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Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

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Re:

Valv.Piti said:
Parker, you are on deep water here. Its a pretty ridiculous argument to suggest Froome has never gone all-out in a time trial, even has been encouraged not to!

Thats pretty unthinkable. You don't just go slow in time trials being a rider like Froome pre-2011, you fight with everything you have unless its a GT and you have important domestique work to do. And even then.....
Why would a domestique go all out? It's not his job.

Go on twitter and ask any domestique if they go full gas in stage race time-trials.

Do you really think everyone is giving it 100% in every time trial?
 
Re: Re:

Parker said:
Valv.Piti said:
Parker, you are on deep water here. Its a pretty ridiculous argument to suggest Froome has never gone all-out in a time trial, even has been encouraged not to!

Thats pretty unthinkable. You don't just go slow in time trials being a rider like Froome pre-2011, you fight with everything you have unless its a GT and you have important domestique work to do. And even then.....
Why would a domestique go all out? It's not his job.

Go on twitter and ask any domestique if they go full gas in stage race time-trials.

Do you really think everyone is giving it 100% in every time trial?
Domestiques who are good time trialers go all out all the time in time trials in stage races. Don't play that on me. These guys are competitive, don't act like its any different. Lol. Its actually funny.

You are a domestique because you aren't better. If Froome so obviously was better at the time, which is what you were implying, Froome wouldn't be a domestique at the time. But he was. And he was almost out of a contract... but he couldn't show how good he in time trials because he was a domestique? Oh good lord, give me a break.
 
Re: Re:

thehog said:
Cycle Chic said:
I agree with ScienceIsCool

"...He's a DOPITY-DOPE-DOPER and it doesn't matter which cocktail of drugs or brand of motorbike he's using. "

Brilliant !

His cocktail has changed. He has never looked as thin as he was in the non-detectable AICAR age of 2011-2013. 2012 he looked completely scary, his face had zero fat. 2013 his arms were just veins. Motor used on Ventoux. 2014 he didn't look as gaunt but still strong bar from crashing. 2015 onwards looked more like motor Froome as the other drugs dried up.

Has it? what is it now and what did it used to be?
 
Re: Re:

Valv.Piti said:
Parker said:
Valv.Piti said:
Parker, you are on deep water here. Its a pretty ridiculous argument to suggest Froome has never gone all-out in a time trial, even has been encouraged not to!

Thats pretty unthinkable. You don't just go slow in time trials being a rider like Froome pre-2011, you fight with everything you have unless its a GT and you have important domestique work to do. And even then.....
Why would a domestique go all out? It's not his job.

Go on twitter and ask any domestique if they go full gas in stage race time-trials.

Do you really think everyone is giving it 100% in every time trial?
Domestiques who are good time trialers go all out all the time in time trials in stage races. Don't play that on me. These guys are competitive, don't act like its any different. Lol. Its actually funny.

You are a domestique because you aren't better. If Froome so obviously was better at the time, which is what you were implying, Froome wouldn't be a domestique at the time. But he was. And he was almost out of a contract... but he couldn't show how good he in time trials because he was a domestique? Oh good lord, give me a break.
Remember Victor Campenaerts at the Giro. He finished the time trial at the Giro in 182nd place, eleven minutes behind Dumoulin. At the finish he pulled his skin suit open to reveal a message asking a girl for date.

He said: “The reason I did it was because we decided that I should sacrifice my chances in the time trial, so I could pull for Stevie in the hard stages in the mountains,” he said. “We need every rider, and that’s why I gave up my chances in the time trial, so I could be a workhorse in the mountains.”

Campenaerts was, at the time, the Belgian TT champion. Last week he became European TT champion.

Was he going full gas at the Giro?
 
Re: Re:

Parker said:
ScienceIsCool said:
BTW, I also analyzed Cadel Evans using the same methods by way of a control. Not because I think he's anywhere near clean, but because he's someone who was identified as a talent early in his career and took what I think is a normal arc as he improved, peaked, and then aged. He was also pretty much randomly selected as I looked for a sample by scrolling through CyclingNews looking for the first name that looked like a GT rider.

What did the data show? Consistency with a clear peak at the height of his career and then a steady decline. There were also a number of outliers, like 10%, where he clearly took the day off.

This kind of "control" is very helpful in analyzing Froome's numbers.

John Swanson
Cadel Evans was a product of the Australian Institute of Sport and was marked as time-triallist from the start (medallist in 1995 Junior Worlds, won Commonwealth Games TT in debut pro year). He didn't turn pro until 25 having been an MTB star for years. He always rode for big teams and usually as a GC contender - he almost won the Giro as neo-pro. He didn't ride the Tour until 28.

By contrast Froome came from a country that has never produced another pro rider, went to university for two years, then joined a low budget pro conti team which lost its funding early in his second year, and he then had illness and injury in his first year at Sky who were making a whole heap of rookie mistakes.

Their development isn't going to be the same is it?

(Even then Froome came 14th in a Tour TT as a neo-pro, which showed he had some TT ability)

yup froome was good on the mtb too...commie games was his standout result ;)
 
Thats the exception rather than the rule and exactly the example I give where some riders might be held back, in a GT, when you have important domestique duties for a rider who potentially can win the race. It happens occasionally. I can give you hundreds of example where the opposite is true -as a matter of fact, Sky's policy more or less is you go all out in TTs, in GT's most importantly, no matter what. Carsten Jeppesen, employee of Team Sky, has alluded to that multiple times. You are basically suggesting, nay, saying, that the teams Froome have been have been on throughout his career have been holding him back from performing up to expectations in time trials. Which obviously is untrue and completele heresay.

But let me get this straight: You are actually believing that Froome performed mediocre as a result of getting held up by Barloworld and Sky during the timetrials since he was a domestique and therefore wasn't supposed to go fast (even tho he was capable, even of winning), but showed his real potential when he finally got the green light in the TT during La Vuelta? Say yes to that with a straight face......
 
Re:

Valv.Piti said:
Thats the exception rather than the rule and exactly the example I give where some riders might be held back, in a GT, when you have important domestique duties for a rider who potentially can win the race. It happens occasionally. I can give you hundreds of example where the opposite is true -as a matter of fact, Sky's policy more or less is you go all out in TTs, in GT's most importantly, no matter what. Carsten Jeppesen, employee of Team Sky, has alluded to that multiple times. You are basically suggesting, nay, saying, that the teams Froome have been have been on throughout his career have been holding him back from performing up to expectations in time trials. Which obviously is untrue and completele heresay.

But let me get this straight: You are actually believing that Froome performed mediocre as a result of getting held up by Barloworld and Sky during the timetrials since he was a domestique and therefore wasn't supposed to go fast (even tho he was capable, even of winning), but showed his real potential when he finally got the green light in the TT during La Vuelta? Say yes to that with a straight face......

“Chris has got quite some talent, but he’s a rough diamond and he needs a lot of polishing. I’ve said to him, we all make mistakes but if you don’t learn quickly enough, you’ll not survive in this sport.

“I had quite a firm word with Chris [after the prologue]. I asked him what his goal was for the prologue and he said ‘To get through it and build for the coming days’. So I said ‘Why did you go through that corner full-on then?’


So there is Rod Ellingworth criticising Chris Froome for going too hard in 2010 time trial when he should be just 'getting through it'

http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/froome-faces-race-to-be-fit-for-giro-after-time-trial-crash-61440#Uj2oKyijH3pWkz2p.99
 
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Re: Re:

Parker said:
Valv.Piti said:
Thats the exception rather than the rule and exactly the example I give where some riders might be held back, in a GT, when you have important domestique duties for a rider who potentially can win the race. It happens occasionally. I can give you hundreds of example where the opposite is true -as a matter of fact, Sky's policy more or less is you go all out in TTs, in GT's most importantly, no matter what. Carsten Jeppesen, employee of Team Sky, has alluded to that multiple times. You are basically suggesting, nay, saying, that the teams Froome have been have been on throughout his career have been holding him back from performing up to expectations in time trials. Which obviously is untrue and completele heresay.

But let me get this straight: You are actually believing that Froome performed mediocre as a result of getting held up by Barloworld and Sky during the timetrials since he was a domestique and therefore wasn't supposed to go fast (even tho he was capable, even of winning), but showed his real potential when he finally got the green light in the TT during La Vuelta? Say yes to that with a straight face......

“Chris has got quite some talent, but he’s a rough diamond and he needs a lot of polishing. I’ve said to him, we all make mistakes but if you don’t learn quickly enough, you’ll not survive in this sport.

“I had quite a firm word with Chris [after the prologue]. I asked him what his goal was for the prologue and he said ‘To get through it and build for the coming days’. So I said ‘Why did you go through that corner full-on then?’


So there is Rod Ellingworth criticising Chris Froome for going too hard in 2010 time trial when he should be just 'getting through it'

http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/froome-faces-race-to-be-fit-for-giro-after-time-trial-crash-61440#Uj2oKyijH3pWkz2p.99

Cyclingweekly dont spit in the soup. CyclingPravda.
 
Re: Re:

Parker said:
Valv.Piti said:
Parker said:
Valv.Piti said:
Parker, you are on deep water here. Its a pretty ridiculous argument to suggest Froome has never gone all-out in a time trial, even has been encouraged not to!

Thats pretty unthinkable. You don't just go slow in time trials being a rider like Froome pre-2011, you fight with everything you have unless its a GT and you have important domestique work to do. And even then.....
Why would a domestique go all out? It's not his job.

Go on twitter and ask any domestique if they go full gas in stage race time-trials.

Do you really think everyone is giving it 100% in every time trial?
Domestiques who are good time trialers go all out all the time in time trials in stage races. Don't play that on me. These guys are competitive, don't act like its any different. Lol. Its actually funny.

You are a domestique because you aren't better. If Froome so obviously was better at the time, which is what you were implying, Froome wouldn't be a domestique at the time. But he was. And he was almost out of a contract... but he couldn't show how good he in time trials because he was a domestique? Oh good lord, give me a break.
Remember Victor Campenaerts at the Giro. He finished the time trial at the Giro in 182nd place, eleven minutes behind Dumoulin. At the finish he pulled his skin suit open to reveal a message asking a girl for date.

He said: “The reason I did it was because we decided that I should sacrifice my chances in the time trial, so I could pull for Stevie in the hard stages in the mountains,” he said. “We need every rider, and that’s why I gave up my chances in the time trial, so I could be a workhorse in the mountains.”

Campenaerts was, at the time, the Belgian TT champion. Last week he became European TT champion.

Was he going full gas at the Giro?

You demonstrably don't understand what cherry picking is or you'd know that "argument" is entirely without merit.
 
Re: Re:

Electress said:
You demonstrably don't understand what cherry picking is or you'd know that "argument" is entirely without merit.
No. I think you don't know what my argument is.

My argument is that Swanson's TT comparisons rely on the assumption that all riders ride TTs at full gas. This is not the case. You'll struggle to find anyone within cycling who thinks it is. I have merely supplied a blatantly obvious example of it not being the case - not cherry picking. Cherry picking would be ignoring many examples of domestiques saying the opposite.

Swanson's argument is that if we ignore all other variables except doping then variations can only be explained by doping.. It's nonsense.
 
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Re: Re:

Parker said:
Electress said:
You demonstrably don't understand what cherry picking is or you'd know that "argument" is entirely without merit.
No. I think you don't know what my argument is.

My argument is that Swanson's TT comparisons rely on the assumption that all riders ride TTs at full gas. This is not the case. You'll struggle to find anyone within cycling who thinks it is. I have merely supplied a blatantly obvious example of it not being the case - not cherry picking. Cherry picking would be ignoring many examples of domestiques saying the opposite.

Swanson's argument is that if we ignore all other variables except doping then variations can only be explained by doping.. It's nonsense.


If you read what he says it is clear that he was in the top 20% before 2011 .. that would be above the threshold for just noodling along to avoid the time cut .. but it still shows a 15% improvement to bump up to the top step..

if you need that pointing out you are just a denier of the obvious.. someone made a quantitative jump in performance in a very short period of time .. that should at least give you some cause for concern..
 
Parker said:
There are many variables at play in your analysis

The necessity of the rider to go fast
The standard of the rest of the field
The standard of the equipment used/rider position
The level of doping of the rest of the field
Weather changes on the day
The progression of rider over the first few years of a career

However, you have dismissed all of these as inconvenient and decided the only variable is doping. Why? I don't think you are stupid, so the only explanation is you're trying to fool somebody - most likely yourself.
So your hypothesis is that Froome always had the ability to crunch out race-winning amounts of power but chose not to because it wasn't necessary?

He could have lived his current life of luxury from an early age by making use of his obvious GT winning potential (after all, he had been tested by the UCI and put out Hinault-esque numbers) but chose to soft-pedal and hide that talent in every single race he rode so he could be a domestique with an expiring contract instead?

Froome never won a TT before his transformation, regardless of the quality of the field. He had a few top 10s, mainly in smaller African stage races, but sucked out loud against good riders. After 2011 he has consistenly been in the top 3 in the biggest stage races in the world, against the likes of Wiggo, Martin, Cancellara, etc. If anything, the standard of the rest of the field argument is strong evidence of him doping.

Froome rode Sky's state of the art TT bikes before 2011 and couldn't win TTs on them and even in his annus mirabilis of 2013 he still hadn't been in a wind tunnel to perfect his position.

He couldn't show his natural ability because the entire field was doping, but then suddenly, in a period of less than a month, they all decided the game was over and cleaned up their act?

Even the most extreme weather changes on the day will only show as one anomalous result amongst many unaffected results. Unless Froome was riding with a cloud of rain permanently following him around the course, the amount of data points John Swanson uses means that a few weather-affected time trials won't significantly skew the numbers as a whole. In addition, why is it that pre-2011 Froome would always be so affected by bad weather that his TT results were mediocre at best, while post-2011 Froome gets nothing but sunshine and tailwinds?

As Swanson said, he has looked at other riders and seen a smooth progression. With Froome there's no progression. There's just a massive, inexplicable jump in performance at the 2011 Vuelta.

The amount of mental gymnastics required to believe in all of the above... Occam's god damn razor, people.
 
Re: Re:

dolophonic said:
If you read what he says it is clear that he was in the top 20% before 2011 .. that would be above the threshold for just noodling along to avoid the time cut .. but it still shows a 15% improvement to bump up to the top step..
In the 2008 Tour he came 14th in the TT. That's top 10%. From a first year pro who had never done a stage race longer than a week before. In his only pro TTs in Europe before that Tour he had come 4th and 5th.
 
Saint Unix said:
So your hypothesis is that Froome always had the ability to crunch out race-winning amounts of power but chose not to because it wasn't necessary?
No. I'm just saying that riders don't all go full gas in time trials. Nothing else. It's a fundamental false conceit that makes Swanson's 'research' meaningless.

Saint Unix said:
The amount of mental gymnastics required to believe in all of the above... Occam's god damn razor, people.
Occam's razor is that cyclists only go as fast as they need to. Riders that don't need to ride hard time trials don't. Anyone who knows anything about cycling knows this. The Clinic however only knows doping and explains absolutely everything by doping. There are no other variables in Clinicland.
 
Believe it or not, Froome's transformation, not only did he add 15% to his ITT power but also magically became an expert climber all in the one race. There's was no performance gain over a period of races or months but boom! overnight he could both time trial and climb and even found time to lead Wiggins first week. That was the most absurd thing Cycling has ever seen.
 
Re: Re:

Parker said:
Electress said:
You demonstrably don't understand what cherry picking is or you'd know that "argument" is entirely without merit.
No. I think you don't know what my argument is.

My argument is that Swanson's TT comparisons rely on the assumption that all riders ride TTs at full gas. This is not the case. You'll struggle to find anyone within cycling who thinks it is. I have merely supplied a blatantly obvious example of it not being the case - not cherry picking. Cherry picking would be ignoring many examples of domestiques saying the opposite.

Swanson's argument is that if we ignore all other variables except doping then variations can only be explained by doping.. It's nonsense.

Cherry picking is citing one example out of several which demonstrates your viewpoint without providing any other context as to how representative that selected example may or may not be to the wider picture. Which was exactly what you did. It simply isn't a helpful way to support your opposition to Swanson's argument.

May be I'm missing something, but it seems to me Swanson's approach is reasonable enough. He outlines his assumptions. Surely he is only requiring that riders ride TTs a substantial amount of the time to an extent which makes the TT representative of their relative abilities? Yes, there may be variability in race due to domestic duties and other factors, but I'm not sure it's reasonable to think that riders don't try to an extent commensurate with their ability most of the time, given how competitive they are, the need to look good for contract negotiations, the desire to make an impression so as to be given opportunities to be leader, or go for stage wins, etc. Moreover, wouldn't most other domestiques also be suffering from the same suite of race specific / domestic duties which would hinder their performance relatively? If Froome the Dom is consistently ranked lower surely it is not unfair to conclude - unless there is evidence to the contrary - that this is because Froome the Dom is more knackered by being a dom than a chunk of his domestique rivals - i.e. his ability is less than theirs?

Froome's development might be more credible if Froome made a gradual move up the ITT rankings, which might be anticipated both as a result of improved performance AND being given more freedom to race compared to his domestiques rivals, therefore surpassing more of them more frequently. But the short period of time that change happened is literally incredible. The fact that Sky pedalled all that stuff about Bilharzia only reinforces that it was incredible, because it shows they also felt his transformation needed a narrative to explain it. Otherwise, why bother - it'd be 'nothing to see, we just let him off the leash and he showed his true abilities".
 
Parker said:
Saint Unix said:
So your hypothesis is that Froome always had the ability to crunch out race-winning amounts of power but chose not to because it wasn't necessary?
No. I'm just saying that riders don't all go full gas in time trials. Nothing else. It's a fundamental false conceit that makes Swanson's 'research' meaningless.

Saint Unix said:
The amount of mental gymnastics required to believe in all of the above... Occam's god damn razor, people.
Occam's razor is that cyclists only go as fast as they need to. Riders that don't need to ride hard time trials don't. Anyone who knows anything about cycling knows this. The Clinic however only knows doping and explains absolutely everything by doping. There are no other variables in Clinicland.
Then Froome didn't just avoid going hard in the time trials. He avoided going hard at all. In EVERY SINGLE race. Including one-day TT events like the World Championships and Commonwealth Games. Why would he have to sandbag those races?

He could have been paid millions, but risked unemployment because "he didn't need to" go fast. Puh-lease!

Also, good job avoiding my entire post of arguments that destroy your entire blinkered view of Froome's performances and posting some nonsensical drivel at the end to really drive it home that you're a troll.
 
Saint Unix said:
Parker said:
Saint Unix said:
So your hypothesis is that Froome always had the ability to crunch out race-winning amounts of power but chose not to because it wasn't necessary?
No. I'm just saying that riders don't all go full gas in time trials. Nothing else. It's a fundamental false conceit that makes Swanson's 'research' meaningless.

Saint Unix said:
The amount of mental gymnastics required to believe in all of the above... Occam's god damn razor, people.
Occam's razor is that cyclists only go as fast as they need to. Riders that don't need to ride hard time trials don't. Anyone who knows anything about cycling knows this. The Clinic however only knows doping and explains absolutely everything by doping. There are no other variables in Clinicland.
Then Froome didn't just avoid going hard in the time trials. He avoided going hard at all. In EVERY SINGLE race. Including one-day TT events like the World Championships and Commonwealth Games. Why would he have to sandbag those races?

He could have been paid millions, but risked unemployment because "he didn't need to" go fast. Puh-lease!

Also, good job avoiding my entire post of arguments that destroy your entire blinkered view of Froome's performances and posting some nonsensical drivel at the end to really drive it home that you're a troll.

Froome actually rode "dom" for Wiggins in the 2011 Vuelta, which as it turned out Froome was on the front and awful lot in week 1. Froome managed to get stronger and stronger and started sprinting up hills chasing Cobo.

That was some transformation.. ;)
 
Let's say to be devils advocate, that Froome is and has always been clean.

One must still grant that his rise from domestique obscurity to peerless GC champion who dominates both tt's and climbs is - in my 25 or so years of watching the sport - absolutely remarkable and basically unprecedented.

GC guys are always watched closely from the junior ranks. There are talent scouts everywhere trying to intuit who - at say, 20, 21, 22 - may blossom into a GC star in their late 20's. So many bright young stars fail to deliver, but a select few make it through. Everyone watches class talent like Quintana win the tour de l'avinir and wonders what might be......and no one is surprised to see him contend for GT's a few years later. Fans are right now looking at riders like Aiden Costa and speculating on his GT potential.

When someone shows nothing at all through all of this - is basically not on the radar for being a GT rider - and then suddenly, out of nowhere, starts smashing the best of the best - well, no matter what the cause, that is just utterly remarkable.

And the answer "he was just soft pedaling the tt's" is close to being the most ridiculous assertion ever given in this, one of the most ridiculous places on the web.
 
Why was a future four-time Tour winner a domestique in the first place?

Anybody?

You would have thought that Sky would have actually valued Froome if the 'engine was there all along'. Yet in reality:

  • Froome started two Grand Tours in the 2010-2011 period. DQ from the 2010 Giro and 2011 Vuelta. According to the man himself, he wasn't even part of the initial selection for the Vuelta. He only started because Nordhaug fell ill. Imagine that, a future four-time Tour winner wasn't considered good enough to be part of Sky's GT squads in 2011, not even as a domestique.

  • Prior to the 2011 Vuelta, Sky weren't keen on extending his contract (see Froome's autobiography). Even Bruyneel at Trek wasn't interested in him. Why wouldn't Sky give Froome at least another year if he had the requisite physiology to beat dopers over three weeks?

  • Zero wins in Europe as a professional for the best part of four seasons. Grand Tour record until 2011 Vuelta:

    Zero top twenty GC finishes
    One top twenty mountainous stage finish (San Luca zigzag) + numerous grupetto placements
    One top twenty ITT finish

  • 'Full gas' TT results (championship or final stage):
    B World Championships 2007 - 2nd (behind TT monster Mai Haijun)
    U23 World Championships 2007 - 41st
    Giro del Capo 2008 Stage 5 - 7th
    Giro 2009 Stage 21 - 31st
    World Championships 2009 - 17th
    Eneco Tour 2010 Stage 7 - 71st
    UK National Championships 2010 - 2nd (no World Tour/Pro Continental riders outside the top three)
    Commonwealth Games 2010 - 5th (behind a 19-year-old Durbridge and 'Dr Hutch')
    Vuelta a Murcia 2011 - 18th
    Tour de Suisse 2011 - 9th

    One top ten against strong opposition (bolded). Failed to win a single TT against even relatively weak opposition.

    By way of comparison, his Grand Tour ITT results from the 2011 Vuelta onwards: 2, 11, 2, 3, 2, 1, 10, 63, 39, 2, 1, 1, 6, 3.

    Nothing short of a Jekyll and Hyde transformation.

    Dr Jekyll

    1O4lquf.jpg

Mr Hyde

1v8nChF.jpg


So it's no wonder that Sky didn't put this 'diamond in the rough' in a wind tunnel until 2013 and didn't envision a glorious Grand Tour future for him (see CF):

ROQhVsr.jpg
 

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