Richie Porte - what do we know about him?

[JimmyFingers]

take it as a compliment Richie.

winning = doping

doping is cycling

doping has zero to do with ideals and ethics. its pro sport baby. its about the W.


just ride. ride fast. and tightwalk the politics unlike Ricco.
Be a nice guy like Froome-dawg.

then you win.

Richie, FTW

Worth repeating. I LOLed

 

[zigmeister]

"Porte explains that Sky’s dominance is partly down to the new techniques they’ve employed since 2010 as well as a comprehensive recruitment of talented riders. Two years ago they were laughed at when they began warming up and cooling down on rollers at races. A few races later and after riders had been shelled out of the back in the opening kilometres of races, no one was laughing anymore."


Ummm...ok. But it was Sky who were shelling guys off the back...not the other way around.

 

[BYOP88]

The warm up is a red herring. Look guys warming up before a TT http://youtu.be/A5w4rhr0fCE or http://youtu.be/Lo0wO0CZ5sY. I'm sure if it was essential as Sky like to make out some coach like Dr F, would've had USPS doing it years ago. Also Froome didn't do it yesterday and didn't finish last today.

 

[BroDeal]

The warm up is a red herring. Look guys warming up before a TT http://youtu.be/A5w4rhr0fCE or http://youtu.be/Lo0wO0CZ5sY. I'm sure if it was essential as Sky like to make out some coach like Dr F, would've had USPS doing it years ago. Also Froome didn't do it yesterday and didn't finish last today.

When you tell a lot of lies, it is hard to keep your story straight. I'm sure someone at Sky will remind Froome that warming down is part of the official cover story so he needs to be seen doing it. He'll be back on message in no time.

 

[blackcat]

When you tell a lot of lies, it is hard to keep your story straight. I'm sure someone at Sky will remind Froome that warming down is part of the official cover story so he needs to be seen doing it. He'll be back on message in no time.

all genuine advantages that can be neutralised, will find equilibrium.

simple market dynamic. think you have referenced this before bro. or was it TFF?

 

[BroDeal]

all genuine advantages that can be neutralised, will find equilibrium.

simple market dynamic. think you have referenced this before bro. or was it TFF?

I have mentioned it before. Efficient market theory applied to training and equipment. Anything that works will be quickly adopted by everyone, especially with the movement of riders from team to team. Any honest marginal gain that gives an advantage should spread throughout the entire cycling community. Corrupt officials, tip-offs from doping officials, exclusive agreement with doping docs, etc. distort the market.

 

[blackcat]

which is why a genuine advantage, wont be trumpeted to the meedja

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Amazing that nobody thought of warming up or warming down before team Sky. Just amazing.

It's almost they have their own Chris Carmichael, with all these brilliant ideas.

 

[blackcat]

instead of marginal gains, the euphemism shud b

rounding errors

 

[observer]

they ride at 420w so noone can attack.
thats fair enough i guess, but doesn't it mean that every single team should have 5 or 6 riders at the front riding 420w, so noone can attack at all.

then let the TT sort it out? so really every contender should train to hold about 420-450w uphill, and really put everything into TT.

Once every other team starts warming up and warming down, training together as a team and selecting the right riders, then we should see some great competitions....

 

[coinneach]

they ride at 420w so noone can attack.
thats fair enough i guess, but doesn't it mean that every single team should have 5 or 6 riders at the front riding 420w, so noone can attack at all.

then let the TT sort it out? so really every contender should train to hold about 420-450w uphill, and really put everything into TT.

Once every other team starts warming up and warming down, training together as a team and selecting the right riders, then we should see some great competitions....

It was interesting in the Nibali interview, how he'd like to ban power meters from racing as he thinks they give Sky an advantage in the way they ride.

Discussion about this aspect of performance management has been absent from most of the posts: have we been missing the obvious?

 

[observer]

It was interesting in the Nibali interview, how he'd like to ban power meters from racing as he thinks they give Sky an advantage in the way they ride.

Discussion about this aspect of performance management has been absent from most of the posts: have we been missing the obvious?

maybe. I think the whole idea about marginal gains is credible enough in isolation, but you'd really need to assume that no other team is, or has ever been, professional enough to look into details.

I just can't see that as a possibility, but if it is true, and its really amateur hour in pro cycling, then the teams deserve to lose to the likes of Ritchie Porte and co.

However, it just stinks, and the rhetoric is annoying.

 

[coinneach]

maybe. I think the whole idea about marginal gains is credible enough in isolation, but you'd really need to assume that no other team is, or has ever been, professional enough to look into details.

I just can't see that as a possibility, but if it is true, and its really amateur hour in pro cycling, then the teams deserve to lose to the likes of Ritchie Porte and co.

However, it just stinks, and the rhetoric is annoying.

No, I'm not talking about marginal gains: even Kerrison has dismissed that. Obviously any team can have power meters, but they do seem to suit the way Sky ride (and train for races?)

 

[martinvickers]

No, I'm not talking about marginal gains: even Kerrison has dismissed that. Obviously any team can have power meters, but they do seem to suit the way Sky ride (and train for races?)

I heard a reporter on the radio recently describe it as being like catenaccio. Boring, ultra-defensive, ultra-regimented and , ultimately, tactically brilliant.

It was on some else's car radio and it was an English station, so i can't source it for you, i'm afraid. But the gist was that other teams were just as professional, but philosophically simply had a more instinctive, individualistic world view - like Dutch footballers - then he noted that the italians have 4 world cups, and the dutch none...

 

[Weapons of @ss Destruction]

I heard a reporter on the radio recently describe it as being like catenaccio. Boring, ultra-defensive, ultra-regimented and , ultimately, tactically brilliant.

There's nothing tactically brilliant about it. It's all about watts, and nothing else. Sky has more watts and therefore they win. Tell me, what was the last team that was able to consistently put a stranglehold on the peloton in such a fashion? I'll give you one guess.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

There's nothing tactically brilliant about it. It's all about watts, and nothing else. Sky has more watts and therefore they win. Tell me, what was the last team that was able to consistently put a stranglehold on the peloton in such a fashion? I'll give you one guess.

Team Type 1?

 

[BroDeal]

Team Type 1?

Team IGF-1.

...

 

[The Hitch]

The football analogy is absolute crap because it suggests sky have an equal team to everyone else and win through tactics.

That doesnt make sense since Sky are the ones burning their riders far out in stages so if other teams had anything like the same caliber riders they could then use their domestiques - who are not burnt out because they are not on the front, to then attack sky.

But what we instead see is that the other team leaders - Nibali at the Tour, Contador and everyone else on Prato, are left without any teammates, including people like Kreuziger getting dropped.

Even though their helpers have the benefit of slipstream they get dropped when the sky riders do not = significantly worse teams than sky. Simple.

A better analogy would be that Sky are like Manchester United (with **** tactics) and everyone else is like Wigan

Do man utd win because of their tactics, or do they win because their players are better?

The tactics themselves arent even that great. people act like sky invented the concept of a train. Where is the tactical brilliance in it? Teams have been doing it for years. In fact Sky have lost races or chances to win races by always throwing all their riders into the train. Vuelta 2011 is a very obvious example that should loom large.

Oh yeah what tactical brilliance, they had the best rider in the race and the 3rd best rider and they didnt win. Unzue could have won that race by 5 minutes with half the resources.

Same at last years Vuelta they threw Urans gc position away in a sprint leadout, then when Froome bonked they had nothing. Riders like that, and Cataldo now with his strenght can be thrown into breakaways and other teams forced to do the work.

Instead Sky choose the least succesful strategy of the lot and we hear about how genius it is.
In the TDF they could have had Michael Rogers fighting Nibali for the final podium spot if they wanted to.

 

[The Hitch]

oh yeah just remembered the best illustration of my point which is Sky themselves on Morzine in the 2010 Tour. Hillarious stuff, they put all their riders on the front and Wiggins ended up getting paced by Lofqwist to finish 2 minutes back.

Exactly the same tactics they use now, and why it doesnt work unless 4 of your riders have pcm climbing 77 or higher.

Anyone who says Sky win because of tactics should be sent to some prison island where bikes are banned.

 

[thehog]

oh yeah just remembered the best illustration of my point which is Sky themselves on Morzine in the 2010 Tour. Hillarious stuff, they put all their riders on the front and Wiggins ended up getting paced by Lofqwist to finish 2 minutes back.

Exactly the same tactics they use now, and why it doesnt work unless 4 of your riders have pcm climbing 77 or higher.

Anyone who says Sky win because of tactics should be sent to some prison island where bikes are banned.

Same for the way Froome implodes when the borgs go bust. He did so at the Vuelta and now at Tereno.

 

[BroDeal]

The tactics themselves arent even that great. people act like sky invented the concept of a train. Where is the tactical brilliance in it? Teams have been doing it for years. In fact Sky have lost races or chances to win races by always throwing all their riders into the train. Vuelta 2011 is a very obvious example that should loom large.

Let's not forget about the brilliant strategy at the Olympic road race.

"Hey, let's all ride at the front and hope the dope holds out to the end." In the history of cunning plans that one did not even reach Baldrick level.

Anyone who uses a term like "tactical brilliance" and Team Sky in the same sentence should be perma-banned from cycling. JV must be jumping for joy since he can no longer be pointed to as the most tactically inept manager in the sport.

 

[Frosty]

I think the point has been made now but if Sky were tactically brilliant then maybe they would have won more one-day races which is where tactics come into it more. Unless the tactical brilliance is to really specialise in one tactic that has won a GT for them

 

[sittingbison]

just quickly revisiting the football (soccer) analogy:

Sure catenachio worked....for a time. Because its tactical (instigated to overcome Dutch Total Football) at some point there is a tactical solution that will overcome it. The problem we have witnessed with football, first in Italy then in England and now in Spain is the distortion of nature of PEDs.

In England the game is super fast the full 90 minutes, full backs bombing up and down the wing all day, centre forwards picking up the ball in front of the central defender etc. Not tactically adroit though. In Spain they keep the ball amongst the 4 playmakers playing keepy off, pulling and stretching the opposition to tearing point, with all the others constantly running diagonal lines. Neither of these systems works effectively without PEDs to improve speed and endurance beyond normal limits, its just not physically possible for those midfielders to maintain that infernal tempo without PEDs.

Its no accident the Spanish are World Champions while Operacion Peurto and Feuntes trial is underway. All the top Spanish players at Real and Barca were clients thus the whole shebang gets dropped by the authorities.

So back to Sky domestiques and Richie Porte...its just not physically possible for those domestiques to maintain that infernal tempo without PEDs.

As to the power meters, as Coach Fergie said recently they dont effect outputs, only measure it. And everyone can have one. If the Sky doms Porte and Dodger are putting out constant 450W so the likes of Basso are putting out 420W just to hold on and Evans/Nibs put out 500W to get 50m in front for 10 mins, and the only riders that can keep up are 4 Sky plus a few random others, then it doesnt matter if teams have them or not.

Froome is not constantly checking his output to make sure he doesn't bonk, he's checking it to make sure he doesn't blow...got to keep it within "acceptable" limits. After all its embarrassing having the DS yelling out "Slow down dawg, slow down!!" for all the world to see.

 

[MatParker117]

just quickly revisiting the football (soccer) analogy:

Sure catenachio worked....for a time. Because its tactical (instigated to overcome Dutch Total Football) at some point there is a tactical solution that will overcome it. The problem we have witnessed with football, first in Italy then in England and now in Spain is the distortion of nature of PEDs.

In England the game is super fast the full 90 minutes, full backs bombing up and down the wing all day, centre forwards picking up the ball in front of the central defender etc. Not tactically adroit though. In Spain they keep the ball amongst the 4 playmakers playing keepy off, pulling and stretching the opposition to tearing point, with all the others constantly running diagonal lines. Neither of these systems works effectively without PEDs to improve speed and endurance beyond normal limits, its just not physically possible for those midfielders to maintain that infernal tempo without PEDs.

Its no accident the Spanish are World Champions while Operacion Peurto and Feuntes trial is underway. All the top Spanish players at Real and Barca were clients thus the whole shebang gets dropped by the authorities.

So back to Sky domestiques and Richie Porte...its just not physically possible for those domestiques to maintain that infernal tempo without PEDs.

As to the power meters, as Coach Fergie said recently they dont effect outputs, only measure it. And everyone can have one. If the Sky doms Porte and Dodger are putting out constant 450W so the likes of Basso are putting out 420W just to hold on and Evans/Nibs put out 500W to get 50m in front for 10 mins, and the only riders that can keep up are 4 Sky plus a few random others, then it doesnt matter if teams have them or not.

Froome is not constantly checking his output to make sure he doesn't bonk, he's checking it to make sure he doesn't blow...got to keep it within "acceptable" limits. After all its embarrassing having the DS yelling out "Slow down dawg, slow down!!" for all the world to see.

To be fair the reason Yates was screaming in his ear was Froome had dropped Wiggo while trying to shed Nibali.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Did someone really trot out "tactical brilliance" when describing Sky? If so, that person is either entirely clueless about cycling or a complete fanboy.

The exact same adjectives were used to describe Bruyneel's approach to the TdF. Of course, we know that it wasn't Bruyneel, but rather the Ferrari engines powering the bikes.

Are people really this stupid to believe that Team Sky's performances have anything to do with clean cycling? The same team who hired Leinders? The same team on which Rogers was a world-beater at the Tour only to be pack fodder once he left? The same team led by this Foome muppet who managed to claim the Anatomic Jock race or whatever as the golden star on his palmares before he joined Sky and suddenly became a TdF contender?

Raymundas Rumsas was more credible that this Froome tool.