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

[Four Winds]

Yeah Cav was leading the main group but while he was the breakaway put another minute on them. Did well on the downhill bit though. Hardly anything suspicious, just no-one attacked.

I suppose he was holding onto cars while sitting at the front as well but nobody managed to get any footage.

 

[veganrob]

I saw my next door neighbour with an axe once. Just by looking at him, definitely a murderer. I don't need evidence, just the look he gave was enough plus he called me a nasty 'C' word.

I tell you what, as someone has previously suggested, why don't you contact the UCI and let them they know you can spot dopers a mile off no evidence required to convict. All you need is a room and a TV set (make it HD for extra clarity). That'll save the UCI millions. Keep up the good work!

Well how about if he was carrying a bag a body parts out to the trash. Would you get it then Einstein?

 

[thehog]

Big day tomorrow! I think Sky can go 1-2 again and put another minute or so in to Cadel.

Then rest day refill!! Thats should make things interesting. Another chance to destroy the peloton again!

Good times at Team Sky.

 

[ManInFull]

Big day tomorrow! I think Sky can go 1-2 again and put another minute or so in to Cadel.

Then rest day refill!! Thats should make things interesting. Another chance to destroy the peloton again!

Good times at Team Sky.

You are clearly kidding about tomorrow. It will be another relaxing ride for the GC riders.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

I suppose he was holding onto cars while sitting at the front as well but nobody managed to get any footage.

If you're suggesting Cav doesn't cheat you can stop now.

http://www.marca.com/tv/?v=Nwwc7c9wGGk

 

[stampedingviking]

Hog to actually come up with some ACTUAL evidence rather than just "'cos I know"

 

[skippy]

During the “ Karpets Tack “ affair , I thought I saw Cadel standing around awaiting the team car for a wheel . Then I thought saw Wiggo glancing over his shoulder whilst sitting up ? Correct me if I am wtong , but did anyone else get the impression that Wiggo was deciding to act as a “ sportsman “ and wait for Cadel ? Surely Wiggo wasn’t waiting for the team car to pass him some supplies ?

Should I be right in the assumption that he slowed the Peloton to give Cadel a chance to catch up then it is obvious to all that Sky Team members are full of confidence not supplements !

 

[Lucky1]

Apt description?

Yes, cycling has a terrible recent history of doping, yes many outstanding performances have since been revealed to be the result of doping, but is Wiggins' performance really that unbelievable?

- The course is perfectly suited to him - hardly any difficult (i.e. high gradient) summit finishes and there are lots of time trial km;

- Neither Contador or A Schleck started;

- Cadel the oldest defending champion in a generation;

- The winner of the Giro out in the first week with a crash, many others losing significant time on crashes, etc..., Frank Schleck, Menchov, etc. not showing strong form, his closest rival outside his own team being Nibali;

- Possibly - competing in a peleton that is much cleaner that it was in the 1990s and for much of the 2000s;

- His lead eaked out by one strong time trial performance - not by racing away from the peleton in the mountains - a strong time trial by Wiggins hardly being a cause for surprise.

In the absence of any evidence of doping, it seems to me he should be given the credit for a fantastic effort at making the best of his gifts and seizing the opportunity that has presented itself to him.

As for the rest of Team Sky - Cavendish winning one stage (just) can hardly be described as an unbelievable performance, nor can Knees, Suitsu, Eisel or Boasson Hagen be said to have set the world on fire - they have done solid team performances, with strong but not inhuman performances by Porte in the mountains (which have not been the most demanding in recent years). That leaves Froome and Rogers. If it is possible that Rogers is just having a good season (with multiple world time trial victories he can hardly be said to be entirely without talent), then the theories on here about an entire team come down to just one rider - Froome. I don't know enough about him or his history to comment, but whatever the answer, it hardly seems a basis to condemn an entire team with no evidence.

Query if Wiggins recent expletive ridden description of the kind of people who like posting in the clinic has been a little too close to the truth for some of the posters here? Maybe some should be encouraged to spend less time on the internet and achieve something in their lives - rather than questioning others without evidence and moaning about how dull the Tour is?

 

[mewmewmew13]

During the “ Karpets Tack “ affair , I thought I saw Cadel standing around awaiting the team car for a wheel . Then I thought saw Wiggo glancing over his shoulder whilst sitting up ? Correct me if I am wtong , but did anyone else get the impression that Wiggo was deciding to act as a “ sportsman “ and wait for Cadel ? Surely Wiggo wasn’t waiting for the team car to pass him some supplies ?

Should I be right in the assumption that he slowed the Peloton to give Cadel a chance to catch up then it is obvious to all that Sky Team members are full of confidence not supplements !

Yes, this was my understanding...that they slowed for Cadel as well as the others who had flatted.

 

[Poursuivant]

Yes, cycling has a terrible recent history of doping, yes many outstanding performances have since been revealed to be the result of doping, but is Wiggins' performance really that unbelievable?

- The course is perfectly suited to him - hardly any difficult (i.e. high gradient) summit finishes and there are lots of time trial km;

- Neither Contador or A Schleck started;

- Cadel the oldest defending champion in a generation;

- The winner of the Giro out in the first week with a crash, many others losing significant time on crashes, etc..., Frank Schleck, Menchov, etc. not showing strong form, his closest rival outside his own team being Nibali;

- Possibly - competing in a peleton that is much cleaner that it was in the 1990s and for much of the 2000s;

- His lead eaked out by one strong time trial performance - not by racing away from the peleton in the mountains - a strong time trial by Wiggins hardly being a cause for surprise.

In the absence of any evidence of doping, it seems to me he should be given the credit for a fantastic effort at making the best of his gifts and seizing the opportunity that has presented itself to him.

As for the rest of Team Sky - Cavendish winning one stage (just) can hardly be described as an unbelievable performance, nor can Knees, Suitsu, Eisel or Boasson Hagen be said to have set the world on fire - they have done solid team performances, with strong but not inhuman performances by Porte in the mountains (which have not been the most demanding in recent years). That leaves Froome and Rogers. If it is possible that Rogers is just having a good season (with multiple world time trial victories he can hardly be said to be entirely without talent), then the theories on here about an entire team come down to just one rider - Froome. I don't know enough about him or his history to comment, but whatever the answer, it hardly seems a basis to condemn an entire team with no evidence.

Query if Wiggins recent expletive ridden description of the kind of people who like posting in the clinic has been a little too close to the truth for some of the posters here? Maybe some should be encouraged to spend less time on the internet and achieve something in their lives - rather than questioning others without evidence and moaning about how dull the Tour is?

Great post.

 

[BroDeal]

Yes, cycling has a terrible recent history of doping, yes many outstanding performances have since been revealed to be the result of doping, but is Wiggins' performance really that unbelievable?

- The course is perfectly suited to him - hardly any difficult (i.e. high gradient) summit finishes and there are lots of time trial km;

- Neither Contador or A Schleck started;

- Cadel the oldest defending champion in a generation;

- The winner of the Giro out in the first week with a crash, many others losing significant time on crashes, etc..., Frank Schleck, Menchov, etc. not showing strong form, his closest rival outside his own team being Nibali;

- Possibly - competing in a peleton that is much cleaner that it was in the 1990s and for much of the 2000s;

- His lead eaked out by one strong time trial performance - not by racing away from the peleton in the mountains - a strong time trial by Wiggins hardly being a cause for surprise.

In the absence of any evidence of doping, it seems to me he should be given the credit for a fantastic effort at making the best of his gifts and seizing the opportunity that has presented itself to him.

As for the rest of Team Sky - Cavendish winning one stage (just) can hardly be described as an unbelievable performance, nor can Knees, Suitsu, Eisel or Boasson Hagen be said to have set the world on fire - they have done solid team performances, with strong but not inhuman performances by Porte in the mountains (which have not been the most demanding in recent years). That leaves Froome and Rogers. If it is possible that Rogers is just having a good season (with multiple world time trial victories he can hardly be said to be entirely without talent), then the theories on here about an entire team come down to just one rider - Froome. I don't know enough about him or his history to comment, but whatever the answer, it hardly seems a basis to condemn an entire team with no evidence.

Query if Wiggins recent expletive ridden description of the kind of people who like posting in the clinic has been a little too close to the truth for some of the posters here? Maybe some should be encouraged to spend less time on the internet and achieve something in their lives - rather than questioning others without evidence and moaning about how dull the Tour is?

Good job. Just like lemmings everywhere quickly learned to regurgitate Armstrong's talking points, you have done and admirable job of using Wiggins' excuses. We get it. Anyone who questions Wiggins is an idle ****er. Although you have gone a little further. Wiggins was only willing to run down cycling's fans. He did not go so far as to run down his competition as being a bunch of gits. Maybe Wiggins should tell Evans and others that they are lazy ****ers who shold have worked harder like him.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

During the “ Karpets Tack “ affair , I thought I saw Cadel standing around awaiting the team car for a wheel . Then I thought saw Wiggo glancing over his shoulder whilst sitting up ? Correct me if I am wtong , but did anyone else get the impression that Wiggo was deciding to act as a “ sportsman “ and wait for Cadel ? Surely Wiggo wasn’t waiting for the team car to pass him some supplies ?

Should I be right in the assumption that he slowed the Peloton to give Cadel a chance to catch up then it is obvious to all that Sky Team members are full of confidence not supplements !

Lance waited for Ullrich, didn't mean he wasn't pumped full of juice.

Sky have already proclaimed themselves moral guardians of the péloton with their exaggerated and very public reactions during Paris-Nice, so I think a lot more would have been made of it if they DIDN'T wait for Evans, since they'd very publicly proclaimed that another team was wrong for not waiting for a crashed contender.

Behaviour in the unwritten protocols on the road does not tell us anything about what they do off the road, so its relevance in the doping discussion is nil. After all, Valverde had to practically stop to let Szmyd past him to take the win on Ventoux in '09, and Szmyd was gushing in his praise of Valverde's sporting behaviour, but self-same Alejandro Valverde was at the centre of the Levi crashing saga in Paris-Nice this year and, let's face it, Alejandro Valverde is also not a ringing endorsement of clean cycling.

 

[taiwan]

Yes, cycling has a terrible recent history of doping, yes many outstanding performances have since been revealed to be the result of doping, but is Wiggins' performance really that unbelievable?

- The course is perfectly suited to him - hardly any difficult (i.e. high gradient) summit finishes and there are lots of time trial km;

Yet on the steepest finish so far he beat everyone but Evans.

- Neither Contador or A Schleck started;

- Cadel the oldest defending champion in a generation;

- The winner of the Giro out in the first week with a crash, many others losing significant time on crashes, etc..., Frank Schleck, Menchov, etc. not showing strong form, his closest rival outside his own team being Nibali;

But everyone's performances are being compared to Sky's. Are all these riders just a bit off for the most important race of the year, or are Sky very strong?

- Possibly - competing in a peleton that is much cleaner that it was in the 1990s and for much of the 2000s;

- His lead eaked out by one strong time trial performance - not by racing away from the peleton in the mountains - a strong time trial by Wiggins hardly being a cause for surprise.

You can call it eked out when he took in the region of 2 minutes out of all his rivals, but also in the climbs on aggregate he's only gained time. No he hasn't individually ridden away from everyone.

In the absence of any evidence of doping, it seems to me he should be given the credit for a fantastic effort at making the best of his gifts and seizing the opportunity that has presented itself to him.

He gets all the credit he could want - read the comments on his blog post, adulation in the pro road section etc. It's only the 12 ****ers in the clinic that aren't applauding him, pretty much.

As for the rest of Team Sky - Cavendish winning one stage (just) can hardly be described as an unbelievable performance, nor can Knees, Suitsu, Eisel or Boasson Hagen be said to have set the world on fire - they have done solid team performances, with strong but not inhuman performances by Porte in the mountains (which have not been the most demanding in recent years). That leaves Froome and Rogers. If it is possible that Rogers is just having a good season (with multiple world time trial victories he can hardly be said to be entirely without talent), then the theories on here about an entire team come down to just one rider - Froome. I don't know enough about him or his history to comment, but whatever the answer, it hardly seems a basis to condemn an entire team with no evidence.

It's the group riding tempo in the mountains that have been questioned, not Cav. It's partly just down to them all simoultaneously being in incredible form to the point where they can put 4 riders in an elite climbing group.

Query if Wiggins recent expletive ridden description of the kind of people who like posting in the clinic has been a little too close to the truth for some of the posters here? Maybe some should be encouraged to spend less time on the internet and achieve something in their lives - rather than questioning others without evidence and moaning about how dull the Tour is?

It's OK, I won't tell anyone you were here I take it you'll be off now to meet your movie star wife and deliver medicines to the third world on your yacht and stuff?

 

[xcleigh]

Well how about if he was carrying a bag a body parts out to the trash. Would you get it then Einstein?

Of course I get that, because that is what is commonly known as evidence! Why where are Wiggins "body parts" if you will?

Do YOU get that?

 

[Hillavoider]

Sky just have better 'stuff' then BMC, thats all, just another tour...

 

[thehog]

Hog to actually come up with some ACTUAL evidence rather than just "'cos I know"

Sure I have loads of ACUTAL evidence. Over 20 years of racing and watching the sport. Seeing riders dope and knowing full well what it does to performances. Seen it a 1000 times.

What you got? 18 posts! LOL and Wiggins telling you he would dope because of his family? LOL. Sure he's the first yellow jersey to make such a bold statement.

 

[ggusta]

Sky just have better 'stuff' then BMC, thats all, just another tour...

And that is really the lead in to my question that I thought I was going to find when I started skimming this thread.

What in the world program are these guys on or is it just much more sophisticated than what other riders do. In any event, the race has become (and I don't know how long it's been this way) a test of who best adapts to the latest substances that are not detectable. Sky is putting an undersocre and exclamation point on their superior program. And I don't actually believe that anyone (ok maybe a few % of the riders, no idea who) racing at this level is NOT doing something.

But what are they doing that makes everyone else's cheating ineffective? Sorry. After Floyd came clean he pretty much spilled the beans, sure, take it from me and give it to another doper, or take it from him and just keep passing it on down the line until the guy who came in 47th is the actual clean winner. I have obviously decided that's just the way it is and enjoy it anyways, but still... I just keep coming back to what's the latest and greatest dope that sky has mastered that the others are still trying to figure out.

Flame on.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I know you just picked a random number, but in the original standings (i.e. the ones with Floyd in them), Georg Totschnig was 47th in the 2006 Tour. Not so sure about him. Pierrick Fedrigo was 29th though, and I'm quite trusting of him.

 

[ggusta]

I know you just picked a random number, but in the original standings (i.e. the ones with Floyd in them), Georg Totschnig was 47th in the 2006 Tour. Not so sure about him. Pierrick Fedrigo was 29th though, and I'm quite trusting of him.

I picked it because it's my age but after I typed it it seemed a bit low, but given how many I would guess are clean 29th sounds about right out of roughly 200 riders.

But anyone have any ideas what Sky is actually doing?

 

[mastersracer]

Sure I have loads of ACUTAL evidence. Over 20 years of racing and watching the sport. Seeing riders dope and knowing full well what it does to performances. Seen it a 1000 times.

What you got? 18 posts! LOL and Wiggins telling you he would dope because of his family? LOL. Sure he's the first yellow jersey to make such a bold statement.

In other words, no evidence. The only 'evidence' anyone has looked at so far is power data, which is not only not suspicious, but reveals a downright slow Tour. This tour's mountain stages are historically easy, since the organizers designed the route to minimize climbers' advantages and to keep margins small enough for the final ITT to be deciding. Even with that, Wiggins has been vulnerable, Froome has been slower than Sastre, and the most aggressive rider in the race (Nibali) has shown the lowest power outputs on final climbs of recent memory. To cap it all off, Cavendish set the pace on the final climb today. That is all the evidence one needs to say this is a slow Tour...

 

[DirtyWorks]

In other words, no evidence.

Again with the request for 'evidence.' What constitutes sufficient evidence? Don't tell me. A positive, right? See Marion Jones and the use of the phrase "never tested positive."

The only 'evidence' anyone has looked at so far is power data, which is not only not suspicious, but reveals a downright slow Tour.

Again with the selective use of facts. RELATIVE to the peloton, Sky is on another level. This is not one guy, this is at least four. Cavendish is suddenly a climber. That's normal? Seriously???

 

[mastersracer]

Again with the request for 'evidence.' What constitutes sufficient evidence? Don't tell me. A positive, right? See Marion Jones and the use of the phrase "never tested positive."



Again with the selective use of facts. RELATIVE to the peloton, Sky is on another level. This is not one guy, this is at least four. Cavendish is suddenly a climber. That's normal? Seriously???

As R. Millar points out in his article, of course Sky is at the front. That's what any team defending the GC would be expected to do. But any decent rider would be capable of the tempo climbs Rogers and Porte have been doing - barely 5 watts/kg. Froome is better, but still not spectacular in Tour terms (5.6 watts/kg). Cavendish leading the climb today is just a sign of how unselective the pace was - the entire peloton climbed en masse.

 

[The Real GFY]

As R. Millar points out in his article, of course Sky is at the front. That's what any team defending the GC would be expected to do. But any decent rider would be capable of the tempo climbs Rogers and Porte have been doing - barely 5 watts/kg. Froome is better, but still not spectacular in Tour terms (5.6 watts/kg). Cavendish leading the climb today is just a sign of how unselective the pace was - the entire peloton climbed en masse.

Miller oversimpifies things and does not really give credence to the fact that a team has not ridden like SKY since USPS.

As for "any decent rider" ... I would suggest that this also understates what Rogers and Porte are doing. The TdF is full of riders that are far better than decent, and yet the tempo appears to be hurting people .... hmmmmm.

Sincerely,
GFY

 

[Ferminal]

I think the only time recently someone shelled a group as quickly as Rogers did on Croix de Fer was Navarro 2010?

 

[thehog]

I think the only time recently someone shelled a group as quickly as Rogers did on Croix de Fer was Navarro 2010?

Nah Navarro didn't do as much damage. He went fast but still a big group by the end.

Rogers was extra terrestrial.