Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[Dr. Maserati]

One simply need look at his pre-Vuelta 2011 results to have the discussion.

Beyond that, the evaluation by his own DS, the photos of him pushing Henderson are all color around that. It's not diluting the argument, rather it's highlighting it.

Ok, just pre Vuelta.
Again, if he was so bad what did he do to get so good in such a short time? This would be a guy who was about to get the boot, not on a big contract.
What did he find, or pay for that is not available to higher paid or bigger name riders?

(Again, just to be clear- I think he was a decent rider, that he probably had some genuine illness, but that it's also used to cover or exaggerate his rise).

Anyone arguing he's clean by saying he could be doing this w/o assistance. I don't think it's possible, and if it is, it's not possible for Froome to be doing it.

And I asked who is that? And it was in relation to the "let's not act that anyone saw real promise".

 

[SundayRider]

Ok, just pre Vuelta.
Again, if he was so bad what did he do to get so good in such a short time? This would be a guy who was about to get the boot, not on a big contract.
What did he find, or pay for that is not available to higher paid or bigger name riders?

(Again, just to be clear- I think he was a decent rider, that he probably had some genuine illness, but that it's also used to cover or exaggerate his rise).


And I asked who is that? And it was in relation to the "let's not act that anyone saw real promise".

If he was so promising, surely he would have made a great domestique for Wiggins in the Tour in 2011 or backup if something happened to Wiggins. Oh yeah he didn't get selected for the team.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Everyone is talking about Froome, so I thought I'd head on over to http://www.procyclingstats.com to do a bit of analysis. I started with the premise that ITT results are usually a good indicator of a rider's capabilities. So I took all the ITT results from 2007 to 2014 and put them into a spreadsheet. I excluded short prologues and races like Commonwealth games where the field is artificially restricted.

Using that data, I calculated two things. First was how many seconds per kilometer he lagged by in each race. The second was his relative ranking. I.e., if he placed 20th out of 200 racers, that gives him a 20/200 = top 10% of riders ranking. To say that I was shocked by the results is a vast understatement. Please check out the following:

From 2007 to Romandie, 2011:
Froome lost by an average 6.4 seconds/km and had an average placing of 27.6%. His best performance during that time was a loss of 3.3 s/km and 11% ranking.

From Tour de Suisse, 2011 to present:
Froome lost by an average 1.7 seconds/km and had an average placing of 4.7%. Excluding a single bad performance in Romandie (2012), his worst performance during that period was a loss of 1.9 s/km and a ranking of 6.5%. (!!!)

I'll post the raw numbers in a bit. But until then... Wow. Just wow.

John Swanson

 

[Ventoux Boar]

Anyone arguing he's clean by saying he could be doing this w/o assistance. I don't think it's possible, and if it is, it's not possible for Froome to be doing it.

I don't think it's that black and white. I don't agree that beating a 23 year-old riding his first Tour bears comparison with Hinault, Lemond or Merckx. He may well have beaten the legendary Wiggins in 2012. Who else is there for him to dominate in his generation?

 

[Ventoux Boar]

If he was so promising, surely he would have made a great domestique for Wiggins in the Tour in 2011 or backup if something happened to Wiggins. Oh yeah he didn't get selected for the team.

Maybe Wiggins was on the selection committee.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

If he was so promising, surely he would have made a great domestique for Wiggins in the Tour in 2011 or backup if something happened to Wiggins. Oh yeah he didn't get selected for the team.

Wasn't he sick, or his form all over the place?

Again, if his rise is purely dope related, why did Sky not just give him the dope before the TdF 11 to make sure Wiggins had this great domestique?

 

[SundayRider]

Wasn't he sick, or his form all over the place?

Again, if his rise is purely dope related, why did Sky not just give him the dope before the TdF 11 to make sure Wiggins had this great domestique?

I don't know the answer to those questions, however we do know that his breakout performance came just as his contract was expiring.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

I don't know the answer to those questions, however we do know that his breakout performance came just as his contract was expiring.

We also know that he would have been picked up by another team (probably at a lot less than the new Sky contract).

 

[red_flanders]

I don't think it's that black and white. I don't agree that beating a 23 year-old riding his first Tour bears comparison with Hinault, Lemond or Merckx. He may well have beaten the legendary Wiggins in 2012. Who else is there for him to dominate in his generation?

The performances he's putting in now, if extended over a period of years, put him in with the all-time greats.

Nothing in his early career suggests this was possible. All those riders (and a great many more slightly lesser riders like Fignon, Delgado, etc.) showed massive promise at an early age. They were expected to dominate eventually. This is normal.

Being a mid-pack rider for several years then dominating the peloton is not normal. It's clearly doping.

See John Swanson's data in the Froome thread. It verifies what's obvious.

 

[SundayRider]

There is too many coincidences for them all to just be coincidences.

 

[Red Lobster]

Everyone is talking about Froome, so I thought I'd head on over to http://www.procyclingstats.com to do a bit of analysis. I started with the premise that ITT results are usually a good indicator of a rider's capabilities. So I took all the ITT results from 2007 to 2014 and put them into a spreadsheet. I excluded short prologues and races like Commonwealth games where the field is artificially restricted.

Using that data, I calculated two things. First was how many seconds per kilometer he lagged by in each race. The second was his relative ranking. I.e., if he placed 20th out of 200 racers, that gives him a 20/200 = top 10% of riders ranking. To say that I was shocked by the results is a vast understatement. Please check out the following:

From 2007 to Romandie, 2011:
Froome lost by an average 6.4 seconds/km and had an average placing of 27.6%. His best performance during that time was a loss of 3.3 s/km and 11% ranking.

From Tour de Suisse, 2011 to present:
Froome lost by an average 1.7 seconds/km and had an average placing of 4.7%. Excluding a single bad performance in Romandie (2012), his worst performance during that period was a loss of 1.9 s/km and a ranking of 6.5%. (!!!)

I'll post the raw numbers in a bit. But until then... Wow. Just wow.

John Swanson

Good stuff, thanks for crunching the numbers.

 

[SaxonUK]

Being a mid-pack rider for several years then dominating the peloton is not normal. It's clearly doping.

I wouldn't even refer to him as a mid-pack rider, did very little before 2011, at least Wiggins had experience on the track and has shown to be a competent rider prior to his GT wins, what did Froome do before?

 

[Saint Unix]

I don't think it's that black and white. I don't agree that beating a 23 year-old riding his first Tour bears comparison with Hinault, Lemond or Merckx. He may well have beaten the legendary Wiggins in 2012. Who else is there for him to dominate in his generation?

Riders like Valverde, Contador, Kreuziger and Purito also got their butts handed to them by Froome in the Tour last year. The first two are convicted dopers. The last two are seriously suspicious.

Cobo was the only rider ahead of him in the Vuelta 2011. Doper? Yes.

In the 2012 Tour, he was beaten only by team mate, mostly because the Dawg remained tethered to his captain throughout.

In the 2012 Vuelta, after riding the Tour two months before and apparently battling badzilla at the start of the season, he was beaten by known dopers Contador and Valverde and suspicious Purito.

You make it sound like he beat some schoolboy on a training run. In fact, the only competitors to beat him in big stage races since his 2011 transformation are riders who most likely aren't squeaky clean themselves.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Well there are 2 options.
1. Marginal gains.
2. Brand new doping program.
3. Never testing positive.

3 has already happened more than once at this point in history, and different than #2. I read #2 as an undetectable PED combination. Whereas #3 is detectable, but never positive for 101 possible reasons including federation protection.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

I wouldn't even refer to him as a mid-pack rider, did very little before 2011, at least Wiggins had experience on the track and has shown to be a competent rider prior to his GT wins, what did Froome do before?

Competent road rider? Like when? Please don't tell us about his hilly L'Avenir stage win. Please tell us you have something more than some local hilly billy 10s and failed attempts at prologues.

 

[SaxonUK]

Competent road rider? Like when? Please don't tell us about his hilly L'Avenir stage win. Please tell us you have something more than some local hilly billy 10s and failed attempts at prologues.

I'm talking mostly about his competence in track, which is alot more than Froome has.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

I'm talking mostly about his competence in track, which is alot more than Froome has.

His record on the road pre-2009 is as good as Froome's though, and IMO riding a few 3km TTs well on the track in a tiny, tiny pool of "talent" is no precursor for winning everything the way he did in 2012.

To my mind they are peas in a pod.

 

[peloton]

Riders like Valverde, Contador, Kreuziger and Purito also got their butts handed to them by Froome in the Tour last year. The first two are convicted dopers. The last two are seriously suspicious.

You make it sound like he beat some schoolboy on a training run. In fact, the only competitors to beat him in big stage races since his 2011 transformation are riders who most likely aren't squeaky clean themselves.

And even a super charged Contador wasn't winning stages by more than a 40-50 sec margins, in his big winning days. Froome on the other hand...

 

[Ventoux Boar]

Riders like Valverde, Contador, Kreuziger and Purito also got their butts handed to them by Froome in the Tour last year. The first two are convicted dopers. The last two are seriously suspicious.

Cobo was the only rider ahead of him in the Vuelta 2011. Doper? Yes.

In the 2012 Tour, he was beaten only by team mate, mostly because the Dawg remained tethered to his captain throughout.

In the 2012 Vuelta, after riding the Tour two months before and apparently battling badzilla at the start of the season, he was beaten by known dopers Contador and Valverde and suspicious Purito.

You make it sound like he beat some schoolboy on a training run. In fact, the only competitors to beat him in big stage races since his 2011 transformation are riders who most likely aren't squeaky clean themselves.

Reasonable points. Not sure we saw a top form Contador in 2012 for whatever reason. And you'd imagine Quintana has room for improvement. No doubt he's best at the moment, but we're miles from Merckx & co.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Reasonable points. Not sure we saw a top form Contador in 2012 for whatever reason. And you'd imagine Quintana has room for improvement. No doubt he's best at the moment, but we're miles from Merckx & co.

Quintana just turned 24, Froome will be 29 in May, imagine if Quintana improves the way Froome has? Do you think that is possible?

And while Contador may not have been at his best, none of this addresses the high figures we saw at Oman from Froome.

 

[The Hitch]

Wasn't he sick, or his form all over the place?

Again, if his rise is purely dope related, why did Sky not just give him the dope before the TdF 11 to make sure Wiggins had this great domestique?

Maybe the plan was already back then to win the pre Olympic tour de France.

With the fact that aso was meeting with sky and the course came out so favourable, it's no stretch to suggest everything sky did pre July 2012 was geared to winning that one.

 

[The Hitch]

There is too many coincidences for them all to just be coincidences.

Brilliantly summarized.

 

[Bernie's eyesore]

I'm talking mostly about his competence in track, which is alot more than Froome has.

As we are talking about riders who went on to win the Tour, I would argue that a 34th place finish in the Giro was far more relevant than winning gold medals on the track. Wiggins had never even made the top 120 in a Grand Tour before 2009.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Maybe the plan was already back then to win the pre Olympic tour de France.

With the fact that aso was meeting with sky and the course came out so favourable, it's no stretch to suggest everything sky did pre July 2012 was geared to winning that one.

Including the crash that broke Wiggins collarbone in 2011?

Again the question was to do with Froomes quick rise. I think you were the one who spent time looking at his bilharzia, and his story does not appear to add up.
I think thats where the discrepancies are and need looking at.

 

[Ventoux Boar]

Quintana just turned 24, Froome will be 29 in May, imagine if Quintana improves the way Froome has? Do you think that is possible?

And while Contador may not have been at his best, none of this addresses the high figures we saw at Oman from Froome.

Who knows what Quintana's potential is? Who knows what Froome would have done at a similar age with a similar background?

I don't know enough to comment on the Oman wattages.