The Froome Files, test data only thread

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

His 75.6 Kg weight was as tested in Switzerland in 2007, not his racing weight at Barloworld (as per PK discussion).

In which case, and as Alex alluded too, why was he being dropped on climbs in the 2008-2011 period despite his race weight and threshold power apparently not being much different to what it is now. Even at 71kg he would be at 5.9 W/kg on climbs so why wasn't he up there in summit finishes and TT's.

A lot doesn't add up.

Well he beat Wiggo in the 2009 Worlds ITT.

And then there's the minor point of him working as a dom and hence being in the wind all day.

And maybe even take into account the Bilharzia. Either the 2009 'unpolished diamond' comments from Sky were one massive 'future planning' shenanigan, just Froome rather than G or others, or he really had bags of potential on Sky's internal testing...and it wasn't happening...so they sent him for full medical testing to find out why not.

It's perfectly credible if you are not scratching around looking for justification of your own views.

guys with that physiology don't work as domestiques...they are winning races...look at Fignon heping Hinaul in Vuelta and Giro...that was before winning le tour at 22...or Ullrich in '96

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

His 75.6 Kg weight was as tested in Switzerland in 2007, not his racing weight at Barloworld (as per PK discussion).

In which case, and as Alex alluded too, why was he being dropped on climbs in the 2008-2011 period despite his race weight and threshold power apparently not being much different to what it is now. Even at 71kg he would be at 5.9 W/kg on climbs so why wasn't he up there in summit finishes and TT's.

A lot doesn't add up.

Well he beat Wiggo in the 2009 Worlds ITT.

And then there's the minor point of him working as a dom and hence being in the wind all day.

And maybe even take into account the Bilharzia. Either the 2009 'unpolished diamond' comments from Sky were one massive 'future planning' shenanigan, just Froome rather than G or others, or he really had bags of potential on Sky's internal testing...and it wasn't happening...so they sent him for full medical testing to find out why not.

It's perfectly credible if you are not scratching around looking for justification of your own views.

keep up Joel...Sky never tested him...not once

 

[LeindersGains]

Re: Re:

How long is his "Peak Power Output" supposed to be? 1-2 min?

5

Thank you.

 

[Joelsim]

Re: Re:

His 75.6 Kg weight was as tested in Switzerland in 2007, not his racing weight at Barloworld (as per PK discussion).

In which case, and as Alex alluded too, why was he being dropped on climbs in the 2008-2011 period despite his race weight and threshold power apparently not being much different to what it is now. Even at 71kg he would be at 5.9 W/kg on climbs so why wasn't he up there in summit finishes and TT's.

A lot doesn't add up.

Well he beat Wiggo in the 2009 Worlds ITT.

And then there's the minor point of him working as a dom and hence being in the wind all day.

And maybe even take into account the Bilharzia. Either the 2009 'unpolished diamond' comments from Sky were one massive 'future planning' shenanigan, just Froome rather than G or others, or he really had bags of potential on Sky's internal testing...and it wasn't happening...so they sent him for full medical testing to find out why not.

It's perfectly credible if you are not scratching around looking for justification of your own views.

guys with that physiology don't work as domestiques...they are winning races...look at Fignon heping Hinaul in Vuelta and Giro...that was before winning le tour at 22...or Ullrich in '96

Fair enough, you know more about Brailsford than me then. He doesn't give young doms those opportunities, he makes them work for the team.

 

[thehog]

Re:

Everyone accepts now that he was never a donkey?

That's the problem. The 2007 data set from his testing is strong. However he never displayed this type of power anywhere ever in period. Why is that? Why did it only appear once for this test?

Regardless of weight he should have been winning the 2006 Commenwealth Games TT amongst other TTs with this output.

Something is not right here, it's even more mysterious.

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re:

Let's see if I can post again...

The efficiencies were estimated using Alex's curves, but there is a formula that the curves are derived from that can be used to calculate exact values. I apparently underestimated the values from the curves. By the formula, the efficiencies are 26.5% for 2015, and 25.6% for 2007. These are indeed unusually high values, and though I can't access all the relevant literature--Coggan would probably know--i don't think anyone with a V02max value this high has ever been reported to have an efficiency this high. Though in fairness, most elite cyclists have never published this kind of information (though some have, albeit anonymously, which for our purposes here, is just as good).

Anyway, from the studies I've seen, the highest published product of V02max x GME is about 0.202. Froome's is 88.2 x .265 = 0.234. About 15% higher than the highest published. Keep in mind that V02max x GME is two-thirds of the formula for power, the remaining number being utilization (the rest of the formula involves fixed numbers, at any rate numbers the same for all riders, generally). Froome's value for that, however, about 80%, is not exceptionally high, a very high value would be about 90%. Still, if you throw that in, Froome's product is 0.0187. Assuming the rider with the highest published product had a utilization of 90%, his product would be 0.0182. This would be the best case scenario for anyone with published values (even anonymously) AFAIK. So by the physiological parameters, Froome is one of the strongest riders ever.

I don't have a problem with this, per se. The problem, of course, is that by his own testimony, he weighed 70-71 kg way back at Barloworld, which means he would have been very close to being at this unworldly level even then. Indeed, for the August test, he was basically at the same weight, 70 kg, and had a V02max/kg of just a shade under 6.0 W/kg. Even without the weight loss down to 67 kg, that value would put him at the top of the peloton. So at Barloworld, collating his own records and testimony, he was every bit as good as he was this August.

if you lose weight and have same absolute VO2max (nothing overly unusual with that), then your absolute VO2max remains the same while relative VO2max goes up.

Up to a point. Froome is claiming he lost > 10% of his body weight, with < 3% loss of peak power, and essentially no loss of sustained power. That would be very suspicious for anyone who was already a fit pro. We're not talking about some weekend warrior who starts riding and sheds weight.

Except that it apparently is not the case. As posted before, he told Kimmage he was at 70-71 kg at Barloworld. Quite frankly, this 75-76 kg value looks like a story used to explain how he could increase his power/weight so much. If it's really true, he needs to explain why he told Kimmage something very different.

There is also the fact that the report that just came out is using 67 kg, when Froome again told Kimmage something different, 66 kg. That's not a big deal, perhaps, but assuming this V02max stays the same, his V02max/kg now rises to nearly 90, and his power to 6.35 W/kg.

What's the formula? I thought Froome had an efficiency of slightly under 23%?

 

[MatParker1711]

Re: Re:

Everyone accepts now that he was never a donkey?

That's the problem. The 2007 data set from his testing is strong. However he never displayed this type of power anywhere ever in at period. Why is that? Why did it only appear once for this test?

Regardless of weight he should have been winning the 2006 Commenwealth Games TT with this output.

Something is not right here, it's even more mysterious.

We are talking about a rider who probably hadn't ridden a TT bike much if at all before those games, hell he didn't start riding in large pelotons until the following year. You can have all the power and potential in the world but if you can't put it onto the tarmac then it's useless.

 

[PremierAndrew]

Shame that someone like Froome is going through all these processes. When we see a convicted doper like Armstrong lying through his teeth constantly, we know that in the future, that's not enough to show you're clean. Now that Froome is releasing all this data, makes you wonder what a genuinely clean cyclist in the future will have to do... Physiological Data will not be enough for future generations

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Everyone accepts now that he was never a donkey?

That's the problem. The 2007 data set from his testing is strong. However he never displayed this type of power anywhere ever in at period. Why is that? Why did it only appear once for this test?

Regardless of weight he should have been winning the 2006 Commenwealth Games TT with this output.

Something is not right here, it's even more mysterious.

We are talking about a rider who probably hadn't ridden a TT bike much if at all before those games, hell he didn't start riding in large pelotons until the following year. You can have all the power and potential in the world but if you can't put it onto the tarmac then it's useless.

Matt, seriously. That doesn't explain it. With this power regardless of weight who would have shown something in some race. He put it out on a bike in a test lab, why as soon as he rides outside the power disappears? Not buying that along with the other part is that he hasn't improved since he was 22 bar dropping weight.

At 69kg's 2010 with Sky with that power he would be at the front of the peloton not the groupetto. Losing 2 additional kgs between Poland and the Vuelta doesn't then equate to sprinting up mountains and out TTing Wiggins.

 

[samhocking]

Re: Re:

Everyone accepts now that he was never a donkey?

That's the problem. The 2007 data set from his testing is strong. However he never displayed this type of power anywhere ever in at period. Why is that? Why did it only appear once for this test?

Regardless of weight he should have been winning the 2006 Commenwealth Games TT with this output.

Something is not right here, it's even more mysterious.

It seems odd you would even attempt to compare performance data across two dates with race results. To do so assumes Froome had the same team hierarchy and leadership at Barloworld as he does at Sky. Clearly he didn't.

 

[samhocking]

By that, I mean in 2007 Froome was riding for Efimkin, just like Thomas and Sivtsov were too.
Sorry I meant riding for Soler although Efimkin was leader.

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Everyone accepts now that he was never a donkey?

That's the problem. The 2007 data set from his testing is strong. However he never displayed this type of power anywhere ever in at period. Why is that? Why did it only appear once for this test?

Regardless of weight he should have been winning the 2006 Commenwealth Games TT with this output.

Something is not right here, it's even more mysterious.

It seems odd you would even attempt to compare performance data across two dates with race results. To do so assumes Froome had the same team hierarchy and leadership at Barloworld as he does at Sky. Clearly he didn't.

He had the same hierarchy at Sky from 2009 to August 2011.

Did he gain race tactics and weight loss in 3 weeks? Along with Brailsford suddenly becoming a master tactician ?Again not buying it.

 

[samhocking]

Re: Re:

Everyone accepts now that he was never a donkey?

That's the problem. The 2007 data set from his testing is strong. However he never displayed this type of power anywhere ever in at period. Why is that? Why did it only appear once for this test?

Regardless of weight he should have been winning the 2006 Commenwealth Games TT with this output.

Something is not right here, it's even more mysterious.

It seems odd you would even attempt to compare performance data across two dates with race results. To do so assumes Froome had the same team hierarchy and leadership at Barloworld as he does at Sky. Clearly he didn't.

He had the same hierarchy at Sky from 2009 to August 2011.

Did he gain race tactics and weight loss in 3 weeks? Along with Brailsford suddenly becoming a master tactician ?Again not buying it.

So by stating 2007, you really meant compared to 2009-2011? I'm more confused now?

 

[EddytheBoss]

Isnt these tests depending on test subject going all out? And which doper would go all out if they were to be tested?

 

[bewildered]

The Vuelta '11 transformation was never going to be explained by these tests and never will be explained. Bilharzia has transformed into weight loss all of a sudden also.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Bearing in mind all the accepted criticisms of VO2 max and its usefulness, how do Froome's figures of a measured VO2 max of 84.6 or an extrapolated VO2 max of 88.2 compare with VO2 max scores of other riders?

• Kurt Asle Arvesen 93
  Greg LeMond 92.5
  Brad McGee 89
  Jonathan Vaughters 89
  Miguel Indurain 88
  Bernard Hinault 88
  Ivan Basso 88
  Cadel Evans 87
  Edvald Boasson Hagen 86.4
  Thor Hushovd 86
  Nairo Quintana 86
  Thibaut Pinot 85
  Jean-Christophe Péraud 84.6
  Chris Froome 84.6
  Lance Armstrong 81

(The accuracy of the numbers above should be measured with a pinch of salt. Armstrong's is variously given as 81, 84 or 85, Indurain between 78 and 95. If people want I can edit in links to sources of different numbers. And the scores of any other riders, if people know them.)

If you know any other scores, I'll edit them in.

 

[thehog]

Re:

The Vuelta '11 transformation was never going to be explained by these tests and never will be explained. Bilharzia has transformed into weight loss all of a sudden also.

If they provided his blood data over this period it might have helped but they didn't.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Isnt these tests depending on test subject going all out? And which doper would go all out if they were to be tested?

Good point.

 

[bewildered]

Re: Re:

The Vuelta '11 transformation was never going to be explained by these tests and never will be explained. Bilharzia has transformed into weight loss all of a sudden also.

If they provided his blood data over this period it might have helped but they didn't.

Yeah sure. But the report implicitly confirms that the Bilharzia story was nonsense as an explanation imo. Surely Sky knew he had lost significant weight during the lengthy period they claim he was afflicted with the disease again and again and again? They wouldn't need any weighing scales to tell this either.

 

[Benotti69]

So basically he was always an elite talent who through a combination of being a bit of a chubster, struggling with his health (Bilharzia) and initially very poor bike handling ability was unable to show his true self until the 2011 Vuelta.

We can put the donkey to racehorse narrative to bed. This was the perfectly logical story of an incredibly rough diamond which after a great deal of polishing turned into the greatest grand tour rider of the modern era.

There is still the question of why this polish was applied in a such a short period between the Polish event and the Vuelta, a race he wasn't supposed to race.

Yes. The question of going from nowhere in Poland to nearly winning a 3 week GT cannot be answered by weight loss and if they point to weight loss as the deciding factor how come Sky were going to let him go? and why did sky who leave no stone unturned not figure the weight thing out?

All PR bollix.

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

The Vuelta '11 transformation was never going to be explained by these tests and never will be explained. Bilharzia has transformed into weight loss all of a sudden also.

If they provided his blood data over this period it might have helped but they didn't.

Yeah sure. But the report implicitly confirms that the Bilharzia story was nonsense as an explanation imo. Surely Sky knew he had lost significant weight during the lengthy period they claim he was afflicted with the disease again and again and again?

Agree and issue again is Poland to Vuelta in 2011. That wasn't Badzhilla. Even more bizarre is the 2007 data is strong. He should have shown something, somewhere. It only appeared for his one test in 2007?

Blood data would help but I don't think they'll release that...

 

[hrotha]

Re: Re:

The Vuelta '11 transformation was never going to be explained by these tests and never will be explained. Bilharzia has transformed into weight loss all of a sudden also.

If they provided his blood data over this period it might have helped but they didn't.

Yeah sure. But the report implicitly confirms that the Bilharzia story was nonsense as an explanation imo. Surely Sky knew he had lost significant weight during the lengthy period they claim he was afflicted with the disease again and again and again?

While the bilharzia story has many holes in it (mostly because it keeps changing), I don't see the contradiction here. According to Froome, the 2007 test shows his pre-bilharzia level. That he also dropped weight later is neither here nor there: 2007's Chubby Froome should have been able to perform at a much higher level than pre-2011 Vuelta Parasites Froome.

The story as reported seems to have internal consistency, but I'm only now catching up so I might be missing something.

 

[gillan1969]

Re:

Bearing in mind all the accepted criticisms of VO2 max and its usefulness, how do Froome's figures of a measured VO2 max of 84.6 or an extrapolated VO2 max of 88.2 compare with VO2 max scores of other riders?

• Kurt Asle Arvesen 93
  Greg LeMond 92.5
  Miguel Indurain 88
  Cadel Evans 87
  Edvald Boasson Hagen 86.4
  Thor Hushovd 86
  Nairo Quintana 86
  Thibaut Pinot 85
  Jean-Christophe Péraud 84.6
  Chris Froome 84.6
  Lance Armstrong 81

(The accuracy of the numbers above should be measured with a pinch of salt. Armstrong's is variously given as 81, 84 or 85, Indurain between 78 and 95. If people want I can edit in links to sources of different numbers. And the scores of any other riders, if people know them.)

If you know

the one glaring anomally is of course results...all transformed their world class VO2 into world class results early doors...wheras our hapless hero has managed to lose out on probably £8m worth of salary and endorsements because he couldn't keep off the pies...indeed famous for it...the pigdawg

 

[The Hitch]

So basically he was always an elite talent who through a combination of being a bit of a chubster, struggling with his health (Bilharzia) and initially very poor bike handling ability was unable to show his true self until the 2011 Vuelta.

How would poor bike handling ability stop the greatest rider who ever lived from ever finishing outside the grupetto?

And if you paid any attention to Froome's story you will know Bilharzia never inhibited him at all since he wasn't cured of it until after he won the Tour de France.

So all your left is is weight loss. Average rider mysteriously loses insane ammounts of weight and loses no power just as weight loss drugs enter the market.

Total coincidence no doubt.

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

The Vuelta '11 transformation was never going to be explained by these tests and never will be explained. Bilharzia has transformed into weight loss all of a sudden also.

If they provided his blood data over this period it might have helped but they didn't.

Yeah sure. But the report implicitly confirms that the Bilharzia story was nonsense as an explanation imo. Surely Sky knew he had lost significant weight during the lengthy period they claim he was afflicted with the disease again and again and again?

While the bilharzia story has many holes in it (mostly because it keeps changing), I don't see the contradiction here. According to Froome, the 2007 test shows his pre-bilharzia level. That he also dropped weight later is neither here nor there: 2007's Chubby Froome should have been able to perform at a much higher level than pre-2011 Vuelta Parasites Froome.

The story as reported seems to have internal consistency, but I'm only now catching up so I might be missing something.

Froome had the parasite during the 2011 Vuelta as well. And during the 2012 Tour, and 2012 Vuelta and 2013 Tour.

The only time Froome claimed the 2011 Vuelta was parasite less was in 2011 when he needed the original explanation.
However a few months later Froome told the media that further tests showed he never was cured with Bilharzia afterall. All his subsequent statements back that up. Article after article about how he never was cured, might never be cured, needs to go through constant treatments, can't train because of treatments, is scared of it etc etc, all through 2011, 2012 and 2013 when he was winning and podiuming gts.