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The Hitch said:What "cool" anecdotes?SeriousSam said:Cool sounding anecdotes are all made up ***. All of them.
Poulidor used to appeal to middle aged French housewives. Thomas is like the British, gay version of that. Designed to appeal to middle aged male lycra warriors.
Dad humour, but not much cool about it.
Atomic Jock Race just sounds so much betterLaFlorecita said:My badGung Ho Gun said:It's the Anatomic Jock Race
LaFlorecita said:I was talking out of my arse, he did not win stage 3 of the Giro del Capo (Tour of the Cape) (who thought it was a good idea to give a South-African race an Italian name ) he came 2nd overall in 2008 though and won this 1.2 race with the same name in 2009
http://cqranking.com/men/asp/gen/race.asp?raceid=10559
What the hell , over 3 minutes advantage , why have Sky fans not yet pointed towards this as evidence of his talent, instead of his 382th place at the U23 Commonwealth ITT
StryderHells said:Leaving Badzilla to one side, It does confuse me that people use that he was some poor backwater cyclist who knew nothing about bike racing which is one of the reasons it took him until that Vuelta to "get it". In his first Pro year he rode and finished the Tour, the Giro the year after before he came back the following year to get DQ'd, he also raced in plenty of other races on the calendar so for people to claim he lacked experience in the peloton to compete is utter rubbish.
StryderHells said:Nice one @Dear Wiggo, just goes to show that he didn't lack race experience before turning pro but looking at those awful results it's easy to understand how someone trying to keep the Froome myth alive might have missed he had race experience
GuyIncognito said:Here's the thing...
Let's say for a moment that that silliness is actually true and Froome really didn't have any idea how to ride in a pack. That he really did waste all his energy just navigating it.
How does that explain his time trials going from pathetic to world beater? He's not racing any pack in them
Savant12 said:GuyIncognito said:Here's the thing...
Let's say for a moment that that silliness is actually true and Froome really didn't have any idea how to ride in a pack. That he really did waste all his energy just navigating it.
How does that explain his time trials going from pathetic to world beater? He's not racing any pack in them
The thing is has his TTing always been pathetic? If we go all the way back to the 2007 UCI Road World Championships Men's under-23 time trial where he finished 41st you might say that his TT result was crap at the time but then you look at the riders around him and you see Tejay Van Garderen in 38th, who you could say turned into a very good Time Trialist and similarly with Ian Standard, Gatis Smukulis and Martin Velits who finished above him.
GuyIncognito said:How does that explain his time trials going from pathetic to world beater? He's not racing any pack in them
DFA123 said:He could have had an awful time trial position as a youngster, after all I doubt they did much wind tunnel testing in SA teams. Nowadays his time trial position looks extremely aero.
DFA123 said:It's just impossible to come to the conclusion that he lacked talent by solely looking at his results.
Dear Wiggo said:DFA123 said:It's just impossible to come to the conclusion that he lacked talent by solely looking at his results.
Sure thing buddy.
Me? I prefer to read a rider's tea leaves to work out whether they have talent. Much more reliable.
Dilmah FTMFW.
DFA123 said:I think Froome suffers from the fact that his transformation all happened in the public eye, whereas riders like Valverde or Contador burst onto the scene already as top riders - so are widely thought of as being more talented. But both of those were on doping teams as neo-pros, so the reality is that we simply don't know their true talent.
Dear Wiggo said:DFA123 said:I think Froome suffers from the fact that his transformation all happened in the public eye, whereas riders like Valverde or Contador burst onto the scene already as top riders - so are widely thought of as being more talented. But both of those were on doping teams as neo-pros, so the reality is that we simply don't know their true talent.
I think the thing you suffer from is not knowing what you're talking about.
Valverde and Contador were junior beasts.
Froome had nothing. Until his contract was up in 2011.
Yes, when looking to start a UK registered team they hired the only UK riders in the peloton. Quelle surprise.
They had no issues ditching a no hoper either.
DFA123 said:Dear Wiggo said:DFA123 said:I think Froome suffers from the fact that his transformation all happened in the public eye, whereas riders like Valverde or Contador burst onto the scene already as top riders - so are widely thought of as being more talented. But both of those were on doping teams as neo-pros, so the reality is that we simply don't know their true talent.
I think the thing you suffer from is not knowing what you're talking about.
Valverde and Contador were junior beasts.
Froome had nothing. Until his contract was up in 2011.
Yes, when looking to start a UK registered team they hired the only UK riders in the peloton. Quelle surprise.
They had no issues ditching a no hoper either.
Yes, they were junior beasts, but we don't know at what age they started doping, so we just can't say how good they are. They could have been doping since teenagers for all we know.
Froome, pre-2011 was a solid mid-pack pro. If he did that clean - which his post-2011 transformation suggests he did (at least without blood doping) - then he was clearly naturally talented.
The fact is that we don't know how naturally talented the top riders are in the peloton and how much they are super-responders. Trying to pretend and claim otherwise is ridiculous. At least with Froome, it looks like we probably have some kind of benchmark as to what he can do relatively clean - 32nd in a Grand Tour.
Even worse, he only got in a wind tunnel in 2013:Dear Wiggo said:DFA123 said:He could have had an awful time trial position as a youngster, after all I doubt they did much wind tunnel testing in SA teams. Nowadays his time trial position looks extremely aero.
They did not put Froome through the tunnel till after 2011 Vuelta, where he smashed Wiggo and pretty much everyone else in the race.
So that theory is kinda punctured yeah?
I never said that; I said they are both possibilities. So it's pointless trying to conclude which riders are more naturally talented.Dear Wiggo said:DFA123 said:Dear Wiggo said:DFA123 said:I think Froome suffers from the fact that his transformation all happened in the public eye, whereas riders like Valverde or Contador burst onto the scene already as top riders - so are widely thought of as being more talented. But both of those were on doping teams as neo-pros, so the reality is that we simply don't know their true talent.
I think the thing you suffer from is not knowing what you're talking about.
Valverde and Contador were junior beasts.
Froome had nothing. Until his contract was up in 2011.
Yes, when looking to start a UK registered team they hired the only UK riders in the peloton. Quelle surprise.
They had no issues ditching a no hoper either.
Yes, they were junior beasts, but we don't know at what age they started doping, so we just can't say how good they are. They could have been doping since teenagers for all we know.
Froome, pre-2011 was a solid mid-pack pro. If he did that clean - which his post-2011 transformation suggests he did (at least without blood doping) - then he was clearly naturally talented.
The fact is that we don't know how naturally talented the top riders are in the peloton and how much they are super-responders. Trying to pretend and claim otherwise is ridiculous. At least with Froome, it looks like we probably have some kind of benchmark as to what he can do relatively clean - 32nd in a Grand Tour.
So Contador and Valverde could have been doping since teenagers, but Froome came 32nd clean.
Right.
We know which side of the fence you're standing on then, don't we.
DFA123 said:Dear Wiggo said:DFA123 said:I think Froome suffers from the fact that his transformation all happened in the public eye, whereas riders like Valverde or Contador burst onto the scene already as top riders - so are widely thought of as being more talented. But both of those were on doping teams as neo-pros, so the reality is that we simply don't know their true talent.
I think the thing you suffer from is not knowing what you're talking about.
Valverde and Contador were junior beasts.
Froome had nothing. Until his contract was up in 2011.
Yes, when looking to start a UK registered team they hired the only UK riders in the peloton. Quelle surprise.
They had no issues ditching a no hoper either.
Yes, they were junior beasts, but we don't know at what age they started doping, so we just can't say how good they are. They could have been doping since teenagers for all we know.
Froome, pre-2011 was a solid mid-pack pro. If he did that clean - which his post-2011 transformation suggests he did (at least without blood doping) - then he was clearly naturally talented.
The fact is that we don't know how naturally talented the top riders are in the peloton and how much they are super-responders. Trying to pretend and claim otherwise is ridiculous. At least with Froome, it looks like we probably have some kind of benchmark as to what he can do relatively clean - 32nd in a Grand Tour.