JV talks, sort of

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

Anybody know cannondale's annual budget compared to say sky?

JV is probably one of the best admins of a team out there.

Surely the primary role of a team boss is to attract sponsorship money. Everything flows from that. The better they are at doing it, the more successful the team is likely to be.

People are welcome to criticise the likes of Brailsford and Unzue, but the foundation of the successes of their teams has been their ability to secure long term sponsorship from big multi-national companies.

Don’t BSkyB own a significant chunk of Team Sky? Surely a big portion of Brailsford’s success is that he *doesnt* have to go running around looking for potential sponsors from about May/June every year, and can just focus on the team winning races

Or one could argue that a part of other teams' success is that they develop and maintain a long term relationship with a sponsor while Slipstream's sponsor churn rate suggests a large part of their problem is poor sponsor relations.

Now one can ask what exactly is the problem here. It could be that the general manager - JV - doesn't actually want to manage and would prefer to be off coaching riders or acting as DS. It could be just bad luck after bad luck after bad luck in courting and landing the wrong sponsor. It could be that cycling's economic model is borked and the only thing that will save teams - Slipstream to Sky - is revenue sharing. And franchises for life.

 

[Benotti69]

Good ol JV. Silence then when Froome is cleared he lands on the side of the victor.

http://www.velonews.com/2018/07/news/vaughters-anti-doping-testing-imperfect_471310

Vaughters follows the money. Another brownnoser......

Another one for whom the Armstrong doping was personal rather than about cleaning up the sport.

 

[ontheroad]

Re:

Good ol JV. Silence then when Froome is cleared he lands on the side of the victor.

http://www.velonews.com/2018/07/news/vaughters-anti-doping-testing-imperfect_471310

Vaughters follows the money. Another brownnoser......

Another one for whom the Armstrong doping was personal rather than about cleaning up the sport.

I see Ryan Trebon has called JV out over his comments

''What’s really hilarious if you ask me is that NO ONE I know that is 100% clean has ever had any sort of positive/False positive/ over the threshold finding ever. It’s always questions riders on suspect teams that try and pull this ***. Vaughters opinion is so tainted''.

 

[pastronef]

Re:

Good ol JV. Silence then when Froome is cleared he lands on the side of the victor.

http://www.velonews.com/2018/07/news/vaughters-anti-doping-testing-imperfect_471310

Vaughters follows the money. Another brownnoser......

Another one for whom the Armstrong doping was personal rather than about cleaning up the sport.

I get what you mean
well, I see a few on here and twitter for whom the Froome doping is personal, rather than about cleaning up the sport.
you call every cyclist out
many don´t

 

[MarkvW]

Re: Re:

Anybody know cannondale's annual budget compared to say sky?

JV is probably one of the best admins of a team out there.

Surely the primary role of a team boss is to attract sponsorship money. Everything flows from that. The better they are at doing it, the more successful the team is likely to be.

People are welcome to criticise the likes of Brailsford and Unzue, but the foundation of the successes of their teams has been their ability to secure long term sponsorship from big multi-national companies.

Don’t BSkyB own a significant chunk of Team Sky? Surely a big portion of Brailsford’s success is that he *doesnt* have to go running around looking for potential sponsors from about May/June every year, and can just focus on the team winning races

Or one could argue that a part of other teams' success is that they develop and maintain a long term relationship with a sponsor while Slipstream's sponsor churn rate suggests a large part of their problem is poor sponsor relations.

Now one can ask what exactly is the problem here. It could be that the general manager - JV - doesn't actually want to manage and would prefer to be off coaching riders or acting as DS. It could be just bad luck after bad luck after bad luck in courting and landing the wrong sponsor. It could be that cycling's economic model is borked and the only thing that will save teams - Slipstream to Sky - is revenue sharing. And franchises for life.

Franchises for life is interesting, but once you have that what percentage is there for the UCI middleman? I think the good old boys in the UCI would be nuts to incorporate that model because it would ultimately be suicidal. Still...they are shortsighted morons and they have done lots of stupid stuff in the past.

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

Good ol JV. Silence then when Froome is cleared he lands on the side of the victor.

http://www.velonews.com/2018/07/news/vaughters-anti-doping-testing-imperfect_471310

Vaughters follows the money. Another brownnoser......

Another one for whom the Armstrong doping was personal rather than about cleaning up the sport.

I get what you mean
well, I see a few on here and twitter for whom the Froome doping is personal, rather than about cleaning up the sport.
you call every cyclist out
many don´t

Not the Froome thread, but i disagree that it is personal like Armstrong. Froome has not *** any over (that i know of) like Armstrong and is only doing to a greater degree what those who have gone before have done. I dont blame him but i will call him what he is a doper and a cheat.

As for Vaughters, snakeoil salesman of the lowest order. He is not good enough to be chameleon just jumps ship to whatever looks like winning. Armstrong is gone a long time and the sport is no cleaner, but according to JV the bad man who shouted at him is gone so everything is A OK.

 

[Benotti69]

more humour from one of cyclings biggest clowns

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jul/05/team-sky-tour-de-france-rival-education-first-chris-froome-jonathan-vaughters

Vaughters insisted cycling has cleaned up its act, despite many believing that little has changed since the Festina affair of 1998.

Really, how and where? All that has happended is one former rider, his DS and a couple of docs got busted. The docs are probably still working albeit at a distance.

“That’s just not reality,” he said. “I can say that all day long, but nobody’s going to believe it. It’s not true and I think anyone inside the sport with any genuine knowledge is going to say that’s not true. Unfortunately many people look at us all sceptically.

Yet snakeoil salesman cant give and any examples for anyone to believe. Earlier he claims that teams give a paltry $140K when he says it should be much higher. SO anti-doping way under funded, so how can be it be effective?

“I’m all for transparency once there’s an ADRV [anti-doping rule violation] under way. I think those should be almost like publicly open trials so that people can see the evidence. But when you’re trying to determine whether or not you’re even going to bring a case, then, come on …”

Transparency, this is laugh out loud, considering Danielson and Vaughters deafening silence.

What a joke Vaughters is.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Bump thread: JV has a book to promote:

Jonathan Vaughters calls Bradley Wiggins’ 2012 Tour win ‘blemished, and that’s painful’

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/jonathan-vaughters-calls-bradley-wiggins-2012-tour-win-blemished-thats-painful-428218#Tv1xP96PQ5KlOhgq.99

 

[wirral]

“The situation with Brad was an absolute bully situation, with Dave and all those attorneys,” Vaughters claims.

 

[fmk_RoI]

He's got a lot of score settling going on in his book. Guess a man like him feels he has a lot of scores to settle.

Not sure of its factual accuracy in places, mind you.

As for the denoument, where he makes a claim on your sympathy by coming out as having been diagnosed with Aspergers. Oi vey.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Okay, so, some food for thought for Clinicians. JV and the ABP. I couldn't be bothered mentioning this in the review, you can have it here:

Why do I defend it, if athletes are still blood doping, and the biological passport didn't catch them?

The biological passport, by nature, is not an exact device to detect doping. It is, instead, a method by which you look at the body's own parameters and observe if there are changes. It is indirect testing. It looks for smoke, not fire.

Simple. It was never designed to catch them. It was designed to prevent them from transfusing enough blood that it would actually make much of a difference. It isn't about catching people and burning them alive in public. It's about keeping the races fair as possible.

If the bio-passport's effect on the sport is that a blood doper transfuses 350ml of blood instead of 1 liter, well then, it's been effective in its job. I'll take a talented rider that is able to sleep at night over a stressed-out rider that just transfused 350ml of blood any day in a race.

 

[Bronstein]

Re:

Okay, so, some food for thought for Clinicians. JV and the ABP. I couldn't be bothered mentioning this in the review, you can have it here:

Why do I defend it, if athletes are still blood doping, and the biological passport didn't catch them?

The biological passport, by nature, is not an exact device to detect doping. It is, instead, a method by which you look at the body's own parameters and observe if there are changes. It is indirect testing. It looks for smoke, not fire.

Simple. It was never designed to catch them. It was designed to prevent them from transfusing enough blood that it would actually make much of a difference. It isn't about catching people and burning them alive in public. It's about keeping the races fair as possible.

If the bio-passport's effect on the sport is that a blood doper transfuses 350ml of blood instead of 1 liter, well then, it's been effective in its job. I'll take a talented rider that is able to sleep at night over a stressed-out rider that just transfused 350ml of blood any day in a race.

 

[fmk_RoI]

The big reveal in One Way Ticket, it turns out, is what's not in One Way Ticket: Danielson.

 

[the delgados]

I'm halfway through the book, and it reads like an updated version of Rough Ride from an American's perspective. JV chronicles his life as a junior before entering the rough and tough Euro scene. He seems to have had no idea about doping until he got there, which seems a bit of a stretch, but whatever. A couple things stand out: One, the allegation from a different source that the anti-doping crusader Gaumant was on the gear; and that a pro team he rode for was likely a front for a drug cartel. So far it is an engaging read. I hope he actually wrote it; it's so annoying when athletes claim to have written a ghost-written book.

 

[Grrr]

I'm halfway through the book, and it reads like an updated version of Rough Ride from an American's perspective. JV chronicles his life as a junior before entering the rough and tough Euro scene. He seems to have had no idea about doping until he got there, which seems a bit of a stretch, but whatever. A couple things stand out: One, the allegation from a different source that the anti-doping crusader Gaumant was on the gear; and that a pro team he rode for was likely a front for a drug cartel. So far it is an engaging read. I hope he actually wrote it; it's so annoying when athletes claim to have written a ghost-written book.

The asperger's stuff is something else. As an early childhood educator...NAH. Complete bull&#^$. Please don't use that excuse to be an as&hoIe

 

[fmk_RoI]

I'm halfway through the book, and it reads like an updated version of Rough Ride from an American's perspective.

By one of those strange coincidences, he sent an early draft of the first section to Kimmage who sent it back suggesting he try again. I think that kicked A Rough Ride out of it.

One, the allegation from a different source that the anti-doping crusader Gaumant was on the gear; and that a pro team he rode for was likely a front for a drug cartel.

What is it stands out about the allegation that Gaumont was on the gear? The guy was a demon doper and I don't think it's news that he was on the juice as he was coming up the ranks. The fronting a drug cartel: that's an example of peloton gossip, isn't it? Vaughters was showing by example how riders could base their opinions on prejudices ("My guy is clean!") and no real evidence.

I hope he actually wrote it; it's so annoying when athletes claim to have written a ghost-written book.

Yes, he wrote it. He wanted to impress the wife that dumped him, win her back with his literary ways. Like David Millar, though, he did have Jeremy Whittle as his closely-involved editor.

 

[the delgados]

I just got to the Bassons part and realized I made a huge error in confusing him with Gaument. I knew you'd be all over it, and rightfully so.
Apologies for the mistake.
As for the Rough Ride reference, I'm still reading the book and am hoping for some more reveals, but no more spoiler alerts, please!

 

[fmk_RoI]

I just got to the Bassons part and realized I made a huge error in confusing him with Gaumont. I knew you'd be all over it, and rightfully so.

Didn't mean to be "all over it." Gaumont is just one of those riders stuck in my head, thru the Cofidis thing. I think in the last Michael Barry book the same story is told, only without names. One of the interesting things from the Tyler Hamilton book and from Vaughters is how riders gossip and how their gossip can be as ill-informed as you'd find on an internet forum, more opinions than facts. That said, I'm not sure I can be arsed reading the Secret Pro book.

Shout when you've reached the end. I did praise the first part of the book.

 

[the delgados]

After reading both the book and all the derogatory comments made toward JV, I kinda despair for humanity. I'm far from a cycling insider, but am fully aware of the history involving doping. In that sense, JV's book didn't really shed any more insight.
A couple things stuck out--e.g. mentioning the Giro win in one sentence without mentioning the winner's name; and spending something like ten pages recounting Vansummeran's win at Paris Roubaix. But by that point in the book, we pretty much get the point. Doping will never be eradicated, despite the efforts of some to tone it down. (by the way, JV does an excellent job telling the Paris Roubaix win from his perspective. That was a fantastic story and well worth the read.)
Overall, he is human. He is not perfect. Nor am I. Again, I am not an insider, but he seems to be honest and genuine when sharing insider stories.
All best to JV.

 

[fmk_RoI]

After reading both the book and all the derogatory comments made toward JV, I kinda despair for humanity.

To say that One Way Ticket is an exercise in narcissism is, obviously, to miss the point of autobiography. The problem with such a comment isn't its obviousness, it's that some will see it as an attack on the author when it is entirely about the book: One Way Ticket is narcissistic. It is narcissistic because it sees the world from only one perspective, it is never able to step back and see things how others might have seen them, despite all the benefits of hindsight.

Take, as an example, the story about the ground-breaking revenue sharing deal the AIGCP nearly pulled off with RCS, only to be let down by the individual members of the AIGCP who, One WayTicket tells us, allowed themselves to be bullied into accepting the status quo. That is shown only as a betrayal, it is not considered a legitimate decision by teams guarding their own interests.

The inability to consider the motives of others is not One Way Ticket's only blindspot. Take the bullying. Anybody who has read about the book, seen JV interviewed on the subject, or listened to any of the podcasts he's appeared on plugging the book, will probably be aware that the young JV was bulled by his shoolmates. He's gone into some detail on the bullying in some of these interviews. But in One Way Ticket, despite the first half of the book going very heavy on JV's childhood (it takes up about a third of the book), the bullying is only mentioned when we get to Floyd Landis, where it is used as a justification for why JV finally stood up for Landis against the man who was bullying the disgraced Tour winner: Armstrong.

The weird thing here is that the bullying explains a lot with JV, and explains a lot with One Way Ticket. It explains, say, why so little time is given to the team's wins - a Grand Tour (Giro d’Italia, 2012) and four Monuments (Paris-Roubaix, 2011; Liège-Bastogne-Liège, 2013; Il Lombardia, 2014; Ronde van Vlaanderen, 2019) of which only the one already told in the previous book, Argyle Armada, is told here - yet so much time is given to Dave Brailsford tapping-up Bradley Wiggins and winning him away to Team Sky. The story as presented is about the ethics of tapping riders up but it isn't really about that at all. It's about Brailsford bullying Slipstream into letting Wiggins go.

Bullying, it's the root of so many things in the story told in One Way Ticket - from Armstrong to ASO - but bullying isn't the story told in One Way Ticket. And that's a criticism of One Way Ticket. It's a book that doesn't actually understand the story it wants to tell and so leaves most readers, even those inclined to like JV and so want to like the book, feeling it's a book lacking in insight.

 

[the delgados]

Just came back to say I should not have put words in JV's mouth. It became clear to me while reading the that doping will never be eradicated (shocking!) not JV. He goes on the epilogue that young riders don't have to go down the dark path, etc.
Carry on.

 

[proffate]

He goes on the epilogue that young riders don't have to go down the dark path, etc.

Not even if it's the only way to fulfill their childhood dream?

 

[the delgados]

Not even if it's the only way to fulfill their childhood dream?

Ha! Uh huh.
I didn't read the book thinking I was going to experience some existential revelation. Then again, I lack the brain power to think the same way as fmk_ Rol. No one ever said I was the brightest log on the yuletide fire.!
That said, and if I read his response correctly, I think we are pretty much saying something similar, but my response to the book was not nearly as eloquent or insightful.
I got out of it what I expected going in. That being reading yarns from someone in the thick of things throughout the Armstrong era. JV provides plenty of stories involving the major hitters in cycling, and I found the book to be an entertaining read. If you are a fan of cycling and like reading stories about the characters populated within, I would say have at it and give it a go.
But do not expect a philosophical treatise.

 

[fmk_RoI]

That said, and if I read his response correctly, I think we are pretty much saying something similar, but my response to the book was not nearly as eloquent or insightful.

We're saying the same thing insofar as we're saying it's one for the fans. We're not saying the same thing if you're saying it's a good book.

You wanted to be entertained by anecdotes and were. I wanted insight and an original angle - pretty much what I seek in any book telling an already familiar story - and got neither. Thomas Dekker it ain't.

 

[the delgados]

Gotcha!
You remind me of the time I lost a friend because of an argument over the movie Amelie.
I claimed it was a perfectly entertaining movie without pretence of being anything more than a quirky little love story.
My former buddy went into a rage because it didn't satisfy his taste for high-brow cinema and said my take was sub-par and beneath the levels of good taste in movies. I realize in retrospect that he thought I was trying to make him look bad in front of his new girlfriend, but I wildly digress.
Just like Amelie, I did not go into One-Way thinking I was about to read the literary equivalent of an Ingmar Bergman film.
I readily admit that I found the book entertaining at a base level. I know gossip is a low form of communication, and I am guilty as charged.