Froome Vs. Contador

[BlurryVII]

Re: Re:

Don't know how Flo can just declare 'No' (like that wins the debate)?
I think Ataraxus is right. I have often thought myself that the beginning of the 2014 Dauphine is the very closest both have been to peak condition at the same time. They were both exactly at the same point in their preparation for the Tour. And Froome proved to be the slightly stronger, winning the prologue by 8 seconds and beating Contador in the next day MTF. Froome won the two stages and was in the leader's jersey. It's clear they were both really going for it as well.

What came later:- between the Tour and Vuelta; how their respective rehabilitation from injuries went; their respective training; the sort of condition both showed up in at that Vuelta; - one can only speculate. But it certainly did not look like a top shape Froome to me.

The Dauphiné is irrelevant, it's a prep race which doesn't matter and where AC has always been average. He beat Froome though, whether Froome would've been able to keep up with him without the crash is speculation since AC was only getting better.

Of course Froome didn't look top shape to you in the Vuelta, he lost lol. That's natural bias. However he really was close to top shape in the 3rd week.

 

[dacooley]

Re: Re:

Don't know how Flo can just declare 'No' (like that wins the debate)?
I think Ataraxus is right. I have often thought myself that the beginning of the 2014 Dauphine is the very closest both have been to peak condition at the same time. They were both exactly at the same point in their preparation for the Tour. And Froome proved to be the slightly stronger, winning the prologue by 8 seconds and beating Contador in the next day MTF. Froome won the two stages and was in the leader's jersey. It's clear they were both really going for it as well.

What came later:- between the Tour and Vuelta; how their respective rehabilitation from injuries went; their respective training; the sort of condition both showed up in at that Vuelta; - one can only speculate. But it certainly did not look like a top shape Froome to me.

The Dauphiné is irrelevant, it's a prep race which doesn't matter and where AC has always been average. He beat Froome though, whether Froome would've been able to keep up with him without the crash is speculation since AC was only getting better.

Of course Froome didn't look top shape to you in the Vuelta, he lost lol. That's natural bias. However he really was close to top shape in the 3rd week.

not really. in pre ban dauphine editions bertie didn't have any specific goals for those races as he felt he would be by far the biggest favorite for july and could do anything he wanted. on the contrary in 2014 it was very important for him not to lose an inch of ground to froome. wanting to beat froome in the dauphine is pretty much wanting to win this race. so there are two principally different approaches. froome always improves hugely between dauphine and tour the same way like contador, I don't really know why you don't want to take it into consideration. yes, I agree ac was #1 contender prior the 2014 tour, however why you are suggesting about his win with such a big certainty is pretty odd. Seems like conflating reality and wishes yet again.

 

[buchanan]

Re: Re:

Don't know how Flo can just declare 'No' (like that wins the debate)?
I think Ataraxus is right. I have often thought myself that the beginning of the 2014 Dauphine is the very closest both have been to peak condition at the same time. They were both exactly at the same point in their preparation for the Tour. And Froome proved to be the slightly stronger, winning the prologue by 8 seconds and beating Contador in the next day MTF. Froome won the two stages and was in the leader's jersey. It's clear they were both really going for it as well.

What came later:- between the Tour and Vuelta; how their respective rehabilitation from injuries went; their respective training; the sort of condition both showed up in at that Vuelta; - one can only speculate. But it certainly did not look like a top shape Froome to me.

The Dauphiné is irrelevant, it's a prep race which doesn't matter and where AC has always been average. He beat Froome though, whether Froome would've been able to keep up with him without the crash is speculation since AC was only getting better.

Of course Froome didn't look top shape to you in the Vuelta, he lost lol. That's natural bias. However he really was close to top shape in the 3rd week.

In response to bold para.
Then I might as well say that of course Contador didn't look top shape to you in the 2013 Tour - he lost lol. That's natural bias. However he really was close to top shape in 2013 Tour. Because he himself said his numbers and times between the 2013 Dauphine and Tour were his best ever. He also came a close 2nd (to Froome) in the hilly Alps TT in 2013 Tour.

 

[Miburo]

Re: Re:

And Contador is prob gonna ride at least 2 more years. Well who said that before heh?

He also destroyed you guys plans of giro-vuelta in 2017, he wants to do the tour.

Those times of lagos are stupid, there were standing still most of the times in 2014

Not respective to Froome mate. Not respective to Froome.
your comment gives an indication that AC, Jrod and Piti could have gone faster. But not Froome.

Who cares? Froome was *** in the first 2 weeks, good job pointing it out.

 

[Gigs_98]

From the Alberto Contador thread:

I think we do know that with respect to the 2015 TdF, Contador wasn't at top shape because of the hard Giro he had just won a little over a month before. I doubt it is intentional, but lots of folks seem to have lost that fact down the memory hole when doing head to head comparisons. As for this year, unless there is a quick turnaround, I think Froome fans will be arguing that he wasn't on form this year. His spring has been decidedly lackluster by his standards. Or his competitors have been able to reach a higher base level. Not sure which yet...

The giro is definitely a good explanation, but I don't say that Froome is definitely better, I say that its impossible to say who is better, and like the giro affected Contador, Froome's crash in 2014 might have affected him equally. Actually the only possible head to head comparison we could make would be from the 2013 tdf because Contador doesnt really have an explanation why he was so far behind Froome. Using it as a comparison is only useless because its so obvious, Contador wasnt at his best there.

The same analogy can be applied about Froome's 2014 Vuelta as well. It is obvious that Froome wasnt at his best in the Vuelta with all his yoyo-ing and dropping behind Aru Jrod and Piti in several cases, several times.
By the same analogy Froome might not have an explanation why he was below par and couldn't achieve his peak in the whole Vuelta.

I don't know if the purpose of this post was to agree or to disagree with me, but anyway I think you are 100% right. It's obvious Froome wasnt at his best in that Vuelta so we shouldnt use it as a comparison between Bertie and Dawg at top shape (also because we don't even know how Contador's shape was there). Thats the point I was trying to make.

 

[SeriousSam]

To deter some of the comical post-hoc rationalisation fanbois are known to engage in, we should contemplate in advance how the possible outcomes of the first MTF of the Tour would affect the PEAK Debate.

Otherwise, we'll just get one camp declaring victory if their boy wins, and the other camp countering that their boy just didn't have peak shape but he'd have won if he did. If the Tour were a Froome-Contador duel, nothing could discriminate between the two hypotheses, but fortunately, that is not the case. Other elite climbers will be present as they have been in the past, which allows us to judge whether a rider is close to his peak in terms of how he's doing against them.

Since a rider's peak shape isn't a constant but a parameter that varies over time for a variety of reasons, only some of which can be discussed here, we cannot, sadly, go all the way back to 2009 to get a sense of what a top shape Contador today does to his opposition at the TdF. But with Froome, we have evidence from 2013 and 2015 stages that are relatively unconfounded by tactics, by new eras of cycling, aging and other factors, and that's going to be enough to identify whose peak extends to loftier heights.

We'll be able to tell whether Froome has reached his peak by looking at how he does compared to everyone except Contador. If his relative edge over everyone is akin to what it was at Ax3 and PSM, he'll be in peak shape. And then we can just see where Contador's at.

So, all that remains to be done in order to set things up for this debate to be settled rationally is to find a good metric that quantifies Froome's edge over elite climbers at Ax3 and PSM, excluding Contador.

 

[Ataraxus]

From the Alberto Contador thread:

I think we do know that with respect to the 2015 TdF, Contador wasn't at top shape because of the hard Giro he had just won a little over a month before. I doubt it is intentional, but lots of folks seem to have lost that fact down the memory hole when doing head to head comparisons. As for this year, unless there is a quick turnaround, I think Froome fans will be arguing that he wasn't on form this year. His spring has been decidedly lackluster by his standards. Or his competitors have been able to reach a higher base level. Not sure which yet...

The giro is definitely a good explanation, but I don't say that Froome is definitely better, I say that its impossible to say who is better, and like the giro affected Contador, Froome's crash in 2014 might have affected him equally. Actually the only possible head to head comparison we could make would be from the 2013 tdf because Contador doesnt really have an explanation why he was so far behind Froome. Using it as a comparison is only useless because its so obvious, Contador wasnt at his best there.

The same analogy can be applied about Froome's 2014 Vuelta as well. It is obvious that Froome wasnt at his best in the Vuelta with all his yoyo-ing and dropping behind Aru Jrod and Piti in several cases, several times.
By the same analogy Froome might not have an explanation why he was below par and couldn't achieve his peak in the whole Vuelta.

I don't know if the purpose of this post was to agree or to disagree with me, but anyway I think you are 100% right. It's obvious Froome wasnt at his best in that Vuelta so we shouldnt use it as a comparison between Bertie and Dawg at top shape (also because we don't even know how Contador's shape was there). Thats the point I was trying to make.

For sure it wasn't to disagree with you Gigs

 

[Ataraxus]

Re:

To deter some of the comical post-hoc rationalisation fanbois are known to engage in, we should contemplate in advance how the possible outcomes of the first MTF of the Tour would affect the PEAK Debate.

Otherwise, we'll just get one camp declaring victory if their boy wins, and the other camp countering that their boy just didn't have peak shape but he'd have won if he did. If the Tour were a Froome-Contador duel, nothing could discriminate between the two hypotheses, but fortunately, that is not the case. Other elite climbers will be present as they have been in the past, which allows us to judge whether a rider is close to his peak in terms of how he's doing against them.

Since a rider's peak shape isn't a constant but a parameter that varies over time for a variety of reasons, only some of which can be discussed here, we cannot, sadly, go all the way back to 2009 to get a sense of what a top shape Contador today does to his opposition at the TdF. But with Froome, we have evidence from 2013 and 2015 stages that are relatively unconfounded by tactics, by new eras of cycling, aging and other factors, and that's going to be enough to identify whose peak extends to loftier heights.

We'll be able to tell whether Froome has reached his peak by looking at how he does compared to everyone except Contador. If his relative edge over everyone is akin to what it was at Ax3 and PSM, he'll be in peak shape. And then we can just see where Contador's at.

So, all that remains to be done in order to set things up for this debate to be settled rationally is to find a good metric that quantifies Froome's edge over elite climbers at Ax3 and PSM, excluding Contador.

That can't be the case either. For instance Quintana is supposedly much stronger than he was in Ax3 and he was alone in the wind for much longer than all the others. Porte was as a domestique in both those stages and we can't know if he was going all out 100% once Froome attacked. Plus there are the age factors, performance gains, team switches, illnesses etc which make it even more difficult.

Another measurement platform might be the ascent times, but there are many unknown factors there as well i.e. weather conditions, the way the race is ridden, the way the climb is tackled etc.

 

[SeriousSam]

That can't be the case either. For instance Quintana is supposedly much stronger than he was in Ax3 and he was alone in the wind for much longer than all the others. Porte was as a domestique in both those stages and we can't know if he was going all out 100% once Froome attacked. Plus there are the age factors, performance gains, team switches, illnesses etc which make it even more difficult.

All of that is true, it's by no means an ideal measure. Quintana, for one, really is someone we ought to exclude. We wouldn't want to conclude that Froome isn't at his best if Quintana isn't at least a minute back. But we would want to conclude it if Teejay, Robert Gesink and other such riders finish 10 seconds down on the dawg.

The idea is that even though other rider's positions in the hierarchy change year on year too, the average change of a group of elite riders like the top 10 summit finishers relative to a peak Froome should be smaller. What if Froome goes full *** and someone can hang on? Well, perhaps that rider just really improved. That's especially believable if that rider has shown the potential to be great in the past. But if Froome goes full *** and a lot of riders can hang on or aren't far back, it's more likely Froome's not as good as he's been.

I maintain that looking at performance relative to a group of elite riders is a better measure for detecting whether a rider is close to the level he had in the past, than anything absolute like, say, w/kg or ascent times across different races, because it's a control for the factors you mention: weather conditions, the way the race is ridden, the way the climb is tackled etc.

 

[Netserk]

Re:

That can't be the case either. For instance Quintana is supposedly much stronger than he was in Ax3 and he was alone in the wind for much longer than all the others. Porte was as a domestique in both those stages and we can't know if he was going all out 100% once Froome attacked. Plus there are the age factors, performance gains, team switches, illnesses etc which make it even more difficult.

All of that is true, it's by no means an ideal measure. Quintana, for one, really is someone we ought to exclude. We wouldn't want to conclude that Froome isn't at his best if Quintana isn't at least a minute back. But we would want to conclude it if Teejay, Robert Gesink and other such riders finish 10 seconds down on the dawg.

The idea is that even though other rider's positions in the hierarchy change year on year too, the average change of a group of elite riders like the top 10 summit finishers relative to a peak Froome should be smaller. What if Froome goes full *** and someone can hang on? Well, perhaps that rider just really improved. That's especially believable if that rider has shown the potential to be great in the past. But if Froome goes full *** and a lot of riders can hang on or aren't far back, it's more likely Froome's not as good as he's been.

I maintain that looking at performance relative to a group of elite riders is a better measure for detecting whether a rider is close to the level he had in the past, than anything absolute like, say, w/kg or ascent times across different races, because it's a control for the factors you mention: weather conditions, the way the race is ridden, the way the climb is tackled etc.

A combination of the two would be best. I trust both vetooo and jens_attacks to be able to interpret the data and make a fair analysis.

 

[46&twoWheels]

we cannot, sadly, go all the way back to 2009 to get a sense of what a top shape Contador today does to his opposition at the TdF.

We could in theory do that only in the following case:
Froome is probably in his "absolute prime" (2013-2016?) or close to it, which is a function of age (horner is an outlier )
While the top shape attainable now is what his current peak (which changes) allows.

If Contador were to beat Froome in his prime,we could make the hypothesis that Contador's best > Froome's best (assuming Froome in top shape and in his prime)

But I don't think that's going to happen

 

[BlurryVII]

Re: Re:

In response to bold para.
Then I might as well say that of course Contador didn't look top shape to you in the 2013 Tour - he lost lol. That's natural bias. However he really was close to top shape in 2013 Tour. Because he himself said his numbers and times between the 2013 Dauphine and Tour were his best ever. He also came a close 2nd (to Froome) in the hilly Alps TT in 2013 Tour.

Sure, Contador not going over 5.5 w/kg on any climb in the Tour 13' was close to his best.

Compared to Froome's 6.1 w/kg, for an effort longer than 20 mins on Farrapona (Vuelta 14') and putting Aru, Valverde and Rodriguez at pretty much 2 minutes overall combining Farrapona and Ancares.

Pretty much on par with his PSM performance and much stronger than he was in the 3rd week of any TDF.

Keep playing the fool.

 

[dacooley]

BlurryVII how about contador vs froome 100 Dollar bet for the tour?

 

[ray j willings]

Bertie and Froome will both want to win the dauphine. No prisoners. It will be a huge boost for the better rider and a big loss of confidence for the loser.

 

[Tonton]

Re:

Bertie and Froome will both want to win the dauphine. No prisoners. It will be a huge boost for the better rider and a big loss of confidence for the loser.

Absolutely. It's one thing to let a Talansky (no GT threat) win. But a direct opponent, so close to the Tour? No way. Psychological warfare.

 

[TMP402]

I say Froome would rather Contador win the Dauphine than go deep into the redzone.

 

[Miburo]

Re:

I say Froome would rather Contador win the Dauphine than go deep into the redzone.

You don't give Froome enough credit. He rather go into complete red than let Contador win with him being 2nd which it how it should be in a rivalry.

In those rivalries it doesn't even matter what kinda race it is, you always wanna beat him no matter what.

 

[Red Rick]

Yeah, Froome totally didn't try to drop Contador in the last Dauphine they rode. Oman 2013 another example.

 

[TMP402]

Re:

Yeah, Froome totally didn't try to drop Contador in the last Dauphine they rode. Oman 2013 another example.

Both those examples come before his 2014 Tour though.

 

[Escarabajo]

So here we are at the Giro d'Italia and people are bumping this thread. Ooops I just did it as well.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

Yeah, Froome totally didn't try to drop Contador in the last Dauphine they rode. Oman 2013 another example.

Both those examples come before his 2014 Tour though.

Why do you think the 2014 Tour changed his mindset about going into the red in order to beat his rival?

 

[Miburo]

Re:

So here we are at the Giro d'Italia and people are bumping this thread. Ooops I just did it as well.

The dauphine is already starting in 4 weeks. We're all hoping for this after all

 

[rhubroma]

Re: Re:

So here we are at the Giro d'Italia and people are bumping this thread. Ooops I just did it as well.

The dauphine is already starting in 4 weeks. We're all hoping for this after all

What I saw was that Froome can't keep it up, crash not withstanding.

 

[TMP402]

Re: Re:

Yeah, Froome totally didn't try to drop Contador in the last Dauphine they rode. Oman 2013 another example.

Both those examples come before his 2014 Tour though.

Why do you think the 2014 Tour changed his mindset about going into the red in order to beat his rival?

Because it revealed his fragility and tendency to totally break down if anything goes wrong. I'm not claiming to know the true Froome, it's just my theory.

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re: Re:

Yeah, Froome totally didn't try to drop Contador in the last Dauphine they rode. Oman 2013 another example.

Both those examples come before his 2014 Tour though.

Why do you think the 2014 Tour changed his mindset about going into the red in order to beat his rival?

Because it revealed his fragility and tendency to totally break down if anything goes wrong. I'm not claiming to know the true Froome, it's just my theory.

Erm... being beaten by Contador would be classed as 'something going wrong', so by that logic, if anything, he'd be going deep into the red to avoid being beaten?