Great Transformation wishes for 2014

[Mr.38%]

Tony's "transformation". Serious or trolling?

 

[yaco]

Tony Martin nearly won a big mountain stage at the TDF at the beginning of his career in 2009/2010 - He was super skinny in those days - he then focused on his TT and his body changed - The stage in question he was in the lead group at the start of the climb and attacked on the descent - Never let facts get in the way of a good story.

 

[sniper]

Re:

Tony's "transformation". Serious or trolling?

Well, according to some:

Tony Martin nearly won a big mountain stage at the TDF at the beginning of his career in 2009/2010 - He was super skinny in those days - he then focused on his TT and his body changed - The stage in question he was in the lead group at the start of the climb and attacked on the descent - Never let facts get in the way of a good story.

If he's now back to being skinny, I guess his body changed again.
So yes, "tranformation" seems about right. A double one.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Oh, guys, please. The posts from doperhopper are clueless and sniper as usual so support just about anything. Tony Martin didn't ride away from anybody - which btw was a climb of 4 km, 4%, so not hard at all - until the downhill. Again, I highly doubt you guys actually watched the race.

 

[DanielSong39]

Tony Martin was in contention for the white (and yellow) jersey at the Tour de France in 2009 and was considered to be a future GC contender. Unfortunately things didn't go too well for him after that. I guess he became too big?

Give him credit for making the adjustment and becoming a champion time trialist.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Tony Martin was in contention for the white (and yellow) jersey at the Tour de France in 2009 and was considered to be a future GC contender. Unfortunately things didn't go too well for him after that. I guess he became too big?

Give him credit for making the adjustment and becoming a champion time trialist.

Indeed, Martin was always a bit too big and probably didn't have the stamina required either to put in FTP-efforts in week 3 day in, day out. Most don't.

 

[May0maniac]

Re: Re:

Tony's "transformation". Serious or trolling?

Well, according to some:

Tony Martin nearly won a big mountain stage at the TDF at the beginning of his career in 2009/2010 - He was super skinny in those days - he then focused on his TT and his body changed - The stage in question he was in the lead group at the start of the climb and attacked on the descent - Never let facts get in the way of a good story.

If he's now back to being skinny, I guess his body changed again.
So yes, "tranformation" seems about right. A double one.

He recently said that his main goals are the cobbled classics, so I guess that we should expect something similar to Cancellara's transformation, If you want to call it like that.
On another note, think that at least one rider of UAE will take it to the next level, after all Mauro Gianetti is involved, he was crucial when it came down to fining a new sponsor, and he's pretty old school an has a certain reputation.

 

[Squire]

When has Cancellara ever "transformed"?

 

[sniper]

Re:

When has Cancellara ever "transformed"?

according to yaco, following the 2009/10 season

he then focused on his TT and his body changed

 

[Squire]

Re: Re:

When has Cancellara ever "transformed"?

according to yaco, following the 2009/10 season

he then focused on his TT and his body changed

I thought that was about Tony Martin, but then again, I'm not a native speaker, neither in English nor in clinic talk.

 

[sniper]

apologies, my bad!
somehow thought we were still talking tony martin.
time for a coffee.

 

[yaco]

What's important in this part of the forum is to watch the race before making any post - It's like Martin got his advantage on the toughest climb in Europe and there was never a descent.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

What's important in this part of the forum is to watch the race before making any post - It's like Martin got his advantage on the toughest climb in Europe and there was never a descent.

It has been my point over and over when debating people in the clinic. In many cases, you simply need to have actually watched the race and I have the impression many don't. Its pretty important to watch for yourself how x and y transpired before making bombastic claims.

Also, I don't know about any Cance or T. Martin transformation. Mainly because there haven't been one. They are both exceptionally gifted aerobically and has the 2 biggest FTP's in the peloton, or had in Cance's case, but could never transform that into w/kg since they at weighed at least 10 kilos more than riders like Schleck and Contador. Chances are T. Martin dopes/doped, at least at some point, and there are even greater chances of Cancellara doping, but talking about transformations is pretty pretty lame.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

They are both exceptionally gifted aerobically and has the 2 biggest FTP's in the peloton

That's pretty hilarious from somebody lecturing others for 'making bombastic claims without seeing the race'.
So you've seen all those races, yet you still come up with absurdities like this.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re: Re:

They are both exceptionally gifted aerobically and has the 2 biggest FTP's in the peloton

That's pretty hilarious from somebody lecturing others for 'making bombastic claims without seeing the race'.
So you've seen all those races, yet you still come up with absurdities like this.

Enlighten me then. Who has a bigger bigger FTP than those two?

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

They are both exceptionally gifted aerobically and has the 2 biggest FTP's in the peloton

That's pretty hilarious from somebody lecturing others for 'making bombastic claims without seeing the race'.
So you've seen all those races, yet you still come up with absurdities like this.

Enlighten me then. Who has a bigger bigger FTP than those two?

I have no way of knowing what their natural 'clean' FTP is.
And, hate to break it to you: neither do you.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re: Re:

They are both exceptionally gifted aerobically and has the 2 biggest FTP's in the peloton

That's pretty hilarious from somebody lecturing others for 'making bombastic claims without seeing the race'.
So you've seen all those races, yet you still come up with absurdities like this.

Enlighten me then. Who has a bigger bigger FTP than those two?

I'm pretty confident you have no idea what their natural 'clean' FTP is. Or if you do, show me a link please plus evidence that it was achieved clean and without motor.
Hint: "I've seen the race, you haven't" is not gonna help you much here.

Obviously, we can't know who has the highest, clean FTP. Which is why I didn't say clean FTP, just FTP. We doesn't really talk about w/kg and CLEAN w/kg either. We are only left to speculate about such things, aren't we?
I was simply talking about their rider profiles (extremely high sustained power, BUT relatively high weight hence why they can't/couldn't compete in GT's) since there was all this non-sense talk about transformations as if Martin or Cancellara suddenly dropped 10 kgs like Wiggo - losing weight but maintaining power, even increasing it. Nothing like that ever happened. That was my only point. Im sure you can appreciate that point.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

They are both exceptionally gifted aerobically and has the 2 biggest FTP's in the peloton

That's pretty hilarious from somebody lecturing others for 'making bombastic claims without seeing the race'.
So you've seen all those races, yet you still come up with absurdities like this.

Enlighten me then. Who has a bigger bigger FTP than those two?

I'm pretty confident you have no idea what their natural 'clean' FTP is. Or if you do, show me a link please plus evidence that it was achieved clean and without motor.
Hint: "I've seen the race, you haven't" is not gonna help you much here.

Obviously, we can't know who has the highest, clean FTP. Which is why I didn't say clean FTP, just FTP. We doesn't really talk about w/kg and CLEAN w/kg. We are only left to speculate about such things, aren't we?
I was simply talking about their rider profiles (extremely high sustained power, BUT relatively high weight hence why they can't/couldn't compete in GT's) since there was all this non-sense talk about transformations as if Martin or Cancellara suddenly dropped 10 kgs like Wiggo - losing weight but maintaining power, even increasing it. Nothing like that ever happened. That was my only point.

That's certainly fair enough, thanks for expanding.

Then I agree I've not seen anything from either two riders that would classify as a "transformation" in the specific sense with which this word has been used in the Clinic (typically referring to a *mid-career* transformation, as opposed to, for instance, a mid-season transformation).

One problem I have with the term "transformation" as it is used in the Clinic, is that we typically don't know when rider XYZ started doping or how good he/she was before he/she started doping.
Contador is a good example. People here will typically claim he never transformed, unlike Froome/Armstrong.
But that claim is merely based on the fact that he didn't transform *during his procareer*; meanwhile we don't really know when he started doping and how good he was before he started doping.
Lemond is a similar example, although taboo-ized in the Clinic, so let's stick to Contador.

p.s. I concede to you and yaco that in discussing transformations it helps to have actually seen the riders in question race on a regular basis.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Well, LA imo still is a vastly different case to Contador since he was 'gifted' with a much more muscular body, effective for going anaerobic multiple times in a race on smaller hills, but lacked maintaining that power. Best example is the Indurain ITT where he easily overtakes Lance.

Then, suddenly he dropped 5 kg? (I have no clue to how much he exactly dropped) and obviously had a much better power to weight ratio, but had meanwhile increased his aerobic capabilities drastically, basically his FTP. And when you both shred weight and increase FTP and have the endurance to produce that same FTP effort over and over again in a race... yeah.

Contador was probably always a climber and was certainly extremely talented, as was Lance, even without drugs, but Lance obviously was a drastically different rider coming back. Imo, as big of a transformation as Wiggo did. It shouldn't be able to lose that much muscle/weight and increase power over long time/FTP. Thats when you know something is completely messed up...

 

[sniper]

Those are all fair points, valpiti.

Still i would argue that the reality of junior doping muddies the water significantly when we talk about transformations or the lack thereof.