Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[mattghg]

the clinic guard, the elect few

Do you have any idea how pompous and ridiculous this sounds?

 

[lemoogle]

Sky? Surely your within 'power outputs' defense extends to the whole peloton, everyone. Cycling is back at this magical state.
Does this mean every single rider is riding clean?

Exactly... I don't understand the power outputs defense. Those "normal" power outputs that froome and sky are pulling are enough to destroy a peloton when it wasn't the case in EPO/lance days. That should answer it simply enough. There aren't a million variables here. What sky is doing is dominating more than USPS and lance. That's all!

I do believe that the overall peloton got cleaner over the last 5 years, which is one of the reasons why I truly hate what Sky ( and the UCI who clearly don't care at all about the sport ) are doing to this sport again. Everyone thought the peloton would ride cleaner after festina , rabobank etc in 1999, we all know why that did not happen.

 

[BYOP88]

Do you have any idea how pompous and ridiculous this sounds?

Not as pompous and ridiculous as the junk that team Sky put out.

 

[blackcat]

The best part is that these types of people don't get cycling or the Clinic. The Clinic guard, the elect few, want cycling clean. We know Nibali and Contador are doping. We also know there are degrees of doping. Some do more. Some go above and beyond what is needed and force others to up their regime to match them, ala Team Sky pushing the metaphorical doping envelope; a measure that has started a doping arms race. A crafted plan that is ruining cycling's chance post USADA 2012 Reasoned Decision, a chance once again like Festina to really clean the sport up. If one person or team goes full ***, the rest will copy. It's what they know and have done for so long.

nah, I am a realist now. doping is cycling. cycling is doping. anyone posting here is more deluded their wishes have any relevance. doping is normalised. its an olympic tradition.

I just want riders I dont like, to get knighthoods than be exposed like Jimmy Saville the pedo. So, Hoy, Cav, Wigans. Those guys.

I am indifferent re: Richie. I like Froome. Pretty transparent in my allegiances. I hope Froome wins the Tour this year, then does an Evans and rides off into the sunset with his riches.

 

[Galic Ho]

Do you have any idea how pompous and ridiculous this sounds?

This is what I think of your mumbo jumbo hidden agenda Sky supporting verbal voodoo.

Buy yourself a pack and use em champ.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Fans of a particular team, on the other hand, are generally more cheerful and upbeat, at least when their team is winning!

Ignorance is bliss in your world. Got it.

 

[mastersracer]

Exactly... I don't understand the power outputs defense. Those "normal" power outputs that froome and sky are pulling are enough to destroy a peloton when it wasn't the case in EPO/lance days. That should answer it simply enough. There aren't a million variables here. What sky is doing is dominating more than USPS and lance. That's all!

I do believe that the overall peloton got cleaner over the last 5 years, which is one of the reasons why I truly hate what Sky ( and the UCI who clearly don't care at all about the sport ) are doing to this sport again. Everyone thought the peloton would ride cleaner after festina , rabobank etc in 1999, we all know why that did not happen.

Don't let the fact that Sky lost at T-A get in the way of the world domination thesis. OR the fact that in the old days team leaders didn't need a team to dominate. They could just ride off the front, win the green and yellow jersey, take 5 or 6 stages and win by 15 or so minutes. Cycling has changed - so what. Let us know when a team climbs at 1700+ VAM on a final climb because that would make the USPS comparison at least non trivial.

 

[Galic Ho]

nah, I am a realist now. doping is cycling. cycling is doping. anyone posting here is more deluded their wishes have any relevance. doping is normalised. its an olympic tradition.

I just want riders I dont like, to get knighthoods than be exposed like Jimmy Saville the pedo. So, Hoy, Cav, Wigans. Those guys.

I am indifferent re: Richie. I like Froome. Pretty transparent in my allegiances. I hope Froome wins the Tour this year, then does an Evans and rides off into the sunset with his riches.

I made a mistake with the new pole. I thought it was talking about doing hard drugs. Didn't realise Netserk meant ban worthy stuff. I voted 60-70%. Realise now it had to be 90-100%.

Doping is part of pro cycling. The degree to which that traverses into the wider peloton had IMO a chance to improve last year. Nobody went to task on Sky. Nobody called Wiggins out for talking about LA being a psuedo role model for him and we all know how big 2012 was for opening the blinds on a portion of cycling history. Many saw the light. Heck there is a new thread talking about McQuack running for another term. Good ole Scrooge McQuack. That change will not happen now. It cannot happen. Cycling blew it's chance to get cleaner AGAIN.

I was saying the other day that Menchov and Scarponi should have been sat out given the their recent history. Yet we have people like Froome's missus sprouting their BS on twitter about those two. I don't quite get your second statement. Were you saying you want guys like Hoy and Wiggins to be outed, or are you instead ok with them getting knighthoods? Because I want them outed. Exposed. Especially the ones who shove it down the publics throats. Like Froome's missus. Like Wiggins. It is the only way the sport will learn.

At least Menchov and Scarponi don't sit their mouthing off about other dopers. Or praising them to the press.

So you think Froome is gonna win and then just stop for the most part? Kind of like Evans? Fair enough on the post Tour stuff but Cadel struggled for years trying to get a Tour win because of guys like Froome who went nuclear on the doping trying to get $$$ and glory for themselves. Cadel strikes me and I dare say you as well, simply as the guy who doped because it was needed to get that extra leg to win. Cleaner sport, he'd have won a lot of GTs. At least as many as Menchov. Froome never would win on the same program as Cadel. Two opposing extremes in the genetic lottery.

 

[Spencer the Half Wit]

Tour de France, the ranking of the 2000s (W / kg)

1 Lance Armstrong | 2003 | 6.18 W / kg
2 Alberto Contador | 2009 | 6.17 W / kg
3 Lance Armstrong | 2004 | 6.09 W / kg
4 Lance Armstrong | 2005 | 6.09 W / kg
5 Lance Armstrong | 2001 | 6.07 W / kg
6 Bradley Wiggins | 2012 | 5.98 W / kg
7 Lance Armstrong | 2000 | 5.97 W / kg
8 Lance Armstrong | 2002 | 5.97 W / kg
9 Alberto Contador | 2007 | 5.92 W / kg
10 Carlos Sastre | 2008 | 5.85 W / kg
11 Alberto Contador | 2010 | 5.78 W / kg
12 Cadel Evans | 2011 | 5.68 W / kg
13 Floyd Landis | 2006 | 5.67 W / kg

Where does this come from? A juiced up Landis the slowest? I thought it was hard enough estimating power outputs for single climbs never mind a whole tour.

 

[blackcat]

I don't quite get your second statement. Were you saying you want guys like Hoy and Wiggins to be outed, or are you instead ok with them getting knighthoods? Because I want them outed. Exposed. Especially the ones who shove it down the publics throats. Like Froome's missus. Like Wiggins. It is the only way the sport will learn.

I want Cav to get a knighthood with Hoy, Wiggins and Brailsford. The bigger the fall then, when they are outed

schadenfreude

a lovely little positive emotion

 

[blackcat]

big fan of Ricco.

anyone that speaks in the third person and gives themself a nickname like le pussie noir or THE COBRA, blackcat has mucho respecto

 

[Galic Ho]

I want Cav to get a knighthood with Hoy, Wiggins and Brailsford. The bigger the fall then, when they are outed

schadenfreude

a lovely little positive emotion

Cav wins a lot of races this season with a classic thrown in, I'd say it is on the cards. He's at 20 Tour wins right? Or is it 23? He goes past Merckx number of victories I say that is equivalent to a few cycling Gold medals at the Olympics. So maybe it's on the cards after next season.

 

[blackcat]

Where does this come from? A juiced up Landis the slowest? I thought it was hard enough estimating power outputs for single climbs never mind a whole tour.

Froome has to be about the same then.

 

[JimmyFingers]

Jimmy did claim it - Netserk brought it to its logical conclusion, which Jimmy had to admit he was wrong. By doing so it showed that if anyone was making a strawman it was Jimmy.

Err no, I said performance isn't proof i.e. it's not enough to censure a rider on it's own, while it is enough for suspicion and to cement your won opinion of that rider.

And just to digress (so this isn't directed at you Dr Maserati) it's a shame people's opinion's of me are coloured so dramatically by my country and the cycling team I support, and battle lines are drawn so clearly when I actually agree with someone it's usually attacked in turn anyway. If there ever was a serious side to the clinic I think it's been lost. That said there are plenty of posters here I have both time and respect for, even though I disagree with them fundamentally

 

[Netserk]

No he is building an argument around something which Jimmy is not claiming, which makes it a strawman argument.

No I am not.

Jimmy claimed that performance isn't proof.

I'm asking if climbing Alpe under 35 (as an example of an extraordinary performance) also isn't proof. Or how about 40?

Is there a number for W/kg, where you'd say 'That is impossible clean'. IF someone did 6.5 W/kg for an entire climb, would that be possible clean?

I'm simply asking if there is any limit to the 'performance isn't proof'.

 

[uphillstruggle]

As has been pointed out, this is a strawman. Back in your box

Ahhhh the strawman retort - always the last bastion of those who don't want to engage in a discussion.

The question about Alpe D'Huez is simply one about circumstantial evidence, which seems to be the crux of the argument that you and many other posters are having on these boards. Your stance that anything that would not be admissible in court is not valid as evidence in the discussion is wrong. There are lots of example of circumstantial evidence that more or lest show someone's guilt. The fact that they cannot be sanctioned on such evidence does not make them innocent only lucky.

How many riders where fingered in Puerto? And how many where actually busted? Contador has been mentioned in two separate scandals and all that has been officially said in court is that he probably had a dodgy supplement (yeah right), christ even OJ got off.

 

[Netserk]

Err no, I said performance isn't proof i.e. it's not enough to censure a rider on it's own, while it is enough for suspicion and to cement your won opinion of that rider.

And just to digress (so this isn't directed at you Dr Maserati) it's a shame people's opinion's of me are coloured so dramatically by my country and the cycling team I support, and battle lines are drawn so clearly when I actually agree with someone it's usually attacked in turn anyway. If there ever was a serious side to the clinic I think it's been lost. That said there are plenty of posters here I have both time and respect for, even though I disagree with them fundamentally.

IMO you are by far the most reasoned of all the Sky supporters. You have shown the ability to actually wanting to understand others. That is also the reason why I ask questions to you.

 

[JMBeaushrimp]

Err no, I said performance isn't proof i.e. it's not enough to censure a rider on it's own, while it is enough for suspicion and to cement your won opinion of that rider.

And just to digress (so this isn't directed at you Dearest Maserati) it's a shame people's opinion's of me are coloured so dramatically by my country and the cycling team I support, and battle lines are drawn so clearly when I actually agree with someone it's usually attacked in turn anyway.

Certain posters are fond of aggrandising this place, themselves and its role, when the reality is its a vaguely bonkers place full of aggressive trolls, subjective analysis of data, entrenched partisan factions and a confusing bias that seems to accept certain riders doping while being scathing of others. If there ever was a serious side to the clinic I think it's been lost. That said there are plenty of posters here I have both time and respect for, even though I disagree with them fundamentally. And then there's Gallic Ho.

Yeah, but ain't it grand?

 

[The Hitch]

The most obvious distinctions between fans of a particular team and and fans of the sport are:

i) Fans of the sport, on the whole, consider themselves superior to fans of a particular team. This reaches its peak when the fan of the sport tells some lesser Clinic being to go away and come back when they've learnt as much about cycing as the fan of the sport does. No names, no pack-drills here, but the guy who has no fear who is named after a well-known Tour winner springs to mind.

ii) Fans of the sport, having endured 20 years of blood doping ruining their sport and spoiling their ideals are a miserable, cyncial bunch. Fans of a particular team, on the other hand, are generally more cheerful and upbeat, at least when their team is winning!

Fans of teams also think that being a fan of the sport is superior to being a fan of a team, because they constantly try to paint fans of the sport as also only being fans of teams with comments like - "oh you wouldnt say that about nibali/contador/etc.

 

[mastersracer]

No I am not.

Jimmy claimed that performance isn't proof.

I'm asking if climbing Alpe under 35 (as an example of an extraordinary performance) also isn't proof. Or how about 40?

Is there a number for W/kg, where you'd say 'That is impossible clean'. IF someone did 6.5 W/kg for an entire climb, would that be possible clean?

I'm simply asking if there is any limit to the 'performance isn't proof'.

This has already been discussed at length regarding Contador's time on Verbier and the ensuing inferences of a VO2max of almost 100 ml/kg/min. Whether or not this a sound analysis has been much debated, but it is at least involving performances that are suspect. So far, the Sky performances aren't anywhere near this. The performances this year - in themselves - don't raise this sort of a red flag.

 

[the sceptic]

Tour de France, the ranking of the 2000s (W / kg)

1 Lance Armstrong | 2003 | 6.18 W / kg
2 Alberto Contador | 2009 | 6.17 W / kg
3 Lance Armstrong | 2004 | 6.09 W / kg
4 Lance Armstrong | 2005 | 6.09 W / kg
5 Lance Armstrong | 2001 | 6.07 W / kg
6 Bradley Wiggins | 2012 | 5.98 W / kg
7 Lance Armstrong | 2000 | 5.97 W / kg
8 Lance Armstrong | 2002 | 5.97 W / kg
9 Alberto Contador | 2007 | 5.92 W / kg
10 Carlos Sastre | 2008 | 5.85 W / kg
11 Alberto Contador | 2010 | 5.78 W / kg
12 Cadel Evans | 2011 | 5.68 W / kg
13 Floyd Landis | 2006 | 5.67 W / kg

Guess that means Landis was clean, since he was well within the human limit.

 

[JimmyFingers]

Ahhhh the strawman retort - always the last bastion of those who don't want to engage in a discussion.

The question about Alpe D'Huez is simply one about circumstantial evidence, which seems to be the crux of the argument that you and many other posters are having on these boards. Your stance that anything that would not be admissible in court is not valid as evidence in the discussion is wrong. There are lots of example of circumstantial evidence that more or lest show someone's guilt. The fact that they cannot be sanctioned on such evidence does not make them innocent only lucky.

How many riders where fingered in Puerto? And how many where actually busted? Contador has been mentioned in two separate scandals and all that has been officially said in court is that he probably had a dodgy supplement (yeah right), christ even OJ got off.

Very good point, and certainly one I'll concede, indeed had already coneded by saying this is enough for deep-held suspicions and cementing the opinion of an observer i.e. you or me, that a rider is doping. But it falls short of being sufficient to censure the rider, which you conceded.

Netserk cited a ludicrous time that is so beyond physically plausible limits that anyone who achieved it would need more than dope, probably jets attached to the back of the bike. That was the strawman, because the discussion was related to Sky's recent performances in T-A, none of which reached those ludicrous levels. Indeed physiological limits is more the argument used by Vaughters and the pro-Sky observers that they aren't doping, because their performances aren't so extreme that they trip the switch that would scream doping.

Indeed it is analysis of that performance that pre-occupies the forum so much, but given the paucity of the data available, quantifying it in any meaningful way is ambiguous and inconclusive. The argument usually goes: 'Sky didn't go up climb x that fast', followed by 'well they went up faster than everyone else' [insert Contador's name here preferably, if he's riding], 'yeah but it wasn't that fast' followed by 'well it was faster than known dopers x and y'.

You can see that doesn't really get us very far.

 

[Netserk]

Very good point, and certainly one I'll concede, indeed had already coneded by saying this is enough for deep-held suspicions and cementing the opinion of an observer i.e. you or me, that a rider is doping. But it falls short of being sufficient to censure the rider, which you conceded.

Netserk cited a ludicrous time that is so beyond physically plausible limits that anyone who achieved it would need more than dope, probably jets attached to the back of the bike. That was the strawman, because the discussion was related to Sky's recent performances in T-A, none of which reached those ludicrous levels. Indeed physiological limits is more the argument used by Vaughters and the pro-Sky observers that they aren't doping, because their performances aren't so extreme that they trip the switch that would scream doping.

Indeed it is analysis of that performance that pre-occupies the forum so much, but given the paucity of the data available, quantifying it in any meaningful way is ambiguous and inconclusive. The argument usually goes: 'Sky didn't go up climb x that fast', followed by 'well they went up faster than everyone else' [insert Contador's name here preferably, if he's riding], 'yeah but it wasn't that fast' followed by 'well it was faster than known dopers x and y'.

You can see that doesn't really get us very far.

So performance can be proof?

What are the fastest Froome should be able to climb Alpe d'Huez this summer? 39, 40, 41 or 42?

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Err no, I said performance isn't proof i.e. it's not enough to censure a rider on it's own, while it is enough for suspicion and to cement your won opinion of that rider.

While its nice that you clarify that now - there was no way to deduce that from your original post:
JimmyFingers
I think it's an ironic comment on the histrionics here immediately in the aftermath of the Prati di Tivo climb. You can't hold up performances like that as definitive proof of doping then not expect others to respond in kind when the same riders have a terrible day.

Performance is not proof, either way.

And just to digress (so this isn't directed at you Dearest Maserati) it's a shame people's opinion's of me are coloured so dramatically by my country and the cycling team I support, and battle lines are drawn so clearly when I actually agree with someone it's usually attacked in turn anyway. If there ever was a serious side to the clinic I think it's been lost. That said there are plenty of posters here I have both time and respect for, even though I disagree with them fundamentally.

See, thats where you go wrong, you speak about yourself and assume its personal.
nothing personal here - I dont care about you, that is not a mean statement (I care for every poster here) but I wish to read your argument not about you, I judge on what information is provided regardless of who its from and I agree or disagree with the poster on that info, not on who they are.

 

[JimmyFingers]

No I am not.

Jimmy claimed that performance isn't proof.

I'm asking if climbing Alpe under 35 (as an example of an extraordinary performance) also isn't proof. Or how about 40?

Is there a number for W/kg, where you'd say 'That is impossible clean'. IF someone did 6.5 W/kg for an entire climb, would that be possible clean?

I'm simply asking if there is any limit to the 'performance isn't proof'.

It would certainly be an extraordinary performance. However acoggan in a recent thread stated that even really extreme numbers are plausible if there was a phenom, a rider of extraordinary ability that simply blew records away. A genetic freak, so to speak, an advance up the evolutionary chain. I'm not saying that is possible or likely, but depending on how much faith you put in acoggan's judgement, it does say to me that some very extreme figures might be achieved in the future from a particular rider. Ergo performance on its own can't be definitive proof.

However if a rider was to throw up such ludicrous numbers when having previously produced nothing of the sort then that is far more convincing circumstantial evidence that would certainly be worthy of further investigation. It does leave us back at the beginning where rule of law means even if a previously mediocre rider, like for example Froome, has improved dramatically the governing body or drug enforcement body wouldn't be able to censure him unless they got some concrete evidence, either a failed test, fraudulent activity, eye-witness reports or improper health checks. That is why Lance got away with it for so long.

However for us as observers, we don't need a court of law to confirm our suspicions, so when cementing our opinion on whether a rider is juiced or not, performance, particularly as extreme as the one you cited, is sufficient.