The Yates (AKA the TUE Brothers)

[silvergrenade]

Re: Re:

Nope that's not what was said. What is being said is that in the classics what we see is plausible. What Froome did yesterday and today was not plausible without being heavily doped.

What makes a classic long range attack like Terpstra, Gilbert, Sagan etc more plausible than a GT long range attack? Especially in a GT when everyone's way more tired and the terrain is mountains you'd expect you'd see small differences between riders exaggerated.

Actually I think most people actually did think Gilbert was doping last year and definitely a couple years ago before he signed the big contract with BMC.
With Terpstra he's at Quickstep which is known as the top classics team. At Flanders he along with 3 teammates made the final selection. All 4 of them were very capable of winning from an attack and his three teammates did attack forcing the other non QS riders to chase. Terpstra was the last of the QS riders to attack and the other didn't have anything left to bring him back after he was basically following wheels in that final group. Having teammates who are just as big of a threat is a help. Then when you get a gap having those teammates to actually help slow down the group and refuse to work also helps. Because if they caught Terpsra one of the others would have immediately attacked. This is why it's plausible. Sagan is a very strong rider (although not as strong as a Cancellara in his prime). If I remember right some have questioned Cancellara winning in his prime while he was the best TTer in the world. However, his TTing lead to being able to make what he did plausible as well.

Wow. Pro cycling plausible. Cancellara plausible. :razz:

Most fans want plausible vs definitely doping. There is a big difference. Just like going to the movies. You want something where you can realistically suspend belief, not something that just flat out doesn't work.

That just tells us so much. So much.
IMO, most real fans would prefer better testing so that we can get rid of the menace which is for now a drug infested *** show. And as far as plausibility goes, what you think is plausible may not be plausible for everyone.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

Nope that's not what was said. What is being said is that in the classics what we see is plausible. What Froome did yesterday and today was not plausible without being heavily doped.

What makes a classic long range attack like Terpstra, Gilbert, Sagan etc more plausible than a GT long range attack? Especially in a GT when everyone's way more tired and the terrain is mountains you'd expect you'd see small differences between riders exaggerated.

Actually I think most people actually did think Gilbert was doping last year and definitely a couple years ago before he signed the big contract with BMC.
With Terpstra he's at Quickstep which is known as the top classics team. At Flanders he along with 3 teammates made the final selection. All 4 of them were very capable of winning from an attack and his three teammates did attack forcing the other non QS riders to chase. Terpstra was the last of the QS riders to attack and the other didn't have anything left to bring him back after he was basically following wheels in that final group. Having teammates who are just as big of a threat is a help. Then when you get a gap having those teammates to actually help slow down the group and refuse to work also helps. Because if they caught Terpsra one of the others would have immediately attacked. This is why it's plausible. Sagan is a very strong rider (although not as strong as a Cancellara in his prime). If I remember right some have questioned Cancellara winning in his prime while he was the best TTer in the world. However, his TTing lead to being able to make what he did plausible as well.

Wow. Pro cycling plausible. Cancellara plausible. :razz:

Most fans want plausible vs definitely doping. There is a big difference. Just like going to the movies. You want something where you can realistically suspend belief, not something that just flat out doesn't work.

That just tells us so much. So much.
IMO, most real fans would prefer better testing so that we can get rid of the menace which is for now a drug infested **** show. And as far as plausibility goes, what you think is plausible may not be plausible for everyone.[/quote]

Sure that would be best, however unlikely as testing is usually a few years behind.

 

[AustCyclingFan]

Re:

Its still baffling to me how Yates capitulated. It was night and day. It does not add up at all. Was he warned that he was glowing after that amazing time trial? The way he looked strong and confident before the rest day and then after that a blow out. It really does not add up/

If anyone has any theory on this I would like to hear. I had such high hopes for the yound man, perhaps another Bertie was in the make

Back of the line mate. But your team can have the final stage on ex sky boys birthday

?

 

[Ferminal]

Re:

Its still baffling to me how Yates capitulated. It was night and day. It does not add up at all. Was he warned that he was glowing after that amazing time trial? The way he looked strong and confident before the rest day and then after that a blow out. It really does not add up/

If anyone has any theory on this I would like to hear. I had such high hopes for the yound man, perhaps another Bertie was in the make

I'm sure the fall was greater than anticipated but I don't think it was planned that he would be at his best in the third week. Maybe his body did just shut down on him and that happens, but if anything the implosion makes his first two weeks more interesting not less.

If he rode out the third week and maybe lost some time but still competed for the win/podium, fading relative to Froome (who clearly wanted to peak late) it would have been "normal". He went from being much better than we've ever seen before to a wasted wreck, there's something more going on there than just peaking for week two. I can only think of some sort of aggressive (non O2 vector) protocol at the start of the race which can't last out a GT with a come down as big as the high.

I guess what I'm saying is that while this could have been a natural fade I don't think you have to be crap in the third week to be clean. Sure if your rivals are supporting their RBC you will fade relatively but you can still beat the autobus. I don't see why in theory (in a consistency sense) Lopez, Dumoulin or Bennett can't be clean just because they never really fell away. Likewise I don't think Yates and Pinot blowing up means they are clean?

tl;dr it's complicated, and interesting.

 

[Bolder]

Re: Re:

Its still baffling to me how Yates capitulated. It was night and day. It does not add up at all. Was he warned that he was glowing after that amazing time trial? The way he looked strong and confident before the rest day and then after that a blow out. It really does not add up/

If anyone has any theory on this I would like to hear. I had such high hopes for the yound man, perhaps another Bertie was in the make

I'm sure the fall was greater than anticipated but I don't think it was planned that he would be at his best in the third week. Maybe his body did just shut down on him and that happens, but if anything the implosion makes his first two weeks more interesting not less.

If he rode out the third week and maybe lost some time but still competed for the win/podium, fading relative to Froome (who clearly wanted to peak late) it would have been "normal". He went from being much better than we've ever seen before to a wasted wreck, there's something more going on there than just peaking for week two. I can only think of some sort of aggressive (non O2 vector) protocol at the start of the race which can't last out a GT with a come down as big as the high.

I guess what I'm saying is that while this could have been a natural fade I don't think you have to be crap in the third week to be clean. Sure if your rivals are supporting their RBC you will fade relatively but you can still beat the autobus. I don't see why in theory (in a consistency sense) Lopez, Dumoulin or Bennett can't be clean just because they never really fell away. Likewise I don't think Yates and Pinot blowing up means they are clean?

tl;dr it's complicated, and interesting.

^^This.

All the innuendo and rumors drive me crazy. But it does add a 4th dimension to pro cycling. What else to talk about during sprint stages?

I'm still trying to process how 4 major talents collapsed so spectacularly. Aru -- what was that all about? I had him on the podium. Chaves -- thought he and Yates could be a serious1-2 punch. Yates -- was he (relatively) clean and hit the limits of what you can do racing w/out aids? TiboPino (Merci Tonton for nickname) -- He may have caught something on the Finestre stage, or just pushed too hard.

Exploring my Yates hypothesis a bit: It's pretty disingenuous to say he lacked the talent to be a top GT contender. He's shown that he can climb with the best and seems pretty level headed. This was only his 4th GT as a leader (I think) and after 2 Top 10s it's certainly reasonable to think he could have podiumed. Given his history, would he really have chanced it with a new "program"; is Michelton-Scott a Sky- or USPS- type operation (I don't think so, to both questions)?

So he benefited from a few things early on: Froome's crashes/lack of form; Aru's collapse, some lackluster riding from Pinot, an in-form Chaves on Etna/Gran Sasso. And for all that, he only had a very tenuous lead after the ITT. There were a lot of words like "dominating" being thrown about, but that was not the case. His comments after the ITT, in hindsight, weren't all that encouraging - he said he went really deep the last 10k and would ride defensively. Not something you want to advertise to your rivals. If he really were feeling good, he would have said he'd look for more opportunities to attack etc., even as a bluff.

(I admit that I thought he could win, did not see Froome's Phoenix-like resurrection coming AT ALL).

All in all, I'm not convinced that Yates is a superdoper. After all, someone's gotta lead the race at some point. So, either 1) he rode on undetectable microdosing or clean, and that didn't cut it; 2) he's not a guy who can sustain 3 hard weeks in any event; 3) he had a physiological misfire not tied to doping; 4) or he's on some kind of program that didn't work.

My guess is either No. 1 or No. 3 -- I think Yates said to himself: If I ride the way I have in the past, I'm a sure top 10, but if I push a little more, maybe the podium? Then the stars aligned and he was in pink. I'm interested to see his tactics in his next GT -- Vuelta? 2019 TdF (my preference)?

The riders who were consistent -- I don't think we can read anything into their performances.

Looking at the final podium, order was restored to the universe. I had Froome to win with TD second and MAL as a podium contender -- I think most semiserious fans and bettors would have said the same.

 

[macbindle]

It's fascinating that many posters here create, or try to create, a narrative surrounding the ups and downs of various riders that rests solely on doping. Doping as an explanation for success. Doping as an explanation for failure.

They forget that without dope there would still be tremendous ups and downs.

What happened is pretty damn clear. A young rider dragged himself into pink, and then rode beyond his means to try and keep it on his shoulders. Drugs or no drugs.

 

[SlickMongoose]

Another super-doping backfire here.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/giro-ditalia-exhausted-pinot-endures-longest-day/

 

[Bolder]

Re:

It's fascinating that many posters here create, or try to create, a narrative surrounding the ups and downs of various riders that rests solely on doping. Doping as an explanation for success. Doping as an explanation for failure.

They forget that without dope there would still be tremendous ups and downs.

What happened is pretty damn clear. A young rider dragged himself into pink, and then rode beyond his means to try and keep it on his shoulders. Drugs or no drugs.

"Here" being the Clinic forum...just saying.

Well, yes, I think if every rider was on pane e acqua, the outcomes would look pretty much the way they do now. But the fact is that the best riders of every generation have not been riding without a little help, from straight up WWII-era amphetamine to pot belge to EPO to blood transfusions to whatever the latest and greatest is. So you can't exclude doping from the conversation any more than you can exclude parcours/tactics/physiological strengths and weaknesses etc.

 

[Ferminal]

Re:

It's fascinating that many posters here create, or try to create, a narrative surrounding the ups and downs of various riders that rests solely on doping. Doping as an explanation for success. Doping as an explanation for failure.

They forget that without dope there would still be tremendous ups and downs.

What happened is pretty damn clear. A young rider dragged himself into pink, and then rode beyond his means to try and keep it on his shoulders. Drugs or no drugs.

Agreed, it's fascinating.

 

[macbindle]

Re: Re:

It's fascinating that many posters here create, or try to create, a narrative surrounding the ups and downs of various riders that rests solely on doping. Doping as an explanation for success. Doping as an explanation for failure.

They forget that without dope there would still be tremendous ups and downs.

What happened is pretty damn clear. A young rider dragged himself into pink, and then rode beyond his means to try and keep it on his shoulders. Drugs or no drugs.

"Here" being the Clinic forum...just saying.

Well, yes, I think if every rider was on pane e acqua, the outcomes would look pretty much the way they do now. But the fact is that the best riders of every generation have not been riding without a little help, from straight up WWII-era amphetamine to pot belge to EPO to blood transfusions to whatever the latest and greatest is. So you can't exclude doping from the conversation any more than you can exclude parcours/tactics/physiological strengths and weaknesses etc.

Yeah we know that....that is not the point I'm making.

There is still a race going on.

 

[macbindle]

Re:

Another super-doping backfire here.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/giro-ditalia-exhausted-pinot-endures-longest-day/

Failure to recover...which is what happened to Pinot, is not a symptom of taking drugs to recover.

 

[Ferminal]

He could have taken something to unrecover though?

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

Yates has done a Zulle 1998 imho

 

[macbindle]

We will not be able to say that until Yates has 2 Giro wins under his belt

I'd say Froome did a Pantani '98, though

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

Re:

We will not be able to say that until Yates has 2 Giro wins under his belt

I'd say Froome did a Pantani '98, though

That makes no sence...

 

[macbindle]

Zulle was a 2 time Giro winner. Yates is a newb.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

Zulle was a 2 time Giro winner. Yates is a newb.

*Vuelta

 

[macbindle]

Yep, Vuelta. Mixing my GTs

 

[The Hegelian]

For mine, the massive collapses of Yates and Pinot do - by some measure - raise doubts about all the 'mutant' arguments in preceding weeks.

I was on the fence about the degree of his improvement, and my position was: let's see what he does in the tt and the third week. Riding super strong in both of those would have been a big transformation on anything he's done in the past. Whereas winning punchy climbing stages by small margins was simply not.

The fact that he spent so much energy earlier that he basically collapsed later does mean that we ought to reconsider those earlier rides.

 

[vedrafjord]

Yates' progression has been very steady - national prominence in track at 18, Tour de l'Avenir stage wins, multiple one-week top tens at 22, a Tour top ten at 24, and now a Giro where he won a bunch of stages by fairly small amounts in an attempt to build up a defend-able buffer, but ultimately didn't have the stamina/recovery and blew big-time in the third week. I don't think he's clean and he's almost definitely pushing the grey areas, but it's entirely possible he's not hi-octane doping - in some ways he's more trustworthy than his team - a team that withdrew from the MPCC two years ago, employ Impey after his preposterous masking agent excuse, and hired Kreuziger after it was revealed that he had a biological passport like a rollercoaster.

Re: Pinot, I think that if any GC rider is clean, it's him. Again a steady progression, and he looks like a normal guy in good shape that wouldn't have looked out of place in an 80's or 90's peloton instead of looking like Skeletor. He's pretty much the same height and weight I was in my early 20's for example. When his climbing improves, his TT gets worse, and vice-versa - no magic weight loss without power loss. His good GT performance have tended to be immediately preceded by good one week performances, unlike some of the riders who beat him, such as Nibali 2014 and Froome 2018, who came out of absolutely nowhere results-wise. And finally, he tried to follow a thermonuclear Dawg this week but had to go so deep to do so that it put him in hospital.

This has been a nuts Giro - maybe as crazy as the 00's ones where the Italians had a license to dope due to home field advantage. The occasional suggestions from the UCI to reduce the Giro and Vuelta to two weeks are blasphemous, but for the first time I'm slightly conflicted, because it's in the third week that the doping advantage really kicks in and the clean guys don't have a chance.

 

[hrotha]

Re:

The fact that he spent so much energy earlier that he basically collapsed later does mean that we ought to reconsider those earlier rides.

You're inferring a causal correlation that doesn't necessarily exist.

 

[macbindle]

But in all probability does.

Let's not be silly.

 

[Koronin]

After this Giro I'm willing to believe that Yates is one of the cleaner riders (along with Pinot). Both have progressed as what would be expected, understandable, or believable.

 

[The Hegelian]

Re: Re:

The fact that he spent so much energy earlier that he basically collapsed later does mean that we ought to reconsider those earlier rides.

You're inferring a causal correlation that doesn't necessarily exist.

Well, if we're going to take that statement as the predicate for all clinic discussions, then - and this is a true inference from a preceding cause - we should simply shut this place down.

Who here is not making inferences on a causal correlation that doesn't necessarily exist?

The point is: it may or may not exist. That is why we're all engaged in speculation in this forum.

 

[Ripper]

Re:

For mine, the massive collapses of Yates and Pinot do - by some measure - raise doubts about all the 'mutant' arguments in preceding weeks.

I was on the fence about the degree of his improvement, and my position was: let's see what he does in the tt and the third week. Riding super strong in both of those would have been a big transformation on anything he's done in the past. Whereas winning punchy climbing stages by small margins was simply not.

The fact that he spent so much energy earlier that he basically collapsed later does mean that we ought to reconsider those earlier rides.

I tend to agree for the most part. I thought for sure Yates was supercharging based on the effortlessness of his superiority. And while he may have been doping, his complete implosion suggests he was riding way out of his skin to get ahead and just nuked himself. It's not like he lost 5 minutes one day and 10 minutes the next, would have been a pretty monumental crack. 45 minutes is a total shut down.