Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[dacooley]

Re:

What makes you so sure that he hasn't spent his entire (short) career taking exactly the same doping products to which you attribute the wins of Wiggins, Froome and Thomas?

any performance-enhancing methods are permitted for 'talented' riders, as they have it straight away from early years.

well yeah sorry, guys, of course i was referring to Red Rick's post.

 

[dacooley]

Re: Re:

how about the fact that the team was able to produce (soon) 4 separate TdF winners in 7 years :lol:

You can't really say they have produced Bernal. He would be a Tour de France winner whichever team he went to from Androni. The rest of them though, sure.

That's the conclusion you are making in the summer 2019 taking a look at the past. I very much doubt you had such a strong point in the middle of 2017 before it was reported bernal would join sky.

 

[Cookster15]

Re:

Nothing looks particularly unreasonable to me this Tour. I think it's been cleaned up quite a bit with the Tramadol ban, and who knows what else. Bernal looks good but hardly dominant, and is performing on terrain and at altitude at which he should perform.

It's been nice. I've found in literally unwatchable in the past few years and after they let Froome off for his Andre the Giant sized Salbutamol ingestion I refused to watch one minute of the farce. So while I have no idea what happened last year, I appreciate this Tour much more than I have in years.

Well put. I switched off before the last week in 2018. This year I've been following every day with interest, so unpredictable, new talents and of course Bernal excelling in terrain made for him.

I'd rate this Tour easily higher than the Giro. On Ineos their train definitely not firing like last year this is what tipped the balance further in favour of Bernal. He doesn't need the train.

 

[JosephK]

A "bad" TDF nearly completed for Ineos (just the ride to Paris left) . . . and they go 1 & 2 on GC.

 

[Merckx index]

If Froome had been in the race, would Ineos have swept the podium? Or would Bernal not have been allowed to challenge either Froome or Thomas?

 

[brownbobby]

If Froome had been in the race, would Ineos have swept the podium? Or would Bernal not have been allowed to challenge either Froome or Thomas?

Difficult to say...if Froome was in the kind of form that some of his peers have suggested he looked to be in it would have been a completely different tour....don’t think Bernal would be allowed (or perhaps capable) of attacking Froome....but if the yellow jersey was already safe and it was a possibility I think the idea of a clean sweep of the podium would appeal to SIr Dave

 

[DanielSong39]

Magical 3rd week recovery
Shades of Nibali 2016 Giro

 

[brownbobby]

Re:

Magical 3rd week recovery
Shades of Nibali 2016 Giro

What ‘magic’ did you see in week 3.

Did you watch this race, or have you just had that comment waiting to go as soon as the winner is revealed

 

[luckyboy]

Re: Re:

how about the fact that the team was able to produce (soon) 4 separate TdF winners in 7 years :lol:

You can't really say they have produced Bernal. He would be a Tour de France winner whichever team he went to from Androni. The rest of them though, sure.

That's the conclusion you are making in the summer 2019 taking a look at the past. I very much doubt you had such a strong point in the middle of 2017 before it was reported bernal would join sky.

Here's an article I wrote about him (plus interview with him and Savio) after his sixth pro race lol

https://cyclingtips.com/2016/04/meet-egan-bernal-colombias-newest-cycling-sensation/


In 2016 he looked a great prospect considering his lack of experience. In mid-2017 it was already clear he would be at this level.

 

[rick james]

Re: Re:

Magical 3rd week recovery
Shades of Nibali 2016 Giro

What ‘magic’ did you see in week 3.

Did you watch this race, or have you just had that comment waiting to go as soon as the winner is revealed

its the clinic way

 

[Singularitarian]

A "bad" TDF nearly completed for Ineos (just the ride to Paris left) . . . and they go 1 & 2 on GC.

So what to expect next year (with Carapaz and fully recovered Froome they can have four best guys)? From the interview with absolutely unmoved Brailsfraud it looks like he is already thinking about whether to forget just targeting the Tour win in 2020 and go for the FULL PODIUM or even for FULL TOP5 (adding best domestique).

So the TOP5 placings should be named somehow like this:

1. Best MachINEOS overall rider (be it climber or TTer, depending on the Tour structure)
2. Second best MachINEOS guy.
3. Off form SKIneos contender.
4. SKYborg who wanted to abandon.
5. Best MachINEOS domestique (and this will be THE battle of the Tour, attacks and mountain sprints between van Baarle, Poels and Kwiatko)

It's going to be quite a boring decade, Bernal will be untouchable, and if Brailsfraud keeps buying the best young climbers and putting them on his top notch Program, they can continue like this for quite some time and only some massive mishap can derail them here and there (that's why they came with something resembling the usual british "two powers" naval strategy - beating all the rest not with just one guy, but two, because you know, there are crashes, illnesses, etc.).

 

[Pantani Attacks]

Very tactical to give away the KOM. Could easily have 1-2'd the stage today.

 

[Singularitarian]

Re: Re:

Nothing looks particularly unreasonable to me this Tour. I think it's been cleaned up quite a bit with the Tramadol ban, and who knows what else. Bernal looks good but hardly dominant, and is performing on terrain and at altitude at which he should perform.

It's been nice. I've found in literally unwatchable in the past few years and after they let Froome off for his Andre the Giant sized Salbutamol ingestion I refused to watch one minute of the farce. So while I have no idea what happened last year, I appreciate this Tour much more than I have in years.

Well put. I switched off before the last week in 2018. This year I've been following every day with interest, so unpredictable, new talents and of course Bernal excelling in terrain made for him.

I'd rate this Tour easily higher than the Giro. On Ineos their train definitely not firing like last year this is what tipped the balance further in favour of Bernal. He doesn't need the train.

Well, one would expect that suddenly clean(ish) peloton (due to new antidoping measures) would be dominated by natural EPO of high altitude south Americans (so far so good - Carapaz, Bernal) but also show an extraordinary number of suddenly "off form" climbers and GT contenders (we've seen quite a few of such cases, but this happens pretty much every Tour... and... Gerraint is more or less right at the level he was before, but this might be some marginal MachINEOS magic, always having a cutting edge Program, from leaning out without wattage loss, ketones up to genetic "natural" EPO doping).

 

[brownbobby]

A "bad" TDF nearly completed for Ineos (just the ride to Paris left) . . . and they go 1 & 2 on GC.

So what to expect next year (with Carapaz and fully recovered Froome they can have four best guys)? From the interview with absolutely unmoved Brailsfraud it looks like he is already thinking about whether to forget just targeting the Tour win in 2020 and go for the FULL PODIUM or even for FULL TOP5 (adding best domestique).

So the TOP5 placings should be named somehow like this:

1. Best MachINEOS overall rider (be it climber or TTer, depending on the Tour structure)
2. Second best MachINEOS guy.
3. Off form SKIneos contender.
4. SKYborg who wanted to abandon.
5. Best MachINEOS domestique (and this will be THE battle of the Tour, attacks and mountain sprints between van Baarle, Poels and Kwiatko)

It's going to be quite a boring decade, Bernal will be untouchable, and if Brailsfraud keeps buying the best young climbers and putting them on his top notch Program, they can continue like this for quite some time and only some massive mishap can derail them here and there (that's why they came with something resembling the usual british "two powers" naval strategy - beating all the rest not with just one guy, but two, because you know, there are crashes, illnesses, etc.).

Cool wordplay dude...who knew you could get so many witty variations out of the Sky and Ineos brands

 

[The Hegelian]

Bernal perfectly exemplifies why everyone is so pissed at Wiggins, Froome and Thomas.

That's what a GT winner, with GT pedigree and qualities, looks like.

So too does Rohan Dennis. That's what a track star trying to turn into a GT winner looks like.

 

[meat puppet]

Re:

Bernal perfectly exemplifies why everyone is so pissed at Wiggins, Froome and Thomas.

That's what a GT winner, with GT pedigree and qualities, looks like.

So too does Rohan Dennis. That's what a track star trying to turn into a GT winner looks like.

Excellent post. Sums up the past seven years neatly.

 

[Singer01]

Re:

Bernal perfectly exemplifies why everyone is so pissed at Wiggins, Froome and Thomas.

That's what a GT winner, with GT pedigree and qualities, looks like.

So too does Rohan Dennis. That's what a track star trying to turn into a GT winner looks like.

Apart from the fact that through the whole history of the tour, little climbers were generally not tour winners and big all rounders were.

 

[rghysens]

Re: Re:

Bernal perfectly exemplifies why everyone is so pissed at Wiggins, Froome and Thomas.

That's what a GT winner, with GT pedigree and qualities, looks like.

So too does Rohan Dennis. That's what a track star trying to turn into a GT winner looks like.

Apart from the fact that through the whole history of the tour, little climbers were generally not tour winners and big all rounders were.

But through the whole history of the tour, mountain stages used to end with tens of km of flat or descent (pre WW2, and exceptions were the stages to Luchon or Briançon, or Grenoble when crossing the Chartreuse) or, after WW2, were compensated by at least 50km TT'ing and often more than 100km.

Bernal is an expected Tour winner on this course (but that doesn't mean he's clean). The fact that riders like Thomas or Dumoulin in last year's tour were able to outclimb climbers is...remarkable.

 

[MartinGT]

Nice to see Poels yo-yo ing off the back of the back up to Val Thornes and then all of a sudden is fine for Top 10 finish on the stage.

TBH I don't think Ineos were as strong as previous seasons. I thought Kwia and Poels were dropped quite early on, same with Castra. DVB did well though.

Were they missing their Tram?

 

[rick james]

Its hard to get it prefect every year

 

[macbindle]

Nice to see Poels yo-yo ing off the back of the back up to Val Thornes and then all of a sudden is fine for Top 10 finish on the stage.

Probably did a blood bag mid-stage

 

[topcat]

Nice to see Poels yo-yo ing off the back of the back up to Val Thornes and then all of a sudden is fine for Top 10 finish on the stage.

Probably did a blood bag mid-stage

Maybe his battery overheated.

 

[MartinGT]

Nice to see Poels yo-yo ing off the back of the back up to Val Thornes and then all of a sudden is fine for Top 10 finish on the stage.

Probably did a blood bag mid-stage

:lol: :lol:

 

[rick james]

Nice to see Poels yo-yo ing off the back of the back up to Val Thornes and then all of a sudden is fine for Top 10 finish on the stage.

Probably did a blood bag mid-stage

:lol: :lol:

I know it’s funny, you don’t need blood bags now a days just asthma treatment and Ketones

 

[myrideissteelerthanyours]

Nice to see Poels yo-yo ing off the back of the back up to Val Thornes and then all of a sudden is fine for Top 10 finish on the stage.

Probably did a blood bag mid-stage

:lol: :lol:

I know it’s funny, you don’t need blood bags now a days just asthma treatment and Ketones

Couldn't any team just get sponsored by a company that makes exogenic ketone supplements and drink them for free? Between this and the camper Im beginning to think Ineos must be brain doping.