Brailsford Bingo

Coyote

IMHO....

the Sky boys have been good for the sport this year so I'm glad they are doing their "corporate thing", "shaking the tree" and all that. Sure the Boss can get on your nerves a bit - who's doesn't!

I think the results on the track these past few years have been simply outstanding and as in most walks of life the boss will get a lot of credit for that, regardless of who made the contribution, luck, good crop of athletes at the time etc etc. I guess he would have had the heave it if had been any other way? But it still looks like good management in action to me, despite the BS.

I guess they are now finding out that there are many more "moving parts" to the Road side and are on a "steep learning curve".

As my old boss, H, used to say "I've never been in year 2 of a 5 year plan".

Time to get the smelly pens out again!

iainf72

Rick Chasey wrote:

I don't quite understand why a team so new should automatically demand a GC rider.

What about building up a bit of a rep by winning some smaller races/stages (still top tier, just not necessarily THE TOUR, or a monument), getting some respect, show potential riders that you can win and support them and go from there?

I'm with you on that one Rick. But then, this obsession with the Tour is strangling the sport. As Fignon says in his book, coming 10'th in the Tour is worth more than winning a monument. That ain't right.

smithy21

This seems to have turned into a typical Sky bashing/defending thread but on Brailsford bingo what about "inner chimp" or is that the psychologist guy?

To defend Sky- I think they are great for British cycling and it disappoints me a bit to see people having a negative perception about them for potentially trying to do things a little differently. Its almost as if they are happy to see them fail and resent them for daring to rock the boat and upset the continental teams. Nothing moves forward if everyone keeps doing things the way they have always been done before.

pedro118118

From what I recall, Sky was formed with the "mission statement" of winning the Tour de France with a British rider within 5 years.

A hugely ambitious (and IMHO unrealistic) objective.

To a certain extent, it is understandable, as Sky want to reach out and raise profile in English-speaking countries and to that end, the TdF is the "only race that counts".

Then again, sponsors want to be associated with success and in my view a top 15 at the TdF can surely never be deemed as a "success". Especially when the GC at the TdF is the principal, indeed only, objective.

I can't stand this "everything for the Tour" philosophy.

Le Commentateur

Kléber wrote:

The trouble here is that we can't isolate Brailsford and his Brent Business School tactics from the other factors at play. Many things come into play, such as team budgets (the GB track squad is the best funded in the world), the talent of individual riders, not to mention luck. A clever manager is usually the one who can claim credit for a host of random events and outside events as not being moments of chance but being down to his strategic vision

Sort of agree, except perhaps the budget: Sky's fund for the road team is apparently about €33 million, more than twice as much as the other best funded teams, Columbia or Katusha and three times that of others.

rick_chasey

iainf72 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

I don't quite understand why a team so new should automatically demand a GC rider.

What about building up a bit of a rep by winning some smaller races/stages (still top tier, just not necessarily THE TOUR, or a monument), getting some respect, show potential riders that you can win and support them and go from there?

I'm with you on that one Rick. But then, this obsession with the Tour is strangling the sport. As Fignon says in his book, coming 10'th in the Tour is worth more than winning a monument. That ain't right.

You know my obsession with one-dayers and thus how much that pains me to hear that.

Long live the Cancellaras, Hushovds, Evanses of this world.

At least this years 2 GC protagonists were at the sharper end of the Ardenne races.

RichN95.

Le Commentateur wrote:

Sort of agree, except perhaps the budget: Sky's fund for the road team is apparently about €33 million, more than twice as much as the other best funded teams, Columbia or Katusha and three times that of others.

That's complete baloney though. They have the sixth biggest budget and they showed the UCI documentation to the media to prove it.

BikingBernie

Does Brailsford use the terms 'prestigious' and 'world class' at all? They are favourites in the organisation I work for and drive me nuts!

iainf72

RichN95 wrote:

That's complete baloney though. They have the sixth biggest budget and they showed the UCI documentation to the media to prove it.

I think if you added in the start up costs over 5 years the budget is massive.

RichN95.

iainf72 wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

That's complete baloney though. They have the sixth biggest budget and they showed the UCI documentation to the media to prove it.

I think if you added in the start up costs over 5 years the budget is massive.

I'm not saying it's not a big investment, just that the idea the annual budget is two or three times that of other teams is nonsense.

RichN95.

Double post somehow.

avoidingmyphd

you can't add in start up costs and then compare to other teams annual budgets!
also, Sky haven't really adopted the "only the tour matters" philosophy - Wiggins has done, yes, but not the whole team. And he's only done it as part of his experiments with how to perform best in the tour. He'll do something better next year I think. There's a difference between having the tour as your main long term aim (lots of teams and riders aspire to this) and getting all carried away with it (Armstrong at his peak, Wiggins this year). Sky do the former, but not the latter.

PauloBets

Sky have had a good tour with Geraint Thomas riding so well in the first week. Bradley has another chance in the second last stage. I see a lot of unfair remarks on Dave Brailsford. You naysayers just want them to fail so you can say told you so

rick_chasey

Unless you're on the podium, no win = bad Tour.

iainf72

avoidingmyphd wrote:

you can't add in start up costs and then compare to other teams annual budgets!

I think you can when the start up costs are very high. If it's say £5m a year that's a significant chunk of cash.

To be fair you need to do the same for the others, but I think if you did that, their budget would be at the top end.

Garry H

DB used to work with my Sister's neighbour. Says he's never seen anybody eat chips and beans and smoke a fag at the same time, as quick as him!!

iainf72

RichN95 wrote:

That's complete baloney though. They have the sixth biggest budget and they showed the UCI documentation to the media to prove it.

And I missed this one earlier Rich, but are you suggesting there is UCI documentation?

RichN95.

iainf72 wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

That's complete baloney though. They have the sixth biggest budget and they showed the UCI documentation to the media to prove it.

And I missed this one earlier Rich, but are you suggesting there is UCI documentation?

That's what David Harmon said on Eurosport. I've not seen it myself. Maybe it's in their receipt box.

iainf72

RichN95 wrote:

That's what David Harmon said on Eurosport. I've not seen it myself. Maybe it's in their receipt box.

If it's one of those UCI documents, it can probably only be seen in Switzerland...

The boys on the CN podcast said they don't believe it (the 6'th biggest budget) And one of them is writing a book about the team.

ms_tree

On one of those 'on the bus bits' before the stage started everyone was looking glazed at the Powerpoint (yawn) presentation - but Sean Yates was staring at his feet probably thinking I've done this before loads of times; I can tell them how it is without the presentation - and Brad was looking through his race book and drinking what looked like Guinness (but we were told it was coffee).