how long before Sagan trips the tripwire

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

I'm dying for an estimate of how much watts Sagan did to drag his body up there.

 

[Alexandre B.]

Re:

So Sagan gets a telling off from Tinkoff then suddenly is almost outsprinting Cav, going full *** in a TT and then does this today? A big hmmmmmmmm here!

Tomorrow he just needs to sail past Cav in the final 100 metres after today's effort and the treatment is complete. More juice than Ribena!

I can tell you that Sagan is always strong in the period between Tour of California and Tour de France. Remember his prologue win in TdS 12' or his mountain stage win in TdS 13'.

SkyTears' reaction is childish.

 

[ebandit]

peter was just responding to a little 'motivation' from the boss

Mark L

 

[roundabout]

Re: Re:

So Sagan gets a telling off from Tinkoff then suddenly is almost outsprinting Cav, going full *** in a TT and then does this today? A big hmmmmmmmm here!

Tomorrow he just needs to sail past Cav in the final 100 metres after today's effort and the treatment is complete. More juice than Ribena!

I can tell you that Sagan is always strong in the period between Tour of California and Tour de France. Remember his prologue win in TdS 12' or his mountain stage win in TdS 13'.

SkyTears' reaction is childish.

352 watts for last 83 (!) minutes for Dombrowski yesterday.

A bulky sprinter finishing 10 seconds behind is simply not credible regardless of any prior performances.

 

[Netserk]

Is Sagan that much bulkier than Lemond was?

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

The leaders jersey adds 10%, everyone knows that.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

So Sagan gets a telling off from Tinkoff then suddenly is almost outsprinting Cav, going full *** in a TT and then does this today? A big hmmmmmmmm here!

Tomorrow he just needs to sail past Cav in the final 100 metres after today's effort and the treatment is complete. More juice than Ribena!

I can tell you that Sagan is always strong in the period between Tour of California and Tour de France. Remember his prologue win in TdS 12' or his mountain stage win in TdS 13'.

SkyTears' reaction is childish.

352 watts for last 83 (!) minutes for Dombrowski yesterday.

A bulky sprinter finishing 10 seconds behind is simply not credible regardless of any prior performances.

So that would be about 5.15 w/kg for Dombrowski. It's not an amazing number by the standards of the last 20 years. Especially not if Sagan drafted better and saved more energy on the flatter first 15km.

Sagan's obviously in peak form and was very highly motivated for the race. It's not such an incredulous performance on a one-off stage, considering he still lost a minute to the winner. If this would have been in the third week of a grand tour then it's a different story.

 

[maltiv]

Re:

To me it looks like Sagan has lost A LOT of weight since the classics.

Looks so much fitter now, so not that surprising that he's climbing this well. Perhaps the most suspicious part is how he lost all that weight so quickly without losing power.

 

[roundabout]

Re: Re:

So Sagan gets a telling off from Tinkoff then suddenly is almost outsprinting Cav, going full *** in a TT and then does this today? A big hmmmmmmmm here!

Tomorrow he just needs to sail past Cav in the final 100 metres after today's effort and the treatment is complete. More juice than Ribena!

I can tell you that Sagan is always strong in the period between Tour of California and Tour de France. Remember his prologue win in TdS 12' or his mountain stage win in TdS 13'.

SkyTears' reaction is childish.

352 watts for last 83 (!) minutes for Dombrowski yesterday.

A bulky sprinter finishing 10 seconds behind is simply not credible regardless of any prior performances.

So that would be about 5.15 w/kg for Dombrowski. It's not an amazing number by the standards of the last 20 years. Especially not if Sagan drafted better and saved more energy on the flatter first 15km.

Sagan's obviously in peak form and was very highly motivated for the race. It's not such an incredulous performance on a one-off stage, considering he still lost a minute to the winner. If this would have been in the third week of a grand tour then it's a different story.

3 assumptions in 4 sentences of 1 post. Congratulations.

 

[Martin]

OMG, guys.
Sagan already won Tour fo Sardinia and Tour of Poland in the past, none of them are flat and both had better linup then years TOC. During that Tour fo Poland, Nibali was Sagan's domestic.
None of you heard Tinkov bought weather in California so they've cancelled TT to Big Bear Lake and shorten TT to his favour? None of you heard Sagan's spring campaing was disastrous just because he spared blood for TOC?
Or none of you heard that he spend one month before TOC in wilderness just to cover up something?
Well, come on. At least show some evidence...
I believe if USADA was allowed to make tests this year, then they'll let us know if something was wrong. I lost already all my hopes in clean sport progamme at UCI, but not at USADA and WADA.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

So Sagan gets a telling off from Tinkoff then suddenly is almost outsprinting Cav, going full *** in a TT and then does this today? A big hmmmmmmmm here!

Tomorrow he just needs to sail past Cav in the final 100 metres after today's effort and the treatment is complete. More juice than Ribena!

I can tell you that Sagan is always strong in the period between Tour of California and Tour de France. Remember his prologue win in TdS 12' or his mountain stage win in TdS 13'.

SkyTears' reaction is childish.

352 watts for last 83 (!) minutes for Dombrowski yesterday.

A bulky sprinter finishing 10 seconds behind is simply not credible regardless of any prior performances.

So that would be about 5.15 w/kg for Dombrowski. It's not an amazing number by the standards of the last 20 years. Especially not if Sagan drafted better and saved more energy on the flatter first 15km.

Sagan's obviously in peak form and was very highly motivated for the race. It's not such an incredulous performance on a one-off stage, considering he still lost a minute to the winner. If this would have been in the third week of a grand tour then it's a different story.

3 assumptions in 4 sentences of 1 post. Congratulations.

Just trying to flesh out the numbers. You said the perofrmance is 'simply not credible'; that's a big statement to make based on nothing.

 

[Campervan man]

Re: Re:

To me it looks like Sagan has lost A LOT of weight since the classics.

Looks so much fitter now, so not that surprising that he's climbing this well. Perhaps the most suspicious part is how he lost all that weight so quickly without losing power.

It's still surprising he's climbing that well! Yea, weight loss no dip in power??! See July if he's become a mountain lieutenant for Contador then one can only think it'll be a matter of time before he's popped. But such a big 'rising' cycling star to get busted, I'm not so sure. I'd rather he did what he's done best before and target green only. He doesn't need to slim down too much and change his ways for that, but this is the Tinkoff way (effect) I guess.

Edit Tinkoff is as a man not great for the sport right now and some riders will become a victim in his game/s.

 

[roundabout]

No, your "fleshing out" of the numbers is based on nothing, so please don't lecture me.

Bringing Sagan's performances to a credible level requires making multiple assumptions that all together are simply extremely unlikely to occur.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

To me it looks like Sagan has lost A LOT of weight since the classics.

Looks so much fitter now, so not that surprising that he's climbing this well. Perhaps the most suspicious part is how he lost all that weight so quickly without losing power.

It's still surprising he's climbing that well! Yea, weight loss no dip in power??! See July if he's become a mountain lieutenant for Contador then one can only think it'll be a matter of time before he's popped. But such a big 'rising' cycling star to get busted, I'm not so sure. I'd rather he did what he's done best before and target green only. He doesn't need to slim down too much and change his ways for that, but this is the Tinkoff way (effect) I guess.

I think people are getting ahead of themselves here. This is far from Sagan's most ridiculous performance in his career. A rider who has always been pretty good at climbing (at least for a classics specialist), finishing 5th on a one-off stage, with a weak field and during a race that most riders are using as preparation is not such an incredible feat.

Sagan is almost certainly a massive doper, but this ride - when, judging by his reaction at the end, he had clearly gone very deeply into the red - is not as unbelievable as some of his early wins in the Tour de France. Stages where he was climbing with hill specialists before sprinting like Cav, and against a much stronger and more motivated field than in California. It's certainly no indication that he's going to get popped any time soon.

 

[The Hegelian]

I remember watching Jalabert transition into mountain goat GC contender. It was like looking at a square circle. "That can't be." And of course it couldn't without epo - a categorical impossibility.

I can square Sagan's effort more easily. Not saying he's clean, but I can at least conceive that it's plausible.

For one, the field at this years ToC is dire. It's not like he finished one minute down on Pantani. Secondly, it was one climb. Not a GT stage with four or five big climbs the day after another stage with four or five big climbs. Thirdly, Sagan has real pedigree - probably enough to make one ridiculous effort on one climb in a crap race.

However, given the off scale clinic happenings this year, I can totally see why people bookmark this as further evidence.

 

[neineinei]

Re: Re:

To me it looks like Sagan has lost A LOT of weight since the classics.

Looks so much fitter now, so not that surprising that he's climbing this well. Perhaps the most suspicious part is how he lost all that weight so quickly without losing power.

It's still surprising he's climbing that well! Yea, weight loss no dip in power??! See July if he's become a mountain lieutenant for Contador then one can only think it'll be a matter of time before he's popped. But such a big 'rising' cycling star to get busted, I'm not so sure. I'd rather he did what he's done best before and target green only. He doesn't need to slim down too much and change his ways for that, but this is the Tinkoff way (effect) I guess.

Edit Tinkoff is as a man not great for the sport right now and some riders will become a victim in his game/s.

The thing about the losing-lots-of-weight-without-losing-any-power-phenomenon of the "new generation" is that they aren't getting popped.

 

[TheGreenMonkey]

I need to lose some weight, where do I get this losing-lots-of-weight-without-losing-any-power-phenomenon drug?

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

To keep it honest, this years TOC line-up sucked donkey penis.

Henao was quite strong in the Basque country, cant imagine his form has dropped off too dramatically

it doesn't matter

for a guy of Sagan's weight only a huge amount of dope can make him go that fast on that climb

So it would be less dodgy if he took Aicar to make him magically lose all the weight while keeping that insane power?

 

[The Hitch]

If Sagan is starting to learn how to climb pretty well now, could that mean he might play an important role in AC's train at the TDF providing Contador gets there?

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

To me it looks like Sagan has lost A LOT of weight since the classics.

Looks so much fitter now, so not that surprising that he's climbing this well. Perhaps the most suspicious part is how he lost all that weight so quickly without losing power.

It's still surprising he's climbing that well! Yea, weight loss no dip in power??! See July if he's become a mountain lieutenant for Contador then one can only think it'll be a matter of time before he's popped. But such a big 'rising' cycling star to get busted, I'm not so sure. I'd rather he did what he's done best before and target green only. He doesn't need to slim down too much and change his ways for that, but this is the Tinkoff way (effect) I guess.

Edit Tinkoff is as a man not great for the sport right now and some riders will become a victim in his game/s.

The thing about the losing-lots-of-weight-without-losing-any-power-phenomenon of the "new generation" is that they aren't getting popped.

No they aren't. But then again, how many people were popped for EPO between 1991 and 2000?
How many people are popped for drugs in any sport.

Cycling and its journos continue to push the narrative that the only type of doping that exists is blood doping and this was killed off for happily ever after by the deus ex machina invention called the blood passport.

They have no interest in admitting to people that other types of doping exist, as this will bring doubts to the sport, doubts that may result in some fans turning towards clean sports like football, tennis, 100m or weightlifting.

 

[Rollthedice]

Re:

If Sagan is starting to learn how to climb pretty well now, could that mean he might play an important role in AC's train at the TDF providing Contador gets there?

Better than Basso for sure. Something like Boasson Hagen drilling up the mountains in the Sky train for Wiggo 2012.

 

[maltiv]

Using Dr. Ferrari's formula, Sagan climbed at 5,68 w/kg (according to @ammattipyoraily).

Assuming a weight of 75 kilos, that's 426 watts over 25 minutes. Does not seem too ridiculous, in my opinion.

 

[doperhopper]

Re: Re:

To keep it honest, this years TOC line-up sucked donkey penis.

Henao was quite strong in the Basque country, cant imagine his form has dropped off too dramatically

it doesn't matter

for a guy of Sagan's weight only a huge amount of dope can make him go that fast on that climb

So it would be less dodgy if he took Aicar to make him magically lose all the weight while keeping that insane power?

well, there are too ways to improve w/kg - the marginal one, losing weight while keeping most ot the watts, or the Tourminator one, keeping or even increasing the weight while gaining HUGE amount of watts. Hard to say which one is more embarrassing, but at least Sagan won't repeat this day by day.

 

[SeriousSam]

He should just lose those 10-15 kg but continue to be able to do 420 watts for ~30 minutes. Then he could hold the wheel of Big 4 in the mountains.

 

[arthurvandelay]

Re:

I need to lose some weight, where do I get this losing-lots-of-weight-without-losing-any-power-phenomenon drug?

There is very intense interest and $$$ in the pharmaceutical interest in weight loss medication. The few that have ever come out on the market have been fairly disappointing both in results and in unacceptable, even fatal toxicities. The market is definitely very interested in a drug that could safely help people lose weight with a tolerable side effect profile.

It would not take a great leap in imagination to think that "those in the loop" (the LanceArmstrongs of this decade) might have access to investigational medications that have yet to make it to market. Either by diversion or by deliberate leaks from a pharma company I can see this type of thing happening.

Tony Verow MD