The Yates (AKA the TUE Brothers)

[hrotha]

There's a third twin. Er, triplet.

 

[roundabout]

Re: Re:

Yates' performance on Zoncolan in isolation was suspicious but the fact that he is at the pointy end of mountain stages day after day is more startling. Some people are rewriting history by saying that Yates was a GT winner in waiting. I challenge anyone to say that they seen Yates winning this Giro before it started never mind witness the level of dominance we are seeing. The only person who appears not to be taken by surprise is Yates himself. There is a huge difference in finishing top 10 on GC and crushing everyone on the mountains day after day whilst dominating the GC. Even Froome looked knackered at the top of Zoncolan whereas Yates barely opened his mouth until about 3km from the top. Then was at the same high level again the next day.

It's the consistency of performance day in day out that sticks out. If he manages to retain pink tomorrow he would be best served to tone it down a bit and just ride on Dumoulin's wheel all the way to Rome or it will start to look ridiculous. I have a feeling that he will lose pink tomorrow though and then regain it before Rome.

For me, it was his 6th in La Vuelta 2016 that awoke me to thinking he would win a GT soon. Then his 2nd in Paris Nice and 2nd in Romandie it was obvious he was on his way to winning one really last year. The Vuelta 2016 he had Quintana, Froome, Chaves, Contador & Talanksy above him. Bit of a time gap, but he lost 3:45 in the ITT so without that, he was effectively on the podium with Froome & Quintana. He was not team leader either as Chaves was, so actually raced as a super dom for Chaves in last few mountains.

Could you explain how this one works? He lost something like 30 seconds in that TT to the rider who actually finished on the podium 4 and a half minutes ahead.

The rest of the reasoning is even more laughable, because I do not recall you proclaiming Porte to be the next GT winner, despite him taking over 30 seconds out of Yates on a 4km climb in that Romandie edition.

 

[luckyboy]

The words from Dumoulin and Pinot about Yates remind me of the old *hint hint* things we used to see from some riders whenever there were amazing performances like this..

TP: "When he made his second acceleration, I didn't move. I didn't even think about it... Yates is also stronger than Quintana was in the mountains."

TD: "When he went, it was so fast, extraordinary really. Not for a fraction of a second did I consider going with him."

 

[Oude Geuze]

This is the first time in many years i have suspected a rider of doping. I’ve watched all GTs the last 4-5 years and it’s always seemed a struggle to win, eking out some time when feeling good, limiting losses on bad days, taking the TT and holding on for dear life afterwards. This level of total domination in all aspects of the racing is far above anything I’ve witnessed. Even Froome rides tdf conservatively, squeeze out some time here and there but wins mostly by having the strongest team, best at pacing himself over 3 weeks and endurance. Now we have a guy with no weaknesses, no bad days, and when he goes, no one is able to follow, not once. This is like the salt lake Winter Olympics, or the men’s 50k in Sochi, the last time I watched a sport and just knew something was off. A mean, Froome had a peak day and took 6 seconds! The day after he suffered while Yates went on the attack again and dropped everyone, he even looks like LA on the bike with the looks lol. Oh well, we’ll see. I’m just saddened by the fact that the race seems to be over in what was a very interesting giro.

 

[macbindle]

Oh I don't know. I haven't seen Yates stop to coil out a fat one and still go on to win, yet.

 

[vedrafjord]

Re:

I’ve watched all GTs the last 4-5 years and it’s always seemed a struggle to win, eking out some time when feeling good, limiting losses on bad days, taking the TT and holding on for dear life afterwards.

2013 Tour - Froome puts over a minute into everyone not on his team in the first mountain stage, is 12 seconds off the undisputed flat TTer in the world, then puts a minute and a half into everyone on Ventoux
2013 Vuelta - a 41 year old beats the reigning Giro champion on 6 uphill finishes
2014 Tour - that guy who got beaten by the 41 year old wins by nearly 8 minutes including 4 stage victories vs none for the rest of the top 10
2016 Tour - Froome wins by 4 mins including 2 stage victories vs none for the rest of the top 10

 

[More Strides than Rides]

Re:

Oh I don't know. I haven't seen Yates stop to coil out a fat one and still go on to win, yet.

When Tom stopped, I'm guessing it wasn't a coil. Probably closer to puddle.

 

[red_flanders]

Re: Re:

I’ve watched all GTs the last 4-5 years and it’s always seemed a struggle to win, eking out some time when feeling good, limiting losses on bad days, taking the TT and holding on for dear life afterwards.

2013 Tour - Froome puts over a minute into everyone not on his team in the first mountain stage, is 12 seconds off the undisputed flat TTer in the world, then puts a minute and a half into everyone on Ventoux
2013 Vuelta - a 41 year old beats the reigning Giro champion on 6 uphill finishes
2014 Tour - that guy who got beaten by the 41 year old wins by nearly 8 minutes including 4 stage victories vs none for the rest of the top 10
2016 Tour - Froome wins by 4 mins including 2 stage victories vs none for the rest of the top 10

Thanks, it was sticking in my craw but was going to ignore it. Good job.

Would like to add that watching 5-7 Sky riders go over the top of multiple passes, dropping everyone but about 10 top riders is probably more indicative of doping as a problem than 1 guy going nuts.

 

[The Hegelian]

Re: Re:

I’ve watched all GTs the last 4-5 years and it’s always seemed a struggle to win, eking out some time when feeling good, limiting losses on bad days, taking the TT and holding on for dear life afterwards.

2013 Tour - Froome puts over a minute into everyone not on his team in the first mountain stage, is 12 seconds off the undisputed flat TTer in the world, then puts a minute and a half into everyone on Ventoux
2013 Vuelta - a 41 year old beats the reigning Giro champion on 6 uphill finishes
2014 Tour - that guy who got beaten by the 41 year old wins by nearly 8 minutes including 4 stage victories vs none for the rest of the top 10
2016 Tour - Froome wins by 4 mins including 2 stage victories vs none for the rest of the top 10

Thanks, it was sticking in my craw but was going to ignore it. Good job.

Would like to add that watching 5-7 Sky riders go over the top of multiple passes, dropping everyone but about 10 top riders is probably more indicative of doping as a problem than 1 guy going nuts.

Would also add:

2016 Giro - Nibali is out of form virtually the whole tour, then changes his crank length, attacks from a long way out on the 3rd last stage and takes big time + overall victory.

2015 Giro - for mine the most mutant GT in recent times: Astana going completely nuts trying to smash the race even on flat stages; Aru's resurrection; Contador beats them all.

 

[Gung Ho Gun]

Frightening dominance from Yates day after day. Nobody has dominated a grand tour in this manner since peak Froome at the tour. It's still very much in the balance as to whether he remains in pink after tomorrow but the way he is riding away from all other GC men uphill it won't matter as he will simply claw back any deficit in the remaining stages. He has jumped a level from top 5/10 GC man to a rider capable of crushing everyone else in the mountains. Not. Normal.

So assuming that someone, somewhere is going to have to win the mountain stages, what would a normal believeable progression to reach this level be?

Because it seems to me that competing strongly in such stages from your first year as a pro, passing through winning a stage in the vuelta/finishing top 6 (whilst working for a teammate), and then a top 10 in the TDF, up to the age of 25, looks like a pretty steady progression.

Yeah, I agree. He (and his bro) have had 'potential GT winner' stamped on them from the moment they were signed. And they've both progressed steadily each year - if you look at both of their palmares year by year, it is hardly a surprise to see one of them take 20-30 seconds on a few key climbing stages.....

I will grant you though, that if he tt's like a racehorse than something truly surprising is taking place. In fact, I regard his prologue as more suss than his stage wins/time gains.

Probably overlooked, but Simon's career started on the Track. He was competitive at the beginning in pursuit with Thomas & Kennaugh and beating them in 20km scratch and omnium races etc and only just missed out on Olympic Pursuit selection to them. In 2013 he was World Champion Mens Points Race though showing he is anything but a climber despite his light weight. Although considered a climber, I've always viewed him more like a cross between Thomas & Bettini with a bit of Pantani about him. He has explosiveness from the track, but a definite delicateness of a pure climber which is very unique. As soon as he won young jersey in Tour last year, it should be expected he will follow the path of other young jersey winners like Quintana, Pinot, Garderen, Comntador, Schleck etc in Grand Tours soon after. That jersey is never won by luck, that's for sure.

Pinot, Van Garderen, Rolland, Cunego, Popovych, Karpets and the biggest star of all, Benoit Salmon, did not even get a podium finish in a Grand Tour after winning the white jersey in the Tour. Contador won it while winning the actual Tour (instead of finishing 7th), while Schleck and Quintana are two of only four riders who have won it multiple times. Only 12 out of 36 white jersey winners in the Tour have ever won a GT. 2 of those won white and yellow at the same time and another 4 are multiple winners, each of them a major force in the race during the year in which they won the white. Excluding Cunego who actually won his GT before the white in the Tour, that leaves 5 people in the history of the Tour who won white and only white one time, and later won a GT: Moser (7th), Lemond (3rd), Hampsten (4th), Basso and Menchov. So no, winning the white did not foreshadow him winning the Giro one year later. It puts him in a category with Basso and Menchov, which I think is pretty accurate.

 

[Rollthedice]

Nothing prepared us for this kind of performance. If Yates wins the Giro it's as surprising as Ryder Hesjedal's win in 2012 with a major difference, his total and unprecedented, since widespread doping days, dominance in climbing in every damn stage when the road goes up.

 

[ontheroad]

Matt White's doping past combined with Yates' own previous doping infraction combined with his crushing dominance day after day in the mountains is highly suspicious Those comments by Dumoulin and Pinot are fairly telling, although they don't say as much, you can read between the lines. Yates has taken everyone by surprise in this Giro with his strength and the spike in his performance. If he maintains this new found level of form he will also be favourite to win a Giro-Vuelta double presuming that he goes there.

 

[Escarabajo]

The words from Dumoulin and Pinot about Yates remind me of the old *hint hint* things we used to see from some riders whenever there were amazing performances like this..

TP: "When he made his second acceleration, I didn't move. I didn't even think about it... Yates is also stronger than Quintana was in the mountains."

TD: "When he went, it was so fast, extraordinary really. Not for a fraction of a second did I consider going with him."

This.

That's exactly what I thought when they were giving their versions. That one of Quintana is new today. LOL. I guess cyclists know better than everyone else.

 

[Gigs_98]

There are two kinds of white jersey winners. The ones who are already fully or almost fully developed and the ones who simply are slow starters. If you look at the most examples of riders who won only one white jersey once and later won a gt you'll see that both basso and Menchov weren't even in the top 10 when they won white. These are riders like Nibali who already have a good level when they are young but only become great after slow progression. Said differently these guys were slow starters and not early peakers like Quintana or schleck.
What makes Yates suspicious is that for a long time he looked like an early peaker. He was already a really really good rider in 2015, got a gt stage win and a gt top ten the following season and repeated that gt top ten another year later however in a more prestigious gt. It's not like he completely stagnated after 2015 but he didn't improve a lot, comparable with Andy Schlecks development from 2008 to 2010 (although Andy was ofc on angenerally higher level). Riders with that kind of development usually don't go from "just a top ten candidate in gt's" to "completely dominating a gt". If he had been in contention for the win that already would have been surprising but this is just so much more than just being in contention.

 

[yaco]

A point of reference will be A.Yates performance at the TDF, notwithstanding he will have no team support - Adam showed a similar level of performance if not better than Simon's in 2018.

 

[fmk_RoI]

When Yates wins this Giro the reasons why will be something like this :

* poor opposition
* we bought the best team
* the course was in his favour
* hè always could TT
* WE SECRETLY CHANGED HIS BODY WITH ADAM

What is obvious is hè is suddenly mindboggling good. A much better climber than Pinot? Not just but much much better.

Lets see what hè does tomorrow given the 1.25 minute loss in last years TT in the Tour over 23K?

Of course!!! That's what it is! That last one! It's not that they've changed his body with his twin, it's trading places! As anybody who's ever watched pro wrestling can tell you, twins or matching masks can always change places without the opponents or referee being aware of it, ensuring a fresh man in competition at all times!

Sadly Adam raced in Cali durning the 2nd week of the Giro, I've made that joke before when they often performed well in stage races when only one of them was racing at that time and we never saw both of the doing well in the same stage race.

It's never twins, Watson. #TheFinalProblem

Personally, I actually hold with the twins theory, it's a goer, it's got legs. I think Cali was just done to throw us off the scent. Adam did the first week of the Giro, while Simon was sat at home feet up with a book and a drink. Then they sent Adam to Cali to confuse us and dropped Simon into the Giro. You only have to look at Adam's perf in Cali to see the truth in this. Now, the two are going to share the workload over the final week of the Giro.

And let's not forget: this has been done before. LA had a body double.

 

[DanielSong39]

Obviously Simon's performance is beyond dodgy but how does it compare to Kruiswijk or Horner? Now those came completely out of left field. (Although, Kruiswijk couldn't finish it off)

 

[Ferminal]

The words from Dumoulin and Pinot about Yates remind me of the old *hint hint* things we used to see from some riders whenever there were amazing performances like this..

TP: "When he made his second acceleration, I didn't move. I didn't even think about it... Yates is also stronger than Quintana was in the mountains."

TD: "When he went, it was so fast, extraordinary really. Not for a fraction of a second did I consider going with him."

While they are funny I think these types of comments reflect pretty poorly on the individuals (that is if they are trying to insinuate something). Instead of calling a spade a spade and speak honestly about the sport they resort to some sort of neomerta - a touch of bitterness about someone having wildly better prep but being in no position to talk about it.

 

[Ferminal]

Re:

Obviously Simon's performance is beyond dodgy but how does it compare to Kruiswijk or Horner? Now those came completely out of left field. (Although, Kruiswijk couldn't finish it off)

Nah Kruijswijk was impressive in the 2010 and 2010 Giri, the latter which he rolled into that uber climb in Suisse a few weeks later (Malbun?)... he just went quiet for a while, given it's Rabo I don't think anyone had too much pretense (other than those that think Gesink's problem in the second half of his career is injury).

 

[The Hegelian]

Re:

Obviously Simon's performance is beyond dodgy but how does it compare to Kruiswijk or Horner? Now those came completely out of left field. (Although, Kruiswijk couldn't finish it off)

Probably have to add TD's 2015 Vuelta. It seemed like even he didn't see that coming.....

Funny that it all gets normalised so quickly, to the extent where his statement about Yates can be taken as 'benchmark of clean progression calls out dodgy jump in performance.'

Pinot though, I can kind of believe.

 

[Rollthedice]

Re:

Obviously Simon's performance is beyond dodgy but how does it compare to Kruiswijk or Horner? Now those came completely out of left field. (Although, Kruiswijk couldn't finish it off)

Crashweak was peaking for Giro for years, good climber but he ran into crashes and problems. Horner published his passport data which is consistent with blood doping, no doubts there.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

Obviously Simon's performance is beyond dodgy but how does it compare to Kruiswijk or Horner? Now those came completely out of left field. (Although, Kruiswijk couldn't finish it off)

I don't think anyone who finds Yates' performance suspicious doesn't think the same about Horner's 2013 vuelta. Kruijswijk however was just a case of someone who has always been a third week monster getting through the first one and a half weeks unharmed. Actually after the first week of the 2016 giro there were quite a lot of people already mentioning that Kruijswijk could be very dangerous. The climbing level he ended up showing then in my opinion wasn't any better than what he showed one year earlier on the Mortirolo

 

[samhocking]

Re: Re:

Yates' performance on Zoncolan in isolation was suspicious but the fact that he is at the pointy end of mountain stages day after day is more startling. Some people are rewriting history by saying that Yates was a GT winner in waiting. I challenge anyone to say that they seen Yates winning this Giro before it started never mind witness the level of dominance we are seeing. The only person who appears not to be taken by surprise is Yates himself. There is a huge difference in finishing top 10 on GC and crushing everyone on the mountains day after day whilst dominating the GC. Even Froome looked knackered at the top of Zoncolan whereas Yates barely opened his mouth until about 3km from the top. Then was at the same high level again the next day.

It's the consistency of performance day in day out that sticks out. If he manages to retain pink tomorrow he would be best served to tone it down a bit and just ride on Dumoulin's wheel all the way to Rome or it will start to look ridiculous. I have a feeling that he will lose pink tomorrow though and then regain it before Rome.

For me, it was his 6th in La Vuelta 2016 that awoke me to thinking he would win a GT soon. Then his 2nd in Paris Nice and 2nd in Romandie it was obvious he was on his way to winning one really last year. The Vuelta 2016 he had Quintana, Froome, Chaves, Contador & Talanksy above him. Bit of a time gap, but he lost 3:45 in the ITT so without that, he was effectively on the podium with Froome & Quintana. He was not team leader either as Chaves was, so actually raced as a super dom for Chaves in last few mountains.

Could you explain how this one works? He lost something like 30 seconds in that TT to the rider who actually finished on the podium 4 and a half minutes ahead.

The rest of the reasoning is even more laughable, because I do not recall you proclaiming Porte to be the next GT winner, despite him taking over 30 seconds out of Yates on a 4km climb in that Romandie edition.

Yates lost 3:45 to Froome in the ITT. Froome won ITT and finished 2nd on Podium, so i'm just saying, give him the 3:45 back and he's 3rd on podium. Obviously not easy to TT equally to Froome, i'm just saying it showed he was flying in moutains.

As for Porte, I've never even thought of him being able to win Giro to be honest. He's ridden it in 2010 well iirc. Tried in 2015 was it but abandoned after loosing half an hour to Contador iirc or that wheel change or something. Can't remember. I don't remember him showing potential in 2015 Giro anyway. 23rd at 2014 Tour after Froome abandoned, 19th overall in 2013 Tour.

 

[simoni]

Re: Re:

Obviously Simon's performance is beyond dodgy but how does it compare to Kruiswijk or Horner? Now those came completely out of left field. (Although, Kruiswijk couldn't finish it off)

I don't think anyone who finds Yates' performance suspicious doesn't think the same about Horner's 2013 vuelta. Kruijswijk however was just a case of someone who has always been a third week monster getting through the first one and a half weeks unharmed. Actually after the first week of the 2016 giro there were quite a lot of people already mentioning that Kruijswijk could be very dangerous. The climbing level he ended up showing then in my opinion wasn't any better than what he showed one year earlier on the Mortirolo

Am I reading this right?

Yates shows consistent climbing form similar to what he's displayed in the past and is doping but you say Kruiswijk did the same in 2016 and wasn't?

I'm open minded about Yates (as I am about near enough everyone) but come on - where is the consistency?!

 

[Ripper]

The words from Dumoulin and Pinot about Yates remind me of the old *hint hint* things we used to see from some riders whenever there were amazing performances like this..

TP: "When he made his second acceleration, I didn't move. I didn't even think about it... Yates is also stronger than Quintana was in the mountains."

TD: "When he went, it was so fast, extraordinary really. Not for a fraction of a second did I consider going with him."

IDK, could've been a hint, but mainly was a statement of fact. Yates put 10 seconds into them in 30 seconds of riding - that's insane.

The body language was pretty telling. Everyone was riding hard, labouring a bit, shoulders rolling, etc. Yates was stuck in and stable - it was really obvious he was considerably stronger than everyone else. Like a Cat 1 playing around in a Cat 3 field ...