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JV talks, sort of

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Franklin said:
Sorry, but what do you expect him to say?

"Froome is clean" And then he gets popped and JV looks like a fool and a pariah...
"Froome is dirty" And then he never gets popped andJV looks like a fool and a pariah...

I do expect someone who 12 months ago was arguing very strongly that cycling is clean because speeds are down, to say they think its now dirty when speeds rocket back up.

JV did tweet after Ventoux " I don't know" which was maybe acceptable, but then a few days later he posted some nonesence about how people don't understand how much technology has improved.
 
The Hitch said:
I do expect someone who 12 months ago was arguing very strongly that cycling is clean because speeds are down, to say they think its now dirty when speeds rocket back up.

JV did tweet after Ventoux " I don't know" which was maybe acceptable, but then a few days later he posted some nonesence about how people don't understand how much technology has improved.
Hah, yes well you can only hope, that people actually is starting to understand how much "technology" has improved, Froome did a fine job showing that. And it's not about the bike !
 
Perhaps I am not on the same wavelength here.

Sky have genuine PR problems - they can't control an uncontrollable media - and these problems can get at their riders. They are a ***** in the Sky armour, a pressure point. They clearly got to Wiggins. Leave them out there and let Froome distract himself trying to cope with them. Push that little Tasmanian Devil hard enough and who knows how he'll explode?

Equally importantly, isn't it better to let others take the flack while you hunker down and get on with getting on? Let others distract the fans and media for you.

Sky are far from being alone in having such problems. Tinkoff-Saxo clearly have them too. Some will exploit these problems. Things said, things not said. That's sport. Gamesmanship. For sure, you don't want to destroy the team, drive the sponsor away. But enjoying watching them out fires? All part of the game.
 
Samson777 said:
I just imagine, it would be such a big blow for Cycling PR wise, should SKY go down already. That it would do more bad than good, for the rest of the teams.

Specific to JV, he's a smart guy and has plenty of wiggle room in his public messages.

The "End of Cycling" scenario is not possible. The UCI reports to no one, corruption is not a crime, doping in most countries is not a law enforcement task. People still watch the UCI's product.

Maybe a simpler way to say it is that Festina should have been "the end of cycling."
 
DirtyWorks said:
Specific to JV, he's a smart guy and has plenty of wiggle room in his public messages.

The "End of Cycling" scenario is not possible. The UCI reports to no one, corruption is not a crime, doping in most countries is not a law enforcement task. People still watch the sport.

Maybe a simpler way to say it is that Festina should have been "the end of cycling."
I agree. I was not trying to indicate SKY going down would be "the end of cycling" we seen so many examples already, that nothing is. Just that it would not necessarily be a great thing for JV, if the SKY myth was destroyed. At least he would get less wiggle room in his public messages, in that scenario, I imagine.
 
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The Hitch said:
I do expect someone who 12 months ago was arguing very strongly that cycling is clean because speeds are down, to say they think its now dirty when speeds rocket back up.

JV did tweet after Ventoux " I don't know" which was maybe acceptable, but then a few days later he posted some nonesence about how people don't understand how much technology has improved.

The "I dont know" is pretty meaningless to me. If he thought they were cleans, wouldnt that be a great victory for clean cycling, something he would celebrate along with Walsh?

I dont think its a coincidence that he stopped posting here after Froome became alien. He knew the 6.0w/ kg, speeds are down arguements would no longer hold.

Now I dont expect him to be out there accusing them of doping, but sticking his head in the sand and pretending they dont exist doesnt help either.

If it was me, trying to run a clean team, I would be pretty ****ed off that it suddenly looked like it was 2001 again.
 
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The Hitch said:
I do expect someone who 12 months ago was arguing very strongly that cycling is clean because speeds are down, to say they think its now dirty when speeds rocket back up.

Are they undeniably back up to pre-2009 levels again? There's quite a lot debate there.

For the record, I don't buy all the nonsense (indeed I don't believe lower speed proof anything), but in general the speed discussions swing every other way considering wind, full or empty bottles and the attraction of the moon.

JV did tweet after Ventoux " I don't know" which was maybe acceptable, but then a few days later he posted some nonesence about how people don't understand how much technology has improved.
 
Franklin said:
Are they undeniably back up to pre-2009 levels again? There's quite a lot debate there.

For the record, I don't buy all the nonsense (indeed I don't believe lower speed proof anything), but in general the speed discussions swing every other way considering wind, full or empty bottles and the attraction of the moon.
I'd say Horner's srm file from Peña Cabarga at 6.8+ W/kg, clearly says that speeds are up.
 
It can't really be defined as an aggregate downward trend. 2009 may have just as well been 2005. 2010 was more sedate and Tourmalet stands out as a good marker of the reasonable post-2007 limits, not Basso/Armstrong/Heras but as good as the next best. Sure the Tour in 2011 looked average but Cobo did a good job at making sure that was forgotten (Purito looked ok in the Dauphine but harder to judge).

Some go up, some go down, some feel the heat more than others who may be more adventurous. Everyone is on the lookout for something new. I mean 2008 and 2012 are probably the lamest years yet 2009 and 2013 are fast. The more you think about it the less sense it all seems to make. Knowing that there were some "worrying" signs in 2013 I guess the expected thing is to see a fairly widespread decline... but then Contador probably bounces back, yeh... Starting to think there is merit in paying little attention to speeds.
 
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hrotha said:
There were several records being broken as early as 2011, which is when I think the positive tendency was reversed.

I can only think of Horner, but I immediately belief you.

And about Horner, that's exactly the problem. Several claims, several reparted times, several wattages. 16.40, 16.44. 1900+, 2000+ (Noted that those are insanely high). Headwind, tailwind, you get all the usual excuses.

For example I was under the impression that TdF 2009 was relatively easy (hence LA and BW could fight for podium) and 2010, 2011 weren't that extreme either. And yet I have not a single illusion about any of those years.

That's why I personally find these so incredibly tricky, there are so many ways to obfuscate the results. And even worse, it somehow implies that being slower is clean, while we know that's nonsense.

On JV:

All the more reason to refrain from too many comments. Be he clean or not, there's no winning this one unless he wants to leave the sport. He doesn't want to do that, so he better keeps his comments before him. That's more than just Omerta, it's also a distinct lack of evidence that will stick. We are free to theorize as we want, but he has to work with everyone in the pro-peleton on a daily basis. You better be damned sure before you start accusing people in a work environment.
 
Ferminal said:
It can't really be defined as an aggregate downward trend. 2009 may have just as well been 2005.

i don't agree at all. in 2005 they almost went to the moon with the speeds. if puerto wouldn't have happen, in 2006 they could have done the tour at more than 42 km per hour
watch those classic stages in 2005, the flat ones and you can see the breakaway formed only after two or three hours at 50 kmph. and day after day. highest average speed ever. the mountains all very fast. mende almost as fast as indurain,pantani and riis:eek:
giro the same with basso owning the time trials, killer and rujanito going crazy
in vuelta, covadonga record and eladio jimenez climbing faster from the breakaway than contador,purito and valverde in 2012.:cool:

again, if puerto wouldn't have happen, you could have find in 2006-2007 professional riders launched on space without any shuttle
 
jens_attacks said:
i don't agree at all. in 2005 they almost went to the moon with the speeds. if puerto wouldn't have happen, in 2006 they could have done the tour at more than 42 km per hour
watch those classic stages in 2005, the flat ones and you can see the breakaway formed only after two or three hours at 50 kmph. and day after day. highest average speed ever. the mountains all very fast. mende almost as fast as indurain,pantani and riis:eek:
giro the same with basso owning the time trials, killer and rujanito going crazy
in vuelta, covadonga record and eladio jimenez climbing faster from the breakaway than contador,purito and valverde in 2012.:cool:

again, if puerto wouldn't have happen, you could have find in 2006-2007 professional riders launched on space without any shuttle

Like Rasmussen? Or Contador on Galibier? Simoni/Piepoli on Zoncolan?

Some riders felt Puerto for 6-12 months (longer if banned), others it didn't seem to bother.
 
i think 2007 was much slower than before puerto though. exceptions you will find on every year since then no doubt but i mean the collective performance not just a few uber strong climbers. the speeds were such on a rise from 2004 to 2006 that it got very close to middle 90's. basso very close to the best pantani

what was chicken's best effort on that tour anyway? 6,1-6,3 on plateau de beille?in my opinion he was much stronger in 2005
 
courchevel was something like 6.5 w/kg, they did it 1;30 faster than pantani. and the 2005 tour was much faster.
that raid with ballon d'alsace(where portoleau said there were 40!!!!riders at 6,2 w/kg) was pure brutal on the road to mulhouse keeping behind an entire peloton. funnily enough, his values from 2005 were much more stable than those of 2007 if i remember right :p
 
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Netserk said:
How does that affect srm files?

How does a SRM file count as a legal positive? Ofc I know that all the obfuscation is nonsense (and that's being polite), but that's not how the public will react. One half will just call whole cycling a cesspool (which may or may not be true anymore) the other half will dismiss it out of hand.

Point I'm trying to make: Calling out a colleague (a popular one!)when you have no admitable evidence is not something a DS will do.

1. His sponsor won't be happy. (Garmin's DS is accusing hero Horner!)
2. His colleagues will hate him. (That SOB JV is calling out our riders, but he has no evidence. Next time a rider of his is in a break we will crush that break).

JV is first and foremost the DS of Garmin and his job is to give his riders the best (legal) chances to win. Badmouthing colleagues is not helping in that regard. And this is what happens all the time. Somehow people in the clinic believe DS or rider X will surely spill the beans. And they almost never do. It took quite a lot of armtwisting to get the Lance report and the evidence there was literally all over the place.

Of course I don't believe Horner can be trusted and that's even before his ridiculous Vuelta. But what I say about Horner has a completely different impact than what JV would say.
 
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Hey JV, is it ok for your Pitbull, Talansky to call Di Luca a scumbag while publicising unrepentant doper Leipheimer on his twitter?

Does Talansky forget his boss was a doper, his team mates doped?

Does Talansky snarl at Hesjedal, Millar, Wegelius, Dekker, Denielson or you?
 

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