Tour De France 2013 thread (1 Viewer)

[rettucs]

It's a like saying Wayne Rooney never won a title when he was at Everton.

no its not. Its nothing like that. In cycling, though a team sport, the honours are ultimately bestowed on the individual so that analogy is just wrong.

 

[rettucs]

Fact is that pretty much all GC winners are historically riders who can climb and TT, so the fact that Froome climbed well and TT'd well just means that he's a potential GC winner.

right. But when do GC winners come out of nowhere? I'll tell you when, when they're Chris Froome or Lance fucking Armstrong.

 

[Cormcolash]

Don't be a spoon.
Anyone can see that Team Sky came out of nowhere and in the space of a couple of years, with some 'British' riders that hadn't done fuck all beforehand, were suddenly winning Tours. A lot of riders that had been doing xyz beforehand, yet handily they are the ones that dominated the entire peloton in 2012, holding off seasoned riders that have been competing in the Tour for years. More to the point, holding off some seasoned dopers that couldn't break them in the mountains even with EPO or whatever up their arses.
Clean my hole.
In regard to them 'cracking' of late, I'll say what I've already said on Thumped - I reckon odds are that Sky are in the process of going clean, having seen how the whole Armstrong debacle went down, which is why Biggins blew up so spectacularly in the Giro, and could be that Froome is the only one still fully on whatever program they've been operating. I wouldn't even be surprised if Froome has his own arrangment on the side with some shady doctor at this stage, and Sky aren't even the ones doping him anymore.

Yeah, I'm sure it's just a huge coincidence that Froome catapulted his way to the top of the sport, overtaking a whole load of people that had been beating him in races before 2010 or so. I wonder what those riders from back then that stayed clean think of that?

 

[rettucs]

Don't be a spoon.
Anyone can see that Team Sky came out of nowhere and in the space of a couple of years, with some 'British' riders that hadn't done fuck all beforehand, were suddenly winning Tours. A lot of riders that had been doing xyz beforehand, yet handily they are the ones that dominated the entire peloton in 2012, holding off seasoned riders that have been competing in the Tour for years. More to the point, holding off some seasoned dopers that couldn't break them in the mountains even with EPO or whatever up their arses.
Clean my hole.
In regard to them 'cracking' of late, I'll say what I've already said on Thumped - I reckon odds are that Sky are in the process of going clean, having seen how the whole Armstrong debacle went down, which is why Biggins blew up so spectacularly in the Giro, and could be that Froome is the only one still fully on whatever program they've been operating. I wouldn't even be surprised if Froome has his own arrangment on the side with some shady doctor at this stage, and Sky aren't even the ones doping him anymore.

Yeah, I'm sure it's just a huge coincidence that Froome catapulted his way to the top of the sport, overtaking a whole load of people that had been beating him in races before 2010 or so. I wonder what those riders from back then that stayed clean think of that?

you'd get banned off boards.ie for saying that!

 

[rettucs]

What might he have done, Cormac? He was at a crap team and had bilharzia, so why shouldn't he improve? It's a like saying Wayne Rooney never won a title when he was at Everton.

I'm not suggesting they are above suspicion - far from it - but you just look like a complete tit who knows fuck all about training when you're making comments like that.

Fact is that pretty much all GC winners are historically riders who can climb and TT, so the fact that Froome climbed well and TT'd well just means that he's a potential GC winner. The other funny fact which you are probably by now aware of is that in the last few stages Sky have been getting dropped all over the place and they look like they are cracking.

AH AHA HA HA HA HAH A HAHA HAHHAHAHAHAH

AHAAHA HAHA HA HA HA HA HAH A HA

fucking joke

 

[Cormcolash]

Team Sky really cracked today, they couldn't even get someone to finish second!

 

[oh shit]

So when Dave Walsh, who's been on the bus throughout the tour, writes his report next week saying that he thinks they are clean, will you be laughing then?

I am by no means saying that they are clean. I think Kimmage is fairly sceptical.

 

[CinnamonBoy]

So when Dave Walsh, who's been on the bus throughout the tour, writes his report next week saying that he thinks they are clean, will you be laughing then?

I am by no means saying that they are clean. I think Kimmage is fairly sceptical.

Walsh didn't exactly stand up for them in his Sunday Times article yesterday, which I thought was quite noteworthy.

 

[oh shit]

he's said on twitter he thinks they're clean and that it's not like Lance in 99.

Question for the experts on Thumped who need no convincing, or even evidence: do you also think that the British Cycling Olympic team are all doped?

Interesting interview today...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jul/15/chris-froome-sad-tour-de-france

 

[oh shit]

You experts can also explain why this is just obviously bullshit, and not at all plausible (once you've finished LAUGHING IN CAPITAL LETTERS which is a VERY CLEVER WAY TO MAKE A POINT but which doesn't actually MEAN anything)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jul/15/team-sky-chris-froome-tour-de-france :

The moment when Chris Froome produced a sudden, violent acceleration, spinning the pedals at an intense rate as he attempted, successfully, to ride Alberto Contador off his wheel on the ascent of Mont Ventoux may come to encapsulate the 100th Tour de France if he goes on to win on Sunday in Paris.

Inevitably the move raised eyebrows, given that seated accelerations at the high cadence Froome briefly produced are rarely seen on mountain climbs. But the Australian physiologist Tim Kerrison, who has revolutionised the way his charges at Team Sky build up to races such as the Tour, explained that such intense efforts when the body is already close to its limit are a key part of his proteges' training. In that sense, this was a relatively routine piece of riding for Froome.

"Pete Kennaugh was laughing at the end of the stage," said Kerrison. "He said the way Chris rode that climb was exactly what we do in training every second day. Our training is much more than just doing intervals at a constant pace for a set amount of time; [some of it] is about being able to handle changes of pace – to go from, say, 350 watts to 650 watts for a few seconds to attack and get a gap on a rider who is trying to follow, then come back down to 350 watts."

Kerrison's term for this kind of interval training is spiked efforts, "where we make an effort then come back to a very high but sustainable pace. The energy systems have to have the ability to produce that power, which will produce a load of lactate in the muscle, because you are well above anaerobic threshold [the point at which the body is producing more than it can handle of the lactate which is the main limiting factor in intense efforts] – then come down to a very high level, just sub-threshold, and clean out the lactate, the effects of the attack. Pretty much all our training is based on that. The guys in the team who train that way look at [Froome's attack] and think, 'He's rehearsed that way of riding, three or four times a week for the last two years'."

Most often when climbers make their attacks on a mountain, they do it standing on the pedals to gain the maximum amount of leverage from the arms and upper body. Froome remained seated while making his attack on Contador, however. There is a clear advantage in doing this, Kerrison believes: working in a wind tunnel has shown Sky that there is much less drag when a cyclist remains sitting down. That applies even at relatively low climbing speeds.
"There is a significant increase [in drag] when you attack out of the saddle compared to staying seated and keeping your body narrow. If you can [attack] as well in the saddle [as standing] you will get more speed for the same power because there is less drag. It's while you are accelerating that drag is more important, so if you accelerate in a streamlined position, you get up to your speed more efficiently."

Froome's high cadence was surprising, but not rehearsed in training, the race leader said. One explanation is he had no option but to spin the pedals faster because changing on to the larger chainring at the moment of attack brings the risk of derailing the chain and aborting the attack, as Andy Schleck found in 2011. Kerrison adds that about once a week Sky's riders practise riding in the highest cadences they can manage, basically for fun.

For those who wonder why Froome reined himself back after he caught Nairo Quintana higher up the mountain, Kerrison explains: "As a general rule attacks to drop someone like Contador aren't sustainable because the rider has to attack at such intensity to drop the guy. Chris got to Quintana, the gap was creeping up very gradually, at about a second a kilometer, then Froomie had to decide how long he and Quintana would work together for.
"Froomie was doing the bulk of the work, then there came a point where he decided to put more time into the guys behind so he stepped up a level again. He went away again at a pace he felt he could sustain for the last couple of kilometres."

That explains the difference between the sudden, abrupt effort Froome made to drop Contador, and the gradual turning up of the throttle which burned off Quintana. In the second effort, getting rid of the Colombian was incidental, as what mattered was to accelerate and gain time on the riders further behind, who were the real threats for the overall standings.

Looking further ahead, Kerrison believes that Froome could well be the strongest climber in the race at the end of the week in the Alps – although he tips Quintana to make a run for the podium –but that Sky's priority will be defending his race lead rather than going for a full house of stage victories.

 

[oh shit]

I love the way Cormac and Scutter like each other's posts too - adds a lot of gravity and moral authority to the HA HA HAs. Teamwork lads, teamwork.

 

[Cormcolash]

I love the way Bernard seems to be so bitter about doping allegations, as if it affects him personally in some way.

I look at it pretty simply really - in a 3 week long tour, a clean rider will have a bad day at some point, a day where they don't feel quite 100% and they end up losing a bit of time to someone that is feeling good that day.
Chris Froome hasn't had a bad day. The worst he's had was losing a minute on a stage that had a load of cross-winds and the peloton got split. Meanwhile, in every stage that has the capacity to make big time gains, he's looked like he can ride another 100k up a mountain when everyone around him is fucking wrecked. Ventoux is a perfect example - everyone else was half-dead coming across the line, Froome went across it looking like he could go back down to the bottom and ride back up again.
Even Richie Porte had a bad day, but not Chris Froome. He's good enough to destroy all the best mountain climbers in the world and destroy all the best time-triallers in the world within about 4 days.
It's a fucking joke like. Somebody else said it, he may as well start winning the fucking sprints.
Biggins had a bad day in the Giro, and turned round and said he had chest infection. A chest infection that fortunately didn't seem to transmit to anyone else in his team or any of the other racers he'd spent the previous week right beside.

As for the article above, I'd rather laugh in capital letters than take anyone who refers to Froome as 'Froomie' seriously. And as for the British Olympic team, I admit that I wasn't aware that Olympic cycling events were so similar to a grand tour.

 

[oh shit]

I am not saying that Sky is definitely clean, so I'm not taking anything personally on their behalf. What I find so exasperating, and what is a bit of an insult, is being mocked as though there's no point even discussing this. It's boring and patronising.

But thanks for engaging a little, it is appreciated.

The Olympic analogy has escaped you so I'll make it clearer. The point is not that Olympic events are similar to a tour, but that the same team - meaning not just riders, but also the sports scientists, psychs, nutritionists, and Brailsford - produced results at 2 consecutive Olympics that were utterly dominant. If you are prepared to accept that they developed clean methods of conditioning their athletes to win pretty much every event they challenged for on the track, there must be some room for supposing that maybe they've brought similar gains to the road.

It's a shame you can't get past the use of nicknames amongst people who work together, because it's preventing you from reading about an example of a training technique that apparently explains how Froome was able to get the power to jump Contador on the Ventoux.

Personally I think it's quite a plausible explanation. It's to do with conditioning the rider to go into the anaerobic zone for short periods of time, remaining seated to reduce drag, and then to be able to recover from the lactic acid while maintaining a high cadence.

But who cares about all that, sure he said 'froomie'.

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

Personally I think it's quite a plausible explanation. It's to do with conditioning the rider to go into the anaerobic zone for short periods of time, remaining seated to reduce drag, and then to be able to recover from the lactic acid while maintaining a high cadence.

I tried this on the way to work today. I'm still shit at cycling.

 

[CinnamonBoy]

I am not saying that Sky is definitely clean, so I'm not taking anything personally on their behalf. What I find so exasperating, and what is a bit of an insult, is being mocked as though there's no point even discussing this. It's boring and patronising.

But thanks for engaging a little, it is appreciated.

The Olympic analogy has escaped you so I'll make it clearer. The point is not that Olympic events are similar to a tour, but that the same team - meaning not just riders, but also the sports scientists, psychs, nutritionists, and Brailsford - produced results at 2 consecutive Olympics that were utterly dominant. If you are prepared to accept that they developed clean methods of conditioning their athletes to win pretty much every event they challenged for on the track, there must be some room for supposing that maybe they've brought similar gains to the road.

It's a shame you can't get past the use of nicknames amongst people who work together, because it's preventing you from reading about an example of a training technique that apparently explains how Froome was able to get the power to jump Contador on the Ventoux.

Personally I think it's quite a plausible explanation. It's to do with conditioning the rider to go into the anaerobic zone for short periods of time, remaining seated to reduce drag, and then to be able to recover from the lactic acid while maintaining a high cadence.

But who cares about all that, sure he said 'froomie'.

Sorry, oh shit, after watching cycling for 15 years and devouring its history before that, I just ain't buying it. There's just so many little bits and bobs that when you add 'em all up, I can't believe in Froome. And I've nothing against him, he seems like an alright character.
I remember the French track guys were quite explicit in their accusations against the Brits at the Olympics.
And I've read a good bit on the Clinic about some drug that allows a rider to lose all excess weight but keep their power. Looking at the photos of Froome and seeing him almost beat Tony bloody Martin in a time-trial....well, you'd have to wonder.
Even at his peak, Kimmage wrote in Rough Ride about how fucking knackered he'd be in the mornings in the Tour, lamenting some Colombian bastard for attacking early on. We saw photos last week of the two AG2R lads absolutely fucking spent after the Saturday stage but attacking with gay abandon the following morning on the stage Dani Martin won. I think the Tour is cleaner but I don't think it's clean and I don't believe Sky are clean. Nor Movistar or most other of the teams.

I could waffle for a while here but it's too hot and I don't think I'm saying anything no one doesn't already know.

 

[Cormcolash]

I don't really see the point of talking about the Olympics. Do you think that doping doesn't happen in the Olympics, and wouldn't be possible to pull off in two Olympic games?
How about the men's 100 metres in the Olympics - 2 of the finalists have just been exposed as dopers and banned. One of them almost got a medal. Makes you wonder what the medallists are on.
I think the points Scutter was making before say it clearest - how is a clean rider producing results that are pretty much the same as all the dopers before him were producing, without any real change in training methods? It's not like other teams haven't/don't train the same way.

 

[oh shit]

I think the points Scutter was making before say it clearest - how is a clean rider producing results that are pretty much the same as all the dopers before him were producing, without any real change in training methods? It's not like other teams haven't/don't train the same way.

The trouble with this is that Scutter's point, with respect, is based on speculation. Watching the Tour on the telly doesn't give you any realistic comparison points for different riders at different times.
L'Equipe's physiologist was given the power data, and apparently reckons Froome's power outputs are within human limits:
http://www.lequipe.fr/Cyclisme-sur-route/Actualites/Sky-joue-la-transparence/386574

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jul/18/team-sky-chris-froome-data

although his VO2 is estimated to be at the upper limits of what's possible.

But yeah overall I agree that there have been a lot of unusual performances and quick recoveries at the Tour, and the Kimmage book is a good reference point.

The counterpoint that can be taken from reading Rough Ride, though, is how different training, nutrition, and sports science in general is in modern sport compared to Kimmage's day in the mid 80s.

 

[Cormcolash]

But that's it, we're not looking at the mid-80s, we're basically looking at 5-8 years ago or so and Armstrong's days of doping. If the riders now are clean, you'd expect to see a serious enough reduction in overall times on very similar stages, but instead we have the likes of Froome getting times that are right up there with the dope king.Training has developed a lot since the 80s, but training can't have developed that much since 2005 like.

 

[Unicron]

Following Froome's 20 second penalty yesterday at least everyone calling him a cheat are at least right on some level.

 

[Cormcolash]

I like the way he was fucked, but all he needed was an energy bar and then he was grand again. Yeah.