Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

why did team sky sign up such a hopeless cyclist?

Very good question. They did take over half of Barloworld.

* Froome
* Thomas
* Cummings
* Augustyn

All coincidently English speaking?

Did they just not see the biggest talent on Barloworld? Soler?

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

why did team sky sign up such a hopeless cyclist?

Very good question. They did take over half of Barloworld.

* Froome
* Thomas
* Cummings
* Augustyn

All coincidently English speaking?

Did they just not see the biggest talent on Barloworld? Soler?

You forgot to mention that Froome came from a village in Africa, had no international experience, and only picked up a road bike in 2007.

Well, we know where his lionheart comes from:
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...ding-with-lions-to-pride-of-pack-7939534.html

''Born in Nairobi, after his grand parents, from Tetbury, emigrated to Kenya to run a farm, Froome cut his teeth as a teenager riding with David Kinjah, the founder of Safari Simbaz – a huge project to help young Kenyan cyclists – in the highlands north of the capital. If the cute Tour de France toy lions – given to stage winners – are familiar to Froome these days, back then he would come across the rather larger, man-eating variety while out on his training rides.

"At weekends, my mother would take me down to the Great Rift Valley road, which is very bush," Froome recounted to the cycling magazine Velo News last year, after his second place for Sky in the Tour of Spain. "Yes, you're riding with animals. Even last November, I went to a mountain-bike Tour and we went past elephants, lions... it's just normal there."

November 2010 that would be? Catching bilharzia while swimming with the lions?

 

[Galic Ho]

i thought it was a simple phonetic conflation. i can understand, because when i use a qwerty, i often mistype and use phonic spelling, or using the wrong words completely, and i never draft nor revise, so if reading back i wonder what the heck i was writing.

my brain (if i have one, most would attest i dont) is not wired to use a keyboard and type with correct spammar n grelliing.

i wonder if there are any neuro studies on this, because i know i am not unique in this regard. (re: spelling, and other errors, that pen and paper would not incur)

but i give you more credit than dermie, he once talked about a great anthropologist when he obviously meant philantropist. tom harley is a good one too

+100

Nah I was thinking about it later. I kind of meant psychopath but new the S letter version was better for that context. So in haste I wrote sycophant. I really meant SOCIOPATH.

The word was escaping my grasp when I was thinking what to write. Not a great deal of difference between a sociopath and a psychopath. From what I remember off the top of my head, sociopath is actually worse because of the implied tendencies both have.

I understand most of your posts BTW. Though lately I have had to pay a bit more attention. Your intent is decipherable. If it's not super clear on the first post often your follow up reply is.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

You forgot to mention that Froome came from a village in Africa, had no international experience, and only picked up a road bike in 2007.

/s/Froome/Porte
/s/Africa/Tasmania

done.

 

[Bexon30]

117 moves without developing the Knight?

Lol made me chuckle

 

[Winterfold]

I guess if Froome had been born in the Wirral and been spotted flying up the Cat and Fiddle aged 14 and been taken under BC's wing he might have shown a different set of results?

We'll never know.

You can look at what he's done and create a case for him being clean, and you can create one for him being dirty, and in either case make out like you are being objective, when at best you can be empirical but that means you must at least acknowledge the other point of view*.

The performances are plausible, just, but the circumstancial evidence based on cycling's prior history mounts.

*But this is the Clinic, we dont do that - we do dogma, whether its doping or non-doping...

 

[Galic Ho]

I'm saying that I draw the line at bestiality; YMMV ;-)

That's just really really wrong.

You'd go there? On Jarmila Kratochvílová no less! She who has the longest standing track and field world record in the 800. Second fastest 400m of all time and all because she is the embodiment of why women should never ever touch steroids because they end up looking like dudes! Sure, you knock yourself out champ.

Personally I don't think there is enough Guinness in Ireland that'd make any sane man or even woman, wanna go near her with even a 10 foot pole. But yeah, if you only draw the line at bestiality then that would explain a lot of your posts.

 

[Galic Ho]

modern day Liberty Seguros / ONCE.

ONCE iteration really.

dont know how well this will turn out. If I was Hoy and the track gold medallists, I would tell them to not be so reckless in hogging results. cos this could spread like wildfire l'affaire Armstrong USADA mkII.

cos unless Rupert and Sky buy FRance 1, France 2, France 3, El Pais, Der Spiegel, there will be many places to break this in the coming years.

Everyone is wanna (grammar/sic) get theirs.

dont think Kennaugh and G are not lining up behind Wiggo, and saying to Sir Brailsford, please Sir, can I have some more (too).

only so many cycling knighthoods that Queen Elizabeth can dole out until she croaks.

But it's not going to tone down now. They've gotten a taste of the big leagues and now everyone wants some. Add Stennard to that list.

Hoy and whoever is on the track team should be screaming at them to slow down. But they don't think like that. After all if they can win and do whatever and have nobody poke fun at them, why can't the riders? In their eyes they don't see potential questions being raised by the press in closest proximity to them. Only fluff pieces.

As you say Blackcat, how this ends is anyone's guess ATM. But I do think losing a number of staff last year has hurt the common sense factor in the team car. Riders wanting to go gangbusters every single time and now that certain guys are absent there is nobody yelling at them to keep it kind of real. The track team should be concerned. All of them are linked and the road guys are in the spotlight almost all year, every year. They really should care because if the road guys explode or get busted, it'll point back to them.

 

[will10]

117 moves without developing the Knight?

Post of the day sir.

 

[will10]

surely the next move is for team sky to make....................flopped in the classics thus far

a couple of 'surprising' performances in minor stage races sends the sky thread into overdrive

maybe? froome is the loose cannon but he always has been a gutsy rider

i recall a cycling friend talking about froome when he was still at barlowworld
'there is a rider that one day will win the tdf' it seemed so off the wall
i did not even laugh!

.............if he can't ride in a straight line up hill how did he complete the tdf with a second rate team?

why did team sky sign up such a hopeless cyclist?

it's going to be an interesting summer..................don't dispair totally
i may be slow uphill but i cycle with more style than froome

Mark L

Even in 2007/2008 Froome wasn't a hopeless cyclist. You don't get to ride, and finish, the Tour de France without some element of ability. But there are streets between being an anonymous nobody, and getting on the damn podium.

 

[Ripper]

This isn't the first time we've seen undertones from Cadel interviews about Sky, and judging from this I doubt it'll be the last. ...

Agreed. He made similar comments last year. Of course, it turned out Sky riders were only at 95% most of the year and that was why they dominated many of the stage races that year

 

[thehog]

I do hope you get payed for this stuff.

In your retorics Johan van Summeren could be a GT contender.

But to be fair to you, did you take the trouble to look at the Dawgz previous results in that Tour? I did it for you, dont need to thank me.

Stage 16:

138 Christopher Froome (Ken) Barloworld 31.56

Stage 15:

127 Christopher Froome (Ken) Barloworld 25.33

Well well, could it not just be the Dawg was saving fuel for a few days in the grupetto to spike one day? And blew up?

But, then I stumbled onto this nice kind of info:

Stage 14:

Pre - race:
http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/road/2008/tour08/?id=live/tour0814


So, masterracer, the Dawg was fully 'rested' to peak in the mountains, just losing 57 minutes in the next two stages?

Those guys are the real deal man. Climbing alongside of Wim Vansevant et all!

So he only lost a minute per kilometre after he had to let go of Menchov? How nice.

EDIT:
And to be extra nice to you MR, here are the poweroutputs for Sastre, you can do the math on the Frommedawg yourself and see the marginal gain.

Stage 15, Prato Nevoso (last 8.5 km, 7.88 %, 670 m)

Carlos Sastre (ESP / CSC) | 24:10, 21.10 Kph, VAM 1663 m/h, 5.97 W/kg

Stage 17, Alpe d'Huez (13.8 km, 8.10 %, 1119 m)

Carlos Sastre (ESP / CSC) | 39:32, 20.94 Kph, VAM 1698 m/h, 6.04 W/kg

What an excellent post.

The thing is you could pick out a 100 guys who once hung on to Menchov for 5km.

If that's the criteria for GT victory then god help me.

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

Agreed. He made similar comments last year. Of course, it turned out Sky riders were only at 95% most of the year and that was why they dominated many of the stage races that year

Interesting that Evans' 2011 performances were on a par with Wiggo's last year in terms of results.

He won TA and Romandie, along with bagging 2nd spot in the Dauphine before winning the Tour.

Wiggo won PN, Romandie and the Dauphine before his Tour victory.

Both won the Tour, with Evans having to beat Berto and Andy S to achieve this, which some might consider a better performance than Wiggo's.

 

[Parrulo]

Interesting that Evans' 2011 performances were on a par with Wiggo's last year in terms of results.

He won TA and Romandie, along with bagging 2nd spot in the Dauphine before winning the Tour.

Wiggo won PN, Romandie and the Dauphine before his Tour victory.

Both won the Tour, with Evans having to beat Berto and Andy S to achieve this, which some might consider a better performance than Wiggo's.

Some? i would say that every single person that watched both races thinks that evans's win was much tougher to get and more deserved.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

Both won the Tour, with Evans having to beat Berto and Andy S to achieve this, which some might consider a better performance than Wiggo's.

Some consider Evans having a more believable carreerpath than the other.

And, do not forget, proclaimed by the Wigan to be clean. The first clean winner in ages, remember? He must be clean, Wigan beat him big time in Dauphinee.

 

[will10]

Some? i would say that every single person that watched both races thinks that evans's win was much tougher to get and more deserved.

There's that word deserved again. Regardless of the circumstances, Wiggins was the strongest guy in the Tour. He "deserved" to win.

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

Some consider Evans having a more believable carreerpath than the other.

And, do not forget, proclaimed by the Wigan to be clean. The first clean winner in ages, remember? He must be clean, Wigan beat him big time in Dauphinee.

Both points are true but in simple terms, they don't really help Evans' case.

Whilst Evans' career path is more believable than Wiggo's, if Evans is accusing Wiggo of doping then the fact that he's performed at the same level the year before makes it a lot harder for Evans to justify his own cleanliness. It would be better for Evans to make no comment on Sky's performance levels and stick to the "I had a virus to make me lose to my team mate in 2012" story.

Whatever has been claimed about Sky's cleanliness is irrelevant to whether Wiggo's performance levels in 2012 (and hence Evans' in 2011) are legit. The claims might make Sky look stupid or get the Clinic into an indignant froth, but these are indicators of Sky stupidity and Clinic excitability not doping. Take away claims about cleanliness and you're left with exactly the same performances.

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

Some? i would say that every single person that watched both races thinks that evans's win was much tougher to get and more deserved.

I'm certainly in that camp re toughness. I made reference to "some" as to simply state that Evans' performance was superior would have got me into trouble with those touting the line that Wiggo's performance levels last year were dominant to a degree not witnessed before. He got a bit lucky with a favourable course and weak opposition, though that's not to say he isn't just a club rider who is doped to the eyeballs to achieve this more modest level of dominance.

Wiggo's win is just as deserved as anyone's though. You can only beat what's there, and if you win, no-one can disprove that that you couldn't have gone faster if required.

 

[mattghg]

I guess if Froome had been born in the Wirral and been spotted flying up the Cat and Fiddle aged 14 and been taken under BC's wing he might have shown a different set of results?

We'll never know.

You can look at what he's done and create a case for him being clean, and you can create one for him being dirty, and in either case make out like you are being objective, when at best you can be empirical but that means you must at least acknowledge the other point of view*.

The performances are plausible, just, but the circumstancial evidence based on cycling's prior history mounts.

*But this is the Clinic, we dont do that - we do dogma, whether its doping or non-doping...

Thank you Winterfold for a dose of sanity.

 

[mastersracer]

I do hope you get payed for this stuff.

snip...

It's hard to know whether to reply to you or not since so many of your posts to me get deleted by the mods for their personal remarks. In any case, I'm unclear what your point is regarding Froome's results in these two stages (you mention stage 14 for some reason, but Froome actually got a top 20 result on that stage).

As you don't seem to be aware of how small teams approach the Tour, typically they do not designate a first year grand tour rider who is selected on to their Tour team two weeks before the start to be their designated GC rider. Indeed, often they do not pursue GC at all, but instead opt to pursue individual stages. In that case, many riders will opt not to ride full gas on some stages (especially if their GC leader has dropped out and they no longer have that support role). Your mistake is to take this decision as evidence that a rider is incapable of some capacity, such as climbing or time trialing. Hence, one ought to expect large variances in stage results since they are not pursuing GC. Froome was not incapable of climbing - there are some select stages in which he displayed talent as a climber. Was it fully developed? Of course not. Did he make some basic mistakes? Yes. He admitted, for example, that he did not eat enough before Alpe D'huez and bonked halfway up the climb. Was he incapable of time trialing? No. He had solid results on both time trials. For a rider as green as he was, I think those results are good indicators of potential. Not developed, but potential. Fine if you don't, but then I guess you're going to really dislike the Tour this year when we see that realized potential in action.

 

[Franklin]

SNIP

Dude, your whole "plenty of sign of talent and potential" has been obliterated with a sledgehammer. The data shows Froome showed no exceptional promise. Even you must admit that the facts are squarely and ruthlesly against Froome in this regard.

 

[mastersracer]

Dude, your whole "plenty of sign of talent and potential" has been obliterated with a sledgehammer. The data shows Froome showed no exceptional promise. Even you must admit that the facts are squarely and ruthlesly against Froome in this regard.

No, there is an elementary mistake in these discussions regarding him - it is akin to the reference class problem in statistical inference. People here are judging Froome's early performances from the perspective of the typical developmental trend of riders (and conflating these trends with natural laws, another fallacy). Robert Gesink was one comparison. But, this is the wrong reference class. It is simply a fallacy to suppose Froome, with a completely different background, should develop along the same trajectory as a rider like Gesink, who was the product of the Dutch developmental program.

This fallacy is easy to see in other contexts. Ezekiel Ansah, for example, may be a top 10 NFL draft choice. He's from Ghana and has incredibly poor football skills. Obviously not as developed as an American who grew up playing the game. But it would be ridiculous for an NFL scout to grade him against that reference class. But this is exactly the fallacy occurring in these discussions about Froome.

 

[psycholist]

I really do not think that there is an organised team doping programme at Sky. What there is though is a ethos which puts enormous pressure on an individual to perform.

This means that the responsibility for any doping would fall at the individuals feet whilst the powers at be are protected by "Team Policy", this also would help to enforce the omerta having a team of "individual dopers", rather than "team doping".

Like any big organisation the management don't know what is going on, on the ground. That may be because they are just unaware, or they don't really wan't to know. With a limited career, good wages at Sky and enormous pressure to perform I find it hard to find a reason why a rider wouldnt dope.

 

[roundabout]

I know I shouldn't be doing this, but how much did Froome develop between 2008 and 2010?

Not even the early edition of Sky marginal gains made him a better rider than he was at Barloworld.

But hey, a development curve is a development curve.

 

[xcleigh]

No, there is an elementary mistake in these discussions regarding him - it is akin to the reference class problem in statistical inference. People here are judging Froome's early performances from the perspective of the typical developmental trend of riders (and conflating these trends with natural laws, another fallacy). Robert Gesink was one comparison. But, this is the wrong reference class. It is simply a fallacy to suppose Froome, with a completely different background, should develop along the same trajectory as a rider like Gesink, who was the product of the Dutch developmental program.

This fallacy is easy to see in other contexts. Ezekiel Ansah, for example, may be a top 10 NFL draft choice. He's from Ghana and has incredibly poor football skills. Obviously not as developed as an American who grew up playing the game. But it would be ridiculous for an NFL scout to grade him against that reference class. But this is exactly the fallacy occurring in these discussions about Froome.

To my untrained eye (and some have said 'dense' mind) this would seem to make sense. Comparisons between riders and how they are 'supposed' to develop would seem to be a road to nowhere. All comparisons seem to take no account of individual background, circumstance, development, support etc. In my opinion just because progression doesn't fit a perceived or historical 'norm' doesn't indicate much.