Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

[brownbobby]

Re: Re:

Just for balance (and I do agree Froome was a donkey, just for the record), the one positive result in his palmares pre-2011 imo is his 2nd place in the 2010 British TT, a respectable 1:22 behind Wiggins.
Obviously a stretch to claim that's a reasonable sign of GT domination, but plenty of cyclists never get to that level.

Painting Froome as some kind of delusional Eddie the Eagle is an exaggeration also. He was a middle-of-the-pack domestique, but he wasn't a hopeless village idiot. He did know how to race a bike at least on a mediocre euro-pro level, and if Sky had kicked him out in 2011 he would have found another place somewhere.

Middle of the pack at lower level races, sure.

Froome - 2nd year pro - 35th in the Giro
Quintana - 2nd year pro - 36th in the Vuelta
Dumoulin - 2nd year pro - 41st in the Tour
Roglic - 2nd year pro - 38th in the Tour
Contador - 3rd year pro - 31st in the Tour

This looks very consistent. It''s certain that Froome is the equal of his contemporaries at this point. Of course none of the others had their team fold soon after.

I love cherrypicking results without analyzing them.

Yeah, I mean it’s ok to keep referring to things like the technical elite level xc mountain bike race that he was dropped into at the last minute as evidence of his complete lack of talent, but talking about results in early grand tours is just ridiculous....

 

[gillan1969]

@brownbobby
are you even a cyclist? have you ever cycled with anyone insanely good? Froome isn't just (allegedly) insanely good...he's actually one of the most remarkable human specimens the world has even seen at turning pedals fast....only...when asked to turn pedals fast when younger...he, sort of, never....

glad I could help with that

PS he didn't finish, like 5th...he got lapped...that's my level

 

[brownbobby]

@brownbobby
are you even a cyclist? have you ever cycled with anyone insanely good? Froome isn't just (allegedly) insanely good...he's actually one of the most remarkable human specimens the world has even seen at turning pedals fast....only...when asked to turn pedals fast when younger...he, sort of, never....

glad I could help with that

PS he didn't finish, like 5th...he got lapped...that's my level

Yeah...i've ridden a bike once or twice, i even managed to be competitive for a few years at regional league level. I mean i was never in danger of having to give up the day job, but i was ok....does that make me a cyclist?

A few years back, to pass the time during the winter, i decided to have a go at a cyclocross race....i mean how hard could it be...the people who were regularly winning races and leading the winter league were at least one or two categories below me on the road, all i had to do was borrow a mates bike (wasn't quite the right size, but close enough), turn up and turn the pedals really fast. Tarmac, grass, mud....its all the same, just turn the pedals really fast and i'll go really fast, right?

Anyway, long story short....at the end of the first lap i'd fell off more times in 15 minutes than i had in the previous 3 seasons on the road and been lapped by at least half the field. By the end of the race there were only 5 of the 40 strong field who hadn't lapped me at least once, 3 of them were DNF's but lets not dwell on the minor details.

It was my first and last cyclocross race. To this day i still don't understand it....my heart rate was maxed out or close to it for an hour. I was turning the pedals really really fast...yet i was as good as dead last to a field of clearly inferior cyclists :lol: They must have all been doping and/or using motors on that day.

But yeah...Froome should have won that MTB race, without breaking sweat

 

[gillan1969]

@brownbobby
are you even a cyclist? have you ever cycled with anyone insanely good? Froome isn't just (allegedly) insanely good...he's actually one of the most remarkable human specimens the world has even seen at turning pedals fast....only...when asked to turn pedals fast when younger...he, sort of, never....

glad I could help with that

PS he didn't finish, like 5th...he got lapped...that's my level

Yeah...i've ridden a bike once or twice, i even managed to be competitive for a few years at regional league level. I mean i was never in danger of having to give up the day job, but i was ok....does that make me a cyclist?

A few years back, to pass the time during the winter, i decided to have a go at a cyclocross race....i mean how hard could it be...the people who were regularly winning races and leading the winter league were at least one or two categories below me on the road, all i had to do was borrow a mates bike (wasn't quite the right size, but close enough), turn up and turn the pedals really fast. Tarmac, grass, mud....its all the same, just turn the pedals really fast and i'll go really fast, right?

Anyway, long story short....at the end of the first lap i'd fell off more times in 15 minutes than i had in the previous 3 seasons on the road and been lapped by at least half the field. By the end of the race there were only 5 of the 40 strong field who hadn't lapped me at least once, 3 of them were DNF's but lets not dwell on the minor details.

It was my first and last cyclocross race. To this day i still don't understand it....my heart rate was maxed out or close to it for an hour. I was turning the pedals really really fast...yet i was as good as dead last to a field of clearly inferior cyclists :lol: They must have all been doping and/or using motors on that day.

But yeah...Froome should have won that MTB race, without breaking sweat

yeah...cross is brutal

He wouldn't have won the Commie Games MTB..there were some world class riders riding...but the lapped is about the same status as his legendary win in the atomic jock race...it shows a proficient level of (world class) cycling ability only....not someone at the extremes of human physiology..

I'll ask again (i think we have identied the 2nd at the UK TT champs as showing he was not totally useless)....

Point me to one performance that you would expect from a full time bike rider (4 and a half in the Euro pro peloton) where he produced one performance, just one, which would suggest he was at the upper end of human physiology......just one?

 

[macbindle]

43rd (out of 70) in the 2007 under-23 WC TT?

Will that do?

 

[brownbobby]

@brownbobby
are you even a cyclist? have you ever cycled with anyone insanely good? Froome isn't just (allegedly) insanely good...he's actually one of the most remarkable human specimens the world has even seen at turning pedals fast....only...when asked to turn pedals fast when younger...he, sort of, never....

glad I could help with that

PS he didn't finish, like 5th...he got lapped...that's my level

Yeah...i've ridden a bike once or twice, i even managed to be competitive for a few years at regional league level. I mean i was never in danger of having to give up the day job, but i was ok....does that make me a cyclist?

A few years back, to pass the time during the winter, i decided to have a go at a cyclocross race....i mean how hard could it be...the people who were regularly winning races and leading the winter league were at least one or two categories below me on the road, all i had to do was borrow a mates bike (wasn't quite the right size, but close enough), turn up and turn the pedals really fast. Tarmac, grass, mud....its all the same, just turn the pedals really fast and i'll go really fast, right?

Anyway, long story short....at the end of the first lap i'd fell off more times in 15 minutes than i had in the previous 3 seasons on the road and been lapped by at least half the field. By the end of the race there were only 5 of the 40 strong field who hadn't lapped me at least once, 3 of them were DNF's but lets not dwell on the minor details.

It was my first and last cyclocross race. To this day i still don't understand it....my heart rate was maxed out or close to it for an hour. I was turning the pedals really really fast...yet i was as good as dead last to a field of clearly inferior cyclists :lol: They must have all been doping and/or using motors on that day.

But yeah...Froome should have won that MTB race, without breaking sweat

yeah...cross is brutal

He wouldn't have won the Commie Games MTB..there were some world class riders riding...but the lapped is about the same status as his legendary win in the atomic jock race...it shows a proficient level of (world class) cycling ability only....not someone at the extremes of human physiology..

I'll ask again (i think we have identied the 2nd at the UK TT champs as showing he was not totally useless)....

Point me to one performance that you would expect from a full time bike rider (4 and a half in the Euro pro peloton) where he produced one performance, just one, which would suggest he was at the upper end of human physiology......just one?

As you know/we all know, results pre 2011 showing this don't really exist, but lab testing did show he was at the upper end of human physiology....not at the very pinnacle of it, but certainly at the upper end. But results in the lab didn't translate to results on the road.

More recent lab tests have been consistent with those earlier tests, there's been very little change in physiology (weight loss being the obvious exception) but the results on the road have never stopped coming...

So we return to the eternal question of what changed in 2011.....most people have their own version of the answer, none of us really know for sure ....

 

[Gung Ho Gun]

Re: Re:

Just for balance (and I do agree Froome was a donkey, just for the record), the one positive result in his palmares pre-2011 imo is his 2nd place in the 2010 British TT, a respectable 1:22 behind Wiggins.
Obviously a stretch to claim that's a reasonable sign of GT domination, but plenty of cyclists never get to that level.

Painting Froome as some kind of delusional Eddie the Eagle is an exaggeration also. He was a middle-of-the-pack domestique, but he wasn't a hopeless village idiot. He did know how to race a bike at least on a mediocre euro-pro level, and if Sky had kicked him out in 2011 he would have found another place somewhere.

Middle of the pack at lower level races, sure.

Froome - 2nd year pro - 35th in the Giro
Quintana - 2nd year pro - 36th in the Vuelta
Dumoulin - 2nd year pro - 41st in the Tour
Roglic - 2nd year pro - 38th in the Tour
Contador - 3rd year pro - 31st in the Tour

This looks very consistent. It''s certain that Froome is the equal of his contemporaries at this point. Of course none of the others had their team fold soon after.

I'll bite.

Froome - 2nd year pro - 35th in the Giro - Age 24, 2nd GT. Also pretty much the best result of his career until his 4th GT at age 26
Quintana - 2nd year pro - 36th in the Vuelta - Age 22, 1st GT. Finished second in his second GT at age 23
Roglic - 2nd year pro - 38th in the Tour - Won a time trial and a mountain stage in his first 2 GTs instead of riding GC
Contador - 3rd year pro - 31st in the Tour - Age 22, 1st GT. Won his second GT at age 24

I won't defend Dumoulin, but the guys above are quite clearly not equal. Even excluding results in non-GTs.

 

[Jagartrott]

Interesting interview with Bruyneel in a Belgian newspaper. He says that thinks the TUIs with Sky are rather suspicious. He specifically names the Tour de Romandie 2014, where Froome was first too sick to start, then got a fast tracked TUI for Prednisolone, then ends up winning the race.

 

[rick james]

Aye we all know about the TUE.....

 

[brownbobby]

Re:

Interesting interview with Bruyneel in a Belgian newspaper. He says that thinks the TUIs with Sky are rather suspicious. He specifically names the Tour de Romandie 2014, where Froome was first too sick to start, then got a fast tracked TUI for Prednisolone, then ends up winning the race.

Are you sure you didn't pick up a newspaper from 2016?

 

[gillan1969]

@brownbobby

when you say lab testing.....do you mean the fax???? :lol: :lol:

the issue isn't "did he lose the fat"..the issue is how he lost the fat and kept the power

same with Wiggins, same with Kennaugh, same with G, same with........

He found the magic bullet some time around...mmmmmmmm...August 2011

 

[Parker]

Re: Re:

Just for balance (and I do agree Froome was a donkey, just for the record), the one positive result in his palmares pre-2011 imo is his 2nd place in the 2010 British TT, a respectable 1:22 behind Wiggins.
Obviously a stretch to claim that's a reasonable sign of GT domination, but plenty of cyclists never get to that level.

Painting Froome as some kind of delusional Eddie the Eagle is an exaggeration also. He was a middle-of-the-pack domestique, but he wasn't a hopeless village idiot. He did know how to race a bike at least on a mediocre euro-pro level, and if Sky had kicked him out in 2011 he would have found another place somewhere.

Middle of the pack at lower level races, sure.

Froome - 2nd year pro - 35th in the Giro
Quintana - 2nd year pro - 36th in the Vuelta
Dumoulin - 2nd year pro - 41st in the Tour
Roglic - 2nd year pro - 38th in the Tour
Contador - 3rd year pro - 31st in the Tour

This looks very consistent. It''s certain that Froome is the equal of his contemporaries at this point. Of course none of the others had their team fold soon after.

I'll bite.

Froome - 2nd year pro - 35th in the Giro - Age 24, 2nd GT. Also pretty much the best result of his career until his 4th GT at age 26
Quintana - 2nd year pro - 36th in the Vuelta - Age 22, 1st GT. Finished second in his second GT at age 23
Roglic - 2nd year pro - 38th in the Tour - Won a time trial and a mountain stage in his first 2 GTs instead of riding GC
Contador - 3rd year pro - 31st in the Tour - Age 22, 1st GT. Won his second GT at age 24

I won't defend Dumoulin, but the guys above are quite clearly not equal. Even excluding results in non-GTs.

My post was in response to the idea that Froome was "middle of the pack at lower level races" when in reality his GT results were very similar to his contemporaries at the same point in their careers. In the 30s in 2nd/3rd year, on the podium in the 3rd/4th year. The others didn't have their team collapse in between though.

 

[brownbobby]

@brownbobby

when you say lab testing.....do you mean the fax???? :lol: :lol:

the issue isn't "did he lose the fat"..the issue is how he lost the fat and kept the power

same with Wiggins, same with Kennaugh, same with G, same with........

He found the magic bullet some time around...mmmmmmmm...August 2011

I mean the 2007 UCI lab results.....of course just passing off any data that goes against the agenda you're siding with as 'fake news' is a sure fire way to make sure you stay ahead in the debate, at least in your own mind

PS. from memory, i think the results show his peak power declined slightly from 2007-2016, which would be consistent with weight loss....but if its all faked anyway then i guess that's irrelevant too

 

[spalco]

Lab results are sort of anecdotal though. Even if it's true about Froome having astounding numbers as youth, it's incomplete data because we don't have numbers from most other riders to compare and it's also common for training beasts to fail to convert in competition for many reasons.

What happens on the road, we know for a fact and that's what counts.

 

[Saint Unix]

As you know/we all know, results pre 2011 showing this don't really exist, but lab testing did show he was at the upper end of human physiology....not at the very pinnacle of it, but certainly at the upper end.

Which is just incredible, isn't it? The guy who won the Tour is at the upper end of human physiology. Who'da thunk it?

The question is how he got there, and some rigged lab experiment organized by his team isn't going to answer that. All I know is he sure as hell wasn't there before 2011. Something changed dramatically.

 

[bigcog]

Well you'll be pleased to know he has officially won the Vuelta 2011 too

 

[Saint Unix]

... for now.

 

[rick james]

Re:

... for now.

LOL they all ready tried to get Froome….He's untouchable

 

[macbindle]

Ricky, just out of interest, do you think Froome is a clean rider?

 

[rick james]

No

 

[rick james]

Maybe

 

[rick james]

Could be, no one really knows...

 

[macbindle]

Re:

Could be, no one really knows...

We know some things...

We know for sure he did a Wiggins and had a huge dose of Cortisone to win Romandie in '14, and we know he had a gigantic dose of Salbutamol in his system during a GT for which other less important riders have been banned. We know his incredible transformation happened when Sky employed ex-Rabobank doping doctor, Leinders, and above all we know that for a clean rider to be on the verge of being one of the greatest GT riders ever would take one of the greatest physical specimens ever....which seems odd given his utter mediocrity all the way through his career up until some weird moment in the summer of 2011.

 

[rick james]

Yes you’ve summarised this massive thread into a small paragraph.....salbutamol he was cleared and rightly so..A TUE isn't illegal so I don’t know why you bring that up

 

[rick james]

I don't watch cycling to be cynical of the winners....if that’s what drives some people to watch sport then so be it