No one can do the double!

[Walkman]

Re: Re:

Any **** man from Sky can do it.

Hell, I fit the profile, overweight student to cycling champ, nothing extroardinary for Sky

Nonsense. Even the "worst" professional cyclist is something you'll never be.

How hard can it be? A VO2mx in the upper 70's is surly not that inconceivable.

How much can VO2 max improve with training?

I have no idea but quite a lot I presume. I mean, nobody is born with a V02max of 90 ml/kg/min. As I understand it, there is a genetically predetermined limit to how far you can push your VO2max. VO2max is limited by the circulatory and respiratory system from what I can tell. Then of course, it's a matter of mental toughness and discipline. It's not that easy to train as hard as you'll need to, in order to reach your potential max value.

 

[Matteo.]

I think Froome could do it. He is strong enough and especially has the right age to try.

 

[phanatic]

It really depends on the course and competition. Contador in 2011 was within four minutes of Evans, and that was after an especially difficult Giro course, and a crash early in the TdF.

 

[Ludwig's Olaf]

Do people finally get it? It can’t be done, not in this age when riders target one GT specifically. Certainly not by Contador, and based on 2012, when he did the Tour/Vuelta, I’d say not Froome, either. Froome was smart enough to realize that, Contador either was in denial about this, or rode the Giro because he wasn’t confident about winning the Tour, even without the Giro. Take your pick.

2011, when Contador was younger and stronger, should have convinced everyone that it wasn’t possible, but a lot of people here remained in denial. They said Contador didn’t specifically prepare for the double that time.

Of course he didn't prepare for the TdF because he was scheduled to face the inquisition in July 2011.

Froome can't win the Giro/TdF double because he almost certainly can't win the Giro. Can be freezing in May in Italy, sometimes snow, always rain on the tightes, steepest, most slippery or potholed descents in Europe. Sky wouldn't risk their most valuable asset anyway as long as the TdF is bigger business.

 

[Scarponi]

I cant see anyone doing any of the doubles for a long time.

 

[Carl0880]

Heck with winning the double, since Pantani did the Double, has anyone even podium in both the Giro and the Tour since then? TO my knowledge, the closest would have been Contador in '11. So If Contador can find a way to claw his way on to the podium for the Tour, managing a Top 3 in both, I would still be impressed.

Someone mention the crash in the Giro, but don't discount Astana's all out assault in the Giro as being a major factor. The pace was pretty much pushed everyday at the Giro. Many riders talked about that being the grand tour they had ridden in their entire life.

Contador has everyone's respect for his accomplishments, but lets not forget we got a pretty large crop of capable GT racers who are in their prime of careers or getting there. Let's examine the circumstances of the last double of Pantani. The only other GT contenders that was in the prime of their careers at the time was Ullrich and Tonkov. Remember that year of the Tour was the Festina affair, where 25% of the riders had dropped out. 3rd was Bobby Julich, and if I recall right 4th was Christophe Rinero. The Giro 3rd place was Giuseppi Guerini. If I recall right, the talent was so thin that Bettini finished Top 10 in that one. The timing was perfect.

Look at who has to be contended with now entering their prime.. For the Giro this year, Aru (24 y.o.) and Landa (25 y.o.) are both young, and Aru has podium back to back. YOu currently have in the Top 5 at the Tour Quintana (25), Van Garderen (26), This doesn't those in their prime, Nibali (30), and Froome (30). Then you have Contador (32) and Valverde (35) who the consistent riders even as they are getting on to the back side of their careers. IM not including in this list Pinot (25) who was 3rd last year and Bardet (24 i believe) who was Top 5. SO unless you see some reform where more of these riders try and participate in both Giro and the Tour, is going to be hard to win against that many contenders is in their prime.

For someone to complete the Double I think it will take the following:
- Someone in their prime, who's main competition is almost all very young, or past their prime.
- Both the Giro and the Tour have course more tailored made to that one riders ability then the rest. Example, In 2012 TDF, that course was hand made for Wiggins, because of his extreme advantage in the TTs he produced. That situation for both the Giro and Tour.
- Or vice versa, maybe in about 3 or 4 years, when Froome and Nibali are 33/34, and Contador is retired, Quintana participates in both, and both courses have very little TTs, and a bunch of Mountains a la this TDF. Not saying this is guaranteed, since we don't know how a bunch of these younger riders will develop, but I am just using this as an outside scenario of a possibility.
-The guy going for the Double has extremely strong team, with fresh guys. As strong as Contadors team looked on paper, I didn't think bringing the same 3 or 4 guys from the Giro has his main support was the best ideas, especially since Basso and Rogers are in their upper 30s. If your captain is not going to have fresh legs, then you need the support riders to have fresh legs to help the captain defend.

 

[42x16ss]

Re:

as sky seem to be very tour centric it seems far more likely that he would go Tour - Vuelta double. the second GT is the hardest but the vuelta tends to have the least competition, in addition the Vuelta tends to have more stages with just one mountain as the final ascent (sky forte), and his preference for heat lends iself to this being the preferred option.
if he did double up next year he could then target the 100th Giro in 2017 and if successful hold all the GT's at the same time in a much easier way than contador was targeting, it would be 'the skinny slam'.

The Vuelta usually has good competition in terms of names, the issue is how fresh everyone is coming into the last third of the year. The accumulated fatigue starts showing, and doesn't always play out how you expect.

I suspect Contador's 2008 Giro and Vuelta will be the last time anyone wins 2 GT's in one year for quite a while, unless Froome goes for a minimalist approach to the TdF, and takes things easy heading into the Vuelta. IMHO the Giro is too unpredictable for Froome, in terms of racing, terrain and weather, as Wigans learned.

 

[TommyGun]

Do people finally get it? It can’t be done, not in this age when riders target one GT specifically. Certainly not by Contador, and based on 2012, when he did the Tour/Vuelta, I’d say not Froome, either. Froome was smart enough to realize that, Contador either was in denial about this, or rode the Giro because he wasn’t confident about winning the Tour, even without the Giro. Take your pick.

2011, when Contador was younger and stronger, should have convinced everyone that it wasn’t possible, but a lot of people here remained in denial. They said Contador didn’t specifically prepare for the double that time.

Of course he didn't prepare for the TdF because he was scheduled to face the inquisition in July 2011.

Froome can't win the Giro/TdF double because he almost certainly can't win the Giro. Can be freezing in May in Italy, sometimes snow, always rain on the tightes, steepest, most slippery or potholed descents in Europe. Sky wouldn't risk their most valuable asset anyway as long as the TdF is bigger business.

Absolutely. Froome may be the least Giro-compatible GC contender. Sky still hasn't cracked the Giro equation, failing repeatedly with Wiggins and Porte (I am not even speaking of 2014, when they sent their C-team). This GT is just too crazy for their rational ways. And there is no way a skeleton-looking Froome would survive the harsh conditions of the Dolomites in May.

 

[cellardoor]

@Carl0880 - Good and well thought out post

One thing I'd add, which I mentioned previously in the Contador thread. Indurain and Pantani were head and shoulders above their competition in their respective specialisms. I think this meant that even when not at 100% they could still take time in the TTs and mountains respectively. On the other hand, whilst Froome is arguably the best climber at the moment, I wouldn't say the gap to guys like Nibali, Quintana and Contador is as great as it was between Pantani and his closest rivals. In particular, I think Indurain had even more of an advantage because I've noticed that TTers tend to be able to pull out a good TT even when out of form (e.g. Ullrich in '06 Giro), whereas the same is generally not true for climbers.

 

[VO2 Max]

Well Tour-Vuelta has to be the more likely double while the TdF remains so commercially important to the teams. A guy like Froome after winning the Tour would have nothing to lose having a bash at the Vuelta, and even if he's at a fairly low level ride defensively in the mountains and a competent timetrial and he gives himself a good chance - there're always other guys that have bad days or drop out. If it doesn't work out he won't be too bothered because he'd already have won the Tour which was the season goal anyway. It's totally different to the risk scenario of going for the Giro before and limiting your Tour chances.

A guy with the timetrial dominance of Indurain would have had a shot at winning all three in 92/93 if the Vuelta date change had come slightly earlier. Not a guarantee by any means but after winning the first two why not rock up, smash the timetrial and see what happens?

 

[cellardoor]

Re:

A guy with the timetrial dominance of Indurain would have had a shot at winning all three in 92/93 if the Vuelta date change had come slightly earlier. Not a guarantee by any means but after winning the first two why not rock up, smash the timetrial and see what happens?

I dunno as Indurain has commented on how long it took him to recover from just the doubles, let alone trebles. If he'd attempted all three in say '92 it could well have resulted in his career ending even earlier than it did. Whilst many will speculate on doping issues and perhaps the upcoming Ullrich as causing his early retirement, Delgado mentioned that he thought Indurain was over-raced.

 

[DBotero]

Nibali was very close in 2013 to add La Vuelta to his Giro win.Might surprise a few next year if he doesn't target Le Tour.
Tour-Vuelta double might be possible in certain conditions.The only one which looks impossible is the Giro-Tour double.

 

[jilbiker]

Re: Re:

Contador didnt look good at the giro and certainly doesnt look good now.

Actually this entire year he didnt look as good as last year. Most thought that was because he had to be at his best for the Tour, but that's not it apparently.

Yeah, he has looked sub-par the entire year. Maybe age is catching up on him.
Though I thought he was in decline in 2013 and he was amazing in 2014. Maybe the same will happen in 2016

The motivation is gone. it was gone since the Clem ban. I think he felt cycling let him down there and really lost interest in the sport. The 2011 Giro was AC saying puff! to UCI and cycling in general, he knew the ban was coming so one last hurrah. 2014 was probably Tinkoff saying shape up or ship. But such motivation can only last a breath. Its astounding that an sub-par motivated AC won 3 GTs. Now he is probably counting down on when he will exit the sport, like a prisoner counting his days to release. Th double was a last ditch effort to find some purpose, a reason to wake up each morning and climb a bicycle as a job. It failed miserably. Failed to motivate him, his weight, his training seemed ordinary at best.

The double can be done but it needs great interest and great sacrifice, including doing one 10 day high intensity training session between Giro and TDF. to do that HIT in a mountain region with your body still partially screaming from the Giro pain will either make you quit the double or move to another level where pain is an oxymoron. Is pain? Yes, Do you feel it? No.

 

[Escarabajo]

Apologies but I just thought I'd bump this on the chance someone who knows something about the answer missed it. There's a lot of science on preparation for and effects of efforts over short periods (eg max lift, sprints), longer sustained efforts (eg 10k, marathon). But what about the process of recovery over something like a GT, or the effects of a sustained multiweek effort on subsequent performance?

A literature that would address questions like:
How does physiology change over the course of a GT?
How long does it take to recover from a GT?
What differences between individuals predict quick and/or full recovery?

There's aerobic fitness, anaerobic fitness, but is there a literature on the kind of fitness required for recovery within and between efforts like GTs? eg recovering from the effects of sustained multiweek high efforts?

You are probably asking in the wrong forum. In the Clinic you would get some answers.

There was some discussion about asking for data about the change in parameters over a three week race. Now is hard to get. Everybody safeguard this kind of data for known reasons. If you get something is old or from a clean rider who nobody knows or care for. So people would say is not applicable. But from a top contender. Probably never.

Then you have to get the data between races. To follow up with data for the second race. You are going to have to ask Contador for that. Not sure who has that data.

 

[Catwhoorg]

Re: Re:

How much can VO2 max improve with training?

Depends on the individual. VO2 max improvement with training as with many of these things falls onto a a rough bell curve.

There are some people who will not get any noticeable improvement,no matter how hard they try, and some who can get very significant improvements, I have seen the figure of 20% cited in popular articles, but have never dug round to find the primary sources for that figure, so treat it with a grain of salt.

Of course things like LT are very trainable, even in people who don't get much if nay increase in VO2max

 

[ILovecycling]

Re: Re:

How much can VO2 max improve with training?

Depends on the individual. VO2 max improvement with training as with many of these things falls onto a a rough bell curve.

There are some people who will not get any noticeable improvement,no matter how hard they try, and some who can get very significant improvements, I have seen the figure of 20% cited in popular articles, but have never dug round to find the primary sources for that figure, so treat it with a grain of salt.

Of course things like LT are very trainable, even in people who don't get much if nay increase in VO2max

Really?
I read a lot about improving Vo2max and 20% is a surreal number I think.10% or 115% at max I think.Some people have improved their vo2max about 8 or 9 units during their active sportive life and those were the best examples.

 

[Angliru]

Re:

If anyone can do it, it would be Froome. Could see him doing Tour-Vuelta possibly, and definitely Giro-Vuelta (if he ever decides to go for something other than the Tour), but Giro-Tour is just such a hard feat

He was 10 minutes down on the winner in his one and only attempt at consecutive grand tours. He himself has stated in the past that he's not constituted to compete for the gc back-to-back

 

[IndianCyclist]

Re: Re:

If anyone can do it, it's Froome. Best climber, best time trialler when he wants to, best team.

More importantly, Froome already won the Tour fatigued. By quite some margin. Would a 3 week Giro be more tiring than 1 week Tirreno 1 week Romandie, 1 week Dauphine etc etc. Probably. But then again Froome claims to train 10 hours a day even when he's not racing.

I think Froome could easily do it. Contador 09 could alos have easily done it.

Is there any source for this. I remember LA training for 6 hrs and then Landis being mentioned as training 8 hrs per day during his epic ride. 10 hrs training + 10 hrs sleep leaves only 4 hrs for the other things including tweeting . Is it possible???

 

[Walkman]

Re: Re:

How much can VO2 max improve with training?

Depends on the individual. VO2 max improvement with training as with many of these things falls onto a a rough bell curve.

There are some people who will not get any noticeable improvement,no matter how hard they try, and some who can get very significant improvements, I have seen the figure of 20% cited in popular articles, but have never dug round to find the primary sources for that figure, so treat it with a grain of salt.

Of course things like LT are very trainable, even in people who don't get much if nay increase in VO2max

Really?
I read a lot about improving Vo2max and 20% is a surreal number I think.10% or 115% at max I think.Some people have improved their vo2max about 8 or 9 units during their active sportive life and those were the best examples.

Pretty sure you are a bit off here. I highly doubt you are born with a VO2 max of say 80+ ml/kg/min.

 

[ILovecycling]

Re: Re:

How much can VO2 max improve with training?

Depends on the individual. VO2 max improvement with training as with many of these things falls onto a a rough bell curve.

There are some people who will not get any noticeable improvement,no matter how hard they try, and some who can get very significant improvements, I have seen the figure of 20% cited in popular articles, but have never dug round to find the primary sources for that figure, so treat it with a grain of salt.

Of course things like LT are very trainable, even in people who don't get much if nay increase in VO2max

Really?
I read a lot about improving Vo2max and 20% is a surreal number I think.10% or 115% at max I think.Some people have improved their vo2max about 8 or 9 units during their active sportive life and those were the best examples.

Pretty sure you are a bit off here. I highly doubt you are born with a VO2 max of say 80+ ml/kg/min.

no, cuz 80 is a top number, but lets say 70's...vo2max is most impacted by genes and ambient in which you are born (altitude, weather conditions) not training.Unfortunately

 

[gregrowlerson]

Another good thread. Sneaks onto the podium behind the ninja and most exciting - or not - recent Tours ones.

With regards to the Vuelta, why haven't some riders tried it more often after the Tour? As has been pointed out, very few top GC riders ever specifically target it, so why didn't Lance ever say, "what the hell?" Or would trying it and losing have removed his guise of supremacy?

And Ullrich. In 2004 he struggled in the middle of the Tour with illness, but was much stronger in the third week, the second strongest in the race despite missing the podium in Paris. Why not carry that form into the Vuelta?

I also think that more riders should specifically target the Vuelta. I'd like to see Porte just ride the Giro and Vuelta next season for example. But I guess the need to please sponsors and to have super domestiques means that those riders are required to be on duty in July.

 

[SergeDeM]

Giro-Tour? Don't think it can be done. Don't think it's ever been done by a clean rider.
Giro-Vuelta? Doable.
Tour-Vuelta? Maybe doable, but not by an anglo. You'd have to really respect the Vuelta in order to actually bring all your mental strenght to it.

 

[Netserk]

Re:

Giro-Tour? Don't think it can be done. Don't think it's ever been done by a clean rider.
Giro-Vuelta? Doable. Don't think it's ever been done by a clean rider.
Tour-Vuelta? Maybe doable, but not by an anglo. You'd have to really respect the Vuelta in order to actually bring all your mental strenght to it. Don't think it's ever been done by a clean rider.

Fyp. If you add it to one of them, surely it should be added to all?

 

[SergeDeM]

Re: Re:

Giro-Tour? Don't think it can be done. Don't think it's ever been done by a clean rider.
Giro-Vuelta? Doable. Don't think it's ever been done by a clean rider.
Tour-Vuelta? Maybe doable, but not by an anglo. You'd have to really respect the Vuelta in order to actually bring all your mental strenght to it. Don't think it's ever been done by a clean rider.

Fyp. If you add it to one of them, surely it should be added to all?

That's your view, not mine. I suppose that since the Vuelta calendar shift only Contador has done the Giro-Vuelta double so you "may" be right about that, but the point I wanted to make is that Giro-Vuelta is a possibility even without clinic issues. And no one's ever done Tour-Vuelta, right?

 

[Merckx index]

It seems that most of the TDF contenders. maybe including Froome, are riding the Vuelta this year? It makes more sense to me to attempt the Tour-Vuelta double, because the Tour is the more important race. You go in there fresh, and if you win, your season is made, it doesn’t matter what happens after that.

If I were a major GC contender, I would try the Vuelta double after winning my first or second TDF. If I pulled it off, I would try the Giro-Tour double, though maybe not the next year, as that would be four GTs in a row. If I won the Giro but came up short in the Tour, I would focus mainly on the Tour after that. But at some point, particularly if I had failed in the Tour-Vuelta double, I would go for the Giro-Vuelta double.

That is the way to maximize TDF wins, obviously the most important, while still having a good chance not only to win each of the other two, but to pull off a double of some kind.

How much can VO2 max improve with training?

Depends on the individual. VO2 max improvement with training as with many of these things falls onto a a rough bell curve.

There are some people who will not get any noticeable improvement,no matter how hard they try, and some who can get very significant improvements, I have seen the figure of 20% cited in popular articles, but have never dug round to find the primary sources for that figure, so treat it with a grain of salt.

Of course things like LT are very trainable, even in people who don't get much if nay increase in VO2max

I think the more important point is that whatever improvement you do get, the V02max generally stabilizes fairly early in a rider's career. E.g., in a study by Santalla et al. discussed in the Clinic, twelve elite riders, including GT winners and podium placers, were studied over a period of four years, beginning at an average age of 22-23. The mean V02max/kg of the group did not change over the four year period.