What can stop Froome at the Tour?

[airstream]

Strange that only apparently 3 guys (Jens, ContadaurusSchleck and me) look into the possibility of Verbier from Froome at Bonascre.

 

[wwabbit]

it won't be I can guarantee. obviously in the tt sky could gain up to a minute on saxo tinkoff, but saying that saxo tinkoff does have a very strong squad, maybe not as strong collectively as sky. Kreuziger is looking strong at the tds, rogers is also looking good, plus there's roche, anker Sorensen, Paulinho, Nicki Sorensen, Jesus Hernandez. Saxo is going to have about 5 pure climbing domestiques compared to sky's 2 or 3. uran won't be in the tdf because he did the giro, probably same with henao. kreuziger, rogers and contador are all strong tt'rs so saxo will be able to minimize time loss to sky very well. looking at the teams individually, saxo are much stronger individual climbers (except porte and froome). saying this sky is based around being strong collectively which is more important. in 2009 I can distinctly remember both Sorensen's cleared the peleton from about 80 riders to 30 on the lower slopes of ventoux, sky will do this for saxo (rogers and kreuziger will certainly stay whereas porte and froome will be the only ones from sky left). as far as I can tell sky will only have a few pure climbers, the rest will be riders that will set a high tempo for a few kms on the final mountain then drop off. in terms of the strongest domestiques I see Moreno as better than porte, kreuziger and rogers are decent gc riders in their own right and at movistar have Quintana and costa who will be riding for valverde (both as strong as porte based on previous form). in terms of strategy team sky only have one strategy for the team and several options with tactics for froome. saxo will surely have riis for the tour. being the master tactician he is, riis will have significantly more options for the team as a whole compared to sky's one dimensional tactic of staying at one tempo. obviously froome and contador have similar options in terms of strategy tho.

Wishful thinking. If Froome fails to win the Tour de France, it will be due to him being out of form or a rival finding better form than him, and not because his teammates are not good enough. Having good teammates helps a lot, but can only get you so far.

 

[nick101]

Wishful thinking. If Froome fails to win the Tour de France, it will be due to him being out of form or a rival finding better form than him, and not because his teammates are not good enough. Having good teammates helps a lot, but can only get you so far.

isn't that generally the whole point behind why someone wins a race?? having better form than everyone else ?? as for the team, sky pretty much caused wiggins to win. if he hadn't had sky and it was just wiggins vs froome its pretty obvious who wins, so team does have a big impact ( that being said froome was on the same team as wiggins). all my statements are based on if contador is 100% vs froome 100%. given past data (power output, climbing speed etc), contador at 100% would beat froome, but contador hasn't raced against froome when he's 100% so that remains to be seen

 

[airstream]

contador hasn't raced against froome when he's 100% so that remains to be seen

who is at 100%? did Contador ride against 100% of Froome?

 

[Lanark]

isn't that generally the whole point behind why someone wins a race?? having better form than everyone else ?? as for the team, sky pretty much caused wiggins to win. if he hadn't had sky and it was just wiggins vs froome its pretty obvious who wins

Yes, Wiggins would win.

 

[nick101]

froome is at near maximum form atm, minimum ~95%. he hasn't got much better since march, and has stayed the same form throughout the year, constantly winning. when froome was not as fit (relatively speaking like at oman where rodriguez out climbed him), then it was a lot more even between him and contador (who has struggled with form this year and was always lower form than froome)

 

[airstream]

froome is at near maximum form atm, minimum ~95%. he hasn't got much better since march, and has stayed the same form throughout the year, constantly winning. when froome was not as fit (relatively speaking like at oman where rodriguez out climbed him), then it was a lot more even between him and contador (who has struggled with form this year and was always lower form than froome)

If you are a proponent of progressive form growing, how Contador is going to just from 75 to 100% in 3 weeks. At the expense of what?

 

[nick101]

contador is roughly 80%. he has maximum of 5 weeks (day the climb ventoux) to get above 95%. he should be 90% by the tdf start if he keeps progressing and given that gain 5% in the week leading up to ventoux. so froome won't gain more time on contador at ax-3 than what we saw at the dauphine stage he won, plus the shear effort of maintaining near maximum form for several months surely will begin to effect froome and he should in theory lose from as the tour progresses, that is unless he is superman or something abnormal like that?? so with my inferences based on facts, contador should get better while froome gets worse, however the pure facts are usually proven wrong.

 

[airstream]

contador is roughly 80%. he has maximum of 5 weeks (day the climb ventoux) to get above 95%. he should be 90% by the tdf start if he keeps progressing and given that gain 5% in the week leading up to ventoux. so froome won't gain more time on contador at ax-3 than what we saw at the dauphine stage he won, plus the shear effort of maintaining near maximum form for several months surely will begin to effect froome and he should in theory lose from as the tour progresses, that is unless he is superman or something abnormal like that?? so with my inferences based on facts, contador should get better while froome gets worse, however the pure facts are usually proven wrong.

What facts can we say about while no one both of the included is not able to evaluate these % precisely? One of them will get beaten by other one and what? There won't be point in saying 'he's not at 100%'. because they have all the possibilities to prepare the way they like to reach an optimal form.

 

[Lanark]

contador is roughly 80%. he has maximum of 5 weeks (day the climb ventoux) to get above 95%. he should be 90% by the tdf start if he keeps progressing and given that gain 5% in the week leading up to ventoux. so froome won't gain more time on contador at ax-3 than what we saw at the dauphine stage he won, plus the shear effort of maintaining near maximum form for several months surely will begin to effect froome and he should in theory lose from as the tour progresses, that is unless he is superman or something abnormal like that?? so with my inferences based on facts, contador should get better while froome gets worse, however the pure facts are usually proven wrong.

Or it would be just like Wiggins last year, who won Paris-Nice, Romandie and the Dauphiné in the lead-up to the Tour, but delivered by far his best ITT at the end of the Tour. Hoping that Sky mispeaked sounds like a wish more than a realistic expectation.

 

[nick101]

well froome's best I've seen him so far was on his stage win at the 2011 vuelta stage of pena cabarga, assuming that's his current possible maximum, then he's pretty much at it now. meanwhile all of contador's attacks are well below they were at the 2009 tour and 2011 giro, they've almost seemed half hearted and that he already knew that he doesn't have the form to accelerate enough to beat froome. neither will both be 100% at the tour. it'll either end up like the 2011 tour for contador or the 2012 vuelta for froome. im saying froome because he's already at his "best" this year, in 2012 he was at his best at only tour for that month and progressively got worse, he's pretty much been at his best most of the season. at the start of the year at oman, contador had form like in the 2008 giro, he progressively got better as the season progressed that year. his form has progressed so assuming that he should reach peak sometime mid tour. again i'm basing my thoughts on previous seasons

as for wiggins, his form is reasonably irrelevant, froome and wiggins are completely different riders, wiggins would've won the tt regardless of whether he was at 100% or not and there wasn't contador or schleck to truly see how he was going on the mountains. wiggins didn't really have to put much effort in the mountain stages as nibali was off form and cadel was sick plus he was protected by sky and froome was working for him. he came into the tour at 100% and even if he dipped to 90% the "sky factor" ensured that he rarely needed the 100% form anyway

 

[airstream]

sorry, but this approach doesn't take into account oppenents' strength.

 

[webbie146]

well froome's best I've seen him so far was on his stage win at the 2011 vuelta stage of pena cabarga, assuming that's his current possible maximum, then he's pretty much at it now. meanwhile all of contador's attacks are well below they were at the 2009 tour and 2011 giro, they've almost seemed half hearted and that he already knew that he doesn't have the form to accelerate enough to beat froome. neither will both be 100% at the tour. it'll either end up like the 2011 tour for contador or the 2012 vuelta for froome. im saying froome because he's already at his "best" this year, in 2012 he was at his best at only tour for that month and progressively got worse, he's pretty much been at his best most of the season. at the start of the year at oman, contador had form like in the 2008 giro, he progressively got better as the season progressed that year. his form has progressed so assuming that he should reach peak sometime mid tour. again i'm basing my thoughts on previous seasons

as for wiggins, his form is reasonably irrelevant, froome and wiggins are completely different riders, wiggins would've won the tt regardless of whether he was at 100% or not and there wasn't contador or schleck to truly see how he was going on the mountains. wiggins didn't really have to put much effort in the mountain stages as nibali was off form and cadel was sick plus he was protected by sky and froome was working for him. he came into the tour at 100% and even if he dipped to 90% the "sky factor" ensured that he rarely needed the 100% form anyway

Nibali was not off form, he got third in that tdf lol. He just wasn't strong enough to beat Wiggo/Froome that year. He progressed at Astana though so he might be up to the task now.

 

[airstream]

Nibali was in form of his life in that Tour. Though, if you compare that to his this year's Giro form, you are right.

 

[whittashau]

Nibali was in form of his life in that Tour. Though, if you compare that to his this year's Giro form, you are right.

That's a contradictory statement.

 

[airstream]

That's a contradictory statement.

Why? In form of his life at that time

 

[nick101]

nibali had better form at the 2010 vuelta, he actually beat rodriguez in an uphill sprint !! and in 2012 got dropped on one of the stages and struggled in the final itt. if you look at his climbing, in 2009 he was better at times in the tour (ventoux comes to mind), hard to say about the giro because the summit finishes didn't really give a clear indication imo due to the bad weather (nibali thrives in bad weather while it hinders his rivals), altered route, reduced field etc. nibali isn't strong enough to beat froome (or sky in decent weather); I never said he could.

as for not taking into opponents strength, data from both the 2009 tours and the 2011 giro indicates that contador at 100% is definately stronger than froome's current maximum ability, as I previously already said. contador averaged 490 watts or 7.1w/kg during the climb of verbier and also 1930 on the angliru , this is actually nearly the same as pantani's watt/kg of 7.3w/kg, however he climbed at 1900 VAM both times which is over 100 higher than pantani's record of 1780 VAM for alpe dhuez (note also that a higher gradient inflates VAM; the alpe is 8%, verbier 7%, but pantani put this effort for 30mins, contador under 20mins); at the giro on etna he did a similar figure of 6.9w/kg but for his effort was for nearly nearly double the distance and etna is much more gradual than verbier. on the pena cabarga (6km @ 10%) froome only managed 6.4w/kg and 1800VAM, and this is on a climb with 20% ramps - much steeper and shorter than verbier so the figures are massively inflated. schleck did both the zoncolan and verbier at over 1800VAM. on a more more gradual like verbier it is realistic that froome would only be able to put out 1700VAM so would lose over a minute to contador and 30 seconds to schleck (both on form). when I see froome put values out like contador can, then i'll believe that he's better than contador and impossibly pantani. until then I strongly disagree about froome being better

 

[webbie146]

nibali had better form at the 2010 vuelta, he actually beat rodriguez in an uphill sprint !! and in 2012 got dropped on one of the stages and struggled in the final itt. if you look at his climbing, in 2009 he was better at times in the tour (ventoux comes to mind), hard to say about the giro because the summit finishes didn't really give a clear indication imo due to the bad weather (nibali thrives in bad weather while it hinders his rivals), altered route, reduced field etc. nibali isn't strong enough to beat froome (or sky in decent weather); I never said he could.

as for not taking into opponents strength, data from both the 2009 tours and the 2011 tours indicates that contador at 100% is definately stronger than froome's current maximum ability, as I previously already said. contador averaged 500 watts during the climb of verbier, this is actually nearly the same as pantani's watt/kg of 7w/kg, however he climbed at 1900 VAM which is 150 higher than pantanis record of 1750VAM for alpe dhuez; at the giro on etna he did a similar figure of 6.9w/kg for etna. when I see froome put values out like that then i'll believe that he's better than contador and thus pantani. until then I strongly disagree about froome being better

He had a injury to his leg that's why he lost time that day.

 

[nick101]

yes that's obviously him off form then, people don't get injuries when they're on form

 

[Red Rick]

The first few options seem quite unrealistic now

 

[Kwibus]

A positive control and a crash are the only possibilities.

 

[Mongolian Torque]

Not so fast...

The first few options seem quite unrealistic now

Gloome looks like the fresh meat in the Movistar Sandwich...

 

[cineteq]

A positive control and a crash are the only possibilities.

He's a rookie, he'll be doomed.

 

[Afrank]

The first few options seem quite unrealistic now

They always were. As I said in my first post of this thread, no one, it's over.

 

[forkboy84]

He's a rookie, he'll be doomed.

It's absurd that a hyperbolic exaggerated hater like you has more of a grip on reality than most of the pantywetters who forget it's a 3 week long race. But there you go, you're...well, I don't think you're right exactly, but in the sense that it's not over yet, yeah.