Team Ineos (Formerly the Sky thread)

[The Chicken]

Soon it will proved that Armstrong blood doped in 2009 and Wiggins was good enough to finish just behind him in that Tour. That’s a mighty effort for a clean rider finishing behind the greatest winning Tour rider of all time who was also using drugs at the time. And Wiggins has improved since 2009. Wow! All clean. Incredible.

Goodness me, a sane voice. How did you get in?

Bahahaha Agreed!

That is all.

 

[taiwan]

End of the day though, you can criticise the quality of the thread, but you chose an example of someone who will have been juicing with more than clenbuterol.

And the reason WIggins looks questionable is his career progression. You wouldn't have seen the same scrutiny of Evans or even Contador en route to a Tour win because everyone's familiar with their abilities. But if anyone decided to win the Tour after spending much of their career as an OK-to-good ITT specialist, eyebrows would be raised.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Hateful bile?
I'm taking the **** but it's from a position of bemusement...certainly not hate.

Way back in this thread I jokingly asked whether or not there are any cyclists in the peleton suspected of being clean. I'd love to see some names put forward.

For the record, I despise SKY as an organisation.
I know that Wiggins is riding clean.
I haven't yet seen any performance in this tour that appeared too good to be true.

I humbly ask your opinion on freiburg rogers and chris froome are they clean? Can you enlighten us with your esteem opinion?

 

[thehog]

End of the day though, you can criticise the quality of the thread, but you chose an example of someone who will have been juicing with more than clenbuterol.

And the reason WIggins looks questionable is his career progression. You wouldn't have seen the same scrutiny of Evans or even Contador en route to a Tour win because everyone's familiar with their abilities. But if anyone decided to win the Tour after spending much of their career as an OK-to-good ITT specialist, eyebrows would be raised.

I not just Wiggins. It’s the way his entire team is following the Lance team model and crushing everyone but themselves. Rogers and Froome are the ones making Wiggins look even more dubious. Wiggins 2009 looked more authentic but by the end of the Tour one team has basically ridden on the front for an entire two weeks! Seriously? We even had President McQuaid telling us that he doesn’t think we’ll see teams riding like that again and low and behold we have one team dominating the entire race start to finish. Do you really think at top level cycling that the riders in the Sky team are that far ahead of the competition? They’re all one of kind athletes with big engines and have trained harder than any other team and/or cyclist in the field? Come on.

 

[armchairclimber]

I humbly ask your opinion on freiburg rogers and chris froome are they clean? Can you enlighten us with your esteem opinion?

Yep, you can ask. No idea whether either of them is up to no good. Whatever their history, I doubt it at the moment. The reasons for that doubt go way beyond cycling.

 

[Franklin]

Hi Franklin..Me finks I perhaps worded that badly..the example of Endurain I used as an example of the massive jump in placings from lowly to number one that can be achieved, not that I felt that was all achieved by PEDS.
I was a big admirer of Endurain both on and off the bike and your spot on , he spent a long time in the service of others.
Hope that,s cleared that up.

Np, just a bit of annoyance that historic facts are so easily abused here, especially about that ever so crucial time: the first-epo years. *

I'm rather positive that Miguel didn't win a GT without Epo... But at least we should realize that even pre-epo a large group of experts pointed him out as a star to be.

Wiggins? Not so much ^^.



*Off topic: A big question mark is Erik Breukink. Is he a potential GT winner who never would win a GT due to Epo? His earliest Giro expoloits certainly were pre-epo. But OTOH he later rode for the dirtiest team in the TdF, PDM, which also has some strong indications with early epo usage (Johannes Draaijer).

 

[sniper]

End of the day though, you can criticise the quality of the thread, but you chose an example of someone who will have been juicing with more than clenbuterol.

And the reason WIggins looks questionable is his career progression. You wouldn't have seen the same scrutiny of Evans or even Contador en route to a Tour win because everyone's familiar with their abilities. But if anyone decided to win the Tour after spending much of their career as an OK-to-good ITT specialist, eyebrows would be raised.

for the record and for the sanity of the thread, other reasons include:
- Wiggins refusing to have Kimmage on board during the TdF
- Wiggins' idiotic response to doping questions
- Wiggins' admiration of LA
- Wiggins' head-to-body proportions
- Leinders pulling the strings in sky's medical department.

 

[armchairclimber]

I not just Wiggins. It’s the way his entire team is following the Lance team model and crushing everyone but themselves. Rogers and Froome are the ones making Wiggins look even more dubious. Wiggins 2009 looked more authentic but by the end of the Tour one team has basically ridden on the front for an entire two weeks! Seriously? We even had President McQuaid telling us that he doesn’t think we’ll see teams riding like that again and low and behold we have one team dominating the entire race start to finish. Do you really think at top level cycling that the riders in the Sky team are that far ahead of the competition? They’re all one of kind athletes with big engines and have trained harder than any other team and/or cyclist in the field? Come on.

That's exactly what I would expect of a team that has been several years in the making, gearing up for this one simple objective. It's what a winning team does FFS. The substance behind it, motivating it, driving it is infinitely more potent and poisonous than JUICE....it's money. The JUICE just isn't required....especially when the course is for the horse and there are so many non-runners and fallers.

 

[Franklin]

End of the day though, you can criticise the quality of the thread, but you chose an example of someone who will have been juicing with more than clenbuterol.

And the reason WIggins looks questionable is his career progression. You wouldn't have seen the same scrutiny of Evans or even Contador en route to a Tour win because everyone's familiar with their abilities. But if anyone decided to win the Tour after spending much of their career as an OK-to-good ITT specialist, eyebrows would be raised.

It's all a red herring. Alberto is put under more scrutiny here than Wiggins. And Evans certainly got his fair share of attention last year.

Quite simply Wiggins isn't singled out at all..

And the vast majority here grins about Evans performance throughout the Lance years. But that makes the Sky performance so noteworthy. Anyone thinking that cycling is clean is crazy, so there will be a substantial amounts of dopers. Yet Sky demolishes all.

Now that in itself is peculiar, but adding the other facts we know about Sky... we once again get to the duck equation. And the problem here is that in all these years we never saw a non-duck yet. And Sky is looking more than a bunch of ducks than prior proven to be ducks.

And yet we are the loonies? I'd say we are the ones who stand on the side of reason. It fits the better as believers hate facts and reason.

 

[armchairclimber]

It's all a red herring. Alberto is put under more scrutiny here than Wiggins. And Evans certainly got his fair share of attention last year.

Quite simply Wiggins isn't singled out at all..

And the vast majority here grins about Evans performance throughout the Lance years. But that makes the Sky performance so noteworthy. Anyone thinking that cycling is clean is crazy, so there will be a substantial amounts of dopers. Yet Sky demolishes all.

Now that in itself is peculiar, but adding the other facts we know about Sky... we once again get to the duck equation. And the problem here is that in all these years we never saw a non-duck yet. And Sky is looking more than a bunch of ducks than prior proven to be ducks.

And yet we are the loonies? I'd say we are the ones who stand on the side of reason. It fits the better as believers hate facts and reason.

Then why watch? If you're so convinced. why bother?
Why?

 

[Square-pedaller]

for the record and for the sanity of the thread, other reasons include:
- Wiggins refusing to have Kimmage on board during the TdF
- Wiggins' idiotic response to doping questions
- Wiggins' admiration of LA
- Wiggins' head-to-body proportions
- Leinders pulling the strings in sky's medical department.

Plus Wiggins' score of 5 on the UCI's 2010 suspicion list (+Eisel 4; Knees 6; Rogers 7; Siutsou 8).
(Off-topic, I noticed that the vehemently anti-doping David Millar got a 4.)

 

[DirtyWorks]

for the record and for the sanity of the thread, other reasons include:
- Wiggins refusing to have Kimmage on board during the TdF
- Wiggins' idiotic response to doping questions
- Wiggins' admiration of LA
- Wiggins' head-to-body proportions
- Leinders pulling the strings in sky's medical department.

-Trip to Tenerife for 'altitude training' after which the riders returned super-charged. We all know Tenerife's altitude is better. Based on observation, Tenerife trips are better described as magical.

Another observation that's hard to categorize as 'normal,' meeting with the organizer before the race and sharing blood profiles with them.

The heavy bias against false positives in WADA's testing is a reasonable safeguard. However, it means that when testing returns 'suspicious' values, (not positive, not negative) it is extremely likely it's a real, live positive. IMHO, the Index of Suspicion is a functional positive.

FYI: I'm not actively watching this year since the first Sky Train show. I can't. It's ridiculous. I read the day's summary here though. Why? I still like bike racing.

 

[armchairclimber]

Talk about glass half empty. There's only one or two of you have a glass.

 

[Franklin]

Then why watch? If you're so convinced. why bother?
Why?

Ah yes, the "Why" question with the implied you must hate cycling so much

1. I love the sport, the spectacle. I surely appreciate the performances and think Wiggins and Froome are superbe athletes. Heck, lance was a superbe athlete.

That doesn't mean that I don't want a cleaner cycling
Nor does it mean that I accept overt bullying. Think of Lance and (much, much lesser) the absolute distasteful attack on critics.

2. We can turn this one around which is quite telltale: you imply that you can only watch the sport as believer... as follower of the church of Sky.

I'd say you don't need to believe in fairy tales to watch cycling, but you seem to be really adamant in this. Odd that, as it disqualifies you from any serious discussion.

I hope you think a bit about this and become a bit more constructive. Don't pick apart a single argument "if all stars align, this could happen, right?" but try to come with a convincing story for at least part of the huge blinking warning signs.

But your posting is clear. This is the clinic, yet because we talk about the guy you believe in you think it's time to troll. Censorship comes in many guises. It's a weapon used by those who believe against those who prefer facts.

 

[Caruut]

Then why watch? If you're so convinced. why bother?
Why?

40 yards from the end-zone, 3rd down with 10 seconds to go in the 4th quarter. What's that I see? Oh, a Hail Mary pass. The classic "If you think there's doping, why watch?". Just because you don't believe in everything doesn't mean you can't still watch to see the race. I can watch who's riding best after those I suspect of doping excessively, I might see something that changes my mind, I just quite like bike racing.

 

[Digger]

Soon it will proved that Armstrong blood doped in 2009 and Wiggins was good enough to finish just behind him in that Tour. That’s a mighty effort for a clean rider finishing behind the greatest winning Tour rider of all time who was also using drugs at the time. And Wiggins has improved since 2009. Wow! All clean. Incredible.

Let us not forget that the most of the time difference between Wiggins and Lance came from the TTT, where amazingly Garmin finished with five riders, and Astana finished with seven....And really Garmin finished with four, as Ryder was hanging on, but they needed the fifth guy to be counted. Point being that conceivably he could have very easily beaten a highly juiced up Lance on a course with no TTT.

That blog he wrote was complete drivel. He mentions Vino and others costing him podium places, and bargaining power. Well two dopers cost him a podium in Paris in 2009, and not once word did he say about them...so he's either a coward or a cheat. But it's easy to pick on people like Landis, kohl and others isn't it.
If he really was this outspoken, clean rider, why has he not come out with his disgust at those two costing him what would have been a big moment in his career. Why does he think some dopers are great and he lauds them, yet has a strong opinion on the ones who have been ostracised already.
And like others the first thing i thought when i read that blog was lance saying he'd never dope and put those chemicals into his body after cancer. (If you consider my situation: a guy who comes back from arguably, you know, a death sentence, why would I then enter into a sport and dope myself up and risk my life again? That's crazy. I would never do that. No. No way) The awards and rewards far far outweigh the negatives. And with the right planning and money, which Sky certainly have, the chances of being caught are pretty small. We all know the biopassport isn't worth the paper it's written on. As Kohl said, the biopassport and internal testing in teams, merely helped riders with how much doping they could get away with. It gave them structure.

Wiggins has been at the top since February...if he is clean, which I am sure he is not, then he is already one of the greatest cyclists of all time. Because no other cyclist did what he did clean, i.e. win so many races in the one season, and not just one day races, but tough level stage races. A juiced up Contador hasn't even done that...lance, no one.
And if i hear this nonsense abotu marginal gains once more...do people honestly think all the guys at the top aren't super talented and hard workers to begin with. They all have top staff, trainers etc working with them. It's a given. Diet the same. But the fan boys lap it up, just like the lapped it up with USP. How USP had special quality tyres which prevented them from getting many punctures....By the way, Wiggins keeps going on about the weight loss...same as Lance. And just like Lance, this figure varies. He was down to 4% body fat at the 2009 Tour, but amazingly he is now lower than that weight...but is still keeping his power and muscle. Not humaningly possible but Bradley appears to be amazing. Must be the swim coaching and their expertise.
It's all the same as lance, same story, only slightly different words used. Lance said he was a great triahtlete, Wiggins says track. Lance says weight, Wiggins says the same. Lance mentions equipment and team, same for Wiggins. Lance mentions training Xmas day, Wiggins mentions missing kid's birthdays....and as I say the fan boys just lap it up.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Moncoutie is generally thought to be clean.

I have a lot of faith in Fedrigo, too.

 

[armchairclimber]

Ah yes, the "Why" question with the implied you must hate cycling so much

1. I love the sport, the spectacle. I surely appreciate the performances and think Wiggins and Froome are superbe athletes. Heck, lance was a superbe athlete.

That doesn't mean that I don't want a cleaner cycling
Nor does it mean that I accept overt bullying. Think of Lance and (much, much lesser) the absolute distasteful attack on critics.

2. We can turn this one around which is quite telltale: you imply that you can only watch the sport as believer... as follower of the church of Sky.

I'd say you don't need to believe in fairy tales to watch cycling, but you seem to be really adamant in this. Odd that, as it disqualifies you from any serious discussion.

I hope you think a bit about this and become a bit more constructive. Don't pick apart a single argument "if all stars align, this could happen, right?" but try to come with a convincing story for at least part of the huge blinking warning signs.

But your posting is clear. This is the clinic, yet because we talk about the guy you believe in you think it's time to troll. Censorship comes in many guises. It's a weapon used by those who believe against those who prefer facts.

You're telling me to lighten up?
Censorship? You need a tin foil hat mate.

I could watch Armstrong, suspecting that he was doping, and still appreciate what he did, physically. Don't like the bullying any more than you. I always accepted that I was watching obvious doping for years, but it appeared to be a level playing field. I do think that something has changed.

Incidentally, I had the same stance in the Clinic last year....it was jack **** to do with Wiggins, obviously.

 

[Telmisartan new]

Let us not forget that the most of the time difference between Wiggins and Lance came from the TTT, where amazingly Garmin finished with five riders, and Astana finished with seven....And really Garmin finished with four, as Ryder was hanging on, but they needed the fifth guy to be counted. Point being that conceivably he could have very easily beaten a highly juiced up Lance on a course with no TTT.

That blog he wrote was complete drivel. He mentions Vino and others costing him podium places, and bargaining power. Well two dopers cost him a podium in Paris in 2009, and not once word did he say about them...so he's either a coward or a cheat. But it's easy to pick on people like Landis, kohl and others isn't it.
If he really was this outspoken, clean rider, why has he not come out with his disgust at those two costing him what would have been a big moment in his career. Why does he think some dopers are great and he lauds them, yet has a strong opinion on the ones who have been ostracised already.
And like others the first thing i thought when i read that blog was lance saying he'd never dope and put those chemicals into his body after cancer. The awards and rewards far far outweigh the negatives. And with the right planning and money, which Sky certainly have, the chances of being caught are pretty small. We all know the biopassport isn't worth the paper it's written on. As Kohl said, the biopassport and internal testing in teams, merely helped riders with how much doping they could get away with. It gave them structure.

Wiggins has been at the top since February...if he is clean, which I am sure he is not, then he is already one of the greatest cyclists of all time. Because no other cyclist did what he did clean, i.e. win so many races in the one season, and not just one day races, but tough level stage races. A juiced up Contador hasn't even done that...lance, no one.
And if i hear this nonsense abotu marginal gains once more...do people honestly think all the guys at the top aren't super talented and hard workers to begin with. They all have top staff, trainers etc working with them. It's a given. Diet the same. But the fan boys lap it up, just like the lapped it up with USP. How USP had special quality tyres which prevented them from getting many punctures....By the way, Wiggins keeps going on about the weight loss...same as Lance. And just like Lance, this figure varies. He was down to 4% body fat at the 2009 Tour, but amazingly he is now lower than that weight...but is still keeping his power and muscle. Not humaningly possible but Bradley appears to be amazing. Must be the swim coaching and their expertise.
It's all the same as lance, same story, only slightly different words used. Lance said he was a great triahtlete, Wiggins says track. Lance says weight, Wiggins says the same. Lance mentions equipment and team, same for Wiggins. Lance mentions training Xmas day, Wiggins mentions missing kid's birthdays....and as I say the fan boys just lap it up.

I agree with all of that post.

A wise man once told me that many little things more often that not amount to one big thing.

Why was Leinders hired?

Why get Rogers?

Why Yates?

Why the presentation to ASO?

Why say in your mission statement that full transparency is of paramount importance and then do the opposite?

Why has Sky's behaviour and comments been so bizarre in this Tour?

I suspect the entire Teide cadre is fully charged but the scientists/doctors are good, they have unlimited funds for what training material they need and they already know they wont be caught.

Robert Millar is right, we just dont know but i can see with my own eyes and form a considered opinion.

I am also backing Vroom-dog for the sprint on the Champs-Elysee, would cap things off nicely.

Alllez Vroom-dog!

 

[thehog]

That's exactly what I would expect of a team that has been several years in the making, gearing up for this one simple objective. It's what a winning team does FFS. The substance behind it, motivating it, driving it is infinitely more potent and poisonous than JUICE....it's money. The JUICE just isn't required....especially when the course is for the horse and there are so many non-runners and fallers.

...and of the current Tour team how many years have they been gearing up for this simple objective? Rogers on Porte were part of this simple objective whilst on other teams? How about Froome? He was part of the inner circle at Sky in the infamous Brailsford 5 box.

Riiiigghhht.

 

[Benotti69]

Then why watch? If you're so convinced. why bother?
Why?

why do you care what the clinic thinks?

 

[mastersracer]

I not just Wiggins. It’s the way his entire team is following the Lance team model and crushing everyone but themselves. Rogers and Froome are the ones making Wiggins look even more dubious. Wiggins 2009 looked more authentic but by the end of the Tour one team has basically ridden on the front for an entire two weeks! Seriously? We even had President McQuaid telling us that he doesn’t think we’ll see teams riding like that again and low and behold we have one team dominating the entire race start to finish. Do you really think at top level cycling that the riders in the Sky team are that far ahead of the competition? They’re all one of kind athletes with big engines and have trained harder than any other team and/or cyclist in the field? Come on.

Except, the one bit of evidence that exists. There's a key distinction that gets lost - type 1. evidence: evidence that a rider is clean vs. type 2. evidence: evidence that a rider is doping. Type 1 evidence is extraordinarily hard to come by, but this is what everyone here is clamoring for. It would require embedded journalists, lie detectors, etc. In the absence of type 1 evidence, any good performance is suspicious. This is due to simple frequentist probability (prob doping|podium finisher) by filling in the values with the last 10 years of results.

There is very little type 2 evidence (the traditional evidence for doping). Power files provide type 2 evidence. They do not provide evidence that a rider is clean, since we do have type 1 evidence for what a specific rider's clean power numbers look like. However, the power files for the 2012 Tour are not type 2 evidence that any rider is doping. Rogers, Porte, Froome, and Wiggins are not producing physiologically suspect power if you make the assumption that they are typical protour riders. If the argument is that riders are doping to produce 5.2 watts/kg, then, frankly, it isn't a very interesting doping charge and would be one anti-doping experts should feel is something of a moral victory because it does not produce riders that are distinguishable from non-doped ones or ones that raced prior to efficacious PEDs in the 90s. A good clean rider can compete against that - which is the whole point of anti-doping policies.

 

[Caruut]

Except, the one bit of evidence that exists. There's a key distinction that gets lost - type 1. evidence: evidence that a rider is clean vs. type 2. evidence: evidence that a rider is doping. Type 1 evidence is extraordinarily hard to come by, but this is what everyone here is clamoring for. It would require embedded journalists, lie detectors, etc. In the absence of type 1 evidence, any good performance is suspicious. This is due to simple frequentist probability (prob doping|podium finisher) by filling in the values with the last 10 years of results.

There is very little type 2 evidence (the traditional evidence for doping). Power files provide type 2 evidence. They do not provide evidence that a rider is clean, since we do have type 1 evidence for what a specific rider's clean power numbers look like. However, the power files for the 2012 Tour are not type 2 evidence that any rider is doping. Rogers, Porte, Froome, and Wiggins are not producing physiologically suspect power if you make the assumption that they are typical protour riders. If the argument is that riders are doping to produce 5.2 watts/kg, then, frankly, it isn't a very interesting doping charge and would be one anti-doping experts should feel is something of a moral victory because it does not produce riders that are distinguishable from non-doped ones or ones that raced prior to efficacious PEDs in the 90s. A good clean rider can compete against that - which is the whole point of anti-doping policies.

I agree that "type 1 evidence" is hard to provide. Given the history of cycling, I think that teams who want to be considered clean should really try quite hard.

 

[The Cobra]

I like reading it...it's funny. Joseph Heller would have been proud of some of the madness. In the Clinic, everyone is guilty until proven innocent....which is, of course, impossible. So everyone is guilty.

Lol. This sums the clinic up perfectly. There is literally nothing Wiggins could do to convince everyone on this forum he's winning clean. A bit of a shame really, if he is clean.

 

[131313]

I think folks are giving a bit too much credence to power files as "evidence" of performance, clean dirty or otherwise. Of course, there are a ton of issues with using times as well: wind, drafting, road surface, race situation. The problem with power files is that it's incredibly easy to manipulate the numbers on an SRM (just change the slope), and most riders lie about their weight.

And ultimately, it's the % of change within the rider that you'd really need to know, since the theoretical limits of human performance on a bicycle are quite high.