Why are UK riders now more successful?

[Winterfold]

Nowadays they still climb on the big ring

Junk. They climb on the inner ring, and they use compact chainsets. And they are slower. Even Cobo with his bovine legs used gearing that would raise eyebrows in your local club for 'being a bit girly' at the Vuelta.

Try learning something about the sport rather than making stuff up. You come across as dogmatic on Clinic aspects of the sport but not as having any interest in it beyond those aspects.

back OT

As to the Brits (of which I am) we have chucked tens and tens of millions* at the sport, then there's the Sky money, and if we weren't seeing results you would have to ask questions, clinic or not. I am prepared to put Wiggins on the outer limit of what might be achieved clean as he failed so spectacularly in 2010. And while PEDs can help you lose weight quickly, you can do it without over time. He's now been dropping weight for 4 years so to lose 12kg in that time does not seem so outrageous. I had a big car crash in Dec and lost 12kg in 14 days while in hospital (although admittedly half of that was down to wine beer and cake and I also lost 50W at threshold but its coming back).

Other recent UK riders who have exploded onto the scene, I am less certain about it, and if they got busted it would not be a bolt out of the blue.

* It probably would have been a lot cheaper if Sport UK had bought a load of EPO, blood bags and AICAR but there you go.

 

[will10]

cant think of MAx as a brit. Italian as they come.

Apart from being born in Derby....

 

[Benotti69]

Junk. They climb on the inner ring, and they use compact chainsets. And they are slower. Even Cobo with his bovine legs used gearing that would raise eyebrows in your local club for 'being a bit girly' at the Vuelta.

Try learning something about the sport rather than making stuff up. You come across as dogmatic on Clinic aspects of the sport but not as having any interest in it beyond those aspects.

I was quoting Stephen Swart. I dont remember seeing Canc on his inner ring riding the Strada Bianche and i dont think Swart was alluding to HC climbs you get in GTs but when in general when the roads go up and not a gentle rise. But then if the gearing is so good why do they need inner rings :rollleyes:

As for the Vuelta Cobo was climbing a wall and again Swart was not alluding to this type of climb.

As for the technical aspects of the sport i leave that to all the LBS boys on here.

As others have pointed out the Clinic is 'The Posting Place' for doping in cycling, other websites have other interesting areas that i post on.

My last word on it as this thread is about UK riders.

To me it obvious why the UK riders are making an impact, the same reasons at the Spanish and Italians do.

 

[Caruut]

Obviously this is not an exhaustive list of point scoring riders, but the number of riders on that list listed as - present shows what I mean. There are only two or three co-inciding at any other time.

OK I may be biased but ca nanybody tell me when a single nation controlled a world champs like last year. Obviously it was only worth doing because we had Cav at the end to finish it off, but basically 8 riders managed the rest of the world. If you if anyone wants to say that the UK could ever have achieved this before then they are crazy.

Whether a race gets controlled is far more about whether there is any point controlling it than about whether you have the legs. Ultimately, GB knew that if they could have Cav near the front with 300m to go, then they would more likely than not have a world champion.

It's not often you have the course and the rider to be able to make that statement. You have to say, also, that if you'd been able to pick the other 8 from a bigger cycling nation, they might have found it even easier.

 

[Caruut]

To me it obvious why the UK riders are making an impact, the same reasons at the Spanish and Italians do.

As sad as it is for a Brit cycling fan to admit this, I think British riders almost certainly dope as much as the rest of the peloton. However, whether this is responsible for their rise is surely up for debate.

To me, it seems far more likely that our riders have always doped as much as the rest. The 3 best road riders pre-SKY-lottery are Tommy Simpson and the Millars, and there's evidence that all 3 doped. Tommy paid dearly for it, Robert Millar's gone a bit funny and Dave Millar is very very very very sorry, but they all still doped.

The rise, I think, is therefore down to all these other factors; better funding, higher profile, better route from weekend rider to pro rider, our own team, a strong background from the track.

To summarise - I'm not saying we don't dope, I think we do, but I think that the dope has always been there. The rise in performance is not for the clinic to decide.

 

[Biggut]

I understand entirely what you mean about being motivated to control it, but in reality it wasn't just the UK who knew that if Cav was there the UK would have a world champion. As a result every other nation to a man would be trying to stop UK from controlling the race. If Cav wasn't SO dominant then the job would be easier you would have Germany, Belgium and Italy pulling for their sprinters too so you effectively have 24 pairs of legs to control the field. The UK riders did it absolutely alone.

 

[blackcat]

To me it obvious why the UK riders are making an impact, the same reasons at the Spanish and Italians do.

but the French dont have any higher standards. Their enforcement regime may not be quite so lax, but they do it the same. Anyone at the point head when it comes to the selective races do it. See the French swimmers in the past six years. I dont think they even test their swimmers. In terms of enforcement and testing in swimming, they are as bad or, well, they cant possibly be worse, cos they are an absolute, of the Aussies and the Chinese.

But the Aussies are clean cos they are anglo-saxon, and good guys, and speak english. I think they speak english atleast.

The Australians and the Americans... dont get me started. They know their way around a sharps bucket better than a medical waste disposal unit at a major metropolitan hospital.

They all do it. Cross Channel BigBoat here.

But they have won, and won well. Respect for them taking a pivotal and influential position at the pointy head of the peloton. You still gotta have the talent, you still gotta put the hard yards in. I dont like the game, but respect the Brits for their excellence in the sport. Imagine if they get a second team up in the decade, Money and potential catchment size of the talent pool, could bring them to the pinnacle within the decade.

Froome and Kennaugh just could be the GC stars they need to climb the mountain (sic)

now, I dont think Brits have any donkeys to thoroughbreds, but that phenomenon still has relevance when talent can be mined through the barrel of the hypodermic.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

well, I have been out of checking news for a while, and forgot it, was trying to remember the german espoirs, I knew there were two teams, and that Martin was on them and so was the other guy Gretsch, and the other sprinter who won some dauphine stages and third in u23s to matthews tying with the french canuck for third, and he came third in the first paris nice stage. Memory needs cofffeee!. . But I do know there is a fat picture of Cav in the Sparkasse uniform. I was getting them conflated. But u do your best for one-upmanship LS as is your wont.

but Libertine, Heiko was their coach innit?

Clancy's win coulda been Tour of Berlin too, not Thuringen. memory playing games. Cant find the pic of cav as a pudgy dude in the sparkasse uniform. It was either on cyclingwesbite.net or wikipedia

I acknowledged Salzwedel was the coach at Sparkasse in my first post on the subject with the correction, which was roundly ignored, hence the more exasperated, confrontational nature of the second, which you quoted as per the above.

Unlike TET, Sparkasse weren't purely an Espoir team, and remain in similar form (Nutrixxion-Sparkasse) to this date. Alongside the youngsters including Cavendish and Clancy, you had a couple of 30+ riders like Teutenberg and Schulze.

 

[Caruut]

I understand entirely what you mean about being motivated to control it, but in reality it wasn't just the UK who knew that if Cav was there the UK would have a world champion. As a result every other nation to a man would be trying to stop UK from controlling the race. If Cav wasn't SO dominant then the job would be easier you would have Germany, Belgium and Italy pulling for their sprinters too so you effectively have 24 pairs of legs to control the field. The UK riders did it absolutely alone.

That's sort of what I meant - even the other 3 teams with the big sprinters, the Germans, the Aussies and the Americans didn't want to expend much effort on controlling the race, unless it looked like GB were spent. Cav was so good that their best chance of beating him lay in making sure that he had as few people as possible left to help in the closing stages. Controlling the race is as much about who declines the front as who takes the front.

 

[blackcat]

I acknowledged Salzwedel was the coach at Sparkasse in my first post on the subject with the correction, which was roundly ignored, hence the more exasperated, confrontational nature of the second, which you quoted as per the above.

Unlike TET, Sparkasse weren't purely an Espoir team, and remain in similar form (Nutrixxion-Sparkasse) to this date. Alongside the youngsters including Cavendish and Clancy, you had a couple of 30+ riders like Teutenberg and Schulze.

re: "ignored". If ignored implies intent, then that is wrong. I admit I did not see it, and was not trying to be a smart@rse. So sorry. No intentional ignoring going on. Trying to back out of a problem. I would not have forgotten that info 4 years back, when I was going thru the espoirs with a fine tooth. See, I knew of JLA and his ascent up fuji, I actually had the record times graphed out. And I similarly knew of Clancy and Cav's and Blythes careers in the jnrs. And yes, they are divIII licences. Sorry on that.

 

[JRanton]

Whether a race gets controlled is far more about whether there is any point controlling it than about whether you have the legs. Ultimately, GB knew that if they could have Cav near the front with 300m to go, then they would more likely than not have a world champion.

It's not often you have the course and the rider to be able to make that statement. You have to say, also, that if you'd been able to pick the other 8 from a bigger cycling nation, they might have found it even easier.

I tried to think about this objectively just after the Road Race last year and I couldn't come up with another nation that would have put a stronger 8 man squad together for THAT course if they'd had Cavendish on their team. I agree with your other points and clearly some of the bigger nations could have got close (very close in some cases) to replicating the GB performance.

 

[blackcat]

the race went out like this.

1. selection. and here we could use economic game theory. If no one apart from Brits, bring a sprinter, then GAME ON.
We dont have game on, cos everyone brought a 250km legs field sprinter.
2. Then the other teams tried to break Brits and Cav on the road, but this was never gonna happen.
3. Brits could keep it together, Cav wins. Simple.


Every nation's selection team, do not have collusion. If they did, they would have all selected teams, with no field sprinters with 250km legs.

If they all took a team, with 9 Bettinis in their squad, and the riders took a pact, not to work against any man off the front, cos the azzurri have had that problem in the past

This was like imperial strategy brinkmanship. The Brits won the strategy game.

You hear of idiot commentators often speak in cliches like cycling is chess on wheels. Well, there was some strategy playing out in Copenhagen, but arguably, the seeds were sown before the tyres were put pressure in.

 

[roundabout]

but the French dont have any higher standards. Their enforcement regime may not be quite so lax, but they do it the same. Anyone at the point head when it comes to the selective races do it. See the French swimmers in the past six years. I dont think they even test their swimmers. In terms of enforcement and testing in swimming, they are as bad or, well, they cant possibly be worse, cos they are an absolute, of the Aussies and the Chinese.

But the Aussies are clean cos they are anglo-saxon, and good guys, and speak english. I think they speak english atleast.

The Australians and the Americans... dont get me started. They know their way around a sharps bucket better than a medical waste disposal unit at a major metropolitan hospital.

They all do it. Cross Channel BigBoat here.

But they have won, and won well. Respect for them taking a pivotal and influential position at the pointy head of the peloton. You still gotta have the talent, you still gotta put the hard yards in. I dont like the game, but respect the Brits for their excellence in the sport. Imagine if they get a second team up in the decade, Money and potential catchment size of the talent pool, could bring them to the pinnacle within the decade.

Froome and Kennaugh just could be the GC stars they need to climb the mountain (sic)

now, I dont think Brits have any donkeys to thoroughbreds, but that phenomenon still has relevance when talent can be mined through the barrel of the hypodermic.

Britain has a better rider in about every aspect of road cycling than France. Time trials, sprinting, classics, GT GC, now hilly classics as well.

Oh, and catchment.Look at the domestic scene. There's a boatload of races at various levels going on in France. I haven't counted but a CQ search shows that there are 3 times as many riders with an active status in France than there are in Britain.

Sorry, but your point about the talent pool size is way off.

 

[Mambo95]

the race went out like this.

1. selection. and here we could use economic game theory. If no one apart from Brits, bring a sprinter, then GAME ON.
We dont have game on, cos everyone brought a 250km legs field sprinter.
2. Then the other teams tried to break Brits and Cav on the road, but this was never gonna happen.
3. Brits could keep it together, Cav wins. Simple.

The Germans rode on the front quite a bit in the early stages, but then they lost Tony Martin, who got caught behind a crash and had to reassess their plans.

 

[Benotti69]

but the French dont have any higher standards. Their enforcement regime may not be quite so lax, but they do it the same. Anyone at the point head when it comes to the selective races do it. See the French swimmers in the past six years. I dont think they even test their swimmers. In terms of enforcement and testing in swimming, they are as bad or, well, they cant possibly be worse, cos they are an absolute, of the Aussies and the Chinese.

But the Aussies are clean cos they are anglo-saxon, and good guys, and speak english. I think they speak english atleast.

The Australians and the Americans... dont get me started. They know their way around a sharps bucket better than a medical waste disposal unit at a major metropolitan hospital.

They all do it. Cross Channel BigBoat here.

But they have won, and won well. Respect for them taking a pivotal and influential position at the pointy head of the peloton. You still gotta have the talent, you still gotta put the hard yards in. I dont like the game, but respect the Brits for their excellence in the sport. Imagine if they get a second team up in the decade, Money and potential catchment size of the talent pool, could bring them to the pinnacle within the decade.

Froome and Kennaugh just could be the GC stars they need to climb the mountain (sic)

now, I dont think Brits have any donkeys to thoroughbreds, but that phenomenon still has relevance when talent can be mined through the barrel of the hypodermic.

I think the UK riders previously were reluctant to go the PED route or maybe the Europeans consider they were not of the correct mentality to dope. But yes that has all changed.

As for Donkeys to thoroughbreds, the UKs pros are talented for sure. My jury is still out on others. When i see Andy Schleck do nothing 95% of the season and then ride well in LBL and TDF I see a Donkey dressed as a thoroughbred.

 

[function]

I think the UK riders previously were reluctant to go the PED route or maybe the Europeans consider they were not of the correct mentality to dope. But yes that has all changed.

As for Donkeys to thoroughbreds, the UKs pros are talented for sure. My jury is still out on others. When i see Andy Schleck do nothing 95% of the season and then ride well in LBL and TDF I see a Donkey dressed as a thoroughbred.

Amazing, Andy Schleck referred to as a donkey, you must be a serious talent scout =)

 

[Benotti69]

Amazing, Andy Schleck referred to as a donkey, you must be a serious talent scout =)

Oh dont worry i know my donkeys.

I introduced a young texan to Weisel

I also got Riis a ride on T-Mobile.

 

[simoni]

There's now more good British riders because the British system has got better at identifying and developing good British riders. If he were 10 years older Cavendish would probably still be fat and struggling to hang in on Premier Calendar events.

How they are made good is a slightly different debate. I find it hard to believe that the British system is any more or less dirty than other nations. But the facts are that cycling in Britain has undergone a massive sea-change since the mid-90s and now we're reaping the rewards of this.

 

[blackcat]

think it is just a larger pool to select from, and more profile the sport garners, the more talent coming thru the pipeline

 

[Caruut]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_5Y-huPAcU&t=7m45s

Crazy thighs.

 

[luckyboy]

Chris Hoy doing five 631kg leg presses

 

[Cloxxki]

Chris Hoy doing five 631kg leg presses

Does that count, up a slope? When I did reps at 260kg, the weight was lifted vertically the same amount my feet travelled. Feet at chest height against vertical board. That said, he does add part of his leg weight this way.

 

[goggalor]

Apparently he has a 227.5 kg (500 pounds) back squat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_Ab-PUSiOg

 

[9000ft]

This is the clinic. There's only one possible explanation and Armstrong is supplying it.

 

[Galic Ho]

right Galic.

There should be some inverse relationship.

Like in AFL muscle mass and leanness or bodyfat % should be inverse correlation. But now you get quinten lynch and travis cloke at 108kg and 5% bodyfat. Never happened in the 90's when there was just steroids.

Sorry for the rather late reply. Been away from this place for a while.

Yes there should be an inverse relationship.

I personally don't watch AFL. I'm not from Mexico and can only name a few of the top players simply because they are big names and get news time in the paper or television highlights. Those numbers you put down...I'm in awe. That is amazing. Getting that weight combined with such a low body fat...you normally have crap cardio and are a gym gunkie protein only eating behemoth. Otherwise known as a body builder.

Don't think for one second I think Aussie sportsmen/women are clean. They aren't. AFL has one of the laxest doping procedures known to man. Three strikes and only after the third does the media get told you've even had issues. Easy way to get someone the extra help they need.

I'd like to see one season of the Biggest Loser where they dope a contestant to the eye balls and feed them stuff like AICAR and blood vectoring products. It'd be scary to see how much stuff they could do. Huge stamina boost mixed with stronger and harder training sessions...there is only so far one can go naturally before a short cut becomes a good idea.

I think you summed it up nicely Blackcat, bigger talent pool, change in psychology from the top of the sport mixed with a huge surplus of disposable cash to fund everything, equals sudden change and big results. If the Poms keep this up, they will get a GT winner in the next decade, if not the next 5 years.