Geraint Thomas, the next british hope

[Saint Unix]

Re:

Cancellera was always 10kg too heavy.

Because being "too heavy" normally also means "faster on the flats".

Look at the guys that podium the WC ITT (last year's uphill TT not included). Cancellara, Martin, Kiryienka, Malori, Grabsch, Phinney, Tuft, Millar, Clement, Bodrogi, Larsson, Gutierrez, Rich... They're all pretty enormous guys compared to most cyclists. At the elite level of cycling more weight means more muscle which means more speed on the flats.

You also have to get power profiles into your brain. Just because a rider can produce the most watts over the course of the four minutes a pursuit takes to finish does not mean that the same rider will be able to maintain more watts over the course of 40 minutes to an hour.

Add the fact that weight is good in a power effort like a pursuit or a flat time trial and that short-term power does not necessarily equal long-term power and you get the reason why almost all non-British pursuit specialists ever struggle to even climb out of bed.

 

[Parker]

Re: Re:

Look at the guys that podium the WC ITT (last year's uphill TT not included). Cancellara, Martin, Kiryienka, Malori, Grabsch, Phinney, Tuft, Millar, Clement, Bodrogi, Larsson, Gutierrez, Rich... They're all pretty enormous guys compared to most cyclists. At the elite level of cycling more weight means more muscle which means more speed on the flats.

But how many GC guys even turn up to do the Worlds TT? Very few because it's at the end of the season. Contrast with the Olympics TT, where they do turn up, and most of the names you mention are replaced by GC riders.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

For those who argue "what difference does it being uphill matter?", you may find this thread from 2011 interesting. In it, Bavarianrider attempted to argue that the gradient does not make a difference to the difficulty or selectivity of a climb, because 5km at 10% and 10km at 5% have the same vertical gain. And again... "what difference does it being uphill matter"? Well, if Miguel Ángel López or Nairo Quintana started winning prologues and setting the hour record, would you buy that? I mean, they're very good at climbing to tempo (Quintana's two GT wins have been predicated on wins where he's set the tempo the whole way up the final climb towing others uncaringly) so surely if it being uphill doesn't matter, they ought to be able to replicate that on the flat, right?

At a certain point, the ability to just put the power down changes, both in the tactical way the race is run and in the effects of drafting etc.; the ability to put the power down is fine but at some point weight comes into it so that the flyweights are favoured because of their lack of mass. Force = mass x distance, so the lower mass requires less power to propel it the same distance; it also has less inertia, which is more beneficial when pushing uphill than on the flat.

Your historical argument also overlooks parcours trends; when the likes of Vicente Trueba, Federico Bahamontes, Charly Gaul, Julio Jiménez, José Manuel Fuente, Lucien van Impe and Lucho Herrera were losing GTs due to their comparative lack of size, there was often close to 200km of time trialling, and many of the monster climbs we now know as traditions were not known; Lagos de Covadonga was only introduced in 1983, Mortirolo in 1990, Angliru in 1999, Zoncolan in men's cycling in 2003 and only 2007 from Ovaro. As control of races has tended upward, as infrastructure has improved leaving fewer treacherous, badly-paved or rough roads and as professionalism has increased and the gap between the strongest and weakest rider in the bunch has got smaller, opportunities outside of the mountains have been reduced as escaping in flat stages is increasingly difficult for major contenders. Time trial mileage has reduced heavily as a response to the developments of train techniques strangling races to defend gains from the TT, a technique which Anquetil originated but saw major development in the 90s with Banesto and then USPS. As the flat stages are less selective than they had been and climbers are better protected, and as time trial mileage has reduced to reflect that mountain stages are also seeing smaller gaps due to increased control (we do still see the occasional raid from distance, but it's usually a targeted single stage or a desperation move, not a matter of course like in the Bahamontes/Gaul days), so the number of escaladores contending GT GCs has gone up enormously. You can only imagine the palmarès a guy like Julio Jiménez would have now. Quintana has won a Giro, a Vuelta and had four other GT podiums (as well as crashing out of one in the leader's jersey) and Lucho Herrera managed one win in the Vuelta and no other podiums - but I'm still not ready to say that Quintana was the superior climber, it's just that parcours today better support riders like them than they did in the 1980s.

Against this backdrop, riders coming from a background of track cycling (not just the hour, which TT-biased GT riders in the past such as Moser and Indurain took on, although Moser got a tailor-made course AND help from the organisers to win his GT) and dieting down to become GT contenders is even more of a surprise than it was back in those days - and doing so after so many years of competition at the top level is harder too.

 

[dacooley]

from my perspective, sky comfortably outdo the rest the field in all departments, doping included. but what thomas was able to execute is innocent fun compared to froome's transformation.

 

[thehog]

Endurance and your cardiovascular system doesn't change just because you go uphill other than some are affected more than others above 1500m is what i'm talking about, simply your weight becomes important that's all. Any rider can lose weight, so after that it's who has the bigger engine and endurance capacity. In Coppi's day, he came out of the Tour de France and his hour record then held for 14 years. Coppi wasn't a pure climber, he was an all-rounder with a huge diesel engine just like all the tour winners Merckx, Anquetil and Wiggins who also took an hour record and smashed ITT were.

Richard Moore calling, he wants his tweet back.

I think this 'discussion' was done 6 years when a former tracky suddenly won the Tour?

'Just lost the fat"

'Always had the engine'

Blablabla.

Ever heard of muscle fibres?

Only at Sky they can morph those fibres from good at time trials to breathing through the nose on Hors Category climbs?

Just asking.

Thomas had so much more in the tank, trully disappointed he didnt get the call 'go do a Froomey' from the team car.

I saw that tweet from Moore, he called it ‘wisdom’. He is very much a moron of the highest order

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

As for pursuit, you're simply wrong. It's pure endurance, no different than an hour record or flat TT is. You can either hold 430-450 watts for an hour or you can't is all i'm saying. Training for a 4km pursuit involves training for an hour or more at threshold and then above. You can't add 500w over 4 minutes to nothing you know, it doesn't work like that.

You also have to get power profiles into your brain. Just because a rider can produce the most watts over the course of the four minutes a pursuit takes to finish does not mean that the same rider will be able to maintain more watts over the course of 40 minutes to an hour.

About the power debate, Samhocking is right to say that 500 watts for four minutes doesn't build upon nothing, and in cycling implies a very impressive sustainable power as well. On the other hand, Saint Unix is more-right about the reasons for differing abilities among pro cyclists, and athletes in general
There was this thread answering some questions about Tim Wellens' power testing data in training
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=33892
And it shows Wellens did produce 500 watts for more than four minutes, yet Wellens would be a very unlikely candidate to attempt the world hour record. Being more an 'all-arounder' or puncheur type racer.

Or another example is a sprinter, André Greipel, who similarly proves in his power data that he can do 500 watts for more than four minutes, yet Greipel has a radically different power profile than either Geraint Thomas or Tim Wellens

Or, there was Bradley Wiggins attempting to transition into the sport of rowing, only to realize that he is rubbish versus Team GB rowers in a 6-minute event. Whereas conversely, the elite rowers would fare very poorly versus Wiggins in a one-hour event. And that's because of having very different aerobic power profiles, not muscularity per se

Sam has no idea what he is talking about. Coggin applied a 5% reduction from the 20min FTP test for the result per hour for good reason. The table formulated power vs time is for this reason only. That scientifically a rider which produces a very good effort at 4 minutes will not maintain their power trajectory for longer periods. Conversely a rider who produces a very good and steady power rate for 60 mins will not be linear down to four minutes.

Sam misses this point over and over again.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

I saw that tweet from Moore, he called it ‘wisdom’. He is very much a moron of the highest order

Richard is a very nice guy but also must earn money to pay for his mortgage. When you go all in you can not back down...

I think it was Toni Martin who made the joke a few years ago he would sheld a few kilo's so he would be GC candidate?

The myth of shedding some pounds to become a GT winner has been done by how many riders recently? Succesfully that is.

All from one team. All holding the same nationality.

Never getting sick, with a fat % of 5 or lower?

I remember Hesjedal trying to copy that in the Giro 2013 I believe, that was a succes for the 'clean' boys from Garmin...

Why havent Sky been able to develop riders besides Wiggins, Froomey and Thomas yet? Okay, I will include Porte in that.

 

[Forever The Best]

Re:

For those who argue "what difference does it being uphill matter?", you may find this thread from 2011 interesting. In it, Bavarianrider attempted to argue that the gradient does not make a difference to the difficulty or selectivity of a climb, because 5km at 10% and 10km at 5% have the same vertical gain. And again... "what difference does it being uphill matter"? Well, if Miguel Ángel López or Nairo Quintana started winning prologues and setting the hour record, would you buy that? I mean, they're very good at climbing to tempo (Quintana's two GT wins have been predicated on wins where he's set the tempo the whole way up the final climb towing others uncaringly) so surely if it being uphill doesn't matter, they ought to be able to replicate that on the flat, right?

At a certain point, the ability to just put the power down changes, both in the tactical way the race is run and in the effects of drafting etc.; the ability to put the power down is fine but at some point weight comes into it so that the flyweights are favoured because of their lack of mass. Force = mass x distance, so the lower mass requires less power to propel it the same distance; it also has less inertia, which is more beneficial when pushing uphill than on the flat.

Your historical argument also overlooks parcours trends; when the likes of Vicente Trueba, Federico Bahamontes, Charly Gaul, Julio Jiménez, José Manuel Fuente, Lucien van Impe and Lucho Herrera were losing GTs due to their comparative lack of size, there was often close to 200km of time trialling, and many of the monster climbs we now know as traditions were not known; Lagos de Covadonga was only introduced in 1983, Mortirolo in 1990, Angliru in 1999, Zoncolan in men's cycling in 2003 and only 2007 from Ovaro. As control of races has tended upward, as infrastructure has improved leaving fewer treacherous, badly-paved or rough roads and as professionalism has increased and the gap between the strongest and weakest rider in the bunch has got smaller, opportunities outside of the mountains have been reduced as escaping in flat stages is increasingly difficult for major contenders. Time trial mileage has reduced heavily as a response to the developments of train techniques strangling races to defend gains from the TT, a technique which Anquetil originated but saw major development in the 90s with Banesto and then USPS. As the flat stages are less selective than they had been and climbers are better protected, and as time trial mileage has reduced to reflect that mountain stages are also seeing smaller gaps due to increased control (we do still see the occasional raid from distance, but it's usually a targeted single stage or a desperation move, not a matter of course like in the Bahamontes/Gaul days), so the number of escaladores contending GT GCs has gone up enormously. You can only imagine the palmarès a guy like Julio Jiménez would have now. Quintana has won a Giro, a Vuelta and had four other GT podiums (as well as crashing out of one in the leader's jersey) and Lucho Herrera managed one win in the Vuelta and no other podiums - but I'm still not ready to say that Quintana was the superior climber, it's just that parcours today better support riders like them than they did in the 1980s.

Against this backdrop, riders coming from a background of track cycling (not just the hour, which TT-biased GT riders in the past such as Moser and Indurain took on, although Moser got a tailor-made course AND help from the organisers to win his GT) and dieting down to become GT contenders is even more of a surprise than it was back in those days - and doing so after so many years of competition at the top level is harder too.

Brilliant post. However one thing, Gaul was a very good time trialist as well, even winning the TTs in the 1958 Tour. His problems were flat stages and stages with heat.

 

[Parker]

Re:

Force = mass x distance

Finally someone has the guts to contradict that Skybot Isaac Newton

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Force = mass x distance

Finally someone has the guts to contradict that Skybot Isaac Newton

Force = mass x acceleration and of course which applies directly to force x distance.

If you dropped Froome, Thomas and TomD off a tall building 30 stories high at the same time, who would hit the ground first?

 

[Parker]

Re: Re:

Force = mass x distance

Finally someone has the guts to contradict that Skybot Isaac Newton

Force = mass x acceleration and of course which applies directly to force x distance.

No it doesn't.

If you dropped Froome, Thomas and TomD off a tall building 30 stories high at the same time, who would hit the ground first?

That would depend on their aerodynamic profile while falling, not their mass. In a vacuum they would hit the ground at the same time.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

Force = mass x distance

Finally someone has the guts to contradict that Skybot Isaac Newton

Very good, I did indeed *** up my laws of physics, mixing "force = mass x acceleration" with "work = force x distance".

Doesn't change the overall point (that it does matter whether going uphill or on the flat, seeing as not only is inertia greater in heavier objects but also as gradient increases, so does the amount of force required to produce the same velocity, gravity is an increased factor, and because more force is required to propel heavier objects uphill over the same distance, so work increases), but does tidy up the actual equation which was misquoted.

 

[Parker]

Re: Re:

Force = mass x distance

Finally someone has the guts to contradict that Skybot Isaac Newton

Very good, I did indeed **** up my laws of physics, mixing "force = mass x acceleration" with "work = force x distance".

Doesn't change the overall point (that it does matter whether going uphill or on the flat, seeing as not only is inertia greater in heavier objects but also as gradient increases, so does the amount of force required to produce the same velocity, gravity is an increased factor, and because more force is required to propel heavier objects uphill over the same distance, so work increases), but does tidy up the actual equation which was misquoted.

It's best not to preach about physics if you can't get the most fundamental equation in physics right.

The effect of gravity is directly proportional to mass. The effect of air resistance isn't. At best it's loosely proportional to the square of the cubed root of mass - but unlike gravity, people can control and modify this.

Climbing is an equation between power and weight. Time trialling an equation between power and surface area.

Power, by which we mean sustainable power, not peak power, is really hard to change. Weight and surface area a lot more easy.

 

[rick james]

Wow, talking about cyclist being dropped from buildings now... talk about muddying the waters

 

[Libertine Seguros]

In fairness though, Parker, you aren't the one that was arguing that it doesn't matter whether a rider is travelling uphill or not - even the most rudimentary knowledge of cycling tells you that it does. Like I said, the 2011 Bavarianrider thread where he argued gradient doesn't matter for the difficulty of the climb features much discussion of this. If we were to test two riders, of equal talent level but unequal weight, you would expect to find there is a point at which the amount of power required for the heavier rider to achieve the same uphill propulsion will become unsustainable, at which point the lighter rider will be able to ride ahead, and depending on the steepness of a climb this will happen at different times.

But this is only a tangent, designed to redirect conversation. You didn't sidetrack the conversation yourself, but you're happy to keep leading it down this cul-de-sac. This line of discussion came up in response to the suggestion that 4km pursuit riding is an excellent (even suggested at one point to be the best) sign of the appropriate endurance for a Grand Tour because of the power put down, and that it doesn't matter if the road is uphill. There's plenty of arguments that can be made in favour of Thomas' transformation from classics man and track cyclist to Tour de France winner that don't require such an obvious fallacy. Now, had the original claim been that pursuit riding is an underrated metric for deciding who has the recovery and the sustainable power for a GT? That could be something that could be debated, because there are people like Peter Kennaugh who've raced on the track who showed good climbing capabilities in his younger days who could be discussed as examples seeing as Thomas himself wasn't looking at climbing until comparatively late in his road career so representative results are hard to come by. But making claims such as those that have led to this line of discussion were clearly intended to sidetrack discussion and lead it up a blind and unnecessary alley - and they've clearly been successful.

 

[acoggan]

Re: Re:

1. It's 'Coggan', not 'Coggin'.

2. The 95% of 20 min power is Hunter's rule-of-thumb, not mine (although on average, it is correct).

 

[gregrowlerson]

Re:

Wow, talking about cyclist being dropped from buildings now... talk about muddying the waters

I could imagine the clinic conducting their own 'witch hunt', throwing suspected professional riders off a 'sky'scrapper on the expectation of proving that they have doped; determining thus by how long it takes them to hit the ground.

Either or either, it will certainly be a life ban :lol:

 

[Mamil]

I never realised that winning a GT was so simple. Big endurance engine + losing all possible weight = winning Le Tour.

Why are all these big engines British?

Why isn't Rohan Dennis, who is quite tall and clearly has a massive engine of his own and ability to maintain high watts for a long time, not destroying GTs left right and centre?

Oh, what's that, you need to dope too? Silly me. I thought maybe poor Roh was just fat

 

[dacooley]

how comes that being a talented track rider, joining high-scale doping programme, losing weight and as a result becoming a great climber is far less OKish than being a talented little climber by nature and winning big races with an assistance of doping? why super elite racing should allegedly be a direct reflection of what took place in tour de l'avenir. damn, it doesnt make any sense imo.

 

[DFA123]

Re:

how comes that being a talented track rider, joining high-scale doping programme, losing weight and as a result becoming a great climber is far less OKish than being a talented little climber by nature and winning big races with an assistance of doping? why super elite racing should allegedly be a direct reflection of what took place in tour de l'avenir. damn, it doesnt make any sense imo.

The issue is that it's so blatant. It's impossible to suspend disbelief - to imagine that the most talented riders in the world are actually winning the race. If some guy like Valverde or Sagan wins a race then - looking at their youth results and progression - you can believe its plausible that they would be there or there abouts in a clean peloton. If someone suddenly transforms mid (or late) career to win the Tour - you know its not that much to do with talent any more. It feels like the Armstrong era all again - where having a huge budget, the best lawyers and friends in the right places is deciding races. Thomas is a bit different to Froome/Dumoulin I think because he's clearly talented, even by pro standards, but he's so tainted by the Sky brand right now, that it's difficult to have any faith in him.

 

[dacooley]

Re: Re:

how comes that being a talented track rider, joining high-scale doping programme, losing weight and as a result becoming a great climber is far less OKish than being a talented little climber by nature and winning big races with an assistance of doping? why super elite racing should allegedly be a direct reflection of what took place in tour de l'avenir. damn, it doesnt make any sense imo.

The issue is that it's so blatant. It's impossible to suspend disbelief - to imagine that the most talented riders in the world are actually winning the race. If some guy like Valverde or Sagan wins a race then - looking at their youth results and progression - you can believe its plausible that they would be there or there abouts in a clean peloton. If someone suddenly transforms mid (or late) career to win the Tour - you know its not that much to do with talent any more. It feels like the Armstrong era all again - where having a huge budget, the best lawyers and friends in the right places is deciding races. Thomas is a bit different to Froome/Dumoulin I think because he's clearly talented, even by pro standards, but he's so tainted by the Sky brand right now, that it's difficult to have any faith in him.

the issue is that a lot of fans are desperately willing to search for some kind of bike racing fairness which is actually senseless, because the whole world is unfair by its nature. the model "the earlier talent is evident - the more credible and well-deserved champion" is valid to a certain extent, but clearly has multiple flaws, coming down more to the idealist attitude. nobody has a clue what would have happened in a completely clean cycling, the sport, that has histrorically been one of the hardest and dirtiest. so would you have a faith in valverde / quintana, had they won the tour by crushing thermonuclear sky?

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

how comes that being a talented track rider, joining high-scale doping programme, losing weight and as a result becoming a great climber is far less OKish than being a talented little climber by nature and winning big races with an assistance of doping? why super elite racing should allegedly be a direct reflection of what took place in tour de l'avenir. damn, it doesnt make any sense imo.

The issue is that it's so blatant. It's impossible to suspend disbelief - to imagine that the most talented riders in the world are actually winning the race. If some guy like Valverde or Sagan wins a race then - looking at their youth results and progression - you can believe its plausible that they would be there or there abouts in a clean peloton. If someone suddenly transforms mid (or late) career to win the Tour - you know its not that much to do with talent any more. It feels like the Armstrong era all again - where having a huge budget, the best lawyers and friends in the right places is deciding races. Thomas is a bit different to Froome/Dumoulin I think because he's clearly talented, even by pro standards, but he's so tainted by the Sky brand right now, that it's difficult to have any faith in him.

the issue is that a lot of fans are desperately willing to search for some kind of bike racing fairness which is actually senseless, because the whole world is unfair by its nature. the model "the earlier talent is evident - the more credible and well-deserved champion" is valid to a certain extent, but clearly has multiple flaws, coming down more to the idealist attitude. nobody has a clue what would have happened in a completely clean cycling, the sport, that has histrorically been one of the hardest and dirtiest. so would you have a faith in valverde / quintana, had they won the tour by crushing thermonuclear sky?

Not sure what you mean by 'have faith'? That they are clean? Obviously not. That they are extremely talented riders who would be at the pinnacle of cycling in any era? Probably yes.

Its not really about fairness either. Its about being able to appreciate that the guy winning is a world class sportsman, rather than has a world class pharmicist, or friends in high places. In the blood doping era this is obviously increasingly harder to know, but youth career is a good place to start. And a sudden big transformation is pretty much a giant red flag for a donkey turned racehorse.

 

[samhocking]

Re: Re:

how comes that being a talented track rider, joining high-scale doping programme, losing weight and as a result becoming a great climber is far less OKish than being a talented little climber by nature and winning big races with an assistance of doping? why super elite racing should allegedly be a direct reflection of what took place in tour de l'avenir. damn, it doesnt make any sense imo.

The issue is that it's so blatant. It's impossible to suspend disbelief - to imagine that the most talented riders in the world are actually winning the race. If some guy like Valverde or Sagan wins a race then - looking at their youth results and progression - you can believe its plausible that they would be there or there abouts in a clean peloton. If someone suddenly transforms mid (or late) career to win the Tour - you know its not that much to do with talent any more. It feels like the Armstrong era all again - where having a huge budget, the best lawyers and friends in the right places is deciding races. Thomas is a bit different to Froome/Dumoulin I think because he's clearly talented, even by pro standards, but he's so tainted by the Sky brand right now, that it's difficult to have any faith in him.

the issue is that a lot of fans are desperately willing to search for some kind of bike racing fairness which is actually senseless, because the whole world is unfair by its nature. the model "the earlier talent is evident - the more credible and well-deserved champion" is valid to a certain extent, but clearly has multiple flaws, coming down more to the idealist attitude. nobody has a clue what would have happened in a completely clean cycling, the sport, that has histrorically been one of the hardest and dirtiest. so would you have a faith in valverde / quintana, had they won the tour by crushing thermonuclear sky?

The point i'm making is not that the 4km effort itself and of itself is indicative of Grand Tour success, it's that the training effort required in order to put such a high 4km effort onto, only comes from a very strong, basic aerobic threshold over much longer periods and why pursuit riders at least in man 2,3 & 4 also make great ITT riders too. Basically the 4km pursuit identifies riders with very good sustained power over an hour or so ,mbecause if you don't have that, you are not able to bolt on the numbers required to win a pursuit. The pursuit naturally selects those riders who, with weight adjustment and race tactics up climbs in Grand Tours can then tip the maths into their favour. All rider types have basic endurance to get around France, that's not the point.

The riders that are not very good at sustained power over an hour or so are guess who? Pure climbers. As discussed when the road goes uphill the 'maths and physics' tip in their favour as discussed above, so how do you negate that favour? You ride at sustained threshold from the bottom of the climb, so when you get to the more decisive last 3-4km the pure climbers can't then make the difference over a shorter effort and typical of where the Tour de France time is won and lost. The 'maths and physics' have been tipped into the favour of the heavier riders like Doumilin, Wiggins, Thomas, Indurain etc.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

Re: Re:

why pursuit riders at least in man 2,3 & 4 also make great ITT riders too

For this to be presented as a fact you must have numerous examples.

Endulge us with 10 top pursuiters cranking them TT wins Sam.

 

[dacooley]

Re: Re:

how comes that being a talented track rider, joining high-scale doping programme, losing weight and as a result becoming a great climber is far less OKish than being a talented little climber by nature and winning big races with an assistance of doping? why super elite racing should allegedly be a direct reflection of what took place in tour de l'avenir. damn, it doesnt make any sense imo.

The issue is that it's so blatant. It's impossible to suspend disbelief - to imagine that the most talented riders in the world are actually winning the race. If some guy like Valverde or Sagan wins a race then - looking at their youth results and progression - you can believe its plausible that they would be there or there abouts in a clean peloton. If someone suddenly transforms mid (or late) career to win the Tour - you know its not that much to do with talent any more. It feels like the Armstrong era all again - where having a huge budget, the best lawyers and friends in the right places is deciding races. Thomas is a bit different to Froome/Dumoulin I think because he's clearly talented, even by pro standards, but he's so tainted by the Sky brand right now, that it's difficult to have any faith in him.

the issue is that a lot of fans are desperately willing to search for some kind of bike racing fairness which is actually senseless, because the whole world is unfair by its nature. the model "the earlier talent is evident - the more credible and well-deserved champion" is valid to a certain extent, but clearly has multiple flaws, coming down more to the idealist attitude. nobody has a clue what would have happened in a completely clean cycling, the sport, that has histrorically been one of the hardest and dirtiest. so would you have a faith in valverde / quintana, had they won the tour by crushing thermonuclear sky?

Not sure what you mean by 'have faith'? That they are clean? Obviously not. That they are extremely talented riders who would be at the pinnacle of cycling in any era? Probably yes.

Its not really about fairness either. Its about being able to appreciate that the guy winning is a world class sportsman, rather than has a world class pharmicist, or friends in high places. In the blood doping era this is obviously increasingly harder to know, but youth career is a good place to start. And a sudden big transformation is pretty much a giant red flag for a donkey turned racehorse.

what I'm trying to make emphasis on IS the difference you draw between quintana / valverde / sagan and froome / thomas / dimoulin is ridiculously big. it's virtually super atheletes with physique that enables them to be a world class cyclists since they were babies vs overly mediocre riders, who reached the top owning to enormous luck and top-notch doping regime. I just disagree. no doubt, each of three has physique, talent and determination to be big champions. certainly, looking back in the past, we accept that a doping free cycling would have looked completely differently. but speculation about hypothetical clean bike racing starts and ends in clinic subforum on cn and has very little to do with real life. reality is three so-called donkeys won 8 grand tours.