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Dear Wiggo said:
I'm sure the intention was there, but things didn't work out so well in the Tour. Lance lost a shed load of time to Ullrich in the first TT and was then nearly 4 minutes slower up Alpe D'Huez than he had been in 2001. He only (narrowly) secured overall victory with a stage win up Luz Ardiden towards the end of the race.
The Lance PR-guff was that he'd picked up a bug from his kids and was suffering in the heat. Esteemed members of various forums have put forward the theory that as it was so hot that year (there's no dispute over that), the usual USPS refridgerated motorbike panniers weren't cold enough, so there wasn't the same scope for delivering blood bags during the race. I don't know if this is true, but it was mighty hard keeping beer cold in France that summer!
Not that this changed USPS's wins for the season much, as Lance still won overall and this factor didn't affect the other races.
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I and a few others have been saying UK Postal are doping as effectively as US Postal, but we get asked - why are they riding slower everywhere?
My theory still is this: they ride so they don't appear unnaturally talented. (Except for Brad's final TT at the Tour). eg: using power meters on the hills.
But when you look at the depth of their results for the year, compared to a doped US Postal (maybe cqranking are missing a tonne of results, or there are a tonne more races now - like Tour of Beijing), that is one damn impressive set of podiums for the year.
Maybe the ability to race consistently high all year has been the doping effect, and it has been offered to everyone on the team - not just the Tour A team. I mean. Some clown was trying to tell me Sky are fading bad at the end of the season...
Boassan Hagen:
22/01/2012 2.WTr [Aus] 1 Tour Down Under, Points classification
13/10/2012 2.WTr [Chn] 1 Tour of Beijing, Points classification
Mark Cavendish:
7/02/2012 2.HCs [Qat] 1 Tour of Qatar, Stage 3 : Dukhan - Al Gharafa Stadium
16/09/2012 2.1s [Gbr] 1 Tour of Britain, Stage 8 : Reigate - Guildford
Froome:
10/06/2012 2.WT [Fra] 4 Critérium du Dauphiné
9/09/2012 GT2 [Esp] 4 Vuelta a España
Henoa:
7/02/2012 1.1 [Esp] 3 Trofeo Deia
29/09/2012 1.WT1 [Ita] 5 Il Lombardia
Nordhaug:
7/02/2012 1.1 [Esp] 1 Trofeo Deia
25/03/2012 2.HC [Fra] 4 Critérium International
9/09/2012 1.WT2 [Can] 1 GP de Montréal
Rogers:
22/01/2012 2.WT [Aus] 4 Tour Down Under
10/06/2012 2.WT [Fra] 2 Critérium du Dauphiné
26/08/2012 2.HC [Den] 9 Post Danmark Rundt - Tour of Denmark
Uran:
25/03/2012 2.WT [Esp] 5 Volta a Catalunya
29/09/2012 1.WT1 [Ita] 3 Il Lombardia
27/09/2012 1.HC [Ita] 1 Gran Piemonte
Wiggins:
19/02/2012 2.1 [Por] 3 Volta ao Algarve
11/03/2012 2.WT [Fra] 1 Paris - Nice
29/04/2012 2.WT [Sui] 1 Tour de Romandie
10/06/2012 2.WT [Fra] 1 Critérium du Dauphiné
22/07/2012 GT1 [Fra] 1 Tour de France
1/08/2012 WCTT [Gbr] 1 Olympic Games (London) - I.T.T.
Look pretty solid to me at the end of the season...
My theory still is this: they ride so they don't appear unnaturally talented. (Except for Brad's final TT at the Tour). eg: using power meters on the hills.
But when you look at the depth of their results for the year, compared to a doped US Postal (maybe cqranking are missing a tonne of results, or there are a tonne more races now - like Tour of Beijing), that is one damn impressive set of podiums for the year.
Maybe the ability to race consistently high all year has been the doping effect, and it has been offered to everyone on the team - not just the Tour A team. I mean. Some clown was trying to tell me Sky are fading bad at the end of the season...
Boassan Hagen:
22/01/2012 2.WTr [Aus] 1 Tour Down Under, Points classification
13/10/2012 2.WTr [Chn] 1 Tour of Beijing, Points classification
Mark Cavendish:
7/02/2012 2.HCs [Qat] 1 Tour of Qatar, Stage 3 : Dukhan - Al Gharafa Stadium
16/09/2012 2.1s [Gbr] 1 Tour of Britain, Stage 8 : Reigate - Guildford
Froome:
10/06/2012 2.WT [Fra] 4 Critérium du Dauphiné
9/09/2012 GT2 [Esp] 4 Vuelta a España
Henoa:
7/02/2012 1.1 [Esp] 3 Trofeo Deia
29/09/2012 1.WT1 [Ita] 5 Il Lombardia
Nordhaug:
7/02/2012 1.1 [Esp] 1 Trofeo Deia
25/03/2012 2.HC [Fra] 4 Critérium International
9/09/2012 1.WT2 [Can] 1 GP de Montréal
Rogers:
22/01/2012 2.WT [Aus] 4 Tour Down Under
10/06/2012 2.WT [Fra] 2 Critérium du Dauphiné
26/08/2012 2.HC [Den] 9 Post Danmark Rundt - Tour of Denmark
Uran:
25/03/2012 2.WT [Esp] 5 Volta a Catalunya
29/09/2012 1.WT1 [Ita] 3 Il Lombardia
27/09/2012 1.HC [Ita] 1 Gran Piemonte
Wiggins:
19/02/2012 2.1 [Por] 3 Volta ao Algarve
11/03/2012 2.WT [Fra] 1 Paris - Nice
29/04/2012 2.WT [Sui] 1 Tour de Romandie
10/06/2012 2.WT [Fra] 1 Critérium du Dauphiné
22/07/2012 GT1 [Fra] 1 Tour de France
1/08/2012 WCTT [Gbr] 1 Olympic Games (London) - I.T.T.
Look pretty solid to me at the end of the season...
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Catwhoorg said:
Dowsett who thinks Lance is a legend of the sport. er I mean legend of cancer awareness?
Why yes. Yes, he did...
http://www.londonnocturne.com/latestnews_110611.php
- Apr 1, 2009
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Dear Wiggo said:
Does your logic also include that both teams won in daylight so they must be doping to the same levels? I saw another post saying there were 6000 posts on this thread so it must be true that Sky are doping. But 600o posts as idiotic as yours just means that there are too many people on here who are too thick and have too much time on their hands, to be able to make any sort of decent argument. When looking at current teams the only thing I can be sure of is that you can be sure of nothing. Except maybe that you have no cohesive evidence or hypothesis. Its quite clear that your reasoning could be applied to almost any team, so you do consider all teams to be doping, what leads you to single out sky?
argyllflyer said:
And it's a for entertainment event not a serious race, there's one camera bike and it always provides a huge draft for whoever is at the front because the course is so small there's nowhere for it to get away.
I wouldn't read anything into performances there at all...
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FignonLeGrand said:
Actually, I was looking at the theory espoused in another thread that Sky were fading towards the end of the season.
Do the results I list support or refute this theory?
I say refute. YMMV.
If you based all your judgement of me on one post, you will forgive me if I do not return the favour, but look at your other posts first and determine if you are a pommy, Sky lover, or just tetchy coz you haven't had your morning cafe e croissant.
This espouser of Sky fading at the end of the season offered the example of USPS smashing the Tour and the Vuelta. I looked for this phenomenon and only found it happening in one year - 2003.
When I compared 2003 USPS with 2012 Sky, in terms of podium positions, I found Sky delivered approximately 10 times the podium results of a now proven doped USPS.
There must be an explanation for this.
Maybe they are just all naturally gifted and outride everyone else who is weak. Yes, that must be it.
Or. Maybe.
Doping still exists.
The easiest people to detect as dopers are the ones who dominate the entire season from start to finish. ie Sky.
That's my logic.
Perhaps you'd like to keep insulting me rather than offering any counter-argument, logic or reasoning of your own to refute my position.
Go.
Dear Wiggo said:
This is a difficult argument to get to the bottom of. In Lance's day, it was the infrequency of racing that was a "red flag" for doping. The logic went that if you're clean, you don't need to go into hiding to do repeated cycles of taking blood and then training on epo.
Now, Sky's season-long dominance is a "red flag" for doping. Obviously both these theories cannot be true, except if the only way to avoid a Clinic "red flag" is just to be cr*p and dominate only in the competition to fill the Broomwagon.
It would be useful to know what the most vocal anti-Sky factions would accept as "reasonable to conclude the team is broadly clean" performance levels for an individual rider and the team, in both a single race and across the season.
- Sep 29, 2012
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Dear Wiggo said:
Pommy, Ricco-hating, Laurent loving (obviously), Wiggins sublime-pedal-style loving, Gios-falling apart riding, obvious why I am not allowed to say anything about Sky doping poster.
Dear Wiggo said:
Except when they're Lance, Pantani, Indurain or Riis etc. who tended to dominate for very short periods in a season yet were more obviously dopers than Sky, simply because they went so fast. With Sky, you have to rely on the "They ride to their powermeters to avoid looking suspicious" argument to explain away the fact that they aren't riding very quickly. (Though obviously quicker than the opposition, but that's racing, I suppose.)
Dear Wiggo said:
Are you really trying to say they are so doped they don't have to try against other quality doped riders?
You seem to reduce all cycling performances to corresponding levels of doping.
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Wallace and Gromit said:
I am clearly in the "they are doped" camp, and my post above reinforces this.
However, when the clown said USPS dominated Tour + Vuelta, I had not even thought to compare them to Sky 2012.
I think for me:
USPS dominated every race they entered - but it was only a few.
UKPS dominated (nearly) every race they entered - but it was a lot.
It was the constant domination that triggered the red flag. By people who had not dominated anything before more importantly. Brad can win the Tour but to easily smash the TT. Nah. And every other mini tour in the lead up. Not normal. I need to go back and collate all the articles describing the training they did and map it out on a calendar.
I honestly did the podiums exercise above to test the veracity of the statement that Sky are fading - I do not believe this to be true.
You can't race all the time, but the big break between Romandie and Dauphine...
3/06/2012 2.WTs [Fra] 2 Critérium du Dauphiné, Prologue : Grenoble I.T.T. 25
29/04/2012 2.WT [Sui] 1 Tour de Romandie 240
then straight back to altitude (where you lose fitness because you cannot train as hard at altitude, and if you train low, your live high induces headaches, etc).
Oh and the altitude explanation attributed to Kerrison - realised earlier today it's smoke and mirror talk, like the cadence thing Brad came out with. I'm rambling.
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- Apr 1, 2009
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Dear Wiggo said:
Are you replying to yourself to insult me more? I thought I was the winging POM? I am no Sky lover, no fan boy, dont really care for the team and ceertainly not the sponsor. The theory you posit is totally flawed how on earth can you draw such direct comparison between Sky and USPS? the environments in which they succeeded are totally different, so you cant just list the wins etc and say they are the same. And before you start I am not saying its all clean and better now it clearly isnt, but equally we dont have over weight, over jumped domestiques such as Riis winning GTs any more.
Find a cohesive theory if you can 6000 posts dont seem to have come up with anything other than, everyone hates sky, everyone thinks Wiggo is arrogant and so he must be a doper.
I ride a storck, I do like Fignon....... who wouldnt, Ricco is a rubbish scumbag and yes Wiggins pedal action in Beijing was sublime but I dont think that really matters.
hrotha said:
This highlights that it's not the racing pattern per se that is the "red flag" it is being successful in pro cycling that ultimately is the best sign of potential doping. My post was more an indirect reference to how tend to people fit the facts to "prove" their theory.
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FignonLeGrand said:
They are not insults, they are precis' of your posts.
"600o posts as idiotic as yours" is an insult. And I see you have not refuted it with reasoning beyond they raced in different environments. Wowzers.
Armstrong wasn't overweight either. Fancy talking about Riis when I'm comparing US Postal and UK Postal. Er. No.
Wiggins losing 13kg of weight and increasing his threshold power is but one of the arguments raised that you seem to find totally acceptable. Cool dude.
There's plenty of cohesive theory, but you aren't going to get it reading one post.
Perhaps we can start from the other end and you can give me 2 good reasons why Wiggins showed no ability on the road until 2009, when he had a sudden and unexpected 4th place at the Tour de France?
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Wallace and Gromit said:
Like all those medals at 4km against a tiny pool of riders proving GT pedigree? Yeah I have seen the facts being stretched from 4km to 3400km to prove a theory
I think I'd like to see a peak or two during the year. With some racing as build up. It doesn't make sense to me to come from training and no racing to winning instantly. You can't train as hard as you race. There's no adrenaline for starters. There's no 200-strong peloton and roads that go where they go vs where you plan to go in the morning.
And Brad threatened to release his blood values. Go.
Dear Wiggo said:
So here's two good reasons why Wiggins didn't excel on the road until 2009.
1 Lots of riders were taking lots of drugs, and Wiggins (possibly) wasn't.
2 Wiggins was a track rider who only concentrated on the odd prologue and time-trial - and he had some decent results in some of these. (See reason 1 for an explanation of why he wasn't winning them).
You'll notice that neither of these reasons speak to why he might have improved subsequent to that. I'm waiting to be convinced either way on that question.
Now, in return, can you comment on the USADA evidence, in which Michele Ferrarri was surreptitiously recorded in 2010 telling an Italian rider explicitly not to travel to Tenerife and train on the Teide because it was known and monitored by anti-doping authorities. In the same call he also said - in 2010 - you'd have to be crazy to take EPO. Specifically how does this evidence fit with the suggestions made in this thread that Wiggins started to train on Tenerife in 2011 because he was working with Ferrari and being at altitude would help beat the EPO test? So was Ferrari lying to his client in 2010 (if so, why?), or do you think his advice changed between 2010 and 2011 (if so why?), or do you think there is any other explanation that one could entertain?
RownhamHill said:
All points I have tried to make in the thread. They'll be ignored, or derided, or dismissed (see above) The trick in this place to is to make your point as cohesively as possible and then get out, and don't get bogged down arguing with people that will tell you black is blue
blackcat said:raise you
And I'm told there's not an anti-British element here in the clinic. This is truely pathetic. Well done, you've raised the bar on the chap who compared us to East Germany and the state-sponsored doping there, because we have so many CCTV cameras
- Feb 20, 2010
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Dear Wiggo said:
That's nonsense. They ride slower because the case is that they are doping as effectively as US Postal, not they are doping as much as. And taking as a base the assumption that they are doping, they ride slower because they are doping less than USPS. It doesn't mean they're not doping, or they don't have as much of an advantage over other teams.
The biopassport and other things have meant that while doping is still rife, you can't get away with huge quantities. The days of 60% hct are done. Any money the CERA Emanuele Sella was using in 2008 wouldn't have turned him into more than guy finishing 5th-10th on mountain stages in 1998.
The quantity of dope that would have turned you into mediocre pack fodder in the mid-90s could turn you into an unstoppable behemoth today.
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