Single most "questionable" ride of the year?

[Sophistic]

1)Froome
2)Cobo
3)Voeckler
4)Kern
5)Horner

 

[Christian]

'fraid I'd have to add Cadel's Tour ITT, too.

Rihs took care of Cadel's inner-ear thing

 

[Boeing]

Levi in Toc and Utah/Horner in ToC. One of the few times ive watched the tv and just laughed. and the fact that there was no testing says it all.

Gilbert. The first win was fine, two was fine, but by the time it became predicatable I had lost all interest.

But most laughably obvious of the year was Levi and Horner.. theres really nothing else came close. Whats funnier is that its a **** pot race that nobody outside of America cares about.

we might even throw in Bouche's extraordinary pull to Baldy at TOC.

 

[VeloCity]

Voeckler and Rolland at the Tour. That was just...unbelievable. In the truest sense of the word.

 

[DirtyWorks]

summary

I could be wrong in how I've summarized things so far...

Unbelievable category in no special order:
Levi & Horner honorable mention to Bouche - ToC no blood doping control
Cobo on Angliru/Vuelta
Froome Vuelta

Where did they get THAT performance category:
Gilbert - Spring classics hat trick.
Cancellara at E3
Voeckler's TdF
Thor Hushovd magical climbing ability, some disagree.

Usual Grand Tour Suspects:
Contador's Giro/TdF maybe less dope than years past
Schlecks No one should be surprised.
Evans On the simple fact recent winners are found to be doped. Personally, this one is tough because the guy consistently races at the front, animating things as opposed to much of the negative stage racing.

Amazing performance by lesser known riders:
Kern magical everything.
Amets Txurruka?
Vandenert on Plateau de Belle.

A clean Vuelta, one positive at the TdF, missing biopassport data. Pat's program of hiding doping is working.

 

[Caruut]

Exactly! With all the in-house testing done by SKY you'd think they would've had a clue on what Froome was capable of. Say for example "oh on 6/11/11 test, Froome rode 44 minutes @ 415 watts on the trainer, then he followed that up with 52 minutes @ 435 watts 3 weeks later"... But they had NO IDEA what he was capable of... =CHARGING 100%


And Cobo - he goes from wanting to retire and become an electrician to 4 months later winning the Vuelta? Seriously... You expect us to believe that performance?

Made the Vuelta into a laughingstock...

Obviously they would say this, but Sky did explicitly say that their testing showed he should be getting better results than he did. Sky's in-house testing has nothing to do with how questionable Froome's ride was.

 

[pedaling squares]

Mt Baldy & Mt Etna.


And AC & AS' performances in the TDF made their 2010 tours look even more questionable.

 

[ghostofjoy]

Bottle and Horner @ ToC

wrong, horner and levi have always been good climbers, and it's quite possible that they peaked for the TOC. i might have been able to believe that their performance was legit, had it not been for MATT BUSCHE riding the entire race off of his wheel.

i would love to see future races prove that busche's performance on baldy was simply the first revelation of a climbing prodigy. i am overwhelmingly doubtful that this will happen, however.

 

[DirtyWorks]

wrong, horner and levi have always been good climbers, and it's quite possible that they peaked for the TOC. i might have been able to believe that their performance was legit, had it not been for MATT BUSCHE riding the entire race off of his wheel.

i would love to see future races prove that busche's performance on baldy was simply the first revelation of a climbing prodigy. i am overwhelmingly doubtful that this will happen, however.

whoaaah there ghostofjoy.... A top-tier professional cyclist is going to peak for some third-rate event in a sleepy backwater cycling nation like the U.S. with the acknowledged 'biggest bike race in the world' is only a few weeks away? Really? I could see Busche peaking for it, but not Horner and Levi. No way.

 

[Zoncolan]

Well, maybe they did peak for it, but IIRC Horner himself posted data of 6.7 W/kg for ~ 20 minutes.

 

[craig1985]

So what do people think of Peter Sagan? First GT and he wins three stages, big time charger or just freakin' good?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Obviously they would say this, but Sky did explicitly say that their testing showed he should be getting better results than he did. Sky's in-house testing has nothing to do with how questionable Froome's ride was.

It would have been nice to see some of this data. They did publish a bunch of Froome's data from the Vuelta (Anglirú and Peña Cabarga were conspicuous by their absence iirc, but don't recall the specifics), but not any of this mysterious data that said he had the potential to be a GT challenger BEFORE August 2011. Certainly they obviously didn't have that much trust in him, otherwise they wouldn't have sacrificed him on the front on La Manzaneda, which ultimately cost them the race.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

So what do people think of Peter Sagan? First GT and he wins three stages, big time charger or just freakin' good?

Meh. The Vuelta performance won't change anybody's opinion of whether he's a charger or not because it wasn't too unexpected given his previous performances and the simple fact that despite being a rookie phenom, Liquigas had held him back until he'd had nearly 2 pro seasons before submitting him for a GT, and when they did it was the easiest one in terms of average speed, and the weird stuff with major sprinters dropping out and major names underperforming certainly fell in his favour.

 

[Winterfold]

Cobo and Froome - by a long way

Sky were so obviously flummoxed by Froome, whereas Cobo did at least have some past 'legit' performances of that calibre so I guess that means Froome is the most questionable as I have no questions about Cobo. If I thought about it a lot it would bother me that Cobo was not in a good place mentally and was exploited, but he got away with it, so well see...

In terms of W/kg and ascent times everything else seemed 'normal' ie vaguely plausible after a healthy dose of optimism flavoured Kool Aid. I can buy Rolland/Voeckler etc - everyone else has clearly slowed down.

Contador at the Giro would be next, but I do also think he is just that much better than everyone else when he is in the zone. Being so clearly tired at the TdF gave him a smidge of believeability.

 

[Maxiton]

Leipheimer and Horner at the ToC.

Leipheimer at the Tour of Utah. No testing at either race, and since I'm convinced they had advanced knowledge of this, they had to have been doped to the gills.

Both these guys are at the back ends of their respective careers, and by all accounts should not be having performances like they had in 2011. But the doping at Radio Shack goes on seemingly undisturbed, and these two guys are at the top of the list to me.

Where is the Like button?

Levi in Toc and Utah/Horner in ToC. One of the few times ive watched the tv and just laughed. and the fact that there was no testing says it all.

Gilbert. The first win was fine, two was fine, but by the time it became predicatable I had lost all interest.

But most laughably obvious of the year was Levi and Horner.. theres really nothing else came close. Whats funnier is that its a **** pot race that nobody outside of America cares about.

+1

yep, it was unbelievable
stage 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7kZt2JCrsE
stage 7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=KW0xUE8UwXs

They made Piepoli and Cobo look like cubscouts on Schwinn Stingrays. Especially on state 7. Ridiculous.

 

[thehog]

Where is the Like button?



+1



They made Piepoli and Cobo look like cubscouts on Schwinn Stingrays. Especially on state 7. Ridiculous.

I just watched stage 7 again...... I reckon when all the riders had a few beers after the ToC they would have patted Horner on the back and said "Nice riding Edgar..."

He should have tried to mask it slightly..... at least waited to the final 2km or something.

 

[craig1985]

I thought it was all the beetroot juice that they drink? I used to like Horner until he sold out and started riding for Bruyneel.

 

[Parrulo]

I thought it was all the beetroot juice that they drink? I used to like Horner until he sold out and started riding for Bruyneel.

i have been disliking horner ever since he said paulinho was a talentless rider that was only riding the 2009 tour because he was bff's with contador. talk about being butthurt for not being selected.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

Froome by a mile.

I don't like Horner's ride either.

 

[Parrulo]

Froome by a mile.

I don't like Horner's ride either.

who does? its like being out sprinted by your grandfather

 

[thehog]

i have been disliking horner ever since he said paulinho was a talentless rider that was only riding the 2009 tour because he was bff's with contador. talk about being butthurt for not being selected.

My faith in Horner can only be restored if he gets the full refill, goes against team orders and beats Andy in the mountains. That would make me happy and Shlecks stomach full of anger.

 

[ghostofjoy]

whoaaah there ghostofjoy.... A top-tier professional cyclist is going to peak for some third-rate event in a sleepy backwater cycling nation like the U.S. with the acknowledged 'biggest bike race in the world' is only a few weeks away? Really? I could see Busche peaking for it, but not Horner and Levi. No way.

it isn't a third rate event for US sponsors. moreover it was easy to see that levi was visibly upset at losing the overall to horner and the tt to zabriskie. i really believe that levi (and horner to a lesser extent) takes pride in thrashing the domestic peloton and out of shape euros on his home territory.

to clarify, i used 'peaking' as an umbrella term that could refer to any means of performance enhancement, be it a training block or some nice fresh red blood cells.

 

[just some guy]

Froome
Cobo
Levi
Horner



Busche for a 3 week period

Gilbert probably although I would like to be wrong

Europcar at the tour

 

[Christian]

Horner's most questionable ride this year was this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x08VO5-gOh8

Even he himself couldn't believe it had happened.

Seriously though he won my respect for that!!

 

[lightclimber]

sorry for the off-topic, but why is Levi's nickname "Bottle" (at least here in the Clinic)?