Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[Bumeington]

I do wonder about that. Wiggo was allegedly 82kg at his IP peak, and doing 560W for his 4:15.

G was lighter, and pretty sure he tweeted doing 5 x 5 @ 560W in training...

That's a 5 minute effort at Wiggo's 4 minute IP pace with a 5 minute recovery then going again.

Maybe he was just trolling?

Pretty sure it was Geraint. Damned if I could find the tweet again.

For Wiggo I heard 4:13 in training with 580W which would mean about 570W for 4:15. Didn't see that particular tweet from Geraint but he tweeted before about doing 580W for a 5 minute power test, beating Jez Hunt by 3W.

Worth bearing in mind that (even though I would think it would be small for a top TT pro) there would be a drop off between power in IP/TT position and on the road bike - anecdotal 375W vs 335W at FTP for a keen amateur

 

[Dear Wiggo]

For Wiggo I heard 4:13 in training with 580W which would mean about 570W for 4:15. Didn't see that particular tweet from Geraint but he tweeted before about doing 580W for a 5 minute power test, beating Jez Hunt by 3W.

Worth bearing in mind that (even though I would think it would be small for a top TT pro) there would be a drop off between power in IP/TT position and on the road bike - anecdotal 375W vs 335W at FTP for a keen amateur

My point being: if Geraint, at a much lighter weight, can push the same watts as Wiggo, but he's doing it in training - with 5 minute recoveries vs hours at world comp level IP heats / events, then he should be emulating an (allegedly) clean Wiggins at the Tour.

Based on
1. many people here claiming IP results == GT indicator
2. Wiggins is clean
3. losing weight / being light is all you need to do to turn that power into GT dominance.

Instead, Ellingworth is going to ease Geraint into 1 week races, etc.

Always seeking consistency is prone to disappointment.

 

[JimmyFingers]

My point being: if Geraint, at a much lighter weight, can push the same watts as Wiggo, but he's doing it in training - with 5 minute recoveries vs hours at world comp level IP heats / events, then he should be emulating an (allegedly) clean Wiggins at the Tour.

Based on
1. many people here claiming IP results == GT indicator
2. Wiggins is clean
3. losing weight / being light is all you need to do to turn that power into GT dominance.

Instead, Ellingworth is going to ease Geraint into 1 week races, etc.

Always seeking consistency is prone to disappointment.

Good trolling, mocking other people's positions and using speculation and flimsy facts to spew a little bit more bile at Sky and the Brits.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Good trolling, mocking other people's positions and using speculation and flimsy facts to spew a little bit more bile at Sky and the Brits.

If you can show me, by perhaps copying and pasting the specific sentence or even words from a sentence that show (with my understanding as to their definition, as it appears to be markedly different to yours):

1. trolling
an inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic post
2. mocking other people's position
making fun of someone or something in a cruel way
3. speculation
the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence
4. flimsy facts
insubstantial
5. bile
anger or bitterness
6. an anti-Brit message
racist remarks

I would appreciate it immensely.

I am honestly astounded that you managed to squeeze so much perceived negativity from such a simple, unemotional, neutral post. Really. Every single one of those sentences in my post can be constructed from arguments conducted here, or interviews conducted with Ellingworth in the press. I have not even interpreted or massaged them one iota - they are practically direct copies of what has been posted.

I am not sure if it will make any difference, but I am half British myself, and have British citizenship. That you can read an anti-Brit tone in any of my posts, let alone this one, is incredible. Simply amazing.

I'm prepared to read your response. If you can communicate it without further hyperbole that would be great, but I won't hold my breath.

 

[RownhamHill]

If you can show me, by perhaps copying and pasting the specific sentence or even words from a sentence that show (with my understanding as to their definition, as it appears to be markedly different to yours):

1. trolling
an inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic post
2. mocking other people's position
making fun of someone or something in a cruel way
3. speculation
the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence
4. flimsy facts
insubstantial
5. bile
anger or bitterness
6. an anti-Brit message
racist remarks

I would appreciate it immensely.

I am honestly astounded that you managed to squeeze so much perceived negativity from such a simple, unemotional, neutral post. Really. Every single one of those sentences in my post can be constructed from arguments conducted here, or interviews conducted with Ellingworth in the press. I have not even interpreted or massaged them one iota - they are practically direct copies of what has been posted.

I am not sure if it will make any difference, but I am half British myself, and have British citizenship. That you can read an anti-Brit tone in any of my posts, let alone this one, is incredible. Simply amazing.

I'm prepared to read your response. If you can communicate it without further hyperbole that would be great, but I won't hold my breath.

So I think the reason your post comes across as mocking and bile laden to Jimmy is because of the context of your two year posting history of mocking and throwing bile at Sky riders.

So when you juxtapose the experience of Wiggins and Thomas, and question why, since they're coming from a similar place in terms of IP performance, Thomas is making a slower attempt to lose weight for GTs GC, while you may think it is a simple, neutral question, other posters used to your style may not have read it in that sense, and may have assumed that you were in fact presenting a rhetorical question in order to implicitly highlight the answer that you already believe - that Wiggin's transformation was quicker because it was about dope. Thanks for setting us all straight that it wasn't.

Right, now we've got that cleared up, shall we think about the question itself, since it's fair enough.

So I've had a go at speculating some answers, here's what I came up:

- Wiggins transformed so quickly because it was doped, but Thomas isn't planning on doping, so necessarily needs to transform slower.
- Wiggins transformed quickly, but found it all hard to handle and regressed (both in 2010, and after 2012) and they want to avoid that.
- Thomas is physiologically of a different body type, and they have more worries about a quick weight loss (does that even make any sense?)
- Thomas's peak performance is a shade below Wiggins (even by a couple of watts) so they're not convinced he'll be able to go as far? (And they're aware that Wiggins at his very best was a one time GT winner rather than a multiple GT winner)
- Froome is clearly their top dog for GT, with Porte still clinging onto second, and Henao (and possibly Kennaugh?) also up the pecking order and they're concerned to both try and manage Thomas's expectations (as he ain't riding for GC in a GT next year) and also try and get some other results for the team next year outside GTs (since this year hasn't worked so well for them)

I'm sure there are more possibilities as well. I'm particularly interested in how Kennaugh fits into the Sky masterplan as well, and since he was keeping up with Thomas in the London TP at the age of 23 he presumably has a similar TP pedigree as the other two as well.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

mocking and throwing bile at Sky riders.

Again. Show one post where I mock or throw bile. Just one.

If I question the validity of a performance out of the blue(1) from someone(2) who is best mates with one of the most successful dopers in the pro peloton(3), and being coached by some mystery person(4) that even his team manager(5) does not know (2009 TdF, Wiggins, Lance, ???, Vaughters) - that is not mocking or bile.

I am sorry that you see it that way, but it's not.

It's incredulity. Plain and simple.

So when you juxtapose the experience of Wiggins and Thomas, and question why, since they're coming from a similar place in terms of IP performance, Thomas is making a slower attempt to lose weight for GTs GC

Incredible.

What my post actually says is, " if Geraint, at a much lighter weight" - and if you go back and read the original post from me in this arc, you will see that Geraint is already light at ~70kg. He doesn't have weight to lose like WIggo at 82kg (apparently) did, and at no point, anywhere in these posts, am I saying that he needs to lose weight, or is doing it more slowly.

Absolutely incredible.

That native English speaking posters can read my native English and completely muck up what I have written. Just.

No wonder my other posts are misinterpreted as bile and mocking.

Don't bother, Jimmy, I wouldn't want you to waste my or your time with a response.

 

[the sceptic]

"He'll ride in a couple of one-day races, then he'll ride the Tour of Britain," Brailsford said, according to bbc.co.uk. "We hope that will give him the right training preparations to go to the World Championships, and try to deliver in the individual time trial again, which he did so brilliantly last year. We hope he'll do the same again this year."

Gotta love it. It is almost as if they have turned the clock back to 2008.

Preparing correctly for the world championship ITT is now the best Wiggins can hope for. The same guy who only 2 years ago was known as the biggest talent since Lemond.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Gotta love it. It is almost as if they have turned the clock back to 2008.

Preparing correctly for the world championship ITT is now the best Wiggins can hope for. The same guy who only 2 years ago was known as the biggest talent since Lemond.

The newspapers carrying on about Wiggo being recalled to the Sky road team to compete in the RideLondon classic was breathtaking vs what he did from Feb to August of 2012.

I still cannot wrap my head around it.

 

[stutue]

That native English speaking posters can read my native English and completely muck up what I have written. Just.

No wonder my other posts are misinterpreted as bile and mocking.

Don't bother, Jimmy, I wouldn't want you to waste my or your time with a response.

I tried and failed to wrap the following up in spoiler brackets so that posters can choose whether to read it. I've read some of the thinly-veiled anti-british crud posted across various threads and this is my measured response. Mods: feel free to delete if you feel it is an unreasonable post

Spoiler

Australian, perchance?

I think there is a marked difference between what is considered offensive between different English speaking Nations. On a sliding scale, Americans seem to be (in general) the quickest to take offence, the Australians the least, and the British somewhere in the middle. That is to say an australian could say something to a Brit that in Australia would not be considered offensive but would be mortally offensive in the UK.

I had no idea of this until an incident nearly 25 years ago when during a discussion an australian told me I was "full of ***". I did what any self-respecting person would do and punched him in the face. It took him longer to recover from his incredulity than from the punch. I had no idea that what he said wasn't considered offensive and I'm still embarrassed by the memory.

As an aside, there has been a long-standing animosity from some Australians towards the British...some sort of post-colonial chip on the shoulder probably (actually not so much post, as the British Queen is still their Head of State and can and has dismissed their Government...Australians really should go for full independence in my view) and it is often to the bewilderment of the British. It is particularly prevalent in sport and I guess that following the ascendancy of Brits in 2008 Olympics coupled with the demise of the Australians must be a bit hard for some of them to take. Going back to my first paragraph I'm minded of the public response of the Australian team manager following defeat by the English in the 2003 world cup. He said "The English are pr1cks to lose to". Quite apart from being an unthinkably undignified response to losing it is also just pure bad-loser sour-grapes.

I'm thinking that there's a good chance that a fair chunk of the anti-Brit stuff on this forum comes from australian posters.

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

The same guy who only 2 years ago was known as the biggest talent since Lemond.

Who knew him as this?

Most people either thought he was a doper, someone who got a bit lucky with a favourable course, a lack of opposition and having the second best rider in the field riding for him in the Tour or combinations of the two.

 

[The Hitch]

Good trolling,

well you are an authority on the subject.

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

The newspapers carrying on about Wiggo being recalled to the Sky road team to compete in the RideLondon classic was breathtaking vs what he did from Feb to August of 2012.

I still cannot wrap my head around it.

Publicity. The organisers wanted it and Wiggo in the field guarantees it.

Same reason why Marianne Vos was paid a tidy wedge to ride the Sportive yesterday morning. It gives the whole event a bit more lustre.

This approach seems to have worked well. There were massive crowds for both events despite absolutely shocking weather.

Newspapers, of course, print what they think will sell papers.

 

[The Hitch]

Who knew him as this?

Most people either thought he was a doper, someone who got a bit lucky with a favourable course, a lack of opposition and having the second best rider in the field riding for him in the Tour or combinations of the two.

The second group do implicitly. Unless they are too dumb to realize that if a rider scoring what is ranked as the 2nd greatest season since the 1970's, going on an unprescedented in the recent history of the sport 6 month peak and at the end of it climbing as fast as Rasmussen on peyresoudes, and then riding one of the fastest tts of all time one week after winning a gt while chonically underweight and according to his own self totally wrongly prepared for an itt, did all that clean, he is easily the best rider since lemond.

And that is just the short description of the season. He was winning sprints, he was winning mtts while suffering mechanicals, he absolutly destroyed the cq points per day record, he made the same v Nibali who just owned the tdf look like a domestique in the mountains, he was a handful of seconds off wearing the yellow jersey for the entire tdf, he won every long tt he participated in having never before in nearly a decade as a pro won one etc.


Oh wait no. Maybe I dreamt all that up. What really happened was Wiggins won nothing all season until July then scraped the tour de France on a course that didn't have a single mountain in it, by a handful of seconds due to heroic teamwork from proven gt contenders after losing lots of time on every slight incline.

Which is essentially the version you keep offering but anyone with access to cq rankings or climbing tines sites can see the reality is Wiggins owned the entire cycling world for a year and won velodor.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Who knew him as this?

Most people either thought he was a doper, someone who got a bit lucky with a favourable course, a lack of opposition and having the second best rider in the field riding for him in the Tour or combinations of the two.

I was thinking about that - he won a lot more than just the Tour, right? And came 3rd in the Vuelta the year before.

Were all those races in 2012 designed for him to win? I realise there was probably already discussion regarding this, but what's your recollection?

It seems quite an achievement that every single race he entered was designed specifically to his strengths, whilst limiting the effects of his weaknesses, allowing him to luck out for 6 months straight and rack up an extraordinary winning streak.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Publicity. The organisers wanted it and Wiggo in the field guarantees it.

Same reason why Marianne Vos was paid a tidy wedge to ride the Sportive yesterday morning. It gives the whole event a bit more lustre.

Except Vos is still riding at the same level as usual - the top. You could not pick a more mind bogglingly bad example of comparison to Wiggins.

 

[roundabout]

I was thinking about that - he won a lot more than just the Tour, right? And came 3rd in the Vuelta the year before.

Were all those races in 2012 designed for him to win? I realise there was probably already discussion regarding this, but what's your recollection?

It seems quite an achievement that every single race he entered was designed specifically to his strengths, whilst limiting the effects of his weaknesses, allowing him to luck out for 6 months straight and rack up an extraordinary winning streak.

The Dauphine in 2012 had 1 high mountain stage and nearly 60km of TT

Romandie had no high mountain stages and a down and then up TT

I would say that Paris-Nice arguably was the course least suited to Wiggins.

Of course the counter argument is the 2011 Dauphine. Not really a Wiggins course and he won in by over a minute.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

The Dauphine in 2012 had 1 high mountain stage and nearly 60km of TT

Romandie had no high mountain stages and a down and then up TT

I would say that Paris-Nice arguably was the course least suited to Wiggins.

Of course the counter argument is the 2011 Dauphine. Not really a Wiggins course and he won in by over a minute.

I would love to have data on tap for that.

2009 Tour
2011 Vuelta
2011 Dauphine

 

[the sceptic]

Who knew him as this?

Most people either thought he was a doper, someone who got a bit lucky with a favourable course, a lack of opposition and having the second best rider in the field riding for him in the Tour or combinations of the two.

people who say he was clean. Its implied.

his "human" power output was right on the limit for what is possible, thus if he is clean he is surely one of the greatest talents of all time.

thus, its funny to now see him suddenly not so talented anymore, and back to the pre 2009 Wiggins.

 

[roundabout]

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/road/2009/tour09/?id=stages

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/criterium-du-dauphine-upt/stages

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/vuelta-a-espana-2011/stages

 

[Dear Wiggo]

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/road/2009/tour09/?id=stages

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/criterium-du-dauphine-upt/stages

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/vuelta-a-espana-2011/stages

Thank you.

When I wrote, "on tap", I was thinking more the summary data - stages, distances, elevation gain, total TT km, etc. A project for another day...

 

[Catwhoorg]

Its either in the archive back here, or in the Wiggo thread.

The summary was that each of those races lacked a major HC climb stage, and had a time trial. Was almost a perfect storm of set-up races.

Since 2012, they have all been somewhat different. The question can justifiably asked if the ASO set-up Wiggins like that in the run up to 2012, or was it really coincidence ?


I'd also suggest Wiggo was towed around by the best rider in the field...

(An unleashed Froome gaining time in the mountains versus Wiggo's TT advantage will remain one of the fun debates of cycling in future years.)

 

[red_flanders]

6. an anti-Brit message
racist remarks

Brits as a "race" always makes me chuckle.

I think (not aimed at you) if folks are going to call people racist, they should attempt to understand the word on its most basic level.

Nationalist folks. Not racist.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Brits as a "race" always makes me chuckle.

I think (not aimed at you) if folks are going to call people racist, they should attempt to understand the word on its most basic level.

Nationalist folks. Not racist.

Point taken. And agreed.

 

[RownhamHill]

Again. Show one post where I mock or throw bile. Just one.

If I question the validity of a performance out of the blue(1) from someone(2) who is best mates with one of the most successful dopers in the pro peloton(3), and being coached by some mystery person(4) that even his team manager(5) does not know (2009 TdF, Wiggins, Lance, ???, Vaughters) - that is not mocking or bile.

I am sorry that you see it that way, but it's not.

It's incredulity. Plain and simple.



Incredible.

What my post actually says is, " if Geraint, at a much lighter weight" - and if you go back and read the original post from me in this arc, you will see that Geraint is already light at ~70kg. He doesn't have weight to lose like WIggo at 82kg (apparently) did, and at no point, anywhere in these posts, am I saying that he needs to lose weight, or is doing it more slowly.

Absolutely incredible.

That native English speaking posters can read my native English and completely muck up what I have written. Just.

No wonder my other posts are misinterpreted as bile and mocking.

Don't bother, Jimmy, I wouldn't want you to waste my or your time with a response.

Sorry, I misunderstood your point about losing weight, but then I'm not really sure what your point is any more. So if they're producing comparable absolute power, but thomas is much lighter, he should be flying up climbs already?

But he isn't. So why is that? (And he himself has talked about needing to lose weight to have a proper crack at gc, which is again odd if he's already producing the same absolute power as Wiggins at a broadly comparable GC weight.) Genuinely, I'm interested in the question.

As for your confusion that native English speakers 'misinterpret' your posts, maybe it's like my attempts to crack jokes.




We both need to work on our delivery.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Sorry, I misunderstood your point about losing weight, but then I'm not really sure what your point is any more. So if they're producing comparable absolute power, but thomas is much lighter, he should be flying up climbs already?

But he isn't. So why is that? (And he himself has talked about needing to lose weight to have a proper crack at gc, which is again odd if he's already producing the same absolute power as Wiggins at a broadly comparable GC weight.) Genuinely, I'm interested in the question.

As for your confusion that native English speakers 'misinterpret' your posts, maybe it's like my attempts to crack jokes.

We both need to work on our delivery.

See - you don't have to blame me entirely for the misunderstanding. How about copying and pasting the sentence(s) or words where I (allegedly) said "G needs to lose weight to win a GT but is doing it very slowly compared to Wiggins', or whatever it is you think I wrote?

That way I can learn which part of my delivery completely fooled you?

Otherwise, we appear to be in agreement - G is generating more W/kg @ VO2max than Wiggins apparently can, yet is not ripping up the GTs.

Maybe it's a case of "he could but is being held back by that Dawg Froome"?

I guess only time will tell.

Assuming, of course, Geraint was being honest in the tweet I cannot find.