? Uh, yeah, well that got lost, sorry. And records? what records? Uh, yeah, about those testosterone patches, that was a mis-delivery. TUEs? We didn't believe in them, but ah, if you've got a sore knee, the tramadol works wonders (and so many of our guys get sore knees). Yeah, that asthma bug is a real buzz-kill, too. Thank goodness for Salbutamol . . . don't even need a TUE for it. But listen, we're completely intolerant of dopers and anyone associated with that foul practice, that's one thing we can agree on. Leinders? Yeah, who could have known it when we hired the dude? Can you believe it? What? Motors? Hey now! That is completely over the line. Come on, you know us better than that.
- Aug 30, 2010
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Re: Re:
Yep, according to bobby it's that easy. Just ride a little harder. No problemgillan1969 said:brownbobby said:
so If I understand what your saying, you're saying that armed with Froome's power numbers...all I need to do is replicate those..and...bang GT winner...nice
hell...I'm going to go crazy and ride with more 5 watts more...shhhhhh don't tell anyone that bit
- Feb 14, 2014
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Usain Bolt is going to kick himself when he finds out that the current bunch of elite sprinters are sitting on the big secret to beating his 100m WR.
... just run faster than 9.58.
... just run faster than 9.58.
- Feb 16, 2010
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- Jan 23, 2016
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Re:
1500 or 150000 or 15000000, at the end of the day its not Froome at fault.TourOfSardinia said:
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Re: Re:
Come on, neither of you are as dumb as you're pretending to be, you're just being deliberately obtuse here
veganrob said:Yep, according to bobby it's that easy. Just ride a little harder. No problemgillan1969 said:brownbobby said:
so If I understand what your saying, you're saying that armed with Froome's power numbers...all I need to do is replicate those..and...bang GT winner...nice
hell...I'm going to go crazy and ride with more 5 watts more...shhhhhh don't tell anyone that bit
Come on, neither of you are as dumb as you're pretending to be, you're just being deliberately obtuse here
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