Has Team Sky ruined GC racing forever?

[lemon cheese cake]

Watching races like the Tour de France in 2012 and, the Vuelta last year to a certain extent, the Paris Nice this year and today's giro stage after Aru attacked has made me wonder whether they have ruined GC racing. The way they just swamp the front of the peleton and set a high tempo has just made attacks impossible.

Post your thoughts below.

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Poll's still dont work.

 

[GuyIncognito]

No. It's been the natural evolution of cycling, as methods become better and talent scouting wider, the difference between leaders and domestiques decreases and attacks from long range become less effective.

 

[DominicDecoco]

Poll's still dont work.

Neither does your logic.

 

[Miburo]

Sky didn't do anything wrong today and also not last years vuelta.

What the hell are you talking about?

Sky put a good pace to hold down landa, is there a problem with that? Is that a new thing of cycling?

and it wasn't even that hard. You can tell cause cunego was able to ride away from it.

 

[motty89]

lol, USPostal did this before sky existed, and astana swamped the front today sky only sent a man to the front after landa attacked. So how exactly have Sky ruined racing when they weren't the first to do it and aren't the best now?

 

[DBotero]

So this is suppose to be a trolling thread or what

 

[WheelofGear]

Well, it's not only Sky riders who benefits from a Sky train. I'm sure a guy like Valverde is thankful for it as well.

 

[Pricey_sky]

Complete rubbish, US postal did it way before Sky. Even in this Giro it's been Saxo and Astana on the front for most of it. Sky didn't want another Astana rider ahead of Porte so used Konig to chase, which wasn't exactly a hard pace from him anyway.

 

[mrhender]

I think the OP is giving too much "credit" to SKY...

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Re:

Complete rubbish, US postal did it way before Sky. Even in this Giro it's been Saxo and Astana on the front for most of it. Sky didn't want another Astana rider ahead of Porte so used Konig to chase, which wasn't exactly a hard pace from him anyway.

At one point about five sky riders appeared and started tapping out a hard rhythm. When Konig was left, it was different as he couldn't do that hard pace like the rest of them. Before him Contador and Aru were having to push hard to and were all out of the saddle. Only when Konig came to the front were those two able to relax.

 

[Eagle]

Re: Re:

Complete rubbish, US postal did it way before Sky. Even in this Giro it's been Saxo and Astana on the front for most of it. Sky didn't want another Astana rider ahead of Porte so used Konig to chase, which wasn't exactly a hard pace from him anyway.

At one point about five sky riders appeared and started tapping out a hard rhythm. When Konig was left, it was different as he couldn't do that hard pace like the rest of them. Before him Contador and Aru were having to push hard to and were all out of the saddle. Only when Konig came to the front were those two able to relax.

When did that happen?? Only time I saw more than 3 riders was the rush before the climb started

 

[Pricey_sky]

Re: Re:

Complete rubbish, US postal did it way before Sky. Even in this Giro it's been Saxo and Astana on the front for most of it. Sky didn't want another Astana rider ahead of Porte so used Konig to chase, which wasn't exactly a hard pace from him anyway.

At one point about five sky riders appeared and started tapping out a hard rhythm. When Konig was left, it was different as he couldn't do that hard pace like the rest of them. Before him Contador and Aru were having to push hard to and were all out of the saddle. Only when Konig came to the front were those two able to relax.

I think we watched a different stage, when Landa went there was only Nieve (for a very short while) and then Konig who was spent when Aru tried to attack again inside the final 2k's anyway.

 

[rick james]

Re: Re:

Complete rubbish, US postal did it way before Sky. Even in this Giro it's been Saxo and Astana on the front for most of it. Sky didn't want another Astana rider ahead of Porte so used Konig to chase, which wasn't exactly a hard pace from him anyway.

At one point about five sky riders appeared and started tapping out a hard rhythm. When Konig was left, it was different as he couldn't do that hard pace like the rest of them. Before him Contador and Aru were having to push hard to and were all out of the saddle. Only when Konig came to the front were those two able to relax.

What race did you watch today?

 

[adamski101]

Re: Re:

Complete rubbish, US postal did it way before Sky. Even in this Giro it's been Saxo and Astana on the front for most of it. Sky didn't want another Astana rider ahead of Porte so used Konig to chase, which wasn't exactly a hard pace from him anyway.

At one point about five sky riders appeared and started tapping out a hard rhythm. When Konig was left, it was different as he couldn't do that hard pace like the rest of them. Before him Contador and Aru were having to push hard to and were all out of the saddle. Only when Konig came to the front were those two able to relax.

What race were you watching today?

On the final climb, when Aru attacked there was 3 Sky riders left. Porte, Konig, Nieve.

 

[SkyTears]

i think Astana has ruined the cycling forever, not only GC racing.

 

[IndianCyclist]

Re:

No. It's been the natural evolution of cycling, as methods become better and talent scouting wider, the difference between leaders and domestiques decreases and attacks from long range become less effective.

+1 Agree

 

[mrhender]

Re:

i think Astana has ruined the cycling forever, not only GC racing.

Nahh.... They are no pioneers...... Just playing the game.......

 

[SeriousSam]

GuyIncognito is spot on. If you are a god and the rest are mortals, you can do a long range attack and the rival leaders and their supreme superdomestiques will not catch you. Otherwise they will, and they will drop you because a TTT goes much quicker than a TT.

 

[Gigs_98]

There were some gt´s they destroyed like the 2012 tour, but in general no. This giro has been great so far, this was the first stage sky made boring.

 

[Kwibus]

Sky has been really smart so far really. Didn't see today so can't judge it, but they haven't wasted any energy at the front so far.
They didn't take initative they even bluffed a bit. Normally you see them at the front all day at the most idiotic moments, but this Giro Sky did pretty much everything right, besides their TTT though.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

lol, USPostal did this before sky existed, and astana swamped the front today sky only sent a man to the front after landa attacked. So how exactly have Sky ruined racing when they weren't the first to do it and aren't the best now?

I think it's fair to say that SKY contributed to the evolution of the train strategy when they took it to new heights in 2012. Surely US Postal had already done trains before, but to a lesser extent. Armstrong usually attacked way further out having Heras (best pure climber of his generation) drop everybody except himself and 1 other opponent.
As someone else suggested, the decrease in the gap between dom and leader also contributes to that evolution.

 

[TMP402]

There were some gt´s they destroyed like the 2012 tour, but in general no. This giro has been great so far, this was the first stage sky made boring.

But as others pointed out, they didn't make today boring.

For about 85% of the stage, the peloton was led by 6-8 Tinkoffers and 7-8(9?) Astanites. When Aru attacked, Porte followed, Nieve and Koenig, as well as about another 10 managed to bridge up to the heads of state, Nieve briefly led this regrouped bunch for what seemed like 500m, then swung off for Koenig, who again led *briefly* before a further attack by Aru caused Porte to follow alone again (or).

 

[HelloDolly]

Re:

GuyIncognito is spot on. If you are a god and the rest are mortals, you can do a long range attack and the rival leaders and their supreme superdomestiques will not catch you. Otherwise they will, and they will drop you because a TTT goes much quicker than a TT.

So is Landa a god now then ??

This post is just more trolling by those who love to blame SKY for everything ....they were only bit players today and did not stop the action...they just chased Landa when there were no TCS left or at least tried to chase ....as Contador nor Porte were't going to

 

[rick james]

There were some gt´s they destroyed like the 2012 tour, but in general no. This giro has been great so far, this was the first stage sky made boring.

And how did Sky make this stage boring??