No doping controls??

[Zam_Olyas]

Senor locke wiki.

2010
1st Stage 5 FBD Insurance Ras

2011
2nd Overall Vuelta Ciclista a León
1st Stage 4

5th Overall Tour of Britain
1st Mountains Competition

 

[Benotti69]

Rapha Condor - Sharp has been turned into a development team, signing several very young riders (a.o. the younger Kennaugh brother), and only keeping House, McCallum and Dean Downing as "elder statesmen"/mentors/capitaines de la route. Clancy and Tennant are special cases as track riders.
I suppose this decision was made because the sponsors didn't want to raise the budget substantially, which would have been necessary to keep all the riders they had last year (Briggs, Craven, Dempster, Tiernan-Locke).

So Endura (and also IG - Sigma Sport and Raleigh) have picked up these talented riders - and they'd be stupid not to do it. Dempster would maybe have gotten a contract at Highroad if they had continued, Craven was considered by Europcar if they had gotten a WT license. I don't know whether WT teams looked at Tiernan-Locke, or if he was approached by Endura with the prospect of becoming one of their leaders and thought that would be better than jumping to a WT team and possibly be relegated to watercarrying duties.
The team isn't bad at all, and if guys like Bibby, Blain, Dempster, Russell Downing, Mandri, Voss or Wetterhall ride as well as they did in the past, young riders like McEvoy, Rowsell and Thwaites continue their progress, and the team sign a couple of good riders for 2013, I can see them getting wildcards to WT races. And if NetApp gets a wildcard for the Giro, a strengthened Endura Racing Team may well get a wildcard for the Vuelta next year.

Thanks for the reply. JTL may have had offers but did not fancy being a domestique for a WT and reckoned he'd rather be a leader on a smaller team, which after this week seems to have been a wise decision.

 

[thehog]

Removing the doping context, I think it's devaluing the performance to think that any reasonable cyclist could do what JTL did, provided that they show up in top shape. If it was Kelderman or Novikov who blitzed the two races it would still be an unbelievable performance and beyond what one may have expected from their talent at this stage. If it was Simon Clarke, it would still be remarkable. It has been a superb effort by JTL, and he looks to be very promising.



http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xottur

Don't just watch the finish, watch the penultimate climb too, about 1hr 35' in, great riding.

Its not outrageous but he didn't seem to phased by the steepness. I do find on those hilly finishes that those who "time it" end up winning.

I'd say 50/50.

 

[thehog]

Its not outrageous but he didn't seem to phased by the steepness. I do find on those hilly finishes that those who "time it" end up winning.

I'd say 50/50.

Actually I just watched his post race interviewed. He looks embarrassed! Guilty.

 

[pmcg76]

No - the reason is YOU know little about him - hence why you are trying to compare him to people you do know.


It is really simple.
For a team like Endura, these events are huge and their priority for this part of the season.
You appear to be giving little value to other events JTL has done well in and then over selling ToM & TdHV.

Yeah, but why do I know so little about him but am fully aware of other pro continental riders. You had never even heard of him whilst I at least recognised the name.

I am not under-selling or over selling any races here, Vuelta A Leon was basically an amateur race with Rapha and Rabobank Conti as the only 2 pro teams. Rabo won the TTT with Rapha 2nd. The very next day Rapha rider Dan Craven got in a break and took a 2 minute lead overall, the following day which was hilly Rabo tried to split the field and got a break going which JTL made, he then sat in the break not working as he was protecting the lead of his team-mate so when it came to the finish he was fresher than the rest and outsprinted them in the process securing 2nd overall.

The other race he performed well in was Britain where he got in the break one day and gobbled up all the KOM points on offer, TOB was effectively SKY v Lars Boom with nobody else really caring except the lesser lights. Dont believe me? look at the results and race reports. TOB field was way weaker than the most recent races.

Its really not that difficult to go back and look at race reports and results to get a better picture of a rider.

What I also find ridiculous is that you are now going against the exact same argument that you have supported countless times for Armstrong never being a Tour contender. Lets see, he didnt have the results and never showed a capability for competing at that level before but then suddenly he did.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Removing the doping context, I think it's devaluing the performance to think that any reasonable cyclist could do what JTL did, provided that they show up in top shape. If it was Kelderman or Novikov who blitzed the two races it would still be an unbelievable performance and beyond what one may have expected from their talent at this stage. If it was Simon Clarke, it would still be remarkable. It has been a superb effort by JTL, and he looks to be very promising.



http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xottur

Don't just watch the finish, watch the penultimate climb too, about 1hr 35' in, great riding.

Quite the opposite - I don't think it devalues his (or anyone elses) performance. It just puts it in its proper context.

Also, I don't think he blitzed ToM - that race was shortened and changed because of the weather.
Nor would I consider it "unbelievable" if Clarke had done the same.
Certainly what JTL did at TdHV was impressive, but looking at the events and who is hot (or not) it is not as outrageous as some seem to believe.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Yeah, but why do I know so little about him but am fully aware of other pro continental riders. You had never even heard of him whilst I at least recognised the name.

What? I never said that, of course I had heard of him, I just knew very little about his background until recently.

I am not under-selling or over selling any races here, Vuelta A Leon was basically an amateur race with Rapha and Rabobank Conti as the only 2 pro teams. Rabo won the TTT with Rapha 2nd. The very next day Rapha rider Dan Craven got in a break and took a 2 minute lead overall, the following day which was hilly Rabo tried to split the field and got a break going which JTL made, he then sat in the break not working as he was protecting the lead of his team-mate so when it came to the finish he was fresher than the rest and outsprinted them in the process securing 2nd overall.

The other race he performed well in was Britain where he got in the break one day and gobbled up all the KOM points on offer, TOB was effectively SKY v Lars Boom with nobody else really caring except the lesser lights. Dont believe me? look at the results and race reports. TOB field was way weaker than the most recent races.

So, basically his good results were in crap events?
Do you really think a shortened ToM and TdHV are that much below Tor of Britain?

Its really not that difficult to go back and look at race reports and results to get a better picture of a rider.

What I also find ridiculous is that you are now going against the exact same argument that you have supported countless times for Armstrong never being a Tour contender. Lets see, he didnt have the results and never showed a capability for competing at that level before but then suddenly he did.

Again - you are completely misrepresenting my position.

Armstrong was a great 'one-day' rider who transformed in to a GT winner - thats racing for over 20 days at the highest level.

We are talking about a decent rider kicking some **** on a 1 km climb in February - as I said earlier, get some perspective.

 

[User Guide]

A bit of background into JTL
http://redkiteprayer.com/?p=7840

 

[Orvieto]

Dan Martin @DanMartin86 Close
No doping controls for the 2nd race running though! Whats going on?

wtf????...all very odd.

This thread seems to have focused on Jon Tiernan-Locke. I reserve judgement on the Brit. I'm not as worried about someone doping to win the Tour of the Med. I'm more concerned about teams who have Grand Tour ambitions who might now be in training phases and microdosing epo and putting away blood. Aren't these exactly the sort of races you're most likely to get the blood passport evidence to catch a big time doper?

 

[Von Mises]

The reason people know so little about him is because there is simply nothing to know. All those other guys put together a series of good results/performances at continental level to earn themselves contracts with ProTour teams. I bet none of them will perform anywhere near as well as JTL this year.

You should compare JTL´s and Cassidy/Bagdonas/Fenn/McNally racing calendar during previous years. Kelly´s team has been much more international, if you check cqranking, you can see that they have ridden much more category .1 and above races. Tiernan-Locke was ill for several years amnd did not ride at all, when he started riding again from 2010, he rode local crits, at the same time Kelly´´s team got invitations to Tour Of Oman or Tour of Qatar or E3 Prijs Vlaanderen type of races. So, it is not surprising that these guys are better known, but it does not mean that they are better riders.

 

[maltiv]

Vegard Stake Laengen on JTL:

"It was unbelievable to see how he rode. I've never seen anyone ride with so much power. He was on a completely different level"

 

[WillemS]

What I find hard to contemplate is that people see every bump in performance as doping related. They even seem to get mad when someone disagrees with them, they are that single-minded. In an Utopian-doping free peleton, there would still be winners and there would still be people peaking unexpectedly, that same people will scream doping at every performance, as they judge every good performance as doping related, without any other evidence needed.

I don't know JTL that well, but I do know for most teams, even most ProConti teams, the season hasn't even really started yet. If you're a decent rider, riding decent results during the normal on-season not winning too much, changing your preparation to peak during pre-season may cause you to win from guys that are off-peak and building for the main season. And yes, then it will seem that you're on doping compared to most of the rest, because the riders you are mostly compared with are not yet peaking.

I will not (yet) convict JTL based on a couple of excellent pre-season races, not even given the fact of the lacking doping tests. As D. Martin twittered, riders were surprised and could therefore not have anticipated the lack of testing. Maybe JTL is in on the information of testing-free races, but I don't buy that. Let's see how he performs during the main season before deriving your conclusions too early, he may perform as mediocre as he always was when the rest starts to peak (basing the mediocrity on your descriptions of his performance during the last season).

 

[pmcg76]

What I find hard to contemplate is that people see every bump in performance as doping related. They even seem to get mad when someone disagrees with them, they are that single-minded. In an Utopian-doping free peleton, there would still be winners and there would still be people peaking unexpectedly, that same people will scream doping at every performance, as they judge every good performance as doping related, without any other evidence needed.

I don't know JTL that well, but I do know for most teams, even most ProConti teams, the season hasn't even really started yet. If you're a decent rider, riding decent results during the normal on-season not winning too much, changing your preparation to peak during pre-season may cause you to win from guys that are off-peak and building for the main season. And yes, then it will seem that you're on doping compared to most of the rest, because the riders you are mostly compared with are not yet peaking.

I will not (yet) convict JTL based on a couple of excellent pre-season races, not even given the fact of the lacking doping tests. As D. Martin twittered, riders were surprised and could therefore not have anticipated the lack of testing. Maybe JTL is in on the information of testing-free races, but I don't buy that. Let's see how he performs during the main season before deriving your conclusions too early, he may perform as mediocre as he always was when the rest starts to peak (basing the mediocrity on your descriptions of his performance during the last season).

Well , I for one dont see every bump in performance as evidence of doping. However when I see a very big bump in the space of a few months with no obvious explanations, then yes I tend to get suspicious.

Perhaps if there were a precedent for this kinda thing happening, a recent continental level pro destroying a ProTour level field. It would be more reassuing as it would illustrate that this kind of thing is not so unusual. Perhaps someone would be so kind as to provide me with some examples of this from the past. Would be most appreciated and I am aware of Fenn but he won bunch sprints which aint the same thing.

I can think of riders moving from conti pro to PT like D.Lloyd, Fleeman, Nordhaug, Kristoff, Brammier, Rasch, Downing, and oh yeah, Schumacher oh dear!!! Anyway, none of the guys I listed turned in performances like JTL.... well except Schumacher but I aint going to remember everyone but please if anyone has examples then bring them.

I also think its possible for lower level riders to win 2.1 races as many of them tend to be like a lottery anyway in that someone with excellent form could take the race if they get in the right break. However I dont see Tour du Haut-Var as one of those races, it is a race that has always had a high calibre of winner and there has to be a reason for that, it is most definitely not a lottery type race. It is easy to gauge what type a race is by it palmares.

I had no problem with JTL winning the first stage of the Med, I was surprised at him winning the final stage and taking the overall but I said ok, it was a truncated race so maybe thats the reason he won. But watching him ride yesterday like the rest of the field were dummies was too much. That French newspaper piece that RR linked had people commenting that his performance was like Riis which whilst I wouldnt go that far, it still says a lot.

I would love to be wrong as I have stated many times before but we have been in this situation too many times beforehand and fooled.

 

[maltiv]

Let's see how he performs during the main season before deriving your conclusions too early, he may perform as mediocre as he always was when the rest starts to peak (basing the mediocrity on your descriptions of his performance during the last season).

If he doped up due to knowing there would be no tests at those respective races then being mediocre for the remainder of the season would prove exactly the opposite of what you are suggesting.

 

[pmcg76]

You should compare JTL´s and Cassidy/Bagdonas/Fenn/McNally racing calendar during previous years. Kelly´s team has been much more international, if you check cqranking, you can see that they have ridden much more category .1 and above races. Tiernan-Locke was ill for several years amnd did not ride at all, when he started riding again from 2010, he rode local crits, at the same time Kelly´´s team got invitations to Tour Of Oman or Tour of Qatar or E3 Prijs Vlaanderen type of races. So, it is not surprising that these guys are better known, but it does not mean that they are better riders.

I already showed that Rapha had quite an international race calendar last year, maybe not as good as An Post but they rode many of the same races for example. Bagdonas is known because he won the Ras, Ronde de l'Oise and a stage at the TOB. Rapha were at the Ras but JTL was racing in France I think, they were at l'Oise with JTL and they were at TOB.

McNally won the MI-Aout Bretonne I think and I dont remember what Fenn achieved other than a big Worlds but I know JTL done 4-5 races in France but didnt really show in any of them. A lot of those races included a lot of the French teams that were at the races in the south of France recently.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Well , I for one dont see every bump in performance as evidence of doping. However when I see a very big bump in the space of a few months with no obvious explanations, then yes I tend to get suspicious.

Perhaps if there were a precedent for this kinda thing happening, a recent continental level pro destroying a ProTour level field. It would be more reassuing as it would illustrate that this kind of thing is not so unusual. Perhaps someone would be so kind as to provide me with some examples of this from the past. Would be most appreciated and I am aware of Fenn but he won bunch sprints which aint the same thing.

I can think of riders moving from conti pro to PT like D.Lloyd, Fleeman, Nordhaug, Kristoff, Brammier, Rasch, Downing, and oh yeah, Schumacher oh dear!!! Anyway, none of the guys I listed turned in performances like JTL.... well except Schumacher but I aint going to remember everyone but please if anyone has examples then bring them.

I also think its possible for lower level riders to win 2.1 races as many of them tend to be like a lottery anyway in that someone with excellent form could take the race if they get in the right break. However I dont see Tour du Haut-Var as one of those races, it is a race that has always had a high calibre of winner and there has to be a reason for that, it is most definitely not a lottery type race. It is easy to gauge what type a race is by it palmares.

I had no problem with JTL winning the first stage of the Med, I was surprised at him winning the final stage and taking the overall but I said ok, it was a truncated race so maybe thats the reason he won. But watching him ride yesterday like the rest of the field were dummies was too much. That French newspaper piece that RR linked had people commenting that his performance was like Riis which whilst I wouldnt go that far, it still says a lot.

I would love to be wrong as I have stated many times before but we have been in this situation too many times beforehand and fooled.

You keep going back to this point that TdHV has had "high caliber winners" ...... if JLT had not raced last weekend who would have won? Would you call them "high caliber'?

The TdHV is sadly one of the events that has suffered over the years as new races have been introduced.

 

[function]

Somebody should ask JV or accidentally stumble across power outputs for the last km. I tried mapping it out, but while I am almost certain that I got the exact route for the last km, the elevation map doesn't seem to match the steepness in the video in the last 200+ meters or so.

Maybe the numbers are within the realm of believable, but there's little way of knowing it without somebody being kind enough to share their power file.

Power data from the last hill won't give you any hints as to whether someone is on PEDs, it's just too short a duration to extrapolate from.

 

[BigBoat]

Power data from the last hill won't give you any hints as to whether someone is on PEDs, it's just too short a duration to extrapolate from.

Yeah, a 1 minute sprint isn't a direct indicator of aerobic capacity, however it is an indicator of fatigue level which is a direct reflection on FTP & how hard the rider has been working (higher FTP = easier effort).

ie (if a guy averaged 230 watts for 5 hours then is still able to sprint at 1,500 watts several times in the final 10 minutes of the race thats pretty damn suspicious.)

A sprinter is always going to have a lowish aerobic capacity per kilo. Yet you see sprinters averaging 250-280 watts for 5 hours then doing a 1,600 watt sprint!! Yeah....

 

[Benotti69]

If the season hasn't started, why are they racing?.

Sean kelly's season started on the 26th December every year with Waterford Wheelers CC hamper race.

These guys need these races to impress their own DS not just other potentials. They want selection for the big races so they got to ride well at these to show their talents and abilities.

 

[function]

Yeah, a 1 minute sprint isn't a direct indicator of aerobic capacity, however it is an indicator of fatigue level which is a direct reflection on FTP & how hard the rider has been working (higher FTP = easier effort).

ie (if a guy averaged 230 watts for 5 hours then is still able to sprint at 1,500 watts several times in the final 10 minutes of the race thats pretty damn suspicious.)

A sprinter is always going to have a lowish aerobic capacity per kilo. Yet you see sprinters averaging 250-280 watts for 5 hours then doing a 1,600 watt sprint!! Yeah....

I'm going to stick with my assertion that a short sprint effort is not going to provide any meaningful information when screening for PED use, i certainly would not consider using it in such a scenario that could ruin someone's livelihood.

 

[DirtyWorks]

These guys need these races to impress their own DS not just other potentials. They want selection for the big races so they got to ride well at these to show their talents and abilities.

I think the path to a strong suspicion of doping IN THIS CASE would be this win followed by pretty much no results at all and then another amazing place/win in a race with lots of viewers. This is the well-worn trajectory of dopers going back to the EPO days. Prior to EPO, the sharp end of most races was pretty consistent.

It could be a legitimate surprise win. Not likely, but maybe the stars aligned for the win.

This one goes in the same bucket as Froome's suspicious ride. Wait and see. Just don't expect the UCI to ever issue an Adverse Analytical Finding if they are doping.

 

[function]

Yeah, a 1 minute sprint isn't a direct indicator of aerobic capacity, however it is an indicator of fatigue level which is a direct reflection on FTP & how hard the rider has been working (higher FTP = easier effort).

ie (if a guy averaged 230 watts for 5 hours then is still able to sprint at 1,500 watts several times in the final 10 minutes of the race thats pretty damn suspicious.)

A sprinter is always going to have a lowish aerobic capacity per kilo. Yet you see sprinters averaging 250-280 watts for 5 hours then doing a 1,600 watt sprint!! Yeah....

Also regarding your examples, i even have personal training files where i've hit 1000W after averaging 200W (250W NP) for 4.5hrs, so 230W with 1500W (even several times) in the last few kilometres doesn't seem impossible for a world class sprinter especially with motivation (sadly my ride was solo and the sprint was against myself).

 

[maltiv]

You keep going back to this point that TdHV has had "high caliber winners" ...... if JLT had not raced last weekend who would have won? Would you call them "high caliber'?

The TdHV is sadly one of the events that has suffered over the years as new races have been introduced.

That doesn't say everything though as a "random" (meaning that they certainly weren't the strongest in the race) breakaway made it to the line both days. JTL won from the peloton both days by an enormous margin.

 

[pmcg76]

You keep going back to this point that TdHV has had "high caliber winners" ...... if JLT had not raced last weekend who would have won? Would you call them "high caliber'?

The TdHV is sadly one of the events that has suffered over the years as new races have been introduced.

Well I would agree that El Fares in not exactly on a par with previous winners, he is a rider that is well ahead of JTL in terms of results and standing, Top 30 in Tour de France aint nothing to sniff at but thats kinda the point really. JTL wasnt anywhere near there level beforehand but now all of a sudden he can make them look second rate.

 

[roundabout]

Power data from the last hill won't give you any hints as to whether someone is on PEDs, it's just too short a duration to extrapolate from.

Yes, that was wrong of me.

However, under certain assumptions it would seem that in this shape JTL is capable of contending for a high place in the Fleche.

That's why I am curious about the actual data to see how far off I am.