Most believable Tour in years?

[SundayRider]

Can you imagine if everyone was doping? Can you imagine adding 10% power to the field across the board? How much faster they would all go?

If you look at the average speed and when it increased you can see how EPO affected the Tour.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

If you look at the average speed and when it increased you can see how EPO affected the Tour.

Yeah nah doping stopped around 2006. It's all pillows and pineapple juice now.

And this:

The marginal gains approach that led to success upon success has been replicated, tweaked and improved.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/kerrison-sky-and-froome-focus-on-winning-tour-de-france-in-2015

New and improved pineapple juice.

God almighty it's sickening to even joke about it.

 

[the sceptic]

Top 6 fastest Tours ever and two of them are the last two years.

Doesnt look good for the new clean era.

I guess this is where JV shows up with his special statistic that shows speeds are down?

 

[mewmewmew13]

In the short time that I could stomach listening to P & P this morning..Paul's casual banter said that we are now in a time where cycling is clean and the climbing speeds were slower. No sh!t...he really said that.
I gagged

 

[Benotti69]

Doesnt look good for the new clean era.

I guess this is where JV shows up with his special statistic that shows speeds are down?

Jv has gone very quiet on the speeds are down....actually JV has gone very quiet on doping, period. So much for dedicating his life to anti doping.......

 

[IndianCyclist]

Average speed doesn't mean anything. When Rodriguez wanted the polka dot jersey, his entire team chase the breakaway hard till the foot of the climb. Other than Gallopin, the other breakaways haven't been given big margins.
If Froome or Contador were in the race, this would very quickly become unbelievable. As it is, Nibali was in cruise mode, so cant say anything. Koenig's TT is questionable. Peraud at 37 doing what Cadel cannot do. Otherwise the rest of the performances were reasonable enough.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Here's a great story that doesn't stop giving.

http://mobile.lemonde.fr/tour-de-fr...tana-l-astre-noir-double_4462715_1616918.html

Lack of a sufficient number of riders, the team is not able to match the 2006 Tour, but the organizers of the Grande Boucle accept from the next edition. - On behalf of the defense French economic interests in Kazakhstan, as explained in a former World leader Amaury Sport Organisation, the owner of the race.

ASO is willing to permit doping. The only question left is how often is ASO the source of "never tested positive?"

 

[difdauf]

Average speeds doesn't mean anything. Are you aware than Cheng ji has more to do with the average speed than Nibali ? Nibali should have pulled the race himself for something like 30 kilometers. You can erase Valverde, Peraud, Bardet, van Garderen from the race and the average speed is still the same.
So what you mean ? Cheng Ji is an obvious cheater ?

Cycling races have changed. Nowadays teams have far more control on the race than they have. How many break aways finished with more than 5 min on a flat stage the last two years ? If there are so many falls in the first week, that's because teams order their men to be constantly at the top to avoid falls. Which result in a really fast race with lot of falls. They don't need EPO to ask some TTers to pull them all the day.

Can we compare this tour with 2006 where a guy get 30 minutes on a stopped bunch in a flat stage ? That doesn't make sense.

 

[The Hitch]

Average speeds doesn't mean anything. Are you aware than Cheng ji has more to do with the average speed than Nibali ?

Not exactly, but I agree with your overall point and have made it myself, average speed is a very imperfect method for judging these things. Should not be discounted all together, but really it has a lot more to do with the parcors, weather, race situation, tactics etc than with the abilities of its leaders.

 

[Netserk]

Average speeds doesn't mean anything. Are you aware than Cheng ji has more to do with the average speed than Nibali ? Nibali should have pulled the race himself for something like 30 kilometers. You can erase Valverde, Peraud, Bardet, van Garderen from the race and the average speed is still the same.
So what you mean ? Cheng Ji is an obvious cheater ?

Cycling races have changed. Nowadays teams have far more control on the race than they have. How many break aways finished with more than 5 min on a flat stage the last two years ? If there are so many falls in the first week, that's because teams order their men to be constantly at the top to avoid falls. Which result in a really fast race with lot of falls. They don't need EPO to ask some TTers to pull them all the day.

Can we compare this tour with 2006 where a guy get 30 minutes on a stopped bunch in a flat stage ? That doesn't make sense.

So why were all of '07, '08, '09, '10, '11 & '12 slower than all of '03, '04, '05 & '06? A coincidence? Or something to do with the use of doping in the peloton?

 

[ulrichw]

So why were all of '07, '08, '09, '10, '11 & '12 slower than all of '03, '04, '05 & '06? A coincidence? Or something to do with the use of doping in the peloton?

Why were all of '93, '94, '95, '96 and '97 slower than all of '07, '08, '09, '10, '11 & '12?

Same reason, IMO: Average speed over the entire duration of the race includes so much time spent at sub-maximal effort levels that doping is a relatively small influence (I'm not saying that there's no influence, just that the speed is not a great indicator of the level of doping).

 

[doperhopper]

poor Cadel, he also thought he started The New Era - sharkie says the Tour history should be dated B.s.B. and A.s.B., (with the unquestionable virgin cleanliness if the Holy Trinity of BW, CF, VN)... this won't end up well

few drops of Nibs wisdom:

"Doping was part of this world, we know that. And questions about it don’t bother me: I care about replying properly because it's important to do so," he said.

"I've nothing to hide. Wiggins, Froome, and I are the new faces of the recent history of the Tour de France. Cycling is different now and I think I've shown that."

 

[DirtyWorks]

Why were all of '93, '94, '95, '96 and '97 slower than all of '07, '08, '09, '10, '11 & '12?

Same reason, IMO: Average speed over the entire duration of the race includes so much time spent at sub-maximal effort levels that doping is a relatively small influence (I'm not saying that there's no influence, just that the speed is not a great indicator of the level of doping).

Not a specific reply to you, average speed doesn't work. How many KM's in those races? How many vertical meters? How many TT's? Heat? Wind?

Grouping all stages together for an average just doesn't work.

Somewhere, Science is Cool did an excellent job with some TdF stats that was as good as it gets. (IMO)

 

[stutue]

In answer to the OP...

Word on the street (the actual street, not Hog street) is that there is a particular clinic in California that is having a massive influence on results. And no, Sky are not clients but it is pretty obvious who is. Other influences are to do with business influences and betting.

 

[hiero2]

In answer to the OP...

Word on the street (the actual street, not Hog street) is that there is a particular clinic in California that is having a massive influence on results. And no, Sky are not clients but it is pretty obvious who is. Other influences are to do with business influences and betting.

Word on the street . . .

In other words, rumor-mongering. Nothing more than petty gossip. Okey dokey then.

You're no Herb Caen. If you want to do that sort of thing - you might want to study his style - and then find a steady platform so you can get recognition. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, repeating rumors like this looks like nothing so much as trolling. No references, no backup, no names, nada - except a purported, and inflammatory, "rumor".

 

[hiero2]

I don't know, I'm starting to fall for it all again. Some exceptions at the top aside, this looks so utterly more believable than the absurdity of the last couple of years.

It's weird because after the first couple of hilly or mountain stages I was thinking the juice was strong across the boards and it was getting worse again. These guys look tired after a few days in the mountains. The guys finishing in the top ten appear in some cases pretty believable in terms of performances.

Maybe it's just that the two most powerful and explosive riders are out of it, and I know Nibali is going very fast, but a few places down it looks kind of normal.

Am I being a sucker? Benotti, don't answer that...

BTW - you know I don't speak for the loudest voices around here - but no - I don't think you are being a sucker. As everyone (and their brothers, sisters, and mothers) has noted, Nibali looked pretty comfortable. Yet, he HAS always been pretty verbally anti-doping. So my bet is that whatever he is doing is (still) legal. Peraud has had consistent top showings before, even though he has less road history. Pinot has been nibbling at the heels of the top for the past 3 years. And they looked VERY human - whipped when they should have been - weaker some days - better on others. Motivated and honest. And, they come from French teams, where they face jail time, not just suspension, if they dope. Valverde? Well, I don't trust him - but he looked pretty human the last few days of the Tour.

Peraud said how lucky he was this year. He did not believe if AC or CF had gotten through to the end that he would have been on the podium. This was very much a race where the luck of the elements was a factor (the rain, the rain!).

Some people have been talking about average speeds over the course of the tour as something to judge performance by. I can't see that, myself, since too many things changed in the same time periods. Money, rider pay, public visibility: these all caused a change in how the riders approached, and rode, the Tour. It became much more competitive over the past 20 years. Riders quit treating the first 100K of a long stage as a warm-up ride. Etc - I'm sure you can add to that list.

 

[Rollthedice]

In answer to the OP...

Word on the street (the actual street, not Hog street) is that there is a particular clinic in California that is having a massive influence on results. And no, Sky are not clients but it is pretty obvious who is. Other influences are to do with business influences and betting.

It's the Betty Ford Clinic? I haven't seen any results on that Italian guy who was doing post-race interviews with Lemond, he looked like he was still hitting the bottle.

 

[Tonton]

BTW - you know I don't speak for the loudest voices around here - but no - I don't think you are being a sucker. As everyone (and their brothers, sisters, and mothers) has noted, Nibali looked pretty comfortable. Yet, he HAS always been pretty verbally anti-doping. So my bet is that whatever he is doing is (still) legal. Peraud has had consistent top showings before, even though he has less road history. Pinot has been nibbling at the heels of the top for the past 3 years. And they looked VERY human - whipped when they should have been - weaker some days - better on others. Motivated and honest. And, they come from French teams, where they face jail time, not just suspension, if they dope. Valverde? Well, I don't trust him - but he looked pretty human the last few days of the Tour.

Peraud said how lucky he was this year. He did not believe if AC or CF had gotten through to the end that he would have been on the podium. This was very much a race where the luck of the elements was a factor (the rain, the rain!).

In another thread (Random French Guys...) I posted data from '11 and '12 side by side with '14 for JCP and Pinot respectively according to 'Not Normal' and a link on Vayer's site. The values were human, but very close to the limit. Same could be said for Piti. Nibbles watts/kg and watts were definitely suspicious. Vayer himself (not that he is the Messiah, but at least he publishes data and puts forth a methodology that makes sense) blasted Nibali in Le Monde a few days before the end of this year's TdF. TJVG's and Bardet's values were clearly human, although a doped average rider may show human values: it just means that the guy is no GC material to begin with.

So this TdF, Nibbles put aside, 'looks' cleaner/believable. But like you mention, with Dawg and Dopador completing the Tour, we'd probably have three mutants on the podium in Paris and wouldn't event debate about this TdF being 'believable'.

Nibbles being outspoken about anti-PEDs could be a smoke screen. To me it is worthless. Talk is cheap. I still remember the 'six hours a day...what are you on' denial...

 

[stutue]

Word on the street . . .

In other words, rumor-mongering. Nothing more than petty gossip. Okey dokey then.

You're no Herb Caen. If you want to do that sort of thing - you might want to study his style - and then find a steady platform so you can get recognition. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, repeating rumors like this looks like nothing so much as trolling. No references, no backup, no names, nada - except a purported, and inflammatory, "rumor".

Yawn.

Take it or leave it....makes no difference to me. I believed the person who told me, given their credentials (which, by the way, I've no intention of sharing here)

 

[movingtarget]

poor Cadel, he also thought he started The New Era - sharkie says the Tour history should be dated B.s.B. and A.s.B., (with the unquestionable virgin cleanliness if the Holy Trinity of BW, CF, VN)... this won't end up well

few drops of Nibs wisdom:

"Doping was part of this world, we know that. And questions about it don’t bother me: I care about replying properly because it's important to do so," he said.

"I've nothing to hide. Wiggins, Froome, and I are the new faces of the recent history of the Tour de France. Cycling is different now and I think I've shown that."

Everyone is anti doping until they are caught. Evans win was actually similar to Nibali's in that there were a lot of accidents, Contador was riding wounded and with a Giro in his legs as well. But Evans had to really fight for his win and the margin was not big at the end. To my eyes Nibali looked serene throughout, never troubled and won by a huge margin. Not proof that he doped but even Froome was in trouble on one or two stages when he won. Nibali was not and his ride on the cobbles was not just bike handling it was power. Nibali's win was the easist since Contador's win in the 2011 Giro probably even easier. Then again include Froome and Contador in the race and the whole thing changes. Nibali did admit though that he was riding with something left in the tank. I hope Nibali rides the Tour next year. Some questions remain unanswered.

 

[MarkvW]

I don't know, I'm starting to fall for it all again. Some exceptions at the top aside, this looks so utterly more believable than the absurdity of the last couple of years.

It's weird because after the first couple of hilly or mountain stages I was thinking the juice was strong across the boards and it was getting worse again. These guys look tired after a few days in the mountains. The guys finishing in the top ten appear in some cases pretty believable in terms of performances.

Maybe it's just that the two most powerful and explosive riders are out of it, and I know Nibali is going very fast, but a few places down it looks kind of normal.

Am I being a sucker? Benotti, don't answer that...

When you start to have that feeling, just recall that Nibali rode for Astana and Astana is Vinokourov's team.

 

[Tonton]

Everyone is anti doping until they are caught. Evans win was actually similar to Nibali's in that there were a lot of accidents, Contador was riding wounded and with a Giro in his legs as well. But Evans had to really fight for his win and the margin was not big at the end. To my eyes Nibali looked serene throughout, never troubled and won by a huge margin. Not proof that he doped but even Froome was in trouble on one or two stages when he won. Nibali was not and his ride on the cobbles was not just bike handling it was power. Nibali's win was the easist since Contador's win in the 2011 Giro probably even easier. Then again include Froome and Contador in the race and the whole thing changes. Nibali did admit though that he was riding with something left in the tank. I hope Nibali rides the Tour next year. Some questions remain unanswered.

If I remember well, Froome had built a huge lead, Sky looked like the USPS of old, there was a huge outcry, and conveniently in the following days he gave back a little time to silence the skeptics. Pure PR

 

[hrotha]

When you start to have that feeling, just recall that Nibali rode for Astana and Astana is Vinokourov's team.

Pretty sure Nibbles would be one of those "exceptions at the top".

 

[Scatto]

Vinokourov, Tinkov, I don't trust them. They even don't try to make an honest impression. And the speeds are juiced still.

 

[Hiculd]

I am never going to be burned like that again. I believe that the only reason that they haven’t found anyone out yet is because A. They are using better stuff that people are just not testing for, or B. they are just not releasing the results because it would kill the sport. Call me jaded…