JV talks, sort of

[JV1973]

I think the point is that you need more than just good numbers, but that doesn't mean you don't need the good numbers.

exactly. bingo

 

[JV1973]

Well I guess this is what frustrates some people on here.

On one side you are defending Froome saying he had big numbers but couldn't translate it to the road.

But now you are saying test numbers are not necessarily an accurate indication of GT potential anyway.

So even though he had good numbers, there was nothing to suggest that Froome was going to be the rider he now is but somewhere along the line, he went from mediocre to amazing because???

I will try to look at things logically but you are not exactly helping the flow of logic on this one.

If I knew the "because" I'd tell you. i don't.

He always had numbers to be a GT contender. he never showed it in competition. this happens a lot. Some guys do a lot with a little, some do a little with a lot.

in this case, he switched on in 2011. Why? I don't know.

I tend to hire guys like this. Some go fast. Some don't.

 

[SeriousSam]

which numbers are predictive of a rider's GT potential? Vo2max, no doubt. What else?

 

[pmcg76]

If I knew the "because" I'd tell you. i don't.

He always had numbers to be a GT contender. he never showed it in competition. this happens a lot. Some guys do a lot with a little, some do a little with a lot.

in this case, he switched on in 2011. Why? I don't know.

I tend to hire guys like this. Some go fast. Some don't.

Have you ever had any riders that went from not going fast to suddenly going fast? I guess I am basically asking have you ever witnessed or are aware of another case like Froome?

 

[JV1973]

All this Froome is not going anywhere.

One of the things I find interesting is the pattern of performance of Garmin's riders.

Zabriskie starts out as expected when he joins. At one point he was one the best time trialists in the world. Supposedly he goes off the sauce and he is still pretty good, but not like before. This would be expected if he stopped doping and many others did not. But we would also expect to see a bump up in performance if the sport had cleaned itself up (mostly). I don't see that. He seems to be about the same relative level he was a few years ago.

The same can be said for Millar. Still a decent time trialist but his chance of winning anything significant is about what Zabriskie's chances are, perhaps a bit better. Again, even though he supposedly stopped doping years ago there does not seem to be any relative increase in performance as the rest of the peloton cleaned up.

Vande Velde is a bigger anomaly. He places fourth at the TdF in 2008. This is strange because he has never shown signs of being capable of this before and 2008 was a CERA-fest. He has decent performance in 2009 (taking into account his injury) but then nothing. The peloton gets cleaner (supposedly) but Vande Velde seems incapable of gaining any advantage from it.

Tommy D.'s performance has a huge slump for two or three years after he reportedly stopped doping then he continued with GT results comparable to results before he stopped. This is a much more believable pattern. At the same time it does leave questions like WTF happened during this year's Giro after Hesjedal left. Maybe it is hard to draw any conclusions from Tomy D. because his performance is always a crapshoot.

Hesjedal might have a more reasonable pattern of performance if the sport had cleaned up, but we have to take into account that the 2011 Giro was one of the worst Giros I can remember. It was the Giro's version of the 2009 Tour.

Overall I don't see the pattern I would expect if the riders went off the juice then at a later point cycling mostly cleaned up.

CVV, 2010, crashed out of Tour..... 2011, wasn't great, but ended up top 20, mainly due to lack of racing in 2010. 2012, crashed, again in Tour... limped through. But had better form than the 5th place finisher in tdf, 3 weeks later in colorado. Also, consider, he isn't young. he's 37 now.

tommy d... 2011 Tour, 8th...2011 Tour de Suisse, 8th... California, 3rd... Colorado 4th.

Ryder... 2007, raced domestically. 2008, good in L-b-L, san sebastian, struggled with peloton positioning in GTs.. steady progression, 2010, 6th in TdF, top 10 WT rankings... 2011, crashed early in Tour, but still top 20, was good on L'alpe stage (see video)

It is never, ever ever linear with any individual. but the overall pattern of the team as a whole, is upward, as a whole, from 2008 onward.

But, AGAIN... If you're not convinced, that is fine. I understand.

 

[blackcat]

the ignorance of VO2max has a big debt to Lemond waving 94 like some geisha with a hand fan in 110 fahrenheit in macau

 

[JV1973]

Have you ever had any riders that went from not going fast to suddenly going fast? I guess I am basically asking have you ever witnessed or are aware of another case like Froome?

Rohan Dennis absolutely sucked in Tirreno. Was ok in Romandie...Ok in california... and boom... leads the dauphine as a chubby neo pro.

 

[JV1973]

All this Froome is not going anywhere.

One of the things I find interesting is the pattern of performance of Garmin's riders.

Zabriskie starts out as expected when he joins. At one point he was one the best time trialists in the world. Supposedly he goes off the sauce and he is still pretty good, but not like before. This would be expected if he stopped doping and many others did not. But we would also expect to see a bump up in performance if the sport had cleaned itself up (mostly). I don't see that. He seems to be about the same relative level he was a few years ago.

The same can be said for Millar. Still a decent time trialist but his chance of winning anything significant is about what Zabriskie's chances are, perhaps a bit better. Again, even though he supposedly stopped doping years ago there does not seem to be any relative increase in performance as the rest of the peloton cleaned up.

Vande Velde is a bigger anomaly. He places fourth at the TdF in 2008. This is strange because he has never shown signs of being capable of this before and 2008 was a CERA-fest. He has decent performance in 2009 (taking into account his injury) but then nothing. The peloton gets cleaner (supposedly) but Vande Velde seems incapable of gaining any advantage from it.

Tommy D.'s performance has a huge slump for two or three years after he reportedly stopped doping then he continued with GT results comparable to results before he stopped. This is a much more believable pattern. At the same time it does leave questions like WTF happened during this year's Giro after Hesjedal left. Maybe it is hard to draw any conclusions from Tomy D. because his performance is always a crapshoot.

Hesjedal might have a more reasonable pattern of performance if the sport had cleaned up, but we have to take into account that the 2011 Giro was one of the worst Giros I can remember. It was the Giro's version of the 2009 Tour.

Overall I don't see the pattern I would expect if the riders went off the juice then at a later point cycling mostly cleaned up.

btw - I try to make sense of these patterns too. I can't say I'm much further along that you, until I pull it out to looking at the team, as a whole. then it makes a little more sense.

 

[blackcat]

Rohan Dennis absolutely sucked in Tirreno. Was ok in Romandie...Ok in california... and boom... leads the dauphine as a chubby neo pro.

not like degenkolb. guy was a candidate for the biggest loser

 

[pmcg76]

Rohan Dennis absolutely sucked in Tirreno. Was ok in Romandie...Ok in california... and boom... leads the dauphine as a chubby neo pro.

Sorry, I meant in the context of a career. Form coming and going is hardly unusual.

 

[JV1973]

Sorry, I meant in the context of a career. Form coming and going is hardly unusual.

hmmmm... precisely like froome? no.

But we have produced quite a few surprises over the years.

 

[JV1973]

Sorry, I meant in the context of a career. Form coming and going is hardly unusual.

seriously, i have to go. it's my 40th bday weekend and i'm sitting on a laptop. yikes.

 

[Cyivel]

Hb jv1973

..

 

[pmcg76]

seriously, i have to go. it's my 40th bday weekend and i'm sitting on a laptop. yikes.

Well Happy Birthday then, enjoy it, it's a big un!!

 

[Parrot23]

the ignorance of VO2max has a big debt to Lemond waving 94 like some geisha with a hand fan in 110 fahrenheit in macau

Absolutely, agree.

The VO2max comparison exercise one is silly for anyone who has even looked very briefly at the lit. on performance. Lemond was silly to wave his numbers about as if a 94 were more predictive of performance than a number in the 80s. It all depends....[substitute 5-10 other variables here, including random factors on the day of the test, and it's not all replicable on the road].

 

[JV1973]

CVV, 2010, crashed out of Tour..... 2011, wasn't great, but ended up top 20, mainly due to lack of racing in 2010. 2012, crashed, again in Tour... limped through. But had better form than the 5th place finisher in tdf, 3 weeks later in colorado. Also, consider, he isn't young. he's 37 now.

tommy d... 2011 Tour, 8th...2011 Tour de Suisse, 8th... California, 3rd... Colorado 4th.

Ryder... 2007, raced domestically. 2008, good in L-b-L, san sebastian, struggled with peloton positioning in GTs.. steady progression, 2010, 6th in TdF, top 10 WT rankings... 2011, crashed early in Tour, but still top 20, was good on L'alpe stage (see video)

It is never, ever ever linear with any individual. but the overall pattern of the team as a whole, is upward, as a whole, from 2008 onward.

But, AGAIN... If you're not convinced, that is fine. I understand.

oh, and Tommy D is this years giro? He got the same bug ryder had. but he finished it out. He was good the last few days, after he got over it.

You can't know everything from cyclingnews.com!

 

[ChewbaccaD]

Rohan Dennis absolutely sucked in Tirreno. Was ok in Romandie...Ok in california... and boom... leads the dauphine as a chubby neo pro.

Sh!t, cycling is becoming exactly like runway modeling...

 

[Ripper]

seriously, i have to go. it's my 40th bday weekend and i'm sitting on a laptop. yikes.

Hey, you're 40? Great, I'm older than you too (I feel old today ;-)

Good luck with the MBA ... when I did mine it kinda killed me and my wife had to put up with a lot. But I think it was worth it.

My questions are not Froome per se, but Sky in general. Like you've noted, there's a lot of variables to making a GT rider. Sky seem to nail all the variables for their GT team (or at least did so last year, a bit less this year). Most of their reasoning has really been hype and BS (95% all year and then still a super peak, etc). There's no one thing for me about Sky, it's the whole package.

Having said all this, I tend not to hear a lot about Sky from other riders. VF's a more blatant, known commodity. But Sky just seem to ride the whole peloton off their wheels. It's a bit hard to believe.

Your thoughts?

 

[Ripper]

oh, and Tommy D is this years giro? He got the same bug ryder had. but he finished it out. He was good the last few days, after he got over it.

You can't know everything from cyclingnews.com!

What did Ryder have BTW? I've not seem him that stuffed for quite some time.

 

[mewmewmew13]

Sheesh
happy 40th birthday JV

it's nice of you to share it with the clinic 12

 

[pmcg76]

hmmmm... precisely like froome? no.

But we have produced quite a few surprises over the years.

Well Vandevelde in 08 was a surprise but he had showed more than Froome before his break-out result. A lot of the guys around in the early 00s also went out of the sport in 06-08 so there was a bit of free for all in 08 in my opinion. No Astana for example and the likes of Ullrich, Vino, Mancebo, Sevilla, Rasmussen etc all exiled for varying reasons.

Likewise Ryder was a surprise but again there was an upward curve as opposed to a sudden explosion. Neither of these guys have been anywhere near the level that Froome now operates at.

I don't really see any other huge surprises on Garmin, maybe Talansky but he is young and developing.

 

[ToreBear]

Quick question.

If 15% of the peleton are doping, 10% are microdosing, and now there appears to be new testing methology that makes this quite risky. Do you think it will be noticable if 10% of the peleton go cold Turkey?

And Happy BD!

 

[martinvickers]

Appreciate the reply JV, thank you. Honestly, I wish you'd signed Froome. If he is the rough diamond, once-in-a-generation talent that we are led to believe he is, then I wish he'd got your team's jersey on. It would make all these dots a lot more difficult to join up.

This post 100%.

 

[the sceptic]

JV what do you think about Contador today and post ban?

Since he is still winning GTs do you think he is still on the juice or did he always have the good numbers?

 

[UlleGigo]

We are very lucky to have JV here telling us why miracles are plausible.

Seriously though its quite a privilege to be able to ask a top DS the questions we all want answers to and very sobering to get an honest 'I don't really know' answer.

That being said with Froome there is a lot of smoke, with Sky actually. And we all know what that means but for those that want to hang around and get burnt (again), well I guess that's their prerogative.