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Sepp Kuss... The 3 GT monster

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Unchained

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houtdffan said:
Kuss doing a TT like this, in his 3rd GT of the year?

What sauce is Kuss on? Not even in the EPO days did we see things like this
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Sepp Kuss is like many current talents that come from mountain bike racing or cyclocross..which if you have ever raced the disciplines are basically time trials in disguise. You drill it for @1 hour+ and suffer from start to finish if done correctly. Currently World champ is a cyclocross standout, Tom Pidcock, Peter Sagan, Woot all say that they gain benefit from non road . Kuss uses his Colorado and Andorra off road riding not only to improve climbing but bike handling and time trialing. Most mountain bike elite spend extensive time riding road bikes.

I am sure that Kuss would be pleased that you find his GT and TT performances so fantastic that they are suspect of something sinister or super human. The peloton and overall results say something more routine. Kuss is a grunt not a racehorse, his times don't put him on any list of suspects.. Kuss is currently in red because of a perfect storm, literally of circumstances, contrary to your praise, Kuss is not a great time trialist, he is a pace setter and has never shown any skill for riding away from others on long climbs and certainly not riding away from people for multiple days over a multi week race.. Remco kept his gun in the holster today on stage 11 until @175 meters, Sepp answered by going all in and suckling on his wheel until the line..nothing extraordinary.. everyone will get marked down for ST..
 
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Hugh Januss

Hugh Januss

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Red Rick said:
Frankly I'm not even sure we know enough about GT triples to determine if it's that much of an outlier that he's doing well or if it's actually not extremely far fetched.
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As of today Kuss is on 67 race days for the year. Besides Giro and TDF he's only done Catalunya and UAE tour, and the man doesn't do 1 day races. It doesn't seem like an overwhelming work load to me. Not saying he doesn't "prepare" the same as everyone else, but the idea that there is some sort of undetectable magic pill that Kuss took sometime over the weekend that suddenly turned him into a time trialist seems farfetched in my opinion.
 
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Definitely perplexing why people don't get the osmosis of pro bike racing or Formula one.. The sponsor's exposure is paramount, association with something special, something elite, Sepp Kuss in the red jersey maybe the only GC win they are looking for.. and as far as the romance of bike racing, the backstory of Sepp and the millions routing for him as the underdog enriches the team in ways immeasurable.. Too many think that the end game is for Kuss to win it all, when in their reality they may have already have achieved more than originally planned.. half of current pro bike racing is watching your old and new favourites compete.. Stories like Sagan,Mas, Pinot,Bernal and Kuss are just some that give people a reason to follow and watch bike racing, winning is relative..
 
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Libertine Seguros

Libertine Seguros

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It's kind of a paradox, though, being the underdog at the same time as being in the team which is winning every damned race all season and is so stupendously overpowered that they outnumber every other team put together when the race thins down to the elites.

I get what you mean, Marlen Reusser is an underdog in a team alongside Demi Vollering, Lorena Wiebes and Lotte Kopecky, but it's still yet another SD Worx win.
 
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Mayomaniac

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Wetswimmer99 said:
He uses Tom Danielson as his coach. Tom had several top 10 Vuelta finishes and he was Lance Armstrong’s teammate at Discovery.
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Also banned twice because of doping and butt buddies with Phil Gaimon.
I actually don't have a problem with Danielson himself, but people like Gaimon roasting convicted dopers only to say that his friend Danielson doesn't count is a meme.
 
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Tim Cahill

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Kuss was 14th in the giro, 12th in the tour after he fell on the last stage, you don't do that by just sitting up and soft pedalling like a pure domestique would, the likes of Porte or Hincape would lose 20 minutes every other stage just riding it in.

Arguments about race days are misleading, he's on his 3rd intense gt as one of the highest level climbers in the race, it's not the same as riding around in a few random early season one weekers in search of form. The problem is that he's hitting peak form on his third grand tour, seemingly transcending all known laws of physiology.

Some of Gaimon's KOMs after he retired would make black socks himself a bit uneasy, strange to me he wasn't up to much with actual controls in place.

Welcome to all new fans!
 
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FroomeWagon

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IMO there are two types of riders in the pro peloton. Those that are doped and those that are ignorant (and the number of doped far outweigh the ignorant ). The ignorant ones are the ones that don't understand that they are wasting their lives doing something that they can't win (or even compete at the highest levels) unless they dope. Way too much effort and sacrifice by a rider not to give himself the best chance at success.

Right now, it just happens that Jumbo have the best dope. Just as Ineos/Sky had the best dope before them and Postal had the best dope before that. It's pretty obvious that the wealthiest teams have the best doctors and the most advanced programs.

Now, in addition to doping, you do have to have some talent. Regardless of what is shot into my veins, I could never have been a member of the pro peloton. I hate to admit it, but it is true.

If a "pure" sport is what you are looking for, I suggest ping pong, bowling, or shuffleboard. As near as I can tell, PED's aren't required in order to be successful there. However, if it is pro-cycling, sit back, enjoy the show, but understand what you are watching.

Vamos Sepp, Vamos!!!
 
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FroomeWagon said:
IMO there are two types of riders in the pro peloton. Those that are doped and those that are ignorant (and the number of doped far outweigh the ignorant ).
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Three types, laut Cipollini. Those that are doped fall into two categories. Those that are big talents that dope because that's what they gotta do at this level, and those that are where they are specifically because of doping because without it they'd be nowhere.

You can argue by looking at their records as cadets and juniors that people like Peter Sagan and Alejandro Valverde would be at the top if the péloton had been fully clean - we know that at some point Valverde started doping, but because he was successful at pretty much every level coming up from age 11, it's hard to ascertain exactly where it was. When Valverde got suspended, it was for blood bags and things that dated back several years and when he was suspended he had been riding under a cloud for a couple of seasons without being caught; when he came back he went right back to the same level of performances and stayed there into his twilight years. Whatever he was doing, Valverde's performance levels remained consistent.

Mauro Santambrogio was also a doper, but with him there is a clear and obvious step in performance after several years of performance. He was an OK pro, good even - he's won Tre Valli Varesine and top 10ed Lombardia multiple times - but after dropping from the World Tour to Vini Fantini, suddenly he was an elite climber that was dropping the world's best everywhere he went, winning and podiuming race after race in the Italian early season and winning some of the hardest stages of the Giro breathing through his nose. As a 28-year-old who we had several years of WT level racing to recourse to as precedent, this was mindblowingly out of proportion with expectation level performance.

Both of them are obvious dopers, but their trajectories are incredibly different and their outlier status is at opposite ends of the bell curve.
 
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