I recommend it highly. I am still a skeptic about motor doping (surely some disgruntled mechanic would have leaked by now) but apart from that, he comes across as a really thoughtful, interesting guy.
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Something I don't quite buy in what Lemond is saying about today's riders, peddle cadence, power output and weight on climbs, is that, as he claims, the lower cadence indicates clean riding. Well how is it possible with the katabolic states these guys reach, and the consequent muscle loss and reduced power it implies, that they nonetheless are generating the same or more power, climbing just as fast or faster than the "dirty years", without taking recourse to illicit methods?
Apparently so, and looking at the GT's parcours it's very rare for more then 2 hard days in a row. I first read about it from Sky at the 2018 Giro - blocks of days, 2 on, 2 off etc how they would race and how hard. Even the "hard" mountain stages are not more then 150 km and often shorter so even if they are ridden at 100% on the climbs, the stage is only 3 and half hours instead of the old days of 6 hours. Sure, the Tour's first week used to be a "sprint fest" as an example but now the sprint stages are spread out during the 3 weeks so the GC guys get "off days".
Technically, if Froome used a motor any measured power on his SRM cranks would actually decrease as the motors force gets added to the rider force. The strain gauge in his cranks measures deformation across the crank, so any additional force from a motor either before the deformation or after it is going to decrease deformation, because the deformation is the riders strain, it's not the net total output power between tyre and road. This was discussed at length when this video came out.
It seems pretty obviously the the data is either hacked or intermittent which happens regularly. I've had races where my HR either wasn't registering or registered at a low rate, faulted for several seconds, froze/averaged. It's more likely to happen when shifting position on the bike too. I've even had races where I am clearly at maximum HR yet the HR didn't change at all for several minutes. In fact anyone lab testing with HR straps will tell you how unreliable that particular data can be.
Theoretically, SRM, Pinarello, Team Sky and a motor manufacturer could have worked together and added the motor watts to the SRM watts and then transmitted/recorded that at the SRM/DD Transponder but if you're going to that length / be that clever about it, you might as well just add a % of HR based on the watts and make it realistic on TV while you're at it and even separate it into two so you still have valid and useful data for Tim Kerrison to upload to Training Peaks assuming the SRM data is the data that got hacked.
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Apparently Froomey's chronic, ehem, supplement and salbutamol use, has resulted in his brain completely imploding.
Don't do drugs kids
Don't do drugs kids
Is there an explanation for froome's dramatic decline besides clinical issues?
I mean I get that he was injured, but I don't see how an injury permanently zaps the cardiovascular system. Did he lose half a lung? If he had a structural injury e.g. back pain that limited him then surely he wouldn't have kept it a secret all this while. And even then it seems like he should be able to do a good unipuerto now and then.
Even if the explanation is (lack of) drugs, the real root cause is a lack of caring any more because otherwise, load up on the drugs again. Or did his recovery take so long that he saw the new generation come along and realized he couldn't beat Pog+Ving+maybe even Rog regardless of his blood chemistry?
I mean I get that he was injured, but I don't see how an injury permanently zaps the cardiovascular system. Did he lose half a lung? If he had a structural injury e.g. back pain that limited him then surely he wouldn't have kept it a secret all this while. And even then it seems like he should be able to do a good unipuerto now and then.
Even if the explanation is (lack of) drugs, the real root cause is a lack of caring any more because otherwise, load up on the drugs again. Or did his recovery take so long that he saw the new generation come along and realized he couldn't beat Pog+Ving+maybe even Rog regardless of his blood chemistry?
My only theory is lack of drugs due to risk of jeopardizing his legacy, not that there seems to be any risk these days.
As Froome was the prime example of the skinny is better regime, he probably can n't handle the 120g carbs/hour system that "the kids" are using today. That and never geting back to his pre-crash form (see Bernal as well has problems)
Beloli broke his femur, ankle, elbow in that scary bad crash above gap (the Armstrong bend) came back but was the shadow of his former self.
Beloki was also on one of the dirtiest teams of all-time at his peak
I thought bernal did have a lingering back injury? Also he's not as far off of his original peak as Froome.
Same team as Alberto Contador in 2006 - Manolo Saiz’s Liberty Seguros. I always felt sorry for Beloki it was horrendous the crash which ended his career.
I think this is right. Problem for Bernal is the top rider levels have gone off the charts with Pogacar, Vingegaard et al.
Bernal this year was likely not far off his 2019 TdF winning level.
The decline is very easy to explain.
After the crash in 2019, froome is riding with just one leg.
He never said the true about his leg because it wouldn't be good for business. He could made a good contract with israel.
The crash was really bad. The amount of injuries and blood he lost, was scary.
Thomas was talking about Froome today. He basically said he was never going to come back from the severity of the injury, but he was a smart cookie to sign the deal with ISN, but also said ISN saw an opportunity with a lot of risk and took the gamble to build a new team around Froome like Sky were then doing around Bernal. This is the common factory with Jumbo & UAE. When you have a rider for 30 riders to commit to, things are easier, when that leader write himself off into a bus or wall there's nothing you can do about, the momentum ends. As we saw with Jumbo and UAE as soon as the leaders crash out, the team is headless until they recover. For Froome and Bernal the crashes were too bad to recover it's gonna take several years to rebuild.
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