Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

[samhocking]

Pretty slow weight loss of around 1kg a month, that's easily achievable simply through diet and nutrition. Without the FTP alongside each month, difficult to suggest weight loss is via illegal methods.

 

[rick james]

Froome should be asking for his money back on then weight lose magic pills, they really haven’t done much for him

 

[spalco]

The weight loss isn't suspicious, but retaining endurance and muscle power at already quite low weight (and Froome isn't a small guy) may be.
Apparently in the US a BMI of just under 20 would put Froome in the 3rd percentile of men, I couldn't find any charts for the UK easily.
Of course he's also well into top 3rd percentile of fittest people on the planet undoubtedly, so I really have no idea if there's something wrong with that from a sports science point of view.

I'm surprised from a BMI point Froome isn't even considered "underweight" at 68kgs, even though he did look crazy thin in some pictures; I'm shorter than him, weigh about 84kgs and I'm not fat either.

 

[hrotha]

Pretty slow weight loss of around 1kg a month, that's easily achievable simply through diet and nutrition. Without the FTP alongside each month, difficult to suggest weight loss is via illegal methods.

Could naturally go down to 40 kg without losing power as long as he does it month by month.

 

[King Boonen]

Re:

The weight loss isn't suspicious, but retaining endurance and muscle power at already quite low weight (and Froome isn't a small guy) may be.
Apparently in the US a BMI of just under 20 would put Froome in the 3rd percentile of men, I couldn't find any charts for the UK easily.
Of course he's also well into top 3rd percentile of fittest people on the planet undoubtedly, so I really have no idea if there's something wrong with that from a sports science point of view.

I'm surprised from a BMI point Froome isn't even considered "underweight" at 68kgs, even though he did look crazy thin in some pictures; I'm shorter than him, weigh about 84kgs and I'm not fat either.

BMI is garbage.

 

[brownbobby]

Re:

FWIW Vayer posted Froome's weight on twitter along with other stuff from his training logs a few months ago :

Feb 2011 73kg
Apr 2011 71kg
Aug 2011 from 71 to 69 during Vuelta
Apr 2012 71kg
May 2012 69kg
Jul 2012 67kg
Jan 2013 70kg
Jul 2013 67.5
Sep 2013 71kg
Jul 2014 67.5

Whenever we see pictures of Froome outside of his peaks for the GT's he looks quite chubby (relatively speaking of course) so to me its absolutely within the realms of plausible that he can and does drop 3-4kg without losing any power.

 

[samhocking]

Pretty slow weight loss of around 1kg a month, that's easily achievable simply through diet and nutrition. Without the FTP alongside each month, difficult to suggest weight loss is via illegal methods.

Could naturally go down to 40 kg without losing power as long as he does it month by month.

Obviously not, but no riders race weight is their natural weight anyway. The second they stop racing/training and eat normally the weight goes up. As I said, unless you know his FTP against each corresponding weight each month, completely useless to 'assume' power was so negatively effected that doping was required to get up to the w/kg required because it's not a linear or 1:1 relationship between weight loss and w/kg.

 

[wansteadimp]

Re:

2012-2013 seasons do really stand out. I've never seen such dried-up cyclists as wiggins and froome back then. the way they look was pretty much on the verge with being unhealthy. froome was reported to be about 68-69kg in the tour de france, but damn that was an obvious lie. i assume his weight was rather leaning to the point of 64 kg. how is it possible that an "athlete" with this body mass index was able to wreck the whole opposition both on climbs and in time trials? that's a big question to answer. seems to me, sky really possessed kinda of exclusive knowledge doping-wise which others didn't have access to. who knows, it might have concerned by some backroom british doping programme for the London olympics or something. the level of the secrecy is what we can only guess about. anyway de jongh obviously new the nature of those methods since bertie looked lethal thougout the whole 2014. contador wasn't virtually different from froome, keeping unthinkably low body fat. in 2015, the game once again flipped imo. outputting necessary watts was made possible without having to be extremely lean.

This is an intriguing point - I would have thought Wiggins was experimenting with this in 2009 as part of Garmin. He definitely was super skin that TdF.

It could have come from BC - we know the links we're very close back then.

If that is the scenario it leaves the question what happened in 2010? Wiggins and Sky were hopeless.

If Wiggins was being doped by BC and Garmin weren't involved surely his levels would have continued from 2009 to 2010 to 2011. At least Sky should have been able to have got some one to a decent level in 2010 with the skills that they used on Wiggins in 2009.

 

[red_flanders]

Re:

FWIW Vayer posted Froome's weight on twitter along with other stuff from his training logs a few months ago :

Feb 2011 73kg
Apr 2011 71kg
Aug 2011 from 71 to 69 during Vuelta
Apr 2012 71kg
May 2012 69kg
Jul 2012 67kg
Jan 2013 70kg
Jul 2013 67.5
Sep 2013 71kg
Jul 2014 67.5

Do you know what Vayer's source is for this info? I tend to be very, very skeptical of self-reported weights in cycling. Is this from some vetted third--party source?

 

[simoni]

Re: Wiggins/sky 2010, isn't the received wisdom/story that they put him with Ellingworth and it didn't work out. Once they stuck him with Sutton and he got the kick up the arse to do what needed to be done (fair means or foul) things improved.

Cheating or not, its still hard work losing that weight and you still have to ride a bike a lot, and do it right.

Funnily enough, the amount of drugs you can shove down your neck aren't the only determinant of how fast you go!

 

[Mayomaniac]

Re: Re:

2012-2013 seasons do really stand out. I've never seen such dried-up cyclists as wiggins and froome back then. the way they look was pretty much on the verge with being unhealthy. froome was reported to be about 68-69kg in the tour de france, but damn that was an obvious lie. i assume his weight was rather leaning to the point of 64 kg. how is it possible that an "athlete" with this body mass index was able to wreck the whole opposition both on climbs and in time trials? that's a big question to answer. seems to me, sky really possessed kinda of exclusive knowledge doping-wise which others didn't have access to. who knows, it might have concerned by some backroom british doping programme for the London olympics or something. the level of the secrecy is what we can only guess about. anyway de jongh obviously new the nature of those methods since bertie looked lethal thougout the whole 2014. contador wasn't virtually different from froome, keeping unthinkably low body fat. in 2015, the game once again flipped imo. outputting necessary watts was made possible without having to be extremely lean.

This is an intriguing point - I would have thought Wiggins was experimenting with this in 2009 as part of Garmin. He definitely was super skin that TdF.

It could have come from BC - we know the links we're very close back then.

If that is the scenario it leaves the question what happened in 2010? Wiggins and Sky were hopeless.

If Wiggins was being doped by BC and Garmin weren't involved surely his levels would have continued from 2009 to 2010 to 2011. At least Sky should have been able to have got some one to a decent level in 2010 with the skills that they used on Wiggins in 2009.

Wasn't 2009 also before the explicit Aicar ban? Contador was flying like never before, Wiggins climbed faster than in 2012 and was scary thin and Michael Rogers finished inside the top 10 in a stacked and rather infamous Giro.

 

[red_flanders]

Re:

2012-2013 seasons do really stand out. I've never seen such dried-up cyclists as wiggins and froome back then. the way they look was pretty much on the verge with being unhealthy. froome was reported to be about 68-69kg in the tour de france, but damn that was an obvious lie. i assume his weight was rather leaning to the point of 64 kg. how is it possible that an "athlete" with this body mass index was able to wreck the whole opposition both on climbs and in time trials? that's a big question to answer. seems to me, sky really possessed kinda of exclusive knowledge doping-wise which others didn't have access to. who knows, it might have concerned by some backroom british doping programme for the London olympics or something. the level of the secrecy is what we can only guess about. anyway de jongh obviously new the nature of those methods since bertie looked lethal thougout the whole 2014. contador wasn't virtually different from froome, keeping unthinkably low body fat. in 2015, the game once again flipped imo. outputting necessary watts was made possible without having to be extremely lean.

Yes, the appearance was shocking and unprecedented, and assertions about how this was possible clean are comical. Clearly they were on some kind of weight cutting substances. Racing professionals don't just all of a sudden figure out how to drop an extra 5-7 kilos from their previous racing weights.

I don't know if Sky possessed some secret knowledge or not. It seems very difficult to find evidence of this, or a good reason why Sky would possess more knowledge about doping than other teams. Certainly they hired at least one doping doctor, so yeah, they would have information from that source and others about what to do, but more than other teams? Not seeing that.

What seems to have traction to me is that they were VERY tightly connected to the UCI leadership at the time, and that protection from the UCI has historically been a thing. Not exactly a stretch to surmise that they were getting cover other teams weren't, and were able to dope with methods other teams would not risk. There's no proof of this, but it does explain things fairly well, and is supported by circumstantial evidence.

 

[macbindle]

There are lots of possible explanations. They might have something nobody else knows about. They might have something undetectable. They might just combine lots of little things like kenacort with truckloads of resources/money and come out with a winning formula. They might be clean/ nearly clean.

Froome though. He's the joker in the pack. To me, he doesn't make sense until you consider seriously effective doping.

 

[rick james]

Re: Re:

FWIW Vayer posted Froome's weight on twitter along with other stuff from his training logs a few months ago :

Feb 2011 73kg
Apr 2011 71kg
Aug 2011 from 71 to 69 during Vuelta
Apr 2012 71kg
May 2012 69kg
Jul 2012 67kg
Jan 2013 70kg
Jul 2013 67.5
Sep 2013 71kg
Jul 2014 67.5

Do you know what Vayer's source is for this info? I tend to be very, very skeptical of self-reported weights in cycling. Is this from some vetted third--party source?

you're onto something here, Vayer is for sure on the Froome/Ineos payroll...

 

[spalco]

Re: Re:

What seems to have traction to me is that they were VERY tightly connected to the UCI leadership at the time, and that protection from the UCI has historically been a thing. Not exactly a stretch to surmise that they were getting cover other teams weren't, and were able to dope with methods other teams would not risk. There's no proof of this, but it does explain things fairly well, and is supported by circumstantial evidence.

I truly hope that story gets told one day.

I have to say though, it would've been a massively ballsy gamble on Brailsford's part to put his chips on Chris *** Froome at that point anyway. I can see him going all out for Wiggins, maybe Porte, Rogers or even EBH, but risking all on Froome? Or maybe the risk wasn't so high after all as you say (even though depending on the UCI to not leak stuff is a big ask also)... I don't know, I can't shake the feeling something's missing.
And if that gamble was made that way in the end it was the right thing to do I suppose.

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

2012-2013 seasons do really stand out. I've never seen such dried-up cyclists as wiggins and froome back then. the way they look was pretty much on the verge with being unhealthy. froome was reported to be about 68-69kg in the tour de france, but damn that was an obvious lie. i assume his weight was rather leaning to the point of 64 kg. how is it possible that an "athlete" with this body mass index was able to wreck the whole opposition both on climbs and in time trials? that's a big question to answer. seems to me, sky really possessed kinda of exclusive knowledge doping-wise which others didn't have access to. who knows, it might have concerned by some backroom british doping programme for the London olympics or something. the level of the secrecy is what we can only guess about. anyway de jongh obviously new the nature of those methods since bertie looked lethal thougout the whole 2014. contador wasn't virtually different from froome, keeping unthinkably low body fat. in 2015, the game once again flipped imo. outputting necessary watts was made possible without having to be extremely lean.

This is an intriguing point - I would have thought Wiggins was experimenting with this in 2009 as part of Garmin. He definitely was super skin that TdF.

It could have come from BC - we know the links we're very close back then.

If that is the scenario it leaves the question what happened in 2010? Wiggins and Sky were hopeless.

If Wiggins was being doped by BC and Garmin weren't involved surely his levels would have continued from 2009 to 2010 to 2011. At least Sky should have been able to have got some one to a decent level in 2010 with the skills that they used on Wiggins in 2009.

Wasn't 2009 also before the explicit Aicar ban? Contador was flying like never before, Wiggins climbed faster than in 2012 and was scary thin and Michael Rogers finished inside the top 10 in a stacked and rather infamous Giro.

When did Aicar become detectable anyway? There's usually a lot of time between that.

 

[red_flanders]

Re: Re:

What seems to have traction to me is that they were VERY tightly connected to the UCI leadership at the time, and that protection from the UCI has historically been a thing. Not exactly a stretch to surmise that they were getting cover other teams weren't, and were able to dope with methods other teams would not risk. There's no proof of this, but it does explain things fairly well, and is supported by circumstantial evidence.

I truly hope that story gets told one day.

I have to say though, it would've been a massively ballsy gamble on Brailsford's part to put his chips on Chris **** Froome at that point anyway. I can see him going all out for Wiggins, maybe Porte, Rogers or even EBH, but risking all on Froome? Or maybe the risk wasn't so high after all as you say (even though depending on the UCI to not leak stuff is a big ask also)... I don't know, I can't shake the feeling something's missing.
And if that gamble was made that way in the end it was the right thing to do I suppose.

I'm not sure what that means, or rather I wonder why you want it to get old? The facts are that the UCI has been shown to be corrupt, to protect riders, and the links between the UCI and Sky/British Cycling were obvious and strong during this time. Motive and opportunity, as they say.

I don't think Brailsford in any way put his chips on Froome, he simply had to deal with what Froome transformed into. He chose to back him, ultimately. IMO Froome did what he did in the fall of 2011 without team sanction, he was a late add to the Vuelta team. No one, especially Brailsford, expected anything from him. His emergence was shocking to everyone–-to the point of being comical in my view.

 

[spalco]

It needs to be spelled out, like Armstrong's story had to be spelled out, regardless of what everyone knew already.

 

[veganrob]

Re: Wiggins/sky 2010, isn't the received wisdom/story that they put him with Ellingworth and it didn't work out. Once they stuck him with Sutton and he got the kick up the **** to do what needed to be done (fair means or foul) things improved.

Cheating or not, its still hard work losing that weight and you still have to ride a bike a lot, and do it right.

Funnily enough, the amount of drugs you can shove down your neck aren't the only determinant of how fast you go!

The amount of drugs you stuff down your throat has a direct correlation to how much one can train, and probably how fast one can go

 

[frenchfry]

Re:

There are lots of possible explanations. They might have something nobody else knows about. They might have something undetectable. They might just combine lots of little things like kenacort with truckloads of resources/money and come out with a winning formula. They might be clean/ nearly clean.

Froome though. He's the joker in the pack. To me, he doesn't make sense until you consider seriously effective doping.

This is the situation in a nutshell. He sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

[MartinGT]

Re: Re:

FWIW Vayer posted Froome's weight on twitter along with other stuff from his training logs a few months ago :

Feb 2011 73kg
Apr 2011 71kg
Aug 2011 from 71 to 69 during Vuelta
Apr 2012 71kg
May 2012 69kg
Jul 2012 67kg
Jan 2013 70kg
Jul 2013 67.5
Sep 2013 71kg
Jul 2014 67.5

Do you know what Vayer's source is for this info? I tend to be very, very skeptical of self-reported weights in cycling. Is this from some vetted third--party source?

Leinders, he lost his laptop with it on.

 

[Oufeh]

Re: Re:

FWIW Vayer posted Froome's weight on twitter along with other stuff from his training logs a few months ago :

Feb 2011 73kg
Apr 2011 71kg
Aug 2011 from 71 to 69 during Vuelta
Apr 2012 71kg
May 2012 69kg
Jul 2012 67kg
Jan 2013 70kg
Jul 2013 67.5
Sep 2013 71kg
Jul 2014 67.5

Do you know what Vayer's source is for this info? I tend to be very, very skeptical of self-reported weights in cycling. Is this from some vetted third--party source?

My understanding is someone leaked to him some of Froome's Trainingpeaks logs, as he also tweeted stuff from Sutton/Julich commenting Froome's rides in the app. So weight must be what Froome reported to the team on TP.

https://twitter.com/festinaboy/status/1059496456309129217

 

[rick james]

Re: Re:

FWIW Vayer posted Froome's weight on twitter along with other stuff from his training logs a few months ago :

Feb 2011 73kg
Apr 2011 71kg
Aug 2011 from 71 to 69 during Vuelta
Apr 2012 71kg
May 2012 69kg
Jul 2012 67kg
Jan 2013 70kg
Jul 2013 67.5
Sep 2013 71kg
Jul 2014 67.5

Do you know what Vayer's source is for this info? I tend to be very, very skeptical of self-reported weights in cycling. Is this from some vetted third--party source?

Leinders, he lost his laptop with it on.

Holy dog ***, and the best thing they found on that computer was Froomes weight....comedy gold if you ask me

 

[TourOfSardinia]

so he didn't simply "just lose the fat"
or have some spooky internal fat storage.
After all
Jeroen

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/swart-defends-froomes-physiological-testing-more-data-to-be-released-in-2016/

While much of the improvement in Froome's results could come from shedding excess body fat, Jeroen Swart says we may never be able to explain fully why he was under-performing until 2011.

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

FWIW Vayer posted Froome's weight on twitter along with other stuff from his training logs a few months ago :

Feb 2011 73kg
Apr 2011 71kg
Aug 2011 from 71 to 69 during Vuelta
Apr 2012 71kg
May 2012 69kg
Jul 2012 67kg
Jan 2013 70kg
Jul 2013 67.5
Sep 2013 71kg
Jul 2014 67.5

Do you know what Vayer's source is for this info? I tend to be very, very skeptical of self-reported weights in cycling. Is this from some vetted third--party source?

Leinders, he lost his laptop with it on.

Holy dog ****, and the best thing they found on that computer was Froomes weight....comedy gold if you ask me

c'mon now Rick...get with the SDB agenda...it's a legitimate question to answer...only...er...answer came their none...now that's comedy gold

To illustrate the point, Paul Kimmage asked Brailsford precisely how Peter Kennaugh had managed - by his own admission - to lose five kilograms since he lined up at the Tour de Romandie in late April.

"Through calorie deficit," Brailsford said bluntly, before then expanding slightly on his answer. "Why not speak to Nigel our nutritionist? It's a good question to ask. That is a lot of weight to lose and I totally agree with you. What do we do to get to that kind of weight loss? They're the types of questions that would be legitimate to answer. I don't think there's any great secret in that."