Tyler says:

[BYOP88]

Re: Re:

So what is your explanation for Froome's sudden rise to greatness? Was he just lazy before 2011?

I think they/he/whoever found something that Froome responded well to. With that, one needs some kind of story to prove his newfound greatness.

But why would it be reasonable to assume that for some reason, Froome is the only cyclist to respond so strongly to that something so that he can take the leap from being a crap WT rider with purely mediocre talents into becoming a great champion with multiple TdF victories? That does not make any sense to me at all.

But I guess I shouldn't anticipate anything else than such conspiracies considering the strong Sky antipathy reigning in here.

By the way, note that I am not stating anywhere that he is definitely clean, before you accuse me for being a naive imbecile or something. I just don't think he does much more than any other GC top rider in the medical department.

Why would it be reasonable to assume that anyone thinks what you describe here is what happened?

We can speculate all kinds of things, but the fact is of course no one but Froome and whomever else was involved knows how it happened.

We know a few things. He was a mediocre rider (at best) before 2011. We know the explanations given around Bilharzia were both inconsistent in terms of when he did and didn't have it, how it was cured, how he claims it did and didn't affect his performance, how many times he was treated, when he found out about it and probably a few other things I forget at this point. With the level of inconsistency in the telling and the nonsensical descriptions of how it did and then didn't affect his performance, one can easily surmise that as far as an explanation for performance, it is a lie. He may well have had it at some point, who knows. The best lies always contain some truth. We know he lost a bunch of weight, very quickly. We know he is connected with a doctor Stephane Bermon, and it appears he started working with this doctor in 2011. This has a bunch of info: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=29971

We know he started performing at the top level of the sport in late 2011 and has carried that form since, with only this spring as a notable exception. We have heard from many quarters (can't find a link right now) that he was going to lose his contract at Sky. We know he was a late scratch for the Vuelta, originally not on the team. All of which strongly suggests (to say the least) that the team were not aware of his form or abilities.

My personal guess is that he was not on any kind of full program before 2011, got scared he was going to lose his contract and sought help from outside. I would guess his program, at least initially, was outside of whatever Sky are doing. We do know they started covering for him immediately when his wildly unexpected performance started raising obvious questions.

To my view the most obvious explanation is that a rider who wasn't doping or wasn't doing much, started a full program to stay competitive with everyone else who was fairly obviously doping. He could be almost as talented as the other riders at the top, and he is fairly obviously responding very well to whatever program he's on.

But again, this is simply speculation on my part. There are any number of explanations for his progression. Natural talent alone certainly isn't one of them. Nor is his nonsensical narrative around bilharzia. My explanation maps to all the things we know about what happened. His do not.

Complaining about "conspiracy theories" and "Sky antipathy" aren't going to get you anywhere but discredited. Plenty of people, particularly english-speaking fans, rooted for Sky when they came out. When they started insulting our intelligence they lost all credibility and a lot of fans. I had no antipathy for them, quite the opposite. They are reaping what they have sown.

He was offered to the Hog, but the Hog wanted Cummings not Froome. Didn't Froome in his book say he met with Riis and Vaughters about a move to their teams. Lampre were also interested but from what I can recall. But all their offers were pretty close to minimum cycling wage.

I just hope Froome sends a percentage of his earnings to Lars Petter Nordhaug, after all if he didn't get sick before the Vuelta, Froome doesn't ride it and becomes a free agent. I do love the fact though that the team that leaves no stone unturned, were unaware they had a GT winner on their roster. From memory didn't Froome only lose the 2011 Vuelta due to bouns seconds being awarded for stage finishes?

@Tobydawq viewtopic.php?f=20&t=21198&hilit=bilharzia+badzilla

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Going back to Tyler, I think he is dead right on two things:

There are legitimate reasons for using corticos and I don't know the facts of Brad's case. If cycling wants to address this they'll have to change the system and perhaps bring in a rule that you can't ride for two weeks after a shot.

This is something never discussed it seems. TUEs get abused as we all know, but the UCI seems to drag its feet forever in implementing even simple changes like this.

We're still catching cheats and there are quite a few under the radar. And doping is in amateur cycling now, the under-23s and masters - it's not a pretty picture.

I don't pay as close of attention to doping as I did in the past, but this has been my experience whenever I've glanced into it. You can find a long list of masters who came into the sport during the EPO years who visit anti-aging docs and get all kinds of candy to compete and look good in amateur races with little if any prizes, that doesn't shock me. But I am bothered when I heard stories about U23 racers doping.

Probably posted before, but no shock here. From the Guardian just over a year ago:

"Middle-aged businessmen are winning amateur cycling races on EPO"

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/mar/09/doping-cycling-uci-commission-epo-worldtour

 

[red_flanders]

Re:

Going back to Tyler, I think he is dead right on two things:

There are legitimate reasons for using corticos and I don't know the facts of Brad's case. If cycling wants to address this they'll have to change the system and perhaps bring in a rule that you can't ride for two weeks after a shot.

This is something never discussed it seems. TUEs get abused as we all know, but the UCI seems to drag its feet forever in implementing even simple changes like this.

I don't think waiting two weeks is the answer, as there are rare but legitimate reasons for issuing a TUE mid-race. I think one answer could be to have independent doctors reviewing a rider history and issuing TUE's as part of a committee/review process.

This would have to be a well-funded effort to keep a pool of doctors available for quick review and decisions. I think it needs to be full-time, not just during races and out of competition use of these drugs should be banned except for review by the team of independent doctors.

Of course this assumes a governing body interested in and incentivized to stop doping. I shan't hold my breath...

 

[yaco]

Re:

Think people are overlooking the motor aspect. For this, protection from the UCI is even more important than for regular doping.
Of course, he probably uses a load of regular stuff as well. But it might explain why he's so far ahead of others, while they are on the regular stuff as well. Maybe they have to limit themselves to a magnetized wheel, while Froome and Sky can go all in with a hub motor.

Teams would go crazy if any rider/pro team was using motors and receiving protection from the UCI - Mechanical doping is seen as a far greater crime than chemical doping in the peleton.

 

[red_flanders]

Re: Re:

Think people are overlooking the motor aspect. For this, protection from the UCI is even more important than for regular doping.
Of course, he probably uses a load of regular stuff as well. But it might explain why he's so far ahead of others, while they are on the regular stuff as well. Maybe they have to limit themselves to a magnetized wheel, while Froome and Sky can go all in with a hub motor.

Teams would go crazy if any rider/pro team was using motors and receiving protection from the UCI - Mechanical doping is seen as a far greater crime than chemical doping in the peleton.

Undoubtably. Why would the UCI share this info in this scenario?

Personally I am HUGELY skeptical that the UCI would do allow such a program to exist. What would be the interest of the UCI here? If they want to avoid embarrassment of a motor-doping positive, easy enough to sweep it under the carpet and tell the team to stop. I don't see what they would gain by allowing a team to engage in open-ended motor-doping.

While I acknowledge it's possible that Froome or other Sky riders have motor-doped, I tend to scoff at this as an explanation for the years of dominance in GTs. I just can't see how a protracted program of motor-doping is a reasonable explanation. There have been years where they were on form for every race in the calendar. Do folks think they were motor-doping for all those races? Seems a bit hard to believe. Maybe a few years ago, but now with the visibility of it, seems incredibly unlikely.

Maybe it's another thread (and I'm sure it's been discussed at length) but I'd like to hear an argument for a protracted motor-doping program as an explanation for Sky's continued success. It's not making sense to me, but interested to hear a well-formed argument.

 

[wansteadimp]

Re: Re:

Think people are overlooking the motor aspect. For this, protection from the UCI is even more important than for regular doping.
Of course, he probably uses a load of regular stuff as well. But it might explain why he's so far ahead of others, while they are on the regular stuff as well. Maybe they have to limit themselves to a magnetized wheel, while Froome and Sky can go all in with a hub motor.

Teams would go crazy if any rider/pro team was using motors and receiving protection from the UCI - Mechanical doping is seen as a far greater crime than chemical doping in the peleton.

Undoubtably. Why would the UCI share this info in this scenario?

Personally I am HUGELY skeptical that the UCI would do allow such a program to exist. What would be the interest of the UCI here? If they want to avoid embarrassment of a motor-doping positive, easy enough to sweep it under the carpet and tell the team to stop. I don't see what they would gain by allowing a team to engage in open-ended motor-doping.

While I acknowledge it's possible that Froome or other Sky riders have motor-doped, I tend to scoff at this as an explanation for the years of dominance in GTs. I just can't see how a protracted program of motor-doping is a reasonable explanation. There have been years where they were on form for every race in the calendar. Do folks think they were motor-doping for all those races? Seems a bit hard to believe. Maybe a few years ago, but now with the visibility of it, seems incredibly unlikely.

Maybe it's another thread (and I'm sure it's been discussed at length) but I'd like to hear an argument for a protracted motor-doping program as an explanation for Sky's continued success. It's not making sense to me, but interested to hear a well-formed argument.

Additional to this as you argued up thread, it seems hard to believe that Sky were ready to drop Froome and then shoved him on a doping program, its even harder to believe they would give Froome a bike with a motor just as they're about to sack him.

Is it credible that a team wouldn't know about a rider using a motor? I can see riders going off piste with their own doping regime but using a motorized bike without anyone in the team knowing about it? Unlikely in my opinion.

 

[This Charming Man]

Re:

Going back to Tyler, I think he is dead right on two things:

There are legitimate reasons for using corticos and I don't know the facts of Brad's case. If cycling wants to address this they'll have to change the system and perhaps bring in a rule that you can't ride for two weeks after a shot.

This is something never discussed it seems. TUEs get abused as we all know, but the UCI seems to drag its feet forever in implementing even simple changes like this.

We're still catching cheats and there are quite a few under the radar. And doping is in amateur cycling now, the under-23s and masters - it's not a pretty picture.

I don't pay as close of attention to doping as I did in the past, but this has been my experience whenever I've glanced into it. You can find a long list of masters who came into the sport during the EPO years who visit anti-aging docs and get all kinds of candy to compete and look good in amateur races with little if any prizes, that doesn't shock me. But I am bothered when I heard stories about U23 racers doping.



Probably posted before, but no shock here. From the Guardian just over a year ago:

"Middle-aged businessmen are winning amateur cycling races on EPO"

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/mar/09/doping-cycling-uci-commission-epo-worldtour

I agree, U-23, juniors doping, completely spoils the pot. Masters, GF doping, just pathetic.

 

[Archibald]

It's all in the "marginal gains"... how else do you throw away 100 years of knowledge gained, to change the paradigm as to how to win the TdF into riding head down, elbows out and wobbling about at 200rpm uphill, all while being emaciated?
Not forgetting that you do this with a rider that's shown no inkling of potential at all...

 

[42x16ss]

Re: Re:

I like Tyler, but am not sure why he would say it's possible to compete clean nowadays. I mean, yes, you can compete clean at any point in your life. But that doesn't mean you'll actually win. (Or you'll even get close to it.)

Am I being too picky here?

To ALL those who say " the sport is mostly clean" need to stop kidding themselves, It's Still dirty:

http://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/18924287/josh-edmondson-ex-team-sky-rider-says-secretly-injected-tramadol

A relevant quote from the article:

"The drug is not banned"

Another "relevant" fact is that Steve Peters claims Edmondson is confused and never injected at all...

 

[veganrob]

Only his inner chimp knows for sure.

 

[Aragon]

I think only Jiminez went through his medical cabinet in detail.

I don't believe that Sky only abused the Triamacoline 'legally'. It was part of the arsenal of PEDs.

When one compares Tyler's book to other cycling autobiographies, it is different because he so strongly proclaims how he now tells "the truth" and it seems that the majority of the public really thinks that he came totally clean about his past in The Secret Race. But when one contrasts the book with what is known about his and Lance's PED-use, it is clear that there are episodes of whitewashing, weird omissions and exaggerations in the book. Strange things while nothing too damning, to be honest.

While he still maintains that he didn't use someone else's blood when he got popped at the 2004 Vuelta or if he did, it was a mistake with mixed up blood bags, one could also make a pretty good case that he did it intentionally and that he had all the know-how and motive to do so and the only mistake was that he thought that the foreign RBCs wouldn't be present in his system after several months after his last homologous transfusion.

While there is a lot of new information revealed, The Secret Race remains an interesting look into the dark side of the cycling world and one easily forgets how mind-blowing it was when it was published in 2012 around the same time as the USADA/USPS material.

 

[B_Ugli]

Re: Re:

So what is your explanation for Froome's sudden rise to greatness? Was he just lazy before 2011?

I think they/he/whoever found something that Froome responded well to. With that, one needs some kind of story to prove his newfound greatness.

But why would it be reasonable to assume that for some reason, Froome is the only cyclist to respond so strongly to that something so that he can take the leap from being a crap WT rider with purely mediocre talents into becoming a great champion with multiple TdF victories? That does not make any sense to me at all.

But I guess I shouldn't anticipate anything else than such conspiracies considering the strong Sky antipathy reigning in here.

By the way, note that I am not stating anywhere that he is definitely clean, before you accuse me for being a naive imbecile or something. I just don't think he does much more than any other GC top rider in the medical department.

To my view the most obvious explanation is that a rider who wasn't doping or wasn't doing much, started a full program to stay competitive with everyone else who was fairly obviously doping. He could be almost as talented as the other riders at the top, and he is fairly obviously responding very well to whatever program he's on.

They didn't put him on a style and panache program though, he might be the best Tour de France winner of his generation but he looks shite on a bike, for sure :lol: :lol: