Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[MartinGT]

Re: Sky

I saw so many comments yesterday about TD attacking and then gaining a gap. People have short memories. What about the Dawg doing similar in the Giro but didn't have a team mate. He didn't just gain a gap, he gained a f@cking WEEK!

Oh, wait on, wait on, thats because they fuelled correctly, how silly of me.

These mofo's are fulled to the gills. Thomas and Dawg 1-2 in Paris :lol:

 

[MartinGT]

Re:

Alpe d'Huez today so guess they dial it down there as usual. Not a good look to be seen to be going too far below 40 mins - better to do the ridiculous stuff where it flies a little more under the radar

I think Panta's record will go today, but there's a tailwind of course.

 

[samhocking]

I'd expect the record to go. Pantani is hardly the pinnacle of human performance is he. Pinnacle of doping without limits, but I doubt he even trained on anything but feel and cycling folklore anyway.

 

[ahsoe]

Re:

People are far too hung up on believable palamares, meaningless folklore, panache, old wives tales and traditionalism somehow being important to believable human performance on a bike. End of the day 2-3 years takes any human physiology from 0 to 100% potential. This is how you can have professionals in peloton who didn't even ride a bike until their late 20's get from amateur to world tour in 3 years. What you did even 3 years ago as a cyclist simply doesn't mean anything today as it can be proven in a lab now, you don't need 20 years of previous results to discover who can win a GT or not, you can get a very good idea without even touching a bike ro entering a race. End of the day your quadriceps and hamstrings contract in sequence, your lungs take oxygen, pass it to your blood vessels and you pedal a bike along a bit faster than someone else. It's simply who's physiology does that best over 3 weeks at that moment in time, not who did it best 15 years ago as a junior or neo pro with the required palamares. A 4km pursuit is pure endurance, there isn't many better methods to find who has the best numbers for endurance cycling many would argue. The pointy end of a race is often simply all out effort for a few km only, suprise suprise pursuit riders tend to be better at that than climbers.

Even if we accept this, will you not recognize, that a career with steady impressive results is actually a pretty good indicator of ability and potential? That it is more the rule, and 3 year rises or transformations to fulfill potential are rarely seen and are more the exception?

Moreover, don't you find it odd, that Sky have had at least three such rises/transformations (Wiggins, Froome, Thomas) which resulted in the riders realising a potential far greater than most other GT contenders?

Finally, have you considered how almost all of such rises/transformations in the past have been shown afterwards to be heavily fueled by doping?

 

[Salvarani]

Re: Re:

People are far too hung up on believable palamares, meaningless folklore, panache, old wives tales and traditionalism somehow being important to believable human performance on a bike. End of the day 2-3 years takes any human physiology from 0 to 100% potential. This is how you can have professionals in peloton who didn't even ride a bike until their late 20's get from amateur to world tour in 3 years. What you did even 3 years ago as a cyclist simply doesn't mean anything today as it can be proven in a lab now, you don't need 20 years of previous results to discover who can win a GT or not, you can get a very good idea without even touching a bike ro entering a race. End of the day your quadriceps and hamstrings contract in sequence, your lungs take oxygen, pass it to your blood vessels and you pedal a bike along a bit faster than someone else. It's simply who's physiology does that best over 3 weeks at that moment in time, not who did it best 15 years ago as a junior or neo pro with the required palamares. A 4km pursuit is pure endurance, there isn't many better methods to find who has the best numbers for endurance cycling many would argue. The pointy end of a race is often simply all out effort for a few km only, suprise suprise pursuit riders tend to be better at that than climbers.

Even if we accept this, will you not recognize, that a career with steady impressive results is actually a pretty good indicator of ability and potential? That it is more the rule, and 3 year rises or transformations to fulfill potential are rarely seen and are more the exception?

Moreover, don't you find it odd, that Sky have had at least three such rises/transformations (Wiggins, Froome, Thomas) which resulted in the riders realising a potential far greater than most other GT contenders?

Finally, have you considered how almost all of such rises/transformations in the past have been shown afterwards to be heavily fueled by doping?

Exactly, learn from history and what we are seeing. These guys just on some other stuff, it is what is

 

[Mamil]

Re:

I'd expect the record to go. Pantani is hardly the pinnacle of human performance is he. Pinnacle of doping without limits, but I doubt he even trained on anything but feel and cycling folklore anyway.

What condescending twaddle. Perpetuating the old and thoroughly discredited myth that Sky and BC came along and single-handedly invented modern scientific training in cycling. Pantani trained smart and trained hard, as did many more of those 'provincial' Europeans in the 90s. I'd wager that the nutrition has improved, and the rigid commitment and conformity, but not the general effectiveness of the training. If Sky riders or anyone else are matching or breaking climbing riders from the 90s/00s now, it means that they're doping, pure and simple, and not just preparing better.

On another note, the real crime of Sky, beyond the doping, and even their insufferable attitude, is that they're boring. Their dominance is absolute. Baring a crash, you know from day 1 that Froome is going to win and that on most climbs it's going to be a Sky train bossing the bunch. It's a terrible spectacle. If it was purely based on being smarter, or just being naturally more talented, you could stomach it. But because its a mixture of money, resources, corporate greed, an obviously very well sorted doping program, arrogance and an ability to bend the sport's governance to their will, it's just utterly distasteful.

There aren't pages and pages of posts on Sky and Froome just because they dope - that stopped being up for any serious discussion a long time ago. It's because they do it whilst dulling the competition, acting like superior beings, and providing an almost cliched picture of the acidic impact of corporate dominance, corruption and soullessness that infects so much of modern society.

 

[pastronef]

Re: Re:

On another note, the real crime of Sky, beyond the doping, and even their insufferable attitude, is that they're boring. Their dominance is absolute. Baring a crash, you know from day 1 that Froome is going to win and that on most climbs it's going to be a Sky train bossing the bunch.

like at the Giro?

 

[Mamil]

Re: Re:

On another note, the real crime of Sky, beyond the doping, and even their insufferable attitude, is that they're boring. Their dominance is absolute. Baring a crash, you know from day 1 that Froome is going to win and that on most climbs it's going to be a Sky train bossing the bunch.

like at the Giro?

Let me be clearer. Different race. I'm talking at the Tour. Even Sky don't have the strength to bring quite as strong and dominant a team to the other GTs, be it the Giro or the Vuelta, though they're still impressive. And Froome had to come in to the Giro deliberately underdone, compounded by his crash, so he had to race it a bit differently. As such it was more interesting.

I'm not saying that Sky can just do whatever they want, year-round. But for the Tour, the script has become depressingly predictable.

 

[Singer01]

Sky absolutely smashed it yesterday, there were GC contenders all down the mountain, the gaps were pretty big, the action started fairly far out, Valverde gave it a (misguided) go, Tom D had a proper crack at something. Something isn't boring just because the team you want to lose wins. Bunch of babies.

 

[Bolder]

You could retitle this thread "USPS" and set the wayback machine for 2003.

The Sky dominance will not last forever. Even USPS eventually imploded. What's interesting is seeing what will bring down the team, whether it will be something on the road, sponsorship, or scandal.

 

[thehog]

Re:

You could retitle this thread "USPS" and set the wayback machine for 2003.

The Sky dominance will not last forever. Even USPS eventually imploded. What's interesting is seeing what will bring down the team, whether it will be something on the road, sponsorship, or scandal.

This Sky team is stronger than USPS ever was. Much stronger and this year with a dual attack force, something USPS never would have gone with at the Tour.

 

[Mamil]

Re:

Sky absolutely smashed it yesterday, there were GC contenders all down the mountain, the gaps were pretty big, the action started fairly far out, Valverde gave it a (misguided) go, Tom D had a proper crack at something. Something isn't boring just because the team you want to lose wins. Bunch of babies.

Riders trying things is only interesting if there's at least a reasonable chance that they might work. 19 times out of 20, at the Tour against Sky, they don't. Attacks aren't exciting, because we already know the end result. It's predictable, and therefore boring. Do you seriously think there is the smallest chance that Froome won't win this race? The mountain stages of the Tour have been dull for 5 out of the last 6 years (and Nibal's 2014 dominance wasn't much better), other than the goings-on in the breakaways, just as they were in the Postal days. If you find them interesting, good for you, but it does nothing for me. It's not about like or not - predictable dominance is boring, no matter how it's packaged.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

You could retitle this thread "USPS" and set the wayback machine for 2003.

The Sky dominance will not last forever. Even USPS eventually imploded. What's interesting is seeing what will bring down the team, whether it will be something on the road, sponsorship, or scandal.

2003 is actually the least likely comparison, as that year USPS were arguably at their weakest. Apart from the sprint in the first few hundred meters by Beltran and Heras at L'Alpe D'Huez, and Heras being there or thereabouts with Armstrong at the other mountain stages, Armstrong really had to do a lot by himself. He himself wasn't as good that year. Ullrich, Beloki, Hamilton, the Basques, Vinokurov, etc all launched attacks on many occasions that damaged USPS.

If this happens with Sky/Froome this year, we should all be happy, even if Froome does end up winning again. That 2003 was very exciting, IMO. It's just a shame that Ullrich was sick during the L'Alpe stage, plus he crashed in the final TT.

 

[Finn84]

I was thinking that many USPS riders were caught soon after they left the team (Heras, Landis, Hamilton, Beltran), but the same hasn't really happened with Sky. Not saying it decreases suspicious level of Sky.

 

[Singer01]

Re: Re:

Sky absolutely smashed it yesterday, there were GC contenders all down the mountain, the gaps were pretty big, the action started fairly far out, Valverde gave it a (misguided) go, Tom D had a proper crack at something. Something isn't boring just because the team you want to lose wins. Bunch of babies.

Do you seriously think there is the smallest chance that Froome won't win this race?

Based on past performance there is a 15% chance he doesn't finish, in addition his two biggest rivals are both excellent TT riders so he doesn't have that a cushion like he often has. So i'd say there is a decent chance he doesn't win (25-33%).

 

[Mamil]

Re: Re:

Based on past performance there is a 15% chance he doesn't finish, in addition his two biggest rivals are both excellent TT riders so he doesn't have that a cushion like he often has. So i'd say there is a decent chance he doesn't win (25-33

Fair enough. I've already said that crashes remain a constant possibility, so excluding that you're giving him a 10-18% chance of not winning. Personally I think it's much lower - probably 5% at best. I think it's almost inevitable, and I believe that history, Froome's apparent form and the position and state of his rivals substantiate that, hence why I consider it predictable. But I accept that this is subjective, and others may read it differently.

 

[wansteadimp]

Or Banesto back in the early 90s - equally as dull. Smash the first TT. Sit back and cover weak attacks.

Anyway, further proof of the circle of life, the UCI & IOC letting off the best rider in the world for Salbutamol, from wiki

In May 1994, Induráin tested positive for salbutamol following the Tour de L'Oise in France. Though the β2-adrenergic agonist, found in nasal inhalers, was on the controlled substances list of both the IOC and UCI, both organizations permitted sportsmen with asthma to use it. However, in France there was an outright ban on its use.[22] The IOC agreed with the UCI that Induráin would not be punished for using a drug banned outright in France because they accepted the salbutamol was contained in a nasal inhaler he had been using legitimately to aid his respiration. In Spain, the incident was interpreted as another case of the French attempting to hinder Induráin's domination of the sport.[23]

 

[MartinGT]

This is a right LOL fest

 

[Saint Unix]

WTF Bernal?!? Extra-terrestrial stuff, but at least the kid is actually talented.

 

[roundabout]

41'15'' for the climb for Thomas so nothing really extraterrestrial

 

[Forever The Best]

Re:

41'15'' for the climb for Thomas so nothing really extraterrestrial

They were playing games in the last 3 km.

 

[hrotha]

I think they're doing it for the evulz at this point. Actively trying to settle a score with ASO by pissing on our faces.

 

[saganftw]

Re:

41'15'' for the climb for Thomas so nothing really extraterrestrial

so sub 40 if they werent f*cking around last few kms? :lol:

 

[Pantani Attacks]

When will the Bernal separate thread be opened?

 

[saganftw]

Re:

When will the Bernal separate thread be opened?

i hope soon,i have already two horrible jokes prepared for that one