Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

[SeriousSam]

Yes, without badzilla even the least clever of fans would be hard pressed to make sense of the transformation. But even though the badzilla story doesn't hold up to scrutiny, that additional layer of complexity is all that's needed for the fans in the Daily Mail comments section to be utterly convinced he is clean and the reason behind his success being Brailsford, who demolished first the track and is now applying the same recipe of success to demolish the road with a gifted rider like the Dawg.

 

[TMP402]

The Hitch:
"There are also the transformation, the coincidence of Sky constantly making average riders godlike..."

That's it for me, too. How does Sky do it? Like they've invented sports science all by themselves. For years Froome was a nobody; literally a nameless nobody; then he's suddenly not just a world-beater, but by his stats, the greatest climber in cycling history.

This is it, in a nutshell. No other time in cycling history, probably not in sports history, have we seen this happen. No one naturally goes from being just average throughout their youth, into adulthood, then suddenly, in their late 20's, the best in history. And yet, that is just what Froome did. This same line of analysis can be applied to many of the other Sky riders as well. Porte, Thomas, Wiggins even. They get to Sky, and are transformed into greatness. Greatness even beyond a doped USPS team.

And we're supposed to believe it's all natural, some secret training?

I don't think that's quite fair. Thomas won Paris Roubaix espoirs in 2004, as well as world track titles and the Fleche du Sud by 2006. Equally Wiggins was a junior track world champion 14 years before he won his Tour. Thomas and Wiggins are far less troublesome transformations than Froome, who was really a nobody. That's not to say Thomas and Wiggins are/were clean, just that they proved themselves to have good futures when they were starting out, unlike Froome.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

The Hitch:
"There are also the transformation, the coincidence of Sky constantly making average riders godlike..."

That's it for me, too. How does Sky do it? Like they've invented sports science all by themselves. For years Froome was a nobody; literally a nameless nobody; then he's suddenly not just a world-beater, but by his stats, the greatest climber in cycling history.

This is it, in a nutshell. No other time in cycling history, probably not in sports history, have we seen this happen. No one naturally goes from being just average throughout their youth, into adulthood, then suddenly, in their late 20's, the best in history. And yet, that is just what Froome did. This same line of analysis can be applied to many of the other Sky riders as well. Porte, Thomas, Wiggins even. They get to Sky, and are transformed into greatness. Greatness even beyond a doped USPS team.

And we're supposed to believe it's all natural, some secret training?

I don't think that's quite fair. Thomas won Paris Roubaix espoirs in 2004, as well as world track titles and the Fleche du Sud by 2006. Equally Wiggins was a junior track world champion 14 years before he won his Tour. Thomas and Wiggins are far less troublesome transformations than Froome, who was really a nobody. That's not to say Thomas and Wiggins are/were clean, just that they proved themselves to have good futures when they were starting out, unlike Froome.

Not for me Wiggo is not a far less troublesome transformation thatn Froome.
Wiggo was a nobody so he stuck to track and that made him a big fish in a tiny pond. All the good riders were on the road earning proper money.

This tired "Wiggo could ride 4 km fast so of course he could win a 3000km multi stage race" thing is mind numbing.

 

[Benotti69]

The Hitch:
"There are also the transformation, the coincidence of Sky constantly making average riders godlike..."

That's it for me, too. How does Sky do it? Like they've invented sports science all by themselves. For years Froome was a nobody; literally a nameless nobody; then he's suddenly not just a world-beater, but by his stats, the greatest climber in cycling history.

This is it, in a nutshell. No other time in cycling history, probably not in sports history, have we seen this happen. No one naturally goes from being just average throughout their youth, into adulthood, then suddenly, in their late 20's, the best in history. And yet, that is just what Froome did. This same line of analysis can be applied to many of the other Sky riders as well. Porte, Thomas, Wiggins even. They get to Sky, and are transformed into greatness. Greatness even beyond a doped USPS team.

And we're supposed to believe it's all natural, some secret training?

I don't think that's quite fair. Thomas won Paris Roubaix espoirs in 2004, as well as world track titles and the Fleche du Sud by 2006. Equally Wiggins was a junior track world champion 14 years before he won his Tour. Thomas and Wiggins are far less troublesome transformations than Froome, who was really a nobody. That's not to say Thomas and Wiggins are/were clean, just that they proved themselves to have good futures when they were starting out, unlike Froome.

Not for me Wiggo is not a far less troublesome transformation thatn Froome.
Wiggo was a nobody so he stuck to track and that made him a big fish in a tiny pond. All the good riders were on the road earning proper money.

This tired "Wiggo could ride 4 km fast so of course he could win a 3000km multi stage race" thing is mind numbing.

This ^^^^^

Wiggos future was grupetto till he decided to up his 'preparations'

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Can we please stop the BS of using track success as a barometer for future grand tour success?

It's like saying F1 cars are fast, so I bet they'd do really well in a desert race.

 

[therhodeo]

just for the record,the only other case in sports i remember when literally mr.nobody suddenly was one of the best ever is 1999 NFL season and kurt warner who was nobody in college,didnt get drafted,got cut multiple times before signed by rams as scout team QB - a year later at the age of 28 he sudenly had,considered by many,the best season ever and also won MVP and superbowl...at that time (before rules changed heavily in favor of offense) he was considered one of the best ever and eventually was inducted into HOF

its quite an interesting story,worth watching even if you dont like football

I don't think you can draw too many relevant (to cycling) lessons from that.

QB is very much a skill/mental position and it's quite common for QBs to be mis-evaluated (an example would be Tom Brady, who was picked 199th in his draft class, and is a contender for the greatest of all time).

Cycling is about watts/kilo - and, as such, is very dependent on relatively fixed physical attributes.

That's why Froome needs to lean so heavily on his story about illness. Without that story, even his supporters would struggle to explain what he's doing.

Definitely agree. If you're a person of the appropriate size with some athletic ability you can train/learn to be a great QB. Plenty of them haven't been phenoms in college or superhuman athletes. In fact quite a few of them are fairly average if you only look at their speed and things.

 

[therhodeo]

Re:

Can we please stop the BS of using track success as a barometer for future grand tour success?

It's like saying F1 cars are fast, so I bet they'd do really well in a desert race.

It's not as if none of the necessary physiology is transferable. A big engine is a big engine. I think Thomas and Wiggins are as dirty as can be but they still showed more true abilty before their transformations than Froome did.

 

[I Love To Dope]

Re: Re:

Chris Boardman saying Froome "only" put 59 seconds into Quintana

Yeah, but the Cannibal won by numerous minutes though, so Froome's clean. Or something.

Even the giganto tit, Paul Sherwin, has latched onto that ridiculous sound bite argument this morning.

Giganto tit, Paul Sherwin...that's perfect, in a nutshell!

Sherwin is a privelleged a-hole that's always known what side his toast is buttered (blame the British class system); he will say anything that ensures he keeps on cashing cheques. Remember the Tour 2007 he couldn't stop talking about Lance; he no longer does that.

i believe he actually compared Froome to Lance yesterday, but it was in his usual way of irrelevant commentary with zero context

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

Can we please stop the BS of using track success as a barometer for future grand tour success?

It's like saying F1 cars are fast, so I bet they'd do really well in a desert race.

It's not as if none of the necessary physiology is transferable. A big engine is a big engine. I think Thomas and Wiggins are as dirty as can be but they still showed more true abilty before their transformations than Froome did.

If the big engine is the key where all the other track stars turned GT stars???????????

 

[TMP402]

Re: Re:

Can we please stop the BS of using track success as a barometer for future grand tour success?

It's like saying F1 cars are fast, so I bet they'd do really well in a desert race.

It's not as if none of the necessary physiology is transferable. A big engine is a big engine. I think Thomas and Wiggins are as dirty as can be but they still showed more true abilty before their transformations than Froome did.

Exactly.

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

Can we please stop the BS of using track success as a barometer for future grand tour success?

It's like saying F1 cars are fast, so I bet they'd do really well in a desert race.

It's not as if none of the necessary physiology is transferable. A big engine is a big engine. I think Thomas and Wiggins are as dirty as can be but they still showed more true abilty before their transformations than Froome did.

Exactly.

If the big engine is the key where all the other track stars turned GT stars???????????

 

[BYOP88]

Re: Re:

https://twitter.com/mattslaterbbc/status/621206051027820544
Spoke to Froome's camp y'day & as well as independent testing asap, they're asking UCI for his 2007 test data from his time at WCC


That 2007 data would be very interesting as a baseline.

You know what. Why not all his Barloworld data?????

Because this is going to be a very controlled PR stunt.

Every bit of data, from 2007(or earlier if they have any)-2015.

 

[perico]

Re:

Seeing is believing. This could be another PR stunt to put off the questions with an answer, all will be revealed at the independent testing after the tour, please wait till then.........Brailsford invited everyone to come to manchester after Wiggins destroyed everyone at TdF and see how they do it. Never happened.

Paging Dr. Dan Coyle

 

[TMP402]

Re: Re:

Can we please stop the BS of using track success as a barometer for future grand tour success?

It's like saying F1 cars are fast, so I bet they'd do really well in a desert race.

It's not as if none of the necessary physiology is transferable. A big engine is a big engine. I think Thomas and Wiggins are as dirty as can be but they still showed more true abilty before their transformations than Froome did.

Exactly.

If the big engine is the key where all the other track stars turned GT stars???????????

I don't think anyone's saying it's "the key" but it is surely an advantage.

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

Can we please stop the BS of using track success as a barometer for future grand tour success?

It's like saying F1 cars are fast, so I bet they'd do really well in a desert race.

It's not as if none of the necessary physiology is transferable. A big engine is a big engine. I think Thomas and Wiggins are as dirty as can be but they still showed more true abilty before their transformations than Froome did.

Exactly.

If the big engine is the key where all the other track stars turned GT stars???????????

I don't think anyone's saying it's "the key" but it is surely an advantage.

So name all those other track guys with big engines who turned this 'advantage' into road success like Wiggins and now Thomas is doing.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Re: Re:

Can we please stop the BS of using track success as a barometer for future grand tour success?

It's like saying F1 cars are fast, so I bet they'd do really well in a desert race.

It's not as if none of the necessary physiology is transferable. A big engine is a big engine. I think Thomas and Wiggins are as dirty as can be but they still showed more true abilty before their transformations than Froome did.

Exactly.

If the big engine is the key where all the other track stars turned GT stars???????????

I don't think anyone's saying it's "the key" but it is surely an advantage.

So he had a big engine but not the kind that could win road races?

By the time you realise what you are saying, the rest of us are back at the start, waiting for you to catch up because the logic you are employing makes no sense.

He either had a big engine and can win the Tour or not.

Or he had a comparatively big engine compared to the people who also raced track, but none of the good riders of the time (coz they were all on the road winning real money contracts) and therefore looked like he had a big engine, but it was more so average.

Until doped.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re: Re:

Can we please stop the BS of using track success as a barometer for future grand tour success?

It's like saying F1 cars are fast, so I bet they'd do really well in a desert race.

It's not as if none of the necessary physiology is transferable. A big engine is a big engine. I think Thomas and Wiggins are as dirty as can be but they still showed more true abilty before their transformations than Froome did.

This isn't exactly true. On the track (as in a road TT) the highest source of drag is wind resistance. That wind resistance is proportional to surface area. Now let's say that track rider adds some muscle mass. The volume change associated with that goes up with the radius^3 (assuming a sphere - not that accurate but will demonstrate the point I'm making without ugly math). But the surface area only increases by radius^2. Therefore you get an advantage in power-to-surface area when you increase muscle mass. This makes you go faster.

Now let's look at climbers. They're primarily fighting gravity. Power goes up with muscle mass, but so does weight. It's pretty much a linear relationship except weight increases a bit more than power, so any gain in muscle mass is a negative. Historically small, skinny guys are your typical example of a pure climber.

Also historically, your typical GT winner has been someone with balanced features. Shorter than average with a naturally lean but not skinny build. Fignon, Hinault, Merckx, Lemond, Anquetil are all prefect examples. Indurain and Riis made a mockery of all this through pharmaceutical means.

And what about the other end of the scale? How is someone that looks like Rasmussen tearing it up in the time trials? Rocking it on the cobbles? A big engine is not just a big engine. There is much more to the story and rather than inherited genetics these days the narrative evolves around a syringe.

John Swanson

 

[DirtyWorks]

Re: Re:

He either had a big engine and can win the Tour or not.

Cycling in many ways is a very rudimentary sport. A big engine will get one one quite far.

John, at this point it's assumed that Rasmussen's results were all from doping. Bike handling can be taught/learned while having a big engine. Worst case scenario, your big engine becomes a TT specialist.

 

[The Hitch]

Dan Martin said he had a bad day yesterday. Which is normal in cycling. Dopers, clean riders, all have historically been liable to bad days.

So why does Froome never have a bad day. Or 2012 Wiggins for that matter too?

 

[DirtyWorks]

Re:

Dan Martin said he had a bad day yesterday. Which is normal in cycling. Dopers, clean riders, all have historically been liable to bad days.

So why does Froome never have a bad day. Or 2012 Wiggins for that matter too?

Bad days? Bad months! Porte was on fire in January picking up his national TT title and racing once a month continued unti the wheels came off at il Giro. Froome's only hiccup in 2015 was Volta Ciclista a Catalunya.

Yet, none of Sky can be bothered to apply this awesome power at the World Championships.

 

[Walkman]

Re:

Dan Martin said he had a bad day yesterday. Which is normal in cycling. Dopers, clean riders, all have historically been liable to bad days.

So why does Froome never have a bad day. Or 2012 Wiggins for that matter too?

He did in 2013. And the second part of the 2012 Vuelta was full of bad days.

 

[djpbaltimore]

Other than Landis in 2006, I can't remember many GC guys having terrible days like Martin had yesterday. Contador was probably as bad as he ever was in the mountains and he was less than 3 min back.

 

[Saint Unix]

Re:

Dan Martin said he had a bad day yesterday. Which is normal in cycling. Dopers, clean riders, all have historically been liable to bad days.

So why does Froome never have a bad day. Or 2012 Wiggins for that matter too?

Froome has bad days. For instance he once was so pre-occupied with the thought of killing bunnies while riding Alpe d'Huez he forgot to eat.

I also saw him suck to high heavens at US Pro Challenge a few weeks after he destroyed the Tour.

 

[hrotha]

It's not Froome's fault if no one else had the good sense of having all their bad days early in their career.

 

[Eagle]

Re:

It's not Froome's fault if no one else had the good sense of having all their bad days early in their career.

haha