The Sky-Con-O-Meter. Predictions on how much more ridiculous they can get

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Dec 13, 2012
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Wiggo Warrior said:
The weight was in the 2011 tour section, he put on a couple of kilos of core muscle for 2012 after problems TTing in the Vuelta according to reports which means closer to 6.62w/kg in the 2012 TT.

Ooops, missed the bit where the TT 470w was for a 6km section. Book re-reading time...

If you actually read the book, it says he wanted to strengthen his body via gym work WITHOUT gaining any muscle weight whatsoever.
 
Sep 29, 2012
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sniper said:
this i think is hitting nail on head.
data over a five year period would average out any isolated measurement errors and would give a compelling overall image.
but we're not going to get it, for obvious reasons.

Transparency, transparency, wherefore art though now, transparency?

5 years worth!

I think if they revealed all the data - anonymised - for all the riders, there'd be a veritable "What the-!?" from anyone with half a brain.

I double dare them.
 
Dec 13, 2012
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thehog said:
SundayRider you're a welcome addition to the Clinic.

From your notations Wiggins as fast if not faster than Lance in ITT - watt for watt, yes?

Yes I would say so Hog. Just had a look at Tyler's book and he reports a watts/kilo of 6.5 just before the Dauphine in 2001.
 
Dec 13, 2012
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samerics said:
Nonsense, I take it you've never lost your temper then? He's far from stupid, but when you've just left your **** on the road for 5 hours you're not going to be relaxed for an interview like that.

Ever heard the expression 'those who protest too much'. For example someone challenges you on something if you really in your heart of hearts know you are right then your unlikely to react with anger and spite in that way.
 
Jul 13, 2012
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SundayRider said:
Ever heard the expression 'those who protest too much'. For example someone challenges you on something if you really in your heart of hearts know you are right then your unlikely to react with anger and spite in that way.


Trouble with that is that you are assuming that every person reacts in exactly the same way in any given situation.
 
Jul 13, 2009
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SundayRider said:
The interview where he lost it and let out a load of expletives showed that he isn't really that intelligent.

What was most worrying was that he didn't "lose it" he delivered it in his usual laconic flat style. A legitimate question from a reporter and the first reason in my mind to doubt Wiggins.
 

thehog

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zalacain said:
What was most worrying was that he didn't "lose it" he delivered it in his usual laconic flat style. A legitimate question from a reporter and the first reason in my mind to doubt Wiggins.

Before the outburst I predicted his reaction. Cheats never like being called out. They over emphasise their denials.

A violent reaction at the first question about doping.

It's not hard to pick out a doper. They all display the same traits.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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Dear Wiggo said:
Transparency, transparency, wherefore art though now, transparency?

5 years worth!

I think if they revealed all the data - anonymised - for all the riders, there'd be a veritable "What the-!?" from anyone with half a brain.

I double dare them.
Ashenden obviously knows what time it is.
Hoberman's recent interview gave me a spark of hope that CCN is in fact determined to increase the pressure and continue the quest.

However, it's incredibly telling that not one single cycling team has given public support or mandate to CCN. Not even Garmin. Vaughters, if he'd want to, could really make some things move. But I'm doubtful he really wants change. Didn't he personally discourage Wiggins to publish his passport data over 2012?

I think nearly everybody currently in the game still has dirty hands which they're eager to wash thoroughly before any change in UCI government takes place.

The main problem is that retrospective testing would be a nightmare to many, particularly to Sky, but I assume also to Garmin, and they know that only Phat can prevent retrospective testing from happening. The current UCI is an insurance company to many of the current protour-teams.
 
Dec 13, 2012
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sniper said:
Ashenden obviously knows what time it is.
Hoberman's recent interview gave me a spark of hope that CCN is in fact determined to increase the pressure and continue the quest.

However, it's incredibly telling that not one single cycling team has given public support or mandate to CCN. Not even Garmin. Vaughters, if he'd want to, could really make some things move. But I'm doubtful he really wants change. Didn't he personally discourage Wiggins to publish his passport data over 2012?

I think nearly everybody currently in the game still has dirty hands which they're eager to wash thoroughly before any change in UCI government takes place.

The main problem is that retrospective testing would be a nightmare to many, particularly to Sky, but I assume also to Garmin, and they know that only Phat can prevent retrospective testing from happening. The current UCI is an insurance company to many of the current protour-teams.

Yeah we keep hearing this 'cycling is much cleaner now' repeated over and over. However there is no proof that it is cleaner and the BP is the only thing the teams point to when giving a reason why it is cleaner now.
 

thehog

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Jul 27, 2009
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I think it's funny that Ashenden and Kimmage are now enemies of the Sky state.

Once they were champions of the cause. Part of the coalition of the willing for clean cycling.

But now they're just celebrity hunters looking to make a quick buck off the back of clean, honest cyclists.
 
Dec 13, 2012
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thehog said:
Before the outburst I predicted his reaction. Cheats never like being called out. They over emphasise their denials.

A violent reaction at the first question about doping.

It's not hard to pick out a doper. They all display the same traits.

They nearly all come out with the 'I work really hard' line, well er yes using illegal techniques allows you to work harder than before and therefore achieve better results.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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Here's why I (and a few others around here) think Vaughters and Wiggins are full of **** as far as 2009 is concerned:

In 2008 everybody at Garmin knew what Armstrong had been up to. Everybody. No exception. There were so many who had ridden with him in the past.
To illustrate: this is Kimmage speaking sometime after he had been with Garmin during the Tour and before Lance returns in 2009:
I chose that team [Garmin] deliberately, because of what they were saying about the sport and the message they were putting out.
But also the fact that so many of that team had raced with Armstrong during his best years and knew exactly what he got up to. And the stuff that I learnt on that Tour about him and what he was really like was absolutely shocking, really shocking.
Yet, when Armstrong comes back in 2009, with full UCI support, Vaughters does and says nothing, knowing Lance would return fully charged and that UCI were going to let it happen.

More Kimmage shortly before Lance's return:
"What’s going to happen now is he comes back and everybody’s going to wave their hands in the air and give him a big clap. And all the guys who really know what he’s about are going to feel so utterly and totally depressed.
indeed, how depressed Wiggins was...:rolleyes:



If 2008 was a turning point in cycling, from dirty to clean(er), why didn't ANYBODY at Garmin raise his voice in 2009?

*crickets*
 

thehog

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Jul 27, 2009
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sniper said:
Here's why I (and a few others around here) think Vaughters and Wiggins are full of **** as far as 2009 is concerned:

In 2008 everybody at Garmin knew what Armstrong had been up to. Everybody. No exception. There were so many who had ridden with him in the past.
To illustrate: this is Kimmage speaking sometime after he had been with Garmin during the Tour and before Lance returns in 2009:

Yet, when Armstrong comes back in 2009, with full UCI support, Vaughters does nothing, knowing Lance would return fully charged and that UCI were going to let it happen.

More Kimmage shortly before Lance's return:

indeed, how depressed Wiggins was...:rolleyes:


If 2008 was a turning point in cycling, from dirty to clean(er), why didn't ANYBODY raise his voice in 2009?

*crickets*


And Wiggins decided to befriend the very man he would have learnt so much about from the Garmin USPS refugees.

ie how does one get into the bed with the UCI Lance?
 
Apr 20, 2012
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http://bicycling.com/blogs/thisjust...-first-british-paris-nice-victor-in-45-years/

Sir Wiggo said:
“We have a plan with my training team. The plan took off on November 1, in order to hit the peak in July. Paris to Nice was part of that plan,” Wiggins said.

“Even if Paris to Nice was a target, I’m probably at 95 percent form-wise, and I can get better,” added the rider, who turns 32 in April.

So, he was at 95% and just barely beats Liewe Westra, how come he destroyed riders much better than good old Liewe the rest of the season?
 
Dec 9, 2012
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xcleigh said:
Here is the audio:
http://sporten.tv2.dk/tour/2012-07-09-lydfil-her-sviner-wiggins-sine-kritikere
So a statement on the comparisons between sky and US postal and then a question about insinuations on the twitter-sphere that the tour can only be won doped up.

Exactly as I remembered, except it was 'cynics' rather than 'people'.

To be honest his impassioned response makes no sense with respect to the first part, the observation that the Twitter-sphere was commenting that the team looked like US Postal, as the Hog has pointed out above they have all been fielding questions on that since they first announced it was their intention to use those tactics in January and somewhat more pointedly after the Dauphine on Joux Plane.

We know what his response would have been had that been the pertinent point as we have heard it all before. He would be referencing Banesto as well as Postal. Mentioning it was good tactics employed for decades to stop too much attacking in the mountains. Reiterating that they had a strong team and had trained for that.

The only question asked instead, to the new representative of the peloton on his first day in yellow was "What would you say to those cynics...?" who accuse not only yourself but Nibali, JVDB, Cadel Evans, Tejay van Garderen, Thibeau Pinot, Rein Taaramae, Chris Froome etc. of doping, and of none of you/them being able to win the race now or in the future without doing it.

Honestly, I am surprised he didn't lose his temper. As I think he said himself the following day if he had lost it the table would have been overturned.

Pinot may not even be shaving properly yet, he was the youngest rider in the race, he only lost 1:24 on Belle Filles finishing ahead of many more established climbers and then won the following stage brilliantly and at the time was only seconds back from the white jersey (Taaramae was the only rider to stay with the heads until the end of Stage 7 and was still wearing white, I think, after stage 8.), I firmly believe that if Pinot improves in the time-trial and is able to build his endurance he could be a future winner, and yet these people are already claiming he is either doping or would have to, in order to win.

Brad clearly believed Cadel was clean when he won. I've never seen any comment from him on Sastre but he was rather busy that year becoming a triple World Champion and double Olympic champion after having sworn never to return to the Tour the year before, so maybe he just missed it. In fact I believe from certain quotes from after the USADA fallout that Brad believed Lance was clean when he came back and respected him for being gracious in defeat. (I am fairly sure he doesn't believe this anymore, and there was another sweary quote on the subject if I remember correctly.)

To my mind this also explains the immediate and unconditional support from his team manager and indeed the whole peloton.

Again this makes no sense if Brad's speech was a response to Postal comparisons rather than the response to 'you're all a bunch of dirty, cheating dopers' (or perhaps slightly cleaner ex-dopers who can't win anymore or clean riders who are mugs because they'll never win.)

I know there are a few people on this forum who do fit this 'you have to be doped to win' bill, indeed some of them even seem to be trying to bring the same accusations to bear on Laura Trott etc. so maybe they do suspect Pinot as well, but I have been somewhat relieved to find they are in a decided minority, and was at a bit of a loss as to why so many people seemed to take Brad's words so personally.

I guess this has cleared that up, so thank you. :)
 
Feb 20, 2010
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Inviting comparisons to US Postal is still a dangerous game with the various goings-on since May 2010. If they had drawn more attention to how the template had been used for longer than that they might have got more of a pass on it (not that Miguel Indurain, the previous benefactor of such tactics, was clean of course). How does a team that prides itself on its attention to detail not spot that inviting comparisons to US Postal and then riding like them might not have been the smartest thing to do while the biggest doping investigation in the history of the sport is going on into that very team? Even if Sky are clean, it makes it very difficult for the jaded cycling fan that has seen 20 years of false dawns to accept.

And then, the rider at the centre of it considers that cynics are all people who will never achieve anything in their lives, despite the fact that all but the most loyal fans and newcomers to the sport have had a healthy level of cynicism imbued upon them by several years of being lied to - not necessarily Clinic conspiracy theorist cynicism, but simply the level of "I hope they're clean but you can never be sure, especially when they dominate a race like that" - he's basically taking a pot shot at most of the sport's loyal fans. Maybe he's okay with that, after all, he can be marketed to that audience of brand new fans who've only been sold on cycling since Britons started winning regularly at it, but it doesn't sit well with people who've been supporting the sport - and him - since he was a youthful track specialist who couldn't keep up with the grupetto. Which increases antipathy towards him for his attitude, and to his team for their boring riding which keeps him at the centre of attention.

The Postal comparisons were made, by Sky. They were then made, by cynical fans who knew Postal were more than likely dirty and attributed the same characteristics to Sky.
 
Sep 26, 2009
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More fools

Welcoming Wiggo Warrior and Sunday Rider....Sky keep trotting out the sockpuppets. Yawn.