Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

[Froome]

Add in some 20-30 KMs run in before the climb so Vinge and Pog could get some fatigue.

No no no no, we don't fatigue! It would be more interesting for the conversation in this forum, just the ITT of 13.9 km until alpe d huez.
This forum would go crazy.

It was a shame that Vingo and Pogacar almost stopped in the last 2 km of joux plane, pantani got away.

 

[pastronef]

I don't know what counts as prime for G, he won the Tour at 32, but in terms of physical prime he spent that time in the gruppetto.

he focused on the track until 2012 (he was 25)
in 2015 and 2016 (he was 29 and 30) was 15th at the TDF while being a domestique
he won Algarve, Paris-Nice when he was 29 and 30

 

[TrekCyclist]

No no no no, we don't fatigue! It would be more interesting for the conversation in this forum, just the ITT of 13.9 km until alpe d huez.
This forum would go crazy.

It was a shame that Vingo and Pogacar almost stopped in the last 2 km of joux plane, pantani got away.

True. There are certainly some extraordinary climb times during the past few years, not only Joux Plane.
However, I have the feeling that the race tactics / pacing on climbs was very different in the 90ties.
On 2024 Joux Plane, for example, JV and UAE were pacing almost perfectly from the bottom on (apart from the last 2 km). Compared to many races in the 90ties, where you often would see the strongest riders attacing during the first few km of a climb, and then slowing town towards the top, pacing today seems much more "optimized" for fast times.
Of course, there were exceptions, like Indurain 94 Hautacam, or Ullrich/Pantani 97 Alpe d Huez.

 

[Froome]

True. There are certainly some extraordinary climb times during the past few years, not only Joux Plane.
However, I have the feeling that the race tactics / pacing on climbs was very different in the 90ties.
On 2024 Joux Plane, for example, JV and UAE were pacing almost perfectly from the bottom on (apart from the last 2 km). Compared to many races in the 90ties, where you often would see the strongest riders attacing during the first few km of a climb, and then slowing town towards the top, pacing today seems much more "optimized" for fast times.
Of course, there were exceptions, like Indurain 94 Hautacam, or Ullrich/Pantani 97 Alpe d Huez.

I think we also have to consider that those guys in the 90s were full of sh** in they're blood.

I also think that the guys of this era are not 100% clean, but certainly they are not taking things in the same proportion that those guys from the 90s took.

 

[Sciatic]

I think we also have to consider that those guys in the 90s were full of sh** in they're blood.

I also think that the guys of this era are not 100% clean, but certainly they are not taking things in the same proportion that those guys from the 90s took.

I wish I could find the article again, but Vino’s testing once showed 2 OTHER people’s blood in his blood His explanation was he was involved in a huge crash and had some open wounds and other riders’ blood was “all over the road.” Hilarious!

 

[Froome]

I wish I could find the article again, but Vino’s testing once showed 2 OTHER people’s blood in his blood His explanation was he was involved in a huge crash and had some open wounds and other riders’ blood was “all over the road.” Hilarious!

I thought the story of Contador about the beef was the most hilarious story ever, but that story about Vino is even more fun!

 

[TrickyD]

I still think the most ridiculous case since 2020, is Mark Padun on the Dauphine 2021.

Padun and Bahrain in general around this time were like a latter day Saunier Duval until they got their rooms turned over at the Tour, then they seemed to wind it back in a bit. I’d also say Hirschi at the 2020 Tour was as clear as day.

 

[Froome]

Padun and Bahrain in general around this time were like a latter day Saunier Duval until they got their rooms turned over at the Tour, then they seemed to wind it back in a bit. I’d also say Hirschi at the 2020 Tour was as clear as day.

I thought Hirschi would even be more ridiculous at Emirates because those former guys from Saunier duval like "the saboteur" matxin and the "charlatan" san millan are there, but the "juice" there didn't worked for him.

 

[Sciatic]

I thought the story of Contador about the beef was the most hilarious story ever, but that story about Vino is even more fun!

That time of doing autologous (another person’s) blood doping was the real Wild West. No muss, no fuss with withdrawing and refrigerating one’s own blood. Just find someone with the same blood type and plug in. Remember Rasmussen admitted asking (or considered asking) his Dad to donate his blood.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I thought Hirschi would even be more ridiculous at Emirates because those former guys from Saunier duval like "the saboteur" matxin and the "charlatan" san millan are there, but the "juice" there didn't worked for him.

José Ibarguren was assumed to be the mastermind behind the Saunier Duval yellow fever, but looking at Movistar's current results, he might also be a fraud these days.

 

[Froome]

That time of doing autologous (another person’s) blood doping was the real Wild West. No muss, no fuss with withdrawing and refrigerating one’s own blood. Just find someone with the same blood type and plug in. Remember Rasmussen admitted asking (or considered asking) his Dad to donate his blood.

That reminds me when armstrong and the rest of US postal, stopped the Bus "in the middle of the crowd" to do those things.

 

[Ripper]

I wish I could find the article again, but Vino’s testing once showed 2 OTHER people’s blood in his blood His explanation was he was involved in a huge crash and had some open wounds and other riders’ blood was “all over the road.” Hilarious!

Oh, I remember that very well!

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Teddy and Skeletor don't use these primitive methods. As performance optimized artificial humans they don't even dope!

 

[ivanic]

I think 2019 was also similar, so between 2013 and 2019.
Then, something happened in 2020, when covid appeared. They are getting faster, year after year.

I think it gets attributed to lockdown but the autumn of 2019 and Roglic's Vuelta win was when I first felt something had changed,

Un podium surprenant pour la Vuelta 2019, par Frédéric Portoleau

Primoz Roglic poursuit sa moisson de victoires dans les courses par étapes au plus haut niveau (« world tour »). Sur ses deux dernières saisons 2018 et 2019, il a remporté le Tour du Pays Basque, 2 fois le Tour de Romandie, l'UAE Tour, Tirreno Adriatico et la semaine dernière le Tour d'Espagne...

www.chronoswatts.com

The nature of change feels different too, with Sky and US Postal their programs seemed to lift most riders levels uniformly, with the odd super-responder like Froome, but look at Jumbo-Visma for example, there is such a huge disparity in response. Laporte, Vingegaard, WVA and soon Jorgenson have looked at times like they are riding against children, but Dennis, Dumoulin, Valter, DVB and now Uijtdebroeks look no better or are worse now than they were on their old teams.

UAE don't actually seem to be anything special without Pogacar. Matxin gets credit as some sort of scouting guru but half the users on here could've told you that Ayuso, Del Toro and Morgado would be good before they went there, they just seem to have more money to offer youth prospects and invest in tt-equipment. Flattening Italian Pro-Conti teams might fool the sheik but only really Pogacar sticks out. I'm going with a less-organised more slapdash version of what Jumbo are doing, I'd say definitely blood bags though, look at Pogacar's resurrection on Cauterets, Mcnulty and Bjerg on Col d'Azet was the most obvious case of refuelling I've ever seen in my life.

Whatever they're doing, I would say at least Geriant Thomas and Tao Geoghegan-Hart seem to have figured it out and responded in-kind.

Bahrain in 2021 and even last year on Angliru was also notable, I'll always go back to the Dauphine, I'd love to know what Padun was doing, absolute rocket fuel.

I suspect something a bit different is going on, but it could just be a case of increasing the risk constantly in dialectic with other teams and riders performances.

Can't be only blood bags.

 

[Froome]

Can't be only blood bags.

Like @Krzysztof_O said, i don't think they use those primitive methods now, but certainly something new that we don't know.

 

[Tim Cahill]

Can't be only blood bags.

Probably not no, but nobody told poor old Nairo is still flying the flag at the very least.

 

[Tim Cahill]

I think it's crazy to say that UAE is average without Pogacar. They win so much, they win everywhere. Yates made a pretty big jump going from Ineos to UAE. Del Toro, Morgado and Ayuso all made an immediate splash in their debut seasons at WT, that's not that common.

For Jumbo, you also have to look at what team they take a rider from, and if said rider has a specific issue. Dumoulin had physical issues they couldn't fix. Dennis came from Ineos. Kelderman and Uijtdebroecks are from Bora, who are low key a pretty good team in their own right. The big Visma transfomations were all from riders they picked up from conti/pro conti teams and developed over multiple years.

I would caveat that by saying average relative to their budget, which far surpasses most teams. I think Yates' is only really a touch better than he was at Ineos, his 2021 season was rather underrated, winning Catalunya, 2nd at UAE, podiumed Lombardia, 4th at La Vuelta though should've done better admittedly. He's more consistent now definitely and his Tour podium was very strong, but it's often forgotten that he was 4th in the TdF at 23 at Orica, and is now entering what traditionally would be his prime years. The point with the younger riders was more that they had the recourses available to take the kind of financial risks, rather them being there as a product of scouting which Matxin gets a lot of credit for, Ayuso for example was one of the best juniors of all time, Morgado also, exceptional, Mcnulty, Bjerg, Christen, they aren't exactly signing unpolished diamonds. These riders will be on the other teams radars but they can't be offering mid-6 figures for potential alone. Hirschi, Ackermann, Almeida are interesting cases too, no better or in some respects worse than they were on their old teams. They just seem like Lampre with unlimited money and Pogacar to me.

Jumbo are a difficult team to pin down really, certainly those riders were on good teams beforehand, but there is currently a widening chasm between them and the others that I think should be reflected in the performances of rider transfers but isn't. Roglic we will have to wait and see as there isn't much to go off yet but he's the one to watch I think, interested in what Ben Tullett can do there too as Ineos seem like a bit of a mess at the moment.

 

[zlev11]

José Ibarguren was assumed to be the mastermind behind the Saunier Duval yellow fever, but looking at Movistar's current results, he might also be a fraud these days.

i wonder if he's wanted to tone it down himself in recent years. he left Quick Step and Alaphilippe and their classics team immediately dropped a full level.

 

[Slavique Nuke]

UAE signed Fisher-Black from Jumbo which turned out to be a massive flop. He was touted as the future star, along with Ayuso. Although he has been hampered by injury, his results before the injury were not impressive.

 

[Brullnux]

I think it's crazy to say that UAE is average without Pogacar. They win so much, they win everywhere. Yates made a pretty big jump going from Ineos to UAE. Del Toro, Morgado and Ayuso all made an immediate splash in their debut seasons at WT, that's not that common.

Del Toro and Ayuso were incredibly good junior riders, in fairness. I think they would've had good debut seasons at most good teams. Though I get succeasful debut seasons are fairly rare, those two were definitely marked out as rare talents.

 

[Blobs]

Landa is a meme rider & I don't know what counts as prime for G, he won the Tour at 32, but in terms of physical prime he spent that time in the gruppetto.

I don't know what a meme rider is, and don't see how that's an argument at all. Thomas hit his best level (we thought) in 2018 and then declined after, but then returned to an even stronger level than before, at 36.

Do you think Sky could have made these riders much better, but chose not to because they considered them meme riders?

I doubt it. There must be some other explanation.

 

[Slavique Nuke]

I don't know what a meme rider is, and don't see how that's an argument at all. Thomas hit his best level (we thought) in 2018 and then declined after, but then returned to an even stronger level than before, at 36.

Do you think Sky could have made these riders much better, but chose not to because they considered them meme riders?

I doubt it. There must be some other explanation.

Landa was there as a helper, and when he was able to get his own results, something almost always happened to him. So that's how the memes became Landismo, Freelanda. No?

Skyborg were always obsessed with their wattmeters, almost never doing more watts than required to win. They had answers for everything and controlled everything. The feeling was always that they could go faster if they needed to. It is hard to judge what times their fully juiced leaders would have been capable of if necessary. So comparing those times with the present is pointless imo

Of course then doping methods were fine-tuned. Better equipments, better supplements, better training regime, more professional approach (which Sky was way ahead of the others at the time). It all helps. What could be the biggest improvement is that the background of riders today is much more diverse. Pogacar is Slovenian, del Torro is Mexican, even 15 years ago you didn't see almost any of these countries in cycling at this level. It was also less than 15 years ago that a dinosaur like Lefevere didn't sign one of the strongest riders (Sagan) of recent times just because he wasn't from a traditional cycling country and didn't speak English.

 

[Blobs]

Landa was there as a helper, and when he was able to get his own results, something almost always happened to him. So that's how the memes became Landismo, Freelanda. No?

Skyborg were always obsessed with their wattmeters, almost never doing more watts than required to win. They had answers for everything and controlled everything. The feeling was always that they could go faster if they needed to. It is hard to judge what times their fully juiced leaders would have been capable of if necessary. So comparing those times with the present is pointless imo

Of course then doping methods were fine-tuned. Better equipments, better supplements, better training regime, more professional approach (which Sky was way ahead of the others at the time). It all helps. What could be the biggest improvement is that the background of riders today is much more diverse. Pogacar is Slovenian, del Torro is Mexican, even 15 years ago you didn't see almost any of these countries in cycling at this level. It was also less than 15 years ago that a dinosaur like Lefevere didn't sign one of the strongest riders (Sagan) of recent times just because he wasn't from a traditional cycling country and didn't speak English.

Thomas was dropped on several occasions in 2019. I'm sure he would have done more watts if he could. In 2020 he wasn't even good enough to get picked for the Tour team. If Sky already had all the ingredients everyone is using today, then why did his level fall off a cliff for a while?

Equipments and supplement, and so on, is always gradually improving. Unless I've missed some huge breakthrough in one or more of those things, they simply don't explain a sudden explosion in everybody's level. What we're currently seeing looks more like what happened in the 90's.

 

[Slavique Nuke]

Thomas was dropped on several occasions in 2019. I'm sure he would have done more watts if he could. In 2020 he wasn't even good enough to get picked for the Tour team. If Sky already had all the ingredients everyone is using today, then why did his level fall off a cliff for a while?

Equipments and supplement, and so on, is always gradually improving. Unless I've missed some huge breakthrough in one or more of those things, they simply don't explain a sudden explosion in everybody's level. What we're currently seeing looks more like what happened in the 90's.

If you go back to my first comment, you will see that I was talking about the golden years of Sky, when the UCI president was a British friendly & not the post-Cookson era. I have stated my theory, clearly writing down the period I mean. If you disagree with it, that's fine, but stop moving the goalposts just to contradict me.

It's also confusing that you're simultaneously saying that "Geraint Thomas is also better in his mid 30's than he was in his prime" and that "his level fall off a cliff for a while".

Anyway enough of this subject and let's get back to the original topic Pogacar and UAE.

 

[Sciatic]

I don't know what a meme rider is, and don't see how that's an argument at all. Thomas hit his best level (we thought) in 2018 and then declined after, but then returned to an even stronger level than before, at 36.

Do you think Sky could have made these riders much better, but chose not to because they considered them meme riders?

I doubt it. There must be some other explanation.

To respond to your first sentence, hyping Landa (whether serious or tongue in cheek) is a CN forums meme, as you can see by the frequent (but somewhat obscure to an outsider) comments (such as #freelanda, Landissimo!), whenever he does something good or bad in a race