Pulling a Wiggins

[TailWindHome]

Well, not exactly, first of all, even without tts Wiggins still would have won the most important race- the 2012 Tour de France, which is quite some achievement for a tt specialist - to have beaten everyone even with the tts.

On paper maybe. They race on tarmac however.

 

[Digger]

St. Jonathan of Vaughters said the machine was dodgy that day. Seems Garmin suffer a lot of dodgy machine readings for their riders in the 3rd week of GT's.

Yeah that's a heads I win, tails you lose kind of argument from Vaughters.

 

[martinvickers]

Tdf+gdi+wc+tdr > tdf+pn+tdr+dl+oitt

gdi+wc>pn+dl+oitt

Remember too, the Olympic time trial is a red herring in comparisons - there was none until the 1990's

 

[Digger]

29 50 is gold!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2AiCVzx2L8

 

[BYOP88]

29 50 is gold!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2AiCVzx2L8

Check the group he's with: Armstrong, Kloden, Evans, Nibali, Kreuziger, F.Schleck and Sastre. Great poster for clean cycling there.

 

[Digger]

Michael Ashenden had this to say about Floyd Landis' hemoglobin results from the 2006 Tour:

"Going from 15.5 to 16.1 (in hemoglobin) is not that unusual when not competing," Ashenden said by phone from Australia. "But it is very unusual to see an increase after a hard week of cycling. You’d expect it to be the reverse. You’d expect that to fall in a clean athlete. An increase like this in the midst of the Tour de France would be highly, highly unlikely.

"There’s nothing where I could point to one value and say, ‘This guy definitely doped.’ But it raises red flags for me. I would definitely recommend to anti-doping authorities that an athlete presenting these values should be target-tested for blood doping."

Wiggins' hemoglobin result rose from about 14.4 on the first rest day to about 15.2 on the second rest day.

 

[martinvickers]

Not flat. 7.5% average gradient

That is hillarious. the clip is a total smackdown to 2 of the biggest defenses of wiggins - that he only emerged when cycling became clean, and that he only did well when he put his head to the 2012 course after he saw it was all tts.
Wait a minute, that's 2009 its dirty as hell, and Wiggins has just come off a brutal giro and suddenly decided he wants to come top 20 in the tour, having 0 experience with climbing and there he is climbing in an elite group with the best 4 climbers in the world, 3 of them who we now know were heavily doped, 1 who even Wiggins fans wouldn't argue, wasn't.

I've taken a screenshot

1.Do we have to go through this 2009 - one of the dirtiest - nonsense again? You keep pushing it, it keeps not stacking up. dopers? certainly? One of the dirtiest? compared with Epo-Pallooza of the 90's and the Armstrong peak years? sure thing, boss.

2. Let's ignore the fact that in the next 5 k, Contador put a minute 6 into wiggins from this position, Schelck A 23 seconds into him, that a youthful Nibali caught AND passed him from here, that Sastre pulled right back up to him, and Evans all but made it back up.

Let's ignore that Armstrong, doping or not, was 37, or how he was somehow spectacularly better on Ventoux than here, where he cracked like an egg.

Let's ignore that the heads of state were all marking each other till Berti went, and when he did Wiggins (and Franck for that matter) couldn't follow.

Yep, let's all any facts, context or evidence if it doesn't suit an agenda.

Whatever you want, boss.

 

[TailWindHome]

I've taken a screenshot

What happens next Hitch?

Does he attack and win the stage?

Or get dropped and lose time?

 

[martinvickers]

to be fair to you I only saw the joke bit after I had posted...so fair enough.

I like it better when we have a good barney, but try and keep it on good civil terms. I'm trying, and to be fair, I think you are too. Which has to be good, right?

 

[sniper]

Michael Ashenden had this to say about Floyd Landis' hemoglobin results from the 2006 Tour:

"Going from 15.5 to 16.1 (in hemoglobin) is not that unusual when not competing," Ashenden said by phone from Australia. "But it is very unusual to see an increase after a hard week of cycling. You’d expect it to be the reverse. You’d expect that to fall in a clean athlete. An increase like this in the midst of the Tour de France would be highly, highly unlikely.

"There’s nothing where I could point to one value and say, ‘This guy definitely doped.’ But it raises red flags for me. I would definitely recommend to anti-doping authorities that an athlete presenting these values should be target-tested for blood doping."

Wiggins' hemoglobin result rose from about 14.4 on the first rest day to about 15.2 on the second rest day.

interesting. do you have a link to the boldfaced part?

 

[Digger]

1.Do we have to go through this 2009 - one of the dirtiest - nonsense again? You keep pushing it, it keeps not stacking up. dopers? certainly? One of the dirtiest? compared with Epo-Pallooza of the 90's and the Armstrong peak years? sure thing, boss.

2. Let's ignore the fact that in the next 5 k, Contador put a minute 6 into wiggins from this position, Schelck A 23 seconds into him, that a youthful Nibali caught AND passed him from here, that Sastre pulled right back up to him, and Evans all but made it back up.

Let's ignore that Armstrong, doping or not, was 37, or how he was somehow spectacularly better on Ventoux than here, where he cracked like an egg.

Let's ignore that the heads of state were all marking each other till Berti went, and when he did Wiggins (and Franck for that matter) couldn't follow.

Yep, let's all any facts, context or evidence if it doesn't suit an agenda.

Whatever you want, boss.

Just so we are both clear here Martin going forward, as it would probably save us both time and energy going forward, do you think it's possible to be clean and beat riders who dope with oxygen vector doping methods, such as EPO or blood doping, over a three week GT?

 

[The Hitch]

1.Do we have to go through this 2009 - one of the dirtiest - nonsense again?
One of the dirtiest? compared with Epo-Pallooza of the 90's and the Armstrong peak years? sure thing, boss.

Where in that quoted post did I say it was one of the dirtiest, or make any comparison to the 90's?

 

[Justinr]

On paper maybe. They race on tarmac however.

That made me chuckle.

Its a fair point though - had Nibs been much closer due to no TTs then possibly he may have dug deeper to have more of a go in the mountains and take the jersey.

 

[Digger]

interesting. do you have a link to the boldfaced part?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/photos/wiggins-values-point-to-cleaner-peloton/82092

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

What does "Highest VAM ever recorded" actually mean?

All other things equal, VAM depends on the length of the climb, so without some context, the quote is meaningless.

Do it mean highest VAM on that particular, climb, highest VAM on a climb with that profile, highest VAM on a Tour stage, highest ever recorded on a bike for any categorised climb etc?

 

[BYOP88]

What happens next Hitch?

Does he attack and win the stage?

Or get dropped and lose time?

Wiggins loses 3 seconds to Niabli, finished in the same time as F.Schleck and Sastre and gains time on Armstrong, Kloden, Evans and Kreuziger who were all in a group together with around 3km to the finish. He dropped 66 seconds to Dirty Bertie and dropped 23 seconds to Andy Schleck. Not a bad effort for a former bus user.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Very quick off topic but just one question, was Roche working with Conconi in 87, or was it later when Conconi was testing the effects of EPO?

Conconi started doing biomedical research on athletes in 1980.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

And the 2012 TdF had considerably more TT KMs than those previous 4:

2012 TdF : 101
2012 Giro : 70
2011 Vuelta : 56
2011 TdF : 66
2011 Giro : 58

And what was BW's speciality? Oh yes TTs...

Froome pretty much dragged Wiggo through the mountains by a rope, drafting him nearly the whole way. One thing you can say about BW is he can definitely hold someones wheel well. All those years of TP probably.

2009 Tour : 56km
Dopers in the top 3: 3
Dopers in the top 4: 4
Froomes / Wiggo draggers in 2009 Tour: 0

(Great pic!!)

 

[The Hitch]

On paper maybe. They race on tarmac however.

If you follow the discussion you will see we've been talking about on paper the whole time. Starting with martins post where he said that without tts "Wiggins doesn't win the dauphine", romandie, pn etc. By those same standards, he does win the tour, even without tts.

 

[hrotha]

Hitch, that was beautiful.

And the 2012 TdF had considerably more TT KMs than those previous 4:

2012 TdF : 101
2012 Giro : 70
2011 Vuelta : 56
2011 TdF : 66
2011 Giro : 58

And what was BW's speciality? Oh yes TTs...

Again with this. It might work if it weren't for the fact that no one other than his own teammate managed to put time on him on any mountain stage. In other words, Wiggins would still have won in a course with a lot fewer ITT km.

 

[The Hitch]

What does "Highest VAM ever recorded" actually mean?

All other things equal, VAM depends on the length of the climb, so without some context, the quote is meaningless.

Do it mean highest VAM on that particular, climb, highest VAM on a climb with that profile, highest VAM on a Tour stage, highest ever recorded on a bike for any categorised climb etc?

Fair question. I am referring to the science of sport guys who compared it to other mtfs from tdf history and said contador verbier had a higher Vam than Riis hautacam et al. Shorter climb? Yes it is. It's also not as steep which might offset the length partly. Ok It might not be the most impressive.mountain performance ever, some would argue it is, vayer I think calculated it was equal to pantanis record on alpe, but I don't need it to be. Even if it's only the 10th fastest stage ever, the overall point is that with a Vam that high it clearly was epo era pace.

 

[The Hitch]

A side observation, funny how froome lost half his career because it was so difficult to figure out the tactics of riding mountain stages that he never did anything in any of them.

Wiggins on the other hand, on his first attempt, 0 experience riding mountains for gc, already has all the tactics figured out.

How dumb is froome?

 

[Justinr]

Hitch, that was beautiful.

Again with this. It might work if it weren't for the fact that no one other than his own teammate managed to put time on him on any mountain stage. In other words, Wiggins would still have won in a course with a lot fewer ITT km.

I don't doubt that, but a course which has relatively much more TT will give him an advantage. As I pointed out he made 5 mins of the 6 mins over Nibali just from the TTs.

 

[martinvickers]

Well, not exactly, first of all, even without tts Wiggins still would have won the most important race- the 2012 Tour de France, which is quite some achievement for a tt specialist - to have beaten everyone even with the tts.

There have been 100 tours, and many fewer winners. Its ALWAYS an achievment to win the Tour, regardless of when, and (doping aside) regardless of how - wiggins achievement, per se, is no more of an achievement than any other one time winner, and significantly less of an achievement than many others who won more stages, or more Tours or had more podiums. It was a singular achievement for 2012 - but for all times? nah.


If you take the view the previous 98 winners prior to 2012 were all won by dopers, and could not have been won clean, you will of course conclude that 2012 is most likely the same. But to me, that's a declaration of faith, not an analysis.

As for wiggins, 2012 and would he have won it even without TT -
I highly doubt it - without a lot of TT km -

1. froome is Sky's leader for starters
2. Nibali can choose his attacks better.

That said, it's worth noting - nobody who finished in front of him in 2009 was here. in 2009 he beat Nibali (admittedly a young nibali), he beat Evans. Frankly, 2009, on its own, out of context is rather more difficult to explain than 2012. Once you accept 2009 happened, and 2011 vuelta, and Contador's ban and Schleck's break, and the elongated TT, 2012 becomes, not just believable, but frankly, dare I say it - likely - a near perfect Storm - of course Franck pops and Cadel pukes, just to make things even better.

That's before he shows his form from dauphine 2011 all the way through.

Secondly, what you said was that if there had been 0 tt's in any of those races Wiggins wouldn't have won, which is taking it a bit to the extreme since all those races generally have tts. PN had a longer tt the year before. Dauphine always has 1 long tt and a prologue, same as when Wiggins won it. Why does it matter who would have won those races if they didn't have time trials if they always have time trials?

Because the original point, buried in the mist of this thread, has always been, how did this track endurance rider, with the big watts, start winning stage races that involved mountains. The answer being, he got better on mountains and he piled it on in the TT's where he was always pretty good. Like many GC winners before him, to be fair. Even before Poe.

You yourself have suggested he was (suspiciously) some sort of mountain goat in 2012, or in 2009. He wasn't. He was good. Damn good on the last mountain actually, just as he was once or twice in 2009. But in 2012 he played basically to his strength on a parcours that suited his strength more than any since he turned exclusively to the road. not just the long TT, though that was vital, but the relative lack of summit finishes.

Personally, I actually foud his 2009 Tour and 2011 Vuelta more impresive, oddly.

Even if we follow your logic - no tts whatsoever, from what I saw you said about the Dauphine he would have still beaten Evans, and lost to Vino by 10 seconds or so. - So in a race with 2 major mountain stages, - Wiggins, the tt specialist, still would have come on the podium even with no tts.

not really, I didn't check anyone outside the top 3; i was merely making the point the TT seconds won him the races - I'm, pretty sure without TT's other racers outide the final top 3 woud also have overtaken - certianly Purito in one of them. I'm not convinced he makes the podium of ANY of these races without TTs. Because that's what he is - a pretty classy (not best, certainly not GOAT, but darn good) TTer who can do pretty well, but not spectacular in the mountains.

How he does that is another question, but it's really the idea he's a mountain goat I'm challengeing here.

Also 2 of those tts - Paris Nice and Romandie, the tt was uphill, so far more suited to climbers. Wiggins still won them, Crans despite the fact that he had a puncture and had to stop to change bikes.

And in Paris Nice and Romandie the big tt was at the end - after a week of racing. In wiggos case after a week of racing for gc. So recovery was important as well. None of which troubled wiggo.

i'm not arguing with you on this.

In my view, a rider who rides like wiggins did would have done exceptionally well in Tours all through the 1980's. Can you imagine giving brad 3 long TT's to inflict damage? true, he's have been facing all time greats, but 159 of ITT km in 1985?

2012 is an anomoly in the recent era - but closer to the norm historically. it's the zig zaggy mountainfests with summit finishes akimbo to decide the prizes of today which are the historical anomoly in that sense. Why, much as i like him, I'm not convinced Quintana gets much closer to a TdF - 2013 was near perfect for him.

Maybe the reduction was brought in because of the likes of Indurain and Armstrong. who knows why ASO does what it does. I still can't figure out why they laid on tons of TTT purely for Armstrong...well, I can, but you know what I mean.

Nope, he didn't climb like Pantani. On the other hand, Pantani never ttd like Wiggins. Is only climbing suspect? Being a good tter more indicative of being clean? I don't know, taking a look at riders who won the worlds and olympic tts- Ullrich, Hamilton, Indurain, Olano, Rogers, Millar, Botero, I don't agree.

No, no. I'm not suggesting that at all. Indeed, most of the 'Giants' of the Tour, Jacques, Bernard, Fignon, Indurain, Lemond even to an extent Merckx, have actually done it broadly be dominating TT, and no-one would claim these giants (Lemond apart) were broadly cleans.

I'm not trying to claim Wiggins is clean. I don't know. Not a clue. And I'll not be stunned, given the sport, to find out he is jacked to the nines, honestly. I don't like the guy, comes across as a t*sser. But I think the ASSUMPTION that winning=doping, improving=doping, perfomance=doping is poisonous and actually detracts from good analysis. It actual gets in the way of practical steps to reduce doping. It's easier to sneer att hem all than to investigate, you know?

When you put together decent evidence, you're an excellent poster. but when the bile clouds the judgement - as it seems to do with Wiggins from time to time - I have to challenge that, you know?

 

[TailWindHome]

If you follow the discussion you will see we've been talking about on paper the whole time. Starting with martins post where he said that without tts "Wiggins doesn't win the dauphine", romandie, pn etc. By those same standards, he does win the tour, even without tts.

It's a big stretch to apply the same standards to 3 week GT however.