Sky/Froome Talk Only (No Way Sky Are Cleans?)

[DirtyWorks]

Russia's problems in all sports are well known. They (RUSADA) recently pinged a female swimming star, and had to report direct to FINA to prevent a rule kicking in that would have suspended Russia from aquatics for eighteen months for multiple violations.

The girl was 14.

14. That's allegedly Chris Carmichael/Thom Wiesel Territory.

Fixed that for you.

 

[the sceptic]

What, you mean youre not gonna read martinvickers and Jimmys 5000 word essays?

 

[martinvickers]

Thanks for answering.

Oh I wasn't implying you were 'rooting for the home team' I apologize if it came across like that, wasn't my intention. The reason I asked is because I get the impression you're a Sky fan and I just wanted to ask a Sky fan their view. I know you may have answered it already but these threads seem to multiply quicker than a Gremlin taking a bath and due to that good posts from either side get lost in the dross that normally ends up in the threads.

.

Ok, for the record - and breaking all my own rules on unsupported unevidenced thoughts...

I'm not a sky fan. Not remotely. My hatred for Murdoch is far too deep. If I root for anyone, its Dan Martin. Stylistically, I also quite like Nibali, although I'm aware of his 'issues'.

I think Wiggins is a ***. A tosser. And my hunch is that he's clean. Just that, a hunch. Still don't like him.

My pure hunch is that Chris Froome is dirty as all hell. But I've no evidence for that. e's also clearly more personable than wiggins, but i still don't trust him.

I don't believe Sky do team wide doping. I don't think the evidence is there to support that. But I would express exactly zero surprise if one or more riders pinged.

And now having stated my position, I will again take the oath, and continue to attempt to demand evidencen and logic rather than sneering, sarcasm and innuendo - and I'm NOT including you in that...

 

[MatParker117]

Ok, for the record - and breaking all my own rules on unsupported unevidenced thoughts...

I'm not a sky fan. Not remotely. My hatred for Murdoch is far too deep. If I root for anyone, its Dan Martin. Stylistically, I also quite like Nibali, although I'm aware of his 'issues'.

I think Wiggins is a ***. A tosser. And my hunch is that he's clean. Just that, a hunch. Still don't like him.

My pure hunch is that Chris Froome is dirty as all hell. But I've no evidence for that. e's also clearly more personable than wiggins, but i still don't trust him.

I don't believe Sky do team wide doping. I don't think the evidence is there to support that. But I would express exactly zero surprise if one or more riders pinged.

And now having stated my position, I will again take the oath, and continue to attempt to demand evidencen and logic rather than sneering, sarcasm and innuendo - and I'm NOT including you in that...

Brad's own wife described him on the bike as "a bit of ****, really".

 

[thehog]

Brad's own wife described him on the bike as "a bit of ****, really".

How about Brad's true love, Lance? What does he think?

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Not accurate entirely. You don't have to be calorie deficit. You need to adjust your diet so your body burns fat, not muscle.

So adjusting the percentage/ratio of certain food intake, such as higher fats/proteins, less carbs/sugars, you will get your body in more of a ketosis state, which will then burn fat for energy. Your body prefers sugar/carbs for energy, protein for muscle buidling, but fat is really a great energy source and better once you force your body to utilize it. Hence, taking sugars entirely out of your diet, and only higher protein, good fats and lower carbs complex and nearly all sugar is how to go in a ketosis state.

This is almost entirely the Atkins Diet fad in the US. High fat/protein, complex carbs, like vegetables...no sugars. Also, many call a stricter variation of this the caveman diet. Meats/poultry/vegetables. No other carbs. No grains, no sugars. If you do eat sugar, it should be fruit only, and only limited amounts. Refined sugar is the devil...but tastes so good!

Also, even if he did lose 1-2% muscle strength if he went calorie deficit and his body used muscle to fuel it, the weight/body fat savings was a net gain in power/weight ratio.

Or, he is doping...

Yes, weight lifters do these diets, and "cut". But they also tend to do anaerobic movements, and train for 1-2 hours max / day.

I don't believe you can burn fats at FTP type effort levels. These guys are doing reverse periodisation - which means very intense efforts. No way in hell are you burning fats at that level.

If you are not eating carbs, you are not training 3-6 6 hours / day, and you are not doing efforts greater than base endurance.

Neither of these is feasible on Tenerife. They have to climb 1500-2000m @ 5% just to get back to the hotel.

Comparing body builders to cyclists in an attempt to explain how things are done, is, IMO, bordering on the ridiculous.

Show me a body builder training and competing in 4-40C and/or rain for 4-6 hours, 5 days / week and I might believe it.

 

[Carols]

How many of those riders were 'the best' when Sky signed them? They haven't come CLOSE to signing 'nearly all the best riders'.

Froome signed for them because he had the right passport and they picked up a bunch of people out of the ashes of the Barloworld set up (whilst missing out on Soler, the most proven and seen as the most talented there).

Porte signed for them as a bit of a patchy potential star, who had surprised many with his quality in 2010 but still had much room for improvement, then surprised almost as many with how anonymous he was and how little he contributed to Contador's GT bids.

Wiggins signed for them a then one-hit-wonder, a top time triallist who nevertheless had only shown the requisite level in two stage races: the 2009 Tour de France and the Jayco Herald Sun Tour.

Rogers signed for them an aging doper, liable to injury, whose position in the World Rankings was rather inflated by a lot of dud parcours in 2010-11 that enabled him to win races in the ITT and just follow in the mountains.

López signed for them a mid-career journeyman who had had a couple of good years but mostly been a bit-part player in Euskaltel's golden era and somewhere in the middle of the hierarchy at Caisse/Movistar.

Cataldo signed for them a reasonable peripheral GT man who has twice finished 13th in the Giro due to respectable climbing and useful TTing.

Knees signed for them at the 11th hour, a leftover from the Pegasus collapse. He signed for Pegasus from Milram, so while he's a very good domestique, he was hardly at the pinnacle of the sport when Sky picked him up.

The guys that they signed that you could legitimately claim were signing top talents were Boasson Hagen, Urán, Henao. And Löfkvist, but marginal gains don't seem to work for him, and he went from being a maglia bianca contender and putting together good placements in classics and short stage races, to being better than Wiggins in stage races, to two years later being almost totally unnoticeable in any race he enters.

Yet another well written and reasoned post for LS!!!

Note: Sky didn't sign the best they made them the best. The big question is of course how? Marginal gains? The history of cycling mega teams unfortunately leads one to believe there is more to it than that.

 

[Ripper]

Like I said I don't have the excact fat % from Froome in 2009 but just look at the difference, pretty shocking. You can see in 2009 he was thin, but naturally looking. In 2012.. well haha





after....





and: http://i802.photobucket.com/albums/yy305/webbie146/4_zpsdf07690e.jpg

Well, make you're own conclusion haha

It's clear he is just fat in the earlier pics.

 

[Ripper]

I could, but this is Sky. Dave Brailsford has been in charge of British cycling for what 10+ years. In that time the track team never had a saddle sore? Given that Sky have the biggest budget they could hire all the best and clean medical staff(probably an oxymoron in the cycling world) that are out there.

If Sky riders are so clean, how can Wiggo get a saddle sore? That is from being dirty.

 

[Ripper]

Not accurate entirely. You don't have to be calorie deficit. You need to adjust your diet so your body burns fat, not muscle.

So adjusting the percentage/ratio of certain food intake, such as higher fats/proteins, less carbs/sugars, you will get your body in more of a ketosis state, which will then burn fat for energy. Your body prefers sugar/carbs for energy, protein for muscle buidling, but fat is really a great energy source and better once you force your body to utilize it. Hence, taking sugars entirely out of your diet, and only higher protein, good fats and lower carbs complex and nearly all sugar is how to go in a ketosis state.

This is almost entirely the Atkins Diet fad in the US. High fat/protein, complex carbs, like vegetables...no sugars. Also, many call a stricter variation of this the caveman diet. Meats/poultry/vegetables. No other carbs. No grains, no sugars. If you do eat sugar, it should be fruit only, and only limited amounts. Refined sugar is the devil...but tastes so good!

Does anybody know what his actual weight it then and now? That will tell us if he lost weight, saved muscle, or if he lost both, and increased power. Not likely he lost muscle at all. Just appears he has cut his body fat, which for endurance riders like this, isn't that difficult to do. Just adjusting the diet as mentioned will encourage that.

Also, even if he did lose 1-2% muscle strength if he went calorie deficit and his body used muscle to fuel it, the weight/body fat savings was a net gain in power/weight ratio.

Or, he is doping...

Um, ultimately to lose weight then you need to be running a net deficit.

The burning fat instead of carbs does not work so well for Elite athletes. You would de-train yourself from the slowed pace of all your workouts.

You can train yourself to use fatty acids more for a fuel source, but that is not fat loss, that is energy management on the bike.

 

[victorschipolrijk]

It's clear he is just fat in the earlier pics.

It is clear that you have no clue , vascularity doesn't come just by losing some weight . Anyone looking at those pics would notice those bodybuilding veins he has now he didn't have before .

 

[victorschipolrijk]

Um, ultimately to lose weight then you need to be running a net deficit.

The burning fat instead of carbs does not work so well for Elite athletes. You would de-train yourself from the slowed pace of all your workouts.

You can train yourself to use fatty acids more for a fuel source, but that is not fat loss, that is energy management on the bike.

I totally agree on this one .
Even though there are ways to rev up your metabolism , ultimately you have to incur in deficit to lose fat .

 

[Ripper]

It is clear that you have no clue , vascularity doesn't come just by losing some weight . Anyone looking at those pics would notice those bodybuilding veins he has now he didn't have before .

I was joking.

 

[Pentacycle]

The guys that they signed that you could legitimately claim were signing top talents were Boasson Hagen, Urán, Henao. And Löfkvist, but marginal gains don't seem to work for him, and he went from being a maglia bianca contender and putting together good placements in classics and short stage races, to being better than Wiggins in stage races, to two years later being almost totally unnoticeable in any race he enters.

Lofkvist has never been a top talent, he was already a declining force when he joined Sky, forced to do more domestique work than in his early years. Have you also considered the possibility of him doping at FDJ/HTC?

EBH and Uran are good examples of the early physical peak; like many Danish and Dutch riders very good at age 21-22 but lacking any margin for prgression. Of course they still progress a little, but they're not turning into the top riders some people expected them to be. Both lack the necessary endurance(EBH) or recovery(Uran) to become a real top rider.

You've also forgotten about Flecha, who was signed as one of their leaders in 2010. He's not had any jump in performance, he was just up there in the classics like he always did at Rabo.

 

[Cycle Chic]

Read Read and Read again !

if it stands to reason that if he was doping in august-september 2011 he is likely doping now, why is that even a query? If the bilharzia could mask blood doping back then, he has now a new, post-2011 baseline, whether based on clean or dirty figures. The old baseline must be chucked out because it's irrelevant. As has been mentioned before, the biopassport is more effective as a method of moderating doping than preventing it. Froome isn't an untalented guy. But what he showed in 2008-9 does not make what happened in 2011 any less ridiculous.

the thing that's suspicious is that chris froome is now the best climber in the world, and one of the best time triallists. That in itself sets alarm bells ringing. Because no matter how much re-appraisal we give to the pre-bilharzia performances, he showed the talent to be a pretty decent top tier rider. That's not the same as showing the talent to be a gt winner and one of the top 5 riders in the world. Rigoberto urán, a couple of months later, finished on the podium of lombardia, and was more active in the final week in the 2009 tour than froome was in 2008. He's a guy that people had been raving about the potential of since he arrived at unibet in 2007 and some even earlier than that. Froome was a guy with potential, but that's all. The 2011 transformation did not constitute 'normal progression' unless you completely reinvent what happened between may 2009 and august 2011, and draw an exponential curve.

I kind of want to know what the racial overtones that got pulled from your post were now, but at the same time i quite like you and don't want to have to jeopardise that.........

- his improvement came during the contract negotiation phase. Even if we accept he would have got a wt gig elsewhere, he certainly earnt a bunch more money on his 2012-date contract as a result of it
- he then struggled with the disease again for a number of months, but it was gone again before he could prepare for the tour, enabling him to be at peak form at the biggest race of the year
- sky have been predicated on a british tour winner within 5 years and, in 2010, we could not be sure that wiggins could or would become that. Froome was way down the list of candidates, and suddenly vaulted to the top. What's more, british cycling had been carefully grooming riders, meaning there are more british talents at this point than at almost any other point in living memory. Certainly in my lifetime. With british interest, sponsor money and media coverage heading towards an all time high, chris froome - who has nothing to do with british cycling and was hired because of his passport - has just coincidentally happened to turn up at the right time to make maximum profit.

Again, none of these are evidence of doping, but when put together they provide a motive, which has to be at the root of all good mysteries. The other thing that i simply can't unsee is that froome's transformation has come at the heart of a number of other transformations, mighty improvements and domination in a style hitherto only seen in the dirtiest of dirty teams - banesto, gewiss, mapei and us postal (with apologies to saunier duval). As per usual, each tree may be explicable (though froome's tree is a freaking giant sequoia), but the forest that has emerged around sky's activities means that the number of leaps of faith required to believe the "all plausible and clean" argument in all cases continues to ever increase, while the opposite still requires just one: Starting from the assumption "there is doping".

And as any insurance professional can tell you, there's only so much risk you can accept before you have to decline. How many leaps of faith are we all willing to take?

now class - read, read and read this post again. EXCELLENT AND EXCELLENT LIB SEG.

Yes its a long post by Lib Seg but for those of you with Attention Defecit Disorder its well worth trying.

 

[thehog]

now class - read, read and read this post again. EXCELLENT AND EXCELLENT LIB SEG.

Yes its a long post by Lib Seg but for those of you with Attention Defecit Disorder its well worth trying.

Tis a good post.

If you turn it around the other way.

Assume Sky is clean. The transformations from several riders is astronomical.

They haven't become a little bit better they've taken stratospheric leaps.

All this is done clean. Whist the rest of the peloton has stood still.

Even Contador now looks decidedly weak against Sky.

When I read the posts from those who say its 'plausible' they make excuses. Last year the course was flat. No Contador etc. This year is th same. Webvan was saying Froome won the prologue due to weak competition!

Take yourself back to the late 80's - 71kg climbers shouldn't even get in the Top 10 of a prologue let alone win one! It's just insane to see a rider like Froome win a 6km prologue. It's just not normal.

Wiggins will probably win the Giro. Last year many were saying he'll never win a GT again. He, Froome and Porte could share this years GT's between them. And clean!

That's something. All from one team. Even more incredible.

 

[Bernie's eyesore]

Tis a good post.

If you turn it around the other way.

Assume Sky is clean. The transformations from several riders is astronomical.

They haven't become a little bit better they've taken stratospheric leaps.

All this is done clean. Whist the rest of the peloton has stood still.

Even Contador now looks decidedly weak against Sky.

When I read the posts from those who say its 'plausible' they make excuses. Last year the course was flat. No Contador etc. This year is th same. Webvan was saying Froome won the prologue due to weak competition!

Take yourself back to the late 80's - 71kg climbers shouldn't even get in the Top 10 of a prologue let alone win one! It's just insane to see a rider like Froome win a 6km prologue. It's just not normal.

Wiggins will probably win the Giro. Last year many were saying he'll never win a GT again. He, Froome and Porte could share this years GT's between them. And clean!

That's something. All from one team. Even more incredible.

I get the impression you don't even watch cycling, it was an uphill prologue and was dominated by climbers. Tony Martin finished nowhere, it was far too hard for him.

 

[thehog]

I get the impression you don't even watch cycling, it was an uphill prologue and was dominated by climbers. Tony Martin finished nowhere, it was far too hard for him.

Awesome.

6km. He shouldn't have been in the Top 10.

In addition. This is Froome. He shouldn't even have a Pro contract.

But you keep belivin' - Froome a clean Tour de France champion.

Eeekk!

 

[Pentacycle]

Tis a good post.

If you turn it around the other way.

Assume Sky is clean. The transformations from several riders is astronomical.

They haven't become a little bit better they've taken stratospheric leaps.

All this is done clean. Whist the rest of the peloton has stood still.

Even Contador now looks decidedly weak against Sky.

When I read the posts from those who say its 'plausible' they make excuses. Last year the course was flat. No Contador etc. This year is th same. Webvan was saying Froome won the prologue due to weak competition!

Take yourself back to the late 80's - 71kg climbers shouldn't even get in the Top 10 of a prologue let alone win one! It's just insane to see a rider like Froome win a 6km prologue. It's just not normal.

Wiggins will probably win the Giro. Last year many were saying he'll never win a GT again. He, Froome and Porte could share this years GT's between them. And clean!

That's something. All from one team. Even more incredible.

People are forgetting here that 'clean' Talansky is only 63 kgs, yet he can almost TT as well as Froome; same for Porte, Contador and Leipheimer.(as you can see, as clean as a whistle) Kiyienka, Castroviejo, Chavanel, Kessiakoff, Wiggins, Pinotti, Westra are built similarly to Froome, solid climbers and decent to world class TT'ers mostly. Logically the best climber out of those should also perform the best in the time trial. Wiggins is the odd one out though being a level below Dawg in climbing, but putting minutes in him on the flat.

 

[Bernie's eyesore]

Awesome.

6km. He shouldn't have been in the Top 10.

In addition. This is Froome. He shouldn't even have a Pro contract.

But you keep belivin' - Froome a clean Tour de France champion.

Eeekk!

I don't think Froome is clean, not for one second. I like to look at the facts though rather than just making stuff up. Plus it was over 7.45km.

 

[thehog]

I don't think Froome is clean, not for one second. I like to look at the facts though rather than just making stuff up. Plus it was over 7.45km.

Thank-you for agreeing with me.

Not normal and not clean.

 

[webvan]

Take yourself back to the late 80's - 71kg climbers shouldn't even get in the Top 10 of a prologue let alone win one! It's just insane to see a rider like Froome win a 6km prologue. It's just not normal.

Really? Apparently Lemond weighed 69kg so how could he do well in the GT prologues and even win some lesser ones like the Tour du Pont? Closer to us there are some good ITTers who are very light, Quintana comes to mind.

It's always the same story with Sky haters, they only look at arguments that fit their crackpot theories, totally biased, and as a result the overall argument loses most, if not all, of its credibility.

 

[coinneach]

Thank-you for agreeing with me.

Not normal and not clean.

Your inability to say "I was wrong: sorry" really undermines any point you make which may otherwise have some validity

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

Really? Apparently Lemond weighed 69kg...

I don't think Chris Boardman was much more that the low 70s kg-wise and he was pretty handy at the prologue.

 

[thehog]

Your inability to say "I was wrong: sorry" really undermines any point you make which may otherwise have some validity

Why so aggressive?