Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

[ontheroad]

Re:

And Froomey is back.... yawn for the next 2 and a half weeks...

Too early to say yet but there is hope that Aru might go nuclear and put it up to him. Realistically he needs to take another 90 seconds on him before the last TT but his form of the last 6 weeks would dictate that it is not impossible. However the sight of 6 sky doms grinding out tempo with 3km to go does not augur well for the race when it gets to the high mountains.

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

And Froomey is back.... yawn for the next 2 and a half weeks...

Too early to say yet but there is hope that Aru might go nuclear and put it up to him. Realistically he needs to take another 90 seconds on him before the last TT but his form of the last 6 weeks would dictate that it is not impossible. However the sight of 6 sky doms grinding out tempo with 3km to go does not augur well for the race when it gets to the high mountains.

Maybe, but they went from 6 to 3 in the blink of an eye. Whether it was a tactical call or not I'm not sure, but if it wasn't then I think Aru and Porte can take some hope from it.

 

[tretiak]

What about TUE does he not use it anymore?

 

[rick james]

Re:

What about TUE does he not use it anymore?

he's only had 2? or are the UCI covering up more

 

[ontheroad]

Froome revealed a bit more of his character yesterday with the shoulder barge on Aru. Then denying it was anything to do with Aru's earlier attack on him. The actual barge showed how ruthless a competitor that Froome actually is and we have seen similar in the past with the punch on a Colombian fan last year. A wolf in sheeps clothing springs to mind, it doesn't exactly tally with his previous comments to Kimmage when he said that he was rooting for Basso over Armstrong because Armstrong was an in your face aggressive character.


Then the fact that he subsequently denied that this was a revenge attack cast doubts on his honesty. I don't believe for one second that it was anything but a revenge barge for Aru's earlier attack on him. Similar to lies about not knowing what ketones were and having to google them.

In relation to Aru's actual attacke whilst Froome has his hand in the air, he also fibbed his way through an interview afterwards claiming that he didn't see it. These guys have little integrity and are taking people for fools. If they had told the truth and took responsibility you would have more respect for them as I would actually like to see a bit of needle between them rather than all the false niceties for the cameras.

 

[miguelindurain111]

Yeah that was ruthless, almost violent act :lol:

https://streamable.com/t/0kuap

 

[deeno1975]

Re:

Yeah that was ruthless, almost violent act :lol:

https://streamable.com/t/0kuap

Whilst not a violent act, he did willfully move to obstruct and put Aru off the road. Doesn't mean he should be DQ'd though.

Froome was unlucky with the timing of his motor change, that's what happens when you don't use Duracell. Wonder if they waved the "magic" iPad at it at the end.

 

[miguelindurain111]

Re: Re:

Yeah that was ruthless, almost violent act :lol:

https://streamable.com/t/0kuap

Whilst not a violent act, he did willfully move to obstruct and put Aru off the road. Doesn't mean he should be DQ'd though.

Froome was unlucky with the timing of his motor change, that's what happens when you don't use Duracell. Wonder if they waved the "magic" iPad at it at the end.

Yeah yeah, I know, willfully moves, motor changes etc :lol:

 

[ontheroad]

Re: Re:

Yeah that was ruthless, almost violent act :lol:

https://streamable.com/t/0kuap

Whilst not a violent act, he did willfully move to obstruct and put Aru off the road. Doesn't mean he should be DQ'd though.

Froome was unlucky with the timing of his motor change, that's what happens when you don't use Duracell. Wonder if they waved the "magic" iPad at it at the end.

I'm not saying it was particularly violent, more a case of Froome trying to show him who is the boss. I'm just pointing out the contradictions between Froome's words and his actions. There has been a long history of gamesmanship and little incidents involving Froome that are at odds with his image cultivated in interviews.

You could argue that it worked as Aru and Astana helped pull back Froome up to Bardet when the reality was that it was the responsibility of the yellow jersey. This tour is now a duel between Froome and Aru and Sky and Astana,two dirty teams but at least we might be spared the annual sky procession if Aru continues to go nuclear.

 

[Electress]

Re: Re:

Yeah that was ruthless, almost violent act :lol:

https://streamable.com/t/0kuap

Whilst not a violent act, he did willfully move to obstruct and put Aru off the road. Doesn't mean he should be DQ'd though.

Froome was unlucky with the timing of his motor change, that's what happens when you don't use Duracell. Wonder if they waved the "magic" iPad at it at the end.

I'm not saying it was particularly violent, more a case of Froome trying to show him who is the boss. I'm just pointing out the contradictions between Froome's words and his actions. There has been a long history of gamesmanship and little incidents involving Froome that are at odds with his image cultivated in interviews.

You could argue that it worked as Aru and Astana helped pull back Froome up to Bardet when the reality was that it was the responsibility of the yellow jersey. This tour is now a duel between Froome and Aru and Sky and Astana,two dirty teams but at least we might be spared the annual sky procession if Aru continues to go nuclear.

Absolutely. I regard Aru attacking the yellow jersey as nothing more than a spot of pay back for Froome's taking (the) piss last year to get his team back. If you want respect, you have to show it and not abuse your 'patronage'. Can't throw your weight about and then play the 'respect the jersey' 'unwritten rules of the game' card. That they seem to do so with respect to ASO and UCI as well as on the road (e.g. the running man incident last year) only adds to the sense that rules - written or otherwise - are a one way street where Sky are concerned.

Personally I'm routing for Aru and Astana to go thermonuclear. Piss on SDB's season and Froome's dreams by out 'preparing'. Vino et al at least spare us some of the sanctimonious shite. Me I'd rather a plain dealing villain.

 

[No_Balls]

Re:

Froome revealed a bit more of his character yesterday with the shoulder barge on Aru. Then denying it was anything to do with Aru's earlier attack on him. The actual barge showed how ruthless a competitor that Froome actually is and we have seen similar in the past with the punch on a Colombian fan last year. A wolf in sheeps clothing springs to mind, it doesn't exactly tally with his previous comments to Kimmage when he said that he was rooting for Basso over Armstrong because Armstrong was an in your face aggressive character.


Then the fact that he subsequently denied that this was a revenge attack cast doubts on his honesty. I don't believe for one second that it was anything but a revenge barge for Aru's earlier attack on him. Similar to lies about not knowing what ketones were and having to google them.

In relation to Aru's actual attacke whilst Froome has his hand in the air, he also fibbed his way through an interview afterwards claiming that he didn't see it. These guys have little integrity and are taking people for fools. If they had told the truth and took responsibility you would have more respect for them as I would actually like to see a bit of needle between them rather than all the false niceties for the cameras.

I´ve always said that (given Froomes background with animals) Froome would be a serial killer if not for riding his bike so perhaps we should be lucky he is winning the Tour de France drugged up rather then running lose among society.

His murder attempt on Aru showed his hand.

 

[miguelindurain111]

Well, perhaps Astana boys after all showed their respect to the jersey by helping Froome to catch Bardet and gifting him four bonus seconds :lol:

 

[red_flanders]

Re: Re:

Again. It's is objectively more absurd for a rider who never had a result to dominate the sport than for a rider who has always had results to dominate the sport. Dope or no dope. Imagining Froome was clean at Barloworld makes me laugh.

Or does it just mean that the person who always had results started doping earlier ?

See the 14 year old Italian caught with a positive test in todays news shorts.
(or so as not to point at a single nationality the British junior Gabriel Evans with his EPO case, and the widespread steroid use in South African schools rugby)

Bingo.
Messi is another precious case in point. Documented steroid doper at age 12.


As for Froome, he wasn't clean at Barlo. Was likely using EPO just as his roommate Duenas, and everything else available to him at the time.
But he wasn't using a motor yet.

Doping earlier doesn't explain all the riders who were so much better than Froome for so long. Everyone else wasn't doping since they were 14, period.

And a motor does not explain all of Sky and Froome for the last 6 years. Too many riders, too many results, too consistently. Has Froome used a motor ever? Probably. Does it explain his results for the last 6 years? Not even close.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

Again. It's is objectively more absurd for a rider who never had a result to dominate the sport than for a rider who has always had results to dominate the sport. Dope or no dope. Imagining Froome was clean at Barloworld makes me laugh.

Or does it just mean that the person who always had results started doping earlier ?

See the 14 year old Italian caught with a positive test in todays news shorts.
(or so as not to point at a single nationality the British junior Gabriel Evans with his EPO case, and the widespread steroid use in South African schools rugby)

Bingo.
Messi is another precious case in point. Documented steroid doper at age 12.


As for Froome, he wasn't clean at Barlo. Was likely using EPO just as his roommate Duenas, and everything else available to him at the time.
But he wasn't using a motor yet.

Doping earlier doesn't explain all the riders who were so much better than Froome for so long. Everyone else wasn't doping since they were 14, period.

And a motor does not explain all of Sky and Froome for the last 6 years. Too many riders, too many results, too consistently. Has Froome used a motor ever? Probably. Does it explain his results for the last 6 years? Not even close.

Indeed "Everyone else" wasn't doping since they were 14. But we're not talking about "Everyone else". We're talking about dominators of sports in which doping makes the difference.

I'm not really disagreeing with your original point that Froome is more absurd than, say, Messi, or Nadal or Phelps or Bolt. But "objectively"? I don't know. I would say "intuitively".
Objectively, you have to wonder how early those latter four (Bolt, Nadal, Messi, Phelps) started doping and with what means.
All other things equal, it seems objectively perfectly possible to me that certain 'late-career dominators' are in fact 'late career dopers'.
Or that they went from low-octane to high-octane, whereas guys like messi/bolt/federer/nadal were always high-octane.

Having said that, Froome's transformation is unlike anything I have ever seen. Even going from low- to high-octane you wouldn't predict such a radical transformation.
So if we speak only about Froome, yes he is objectively more absurd than any other dominator I've ever seen.

 

[DanielSong39]

Benefits from a motor is significant but probably not enough to elevate gruppetto fodder to a 3-time Tour winner. Enough to make a fringe top-10 contender into a champion? Definitely within the realm of possibilities.

 

[sniper]

Whatever is happening in pro-sport and pro-cycling at large, we can all agree that Froome is a very special case and that he, or rather certain people in his entourage, got very very greedy roundabouts 2011.

What sets Froome apart from many others, I think, is his background:
a young Kenyan/South African lad with little opportunities, with no father figure in his life, losing his mother in 2008, and then - the proverbial straw - about to loose his pro-contract (and, thereby, everything he'd worked for and dreamt of) in 2011...

So here's a guy with (a) nothing to loose, (b) an unexpected opportunity to ride the Vuelta; (c) all the motivation to go full genius and (d) a British passport.
Voila, a soon to be quadrupel tdf winner.

 

[silvergrenade]

Re:

Whatever is happening in pro-sport and pro-cycling at large, we can all agree that Froome is a very special case and that he, or rather certain people in his entourage, got very very greedy roundabouts 2011.

What sets Froome apart from many others, I think, is his background:
a young Kenyan/South African lad with little opportunities, with no father figure in his life, losing his mother in 2008, and then - the proverbial straw - about to loose his pro-contract (and, thereby, everything he'd worked for and dreamt of) in 2011...

So here's a guy with (a) nothing to loose, (b) an unexpected opportunity to ride the Vuelta; (c) all the motivation to go full genius and (d) a British passport.
Voila, a soon to be quadrupel tdf winner.

More than greedy, they got frustrated.
They believed Froome was more talented, but was fodder pack without dope.
Maybe Froome had a moral high ground for several years.
He knew he was going out.
No contract next year..
He did what he needed to do, what European boys start doing at 15.

The current state of cycling...Man. :Neutral:

 

[ontheroad]

Out of all the examples of Froome's words not matching his actions, the most glaring one is him signing a new contract with sky.

Utterly illogical given how Wiggins was pumped with Kenacort prior to the 2012 tour where Froome was the stronger rider. Froome would have every right to feel very bitter about that. He subsequently said enough in comments to the press that let the public know he was disappointed in the team but yet his actions haven't backed this up. Even offering words of praise for Brailsford on the eve of the tour. I would take anything said by Froome with a large pinch of salt.

 

[silvergrenade]

Re:

Out of all the examples of Froome's words not matching his actions, the most glaring one is him signing a new contract with sky.

Utterly illogical given how Wiggins was pumped with Kenacort prior to the 2012 tour where Froome was the stronger rider. Froome would have every right to feel very bitter about that. He subsequently said enough in comments to the press that let the public know he was disappointed in the team but yet his actions haven't backed this up. Even offering words of praise for Brailsford on the eve of the tour. I would take anything said by Froome with a large pinch of salt.

Where can he get the Salary, resources and the Team outside of Sky?

 

[Põhja Konn]

Re:

Out of all the examples of Froome's words not matching his actions, the most glaring one is him signing a new contract with sky.

Utterly illogical given how Wiggins was pumped with Kenacort prior to the 2012 tour where Froome was the stronger rider. Froome would have every right to feel very bitter about that. He subsequently said enough in comments to the press that let the public know he was disappointed in the team but yet his actions haven't backed this up. Even offering words of praise for Brailsford on the eve of the tour. I would take anything said by Froome with a large pinch of salt.

The Jiffy bag story in the spring made it abundantly clear that the only one Chris Froome cares about is Chris Froome. In that light his actions in the case you brought up, make perfect sense. And everything he says or does should be interpreted through this filter. A true wolf in a sheeps skin, no doubt about that.

 

[Põhja Konn]

Re: Re:

Out of all the examples of Froome's words not matching his actions, the most glaring one is him signing a new contract with sky.

Utterly illogical given how Wiggins was pumped with Kenacort prior to the 2012 tour where Froome was the stronger rider. Froome would have every right to feel very bitter about that. He subsequently said enough in comments to the press that let the public know he was disappointed in the team but yet his actions haven't backed this up. Even offering words of praise for Brailsford on the eve of the tour. I would take anything said by Froome with a large pinch of salt.

Where can he get the Salary, resources and the Team outside of Sky?

Guarantee of not being busted was more likely a key issue.

 

[tretiak]

This old article give us all answer of his transformation.
http://www.businessinsider.com/chris-froome-weight-loss-tour-de-france-2016-7

 

[sniper]

I honestly don't know, ebandit.
Froome post-Vuelta'11 is a nobrainer. That's all drugs you can imagine plus top notch state of the art motordoping plus, as Pohja Kohn rightly notes, the guarantee of not getting popped.

Froome pre-Vuelta'11, otoh, is difficult to make sense of.
Can't be sure, but I'm assuming he was already on the high octane. You don't go from the SA cycling scene to Europe with ambitions such as Froome's but not taking EPO, HGH and steroids.
He may have upgraded that program, though. From high octane to high octane deluxe.
As for motors, I do think Barloworld were playing with them. But seems possible that Froome, not being Barloworld's main man, was not on them yet, or had to make do with a low-end model.

 

[Brian Butterfield]

.

 

[Irondan]

Re: Re:

Out of all the examples of Froome's words not matching his actions, the most glaring one is him signing a new contract with sky.

Utterly illogical given how Wiggins was pumped with Kenacort prior to the 2012 tour where Froome was the stronger rider. Froome would have every right to feel very bitter about that. He subsequently said enough in comments to the press that let the public know he was disappointed in the team but yet his actions haven't backed this up. Even offering words of praise for Brailsford on the eve of the tour. I would take anything said by Froome with a large pinch of salt.

Where can he get the Salary, resources and the Team outside of Sky?

BMC, Astana, Trek Segafredo, Team UAD, Katusha, Bahrain Meridia, and possibly Quickstep.