I notice that a major flaw in posts (and articles, interviews etc) that defend sky, visible particularly on this page, is that people often limit the case against sky to one argument, dismiss that one argument and then think that in doing so they have made a persuasive and valid challenge to those who doubt sky.
But brother, if it were just the climbing times. If t were just that froome rode a mountain fast once, then, saying there was wind on it, or arguing that it could be possible due to scientific advancements, could maybe cause sceptics to take a step back and say "perhaps".
But it is not. Aside from froomes super times you have Brailsford very conveniently refusing to release any data on froome or Wiggins, despite boasting of transparency, and whatsmore when he did finally offer some data, it waz behind the scenes and did NOT include any ( surprise surprise) of froomes data from pre transformation.
That stinks to high hell, and no matter how persuasive your argument about fast ascents being possible, is, it does not do anything to adress this cause for concern, which continues to convince people that Sky are dodgy.
Then you have, as the great ls mentioned/wrote thesis on above, the fact that froome was a mediocre rider at best, who's early demonstrations of Vos like talent, shocked even his diehard fans.
Staying with froome, what makes the climbing times more suspicious is that at the same time he also smashed out a tt that fell seconds behind world tt champion tony Martin's effort which ranked as the 3rd or 5th, can't remember, fastest tt in tdf history. More impressively, did it with a poor tt position having little wind tunnel experience, and with perhaps the thinnest look of any person to ever come top top 10 in a tt. And wiggins did the same thing a year earlier.
We also have the length of the peak. He didnt peak for the tour like everyone else who ever set a good time (and if he had I don't doubt we would hear it endlessly as an explanation). He peaked for the whole season. He went on a 6 month long peak, showing total immunity from exhaustion. And wiggins did the same the year before.
Moving onto the teammates, if you want to believe Porte is legit, fair enough, his new found 3rd best climber in the world status certainly surprised most, including Sean Kelly, and less outrageous improvements from others have historically met with raised eyebrows. But if we look at rogers, this is a guy who we know doped yet he achieved better numbers working with sky than on 2 separate doping programmes. that is significant and eats away at the froome ventoux excuse because even if froome is the talent of the century, how can a Ferrari client perform better clean at sky than doped? It raises serious questions.
Then you have lienders, and not only the fact that he worked at sky, but that it directly conflicted with their claim to only hire untarnished staff, and whatsmore, the shady way in which they tried to explain away the situation, with it becoming increasingly clear that they knew who he was, and more importantly, Brailsford promising politico style to "look into it" in July 2012, despite having no intention of doing anything until he found a good spot to bury the story months later.
Then you have, what I call The Original Sin. Bradley Wiggins, and his not to be underestimated campaign to defend and promote the image of his hero lance Armstrong. Which included not only unnecessary moments of support for a man he knew to be a fraud (in interview during Olympics, on the pn podium) but also notoriously his (and was it his wife as well?) bullying of Floyd Landis, a man who he knew was telling the truth, in an attempt to protect lance (the fraud) from the legitimate allegations against him. That's not even taking into account the fact that Wiggins was quite clearly anti doping back when even be didn't believe he could come top 100 in the tour, and then so very conveniently turned into one of the greatest athletes ever lived and the first clean rider that podiumed the tour since lemond, in a dirty tour, just as he became pro dopers. Wow what a coincidence.
And that sky and Wiggins have behaved very dishonestly by since 2012 doing their absolute most to pretend it didn't even happen and even trying to paint Wiggins as someone who was against lance all along.
And we have sky, portraying themselves as UK postal, hiring people like Michael Barry, and rogers who everyone inside cycling knew was doped, but claiming they had no idea while simultaneously presenting an image of themselves the team that leaves no stone unturned (yet they apparently miss info so basic)
The excuse of hiring lienders because of txemas death could also go here, as could a lot of Brailsfords and skys statements (saying he can tell who is doping because of how much talent they showed early in their career. Saying they train 2 hours harder than anyone else, d thsy this has a direct impact. justifying Wiggins by saying he followed wheels then having froome attack miles out)
All these remain pieces of evidence. So when you make an attempt to explain how froome can ride fast up mountains clean, even if it is convincing, (and the fact that they have been used before for riders later found dirty, is not encouraging) and you wonder why people don't accept it as a possibility, it's because there is just so so so much else to the story. All these issues make it less probable that sky are on the level (froomes transformation being legit is more probable than that froome and Wiggins transformations are legit. Add other reasons of doubt and the number only gets smaller) And all these pieces of doubt, combined together make it very very difficult for many to contemplate them being clean.
Because the idea that a rider rode ventoux almost as fast as lance is one thing.the idea that he did it despite being a bottle carrier 2 years earlier, and that he did it in the tts and that he did it for 6 months straight without exhaustion and that his teammate did the exact same thing a year earlier and that Porte and rogers also dominated, is less probable. Add in the dishonesty, well believing sky stumbled across these 2 talents of the century, who just happen to originate from their target country, and that they've repeatedly lied through their teeth about it by accident, believe what you want but for me it's like believing that a gust of wind passing through a scrapyard can assemble a Boeing 747.
Don't pretend it's just the climbing times. They are just the tip of the iceberg.
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