JTL

Gazzaputt

Richmond Racer wrote:

Sigh...we really do need to talk about Jonathan

As of now Josh Edmondson is doing the business and has adjusted to life at this level so much quicker. JTL was a DNF in all of the Ardennes - Edmondson didnt ride LBL but finished AGR and placed 43rd on Sunday. And he's turning out some decent TTs too, when he actually had ridden very few previously.

Did Brian Smith blab on air the other day that JTL can't cope with the Kerrison training load and has gone back to whatever he was doing pre-Sky?

Bri Smith I thought was very critical of the way Sky was training JTL and that JTL has gone his own way back to his old training methods.

frenchfighter

He is `racing` Bayern-Rundfahrt

He finished Stage 2 20 mins down. Wonder what the word on that one is this time...

Jonathan T-Locke ‏@J_T_Locke 22 May
Top ride by Swifty in Bayern today. One to forget for me-started well,rode the front,then winter came,got freezing,cramped so bad,survived.

Looks like SKY failed him in his preparation. I wonder how the other load of riders managed.

Still waiting since the Sky move, still waiting.

frenchfighter

ps. he also finished stage 1 down 12 mins...

Art Vandelay

It's not really happening is it.

Highest overall race finish this season on CQ - 51st overall at the Volta ao Algarve. Only CQ points achievement - 5 points for finishing 104th overall at the Tour de Suisse.

Was it a 2 year contract at Sky?

Richmond Racer

Art Vandelay wrote:

It's not really happening is it.

Highest overall race finish this season on CQ - 51st overall at the Volta ao Algarve. Only CQ points achievement - 5 points for finishing 104th overall at the Tour de Suisse.

Was it a 2 year contract at Sky?

Yep - 2 years. The every-helpful Brian Smith has banged on about JTL not being happy. Wonder whether Sky might have a little convo along the lines of 'look, if you're not happy and want to move to another team, we wont stand in your way...'

Perhaps he needs to step down to ProConti

skylla

I expected more of him in Glasgow. Did not see him with the other Sky team members during the race. As a matter of fact he was in the main bunch from lap 1 chatting along and dropped out about halfway.

RichN95.

Basically he's like a footballer who looks great in League One, scoring goals for fun, but put him in the Premiership and it's a different story.

graeme_s-2

RichN95 wrote:

Basically he's like a footballer who looks great in League One, scoring goals for fun, but put him in the Premiership and it's a different story.

I don't think that's the full story though. It doesn't explain his relatively good performance in the Worlds RR last year and his relatively terrible performance in the National RR yesterday.

inkyfingers

In a couple of years he's gone from scratching a living, doing what he loves to being a full time rider with one of the biggest teams in the world, I wonder if he's struggling for motivation?

He would have know what he was getting into (i.e. Sky's racing style, the training plans) etc, and surely he would have know that in his first season he was never going to be anything other than a domestique de luxe. I wonder if he saw pound signs rather than thinking about racing opportunities, maybe he would be better off in a team where he can be the big fish, even if that does mean stepping back down to pro-conti.

Or maybe he's struggling with an injury or illness? Sky don't tend to be very forthcoming with such things, we will of course be the last to know.

We should also remember than it's pretty common for riders to have a bad year, it's still too early to write him off entirely.

Yellow Peril

Inky's right. there is still a lot of riding to be done. Last season he had a stellar early season and did a job of work in the Worlds at the end. Let's get behind him and review at the end of the season. Remember Wiggo's 2011 wasn't that hot but he came good last year.

Paulie W

Yellow Peril wrote:

Inky's right. there is still a lot of riding to be done. Last season he had a stellar early season and did a job of work in the Worlds at the end. Let's get behind him and review at the end of the season. Remember Wiggo's 2011 wasn't that hot but he came good last year.

Think you mean 2010

Richmond Racer

Paulie W wrote:

Yellow Peril wrote:

Inky's right. there is still a lot of riding to be done. Last season he had a stellar early season and did a job of work in the Worlds at the end. Let's get behind him and review at the end of the season. Remember Wiggo's 2011 wasn't that hot but he came good last year.

Think you mean 2010

^this. Wiggo's 2011 was fine and dandy

inkyfingers

Yellow Peril wrote:

Inky's right.

Quoted for posterity.

Yellow Peril

[King George III vacant stare] The years, they pass so quickly...bring me news of young Eddie Merckx, I hear he rides for a professional team...[King George III vacant stare]

symo

I have said before no dissing the MDCCs graduates. :evil:

Big jump this year, lots of very different goals put on him, it may be disappointing for his fans on here, but lets not get carried away.

Pross

The thing is it's easy to say it's a big jump, different goals etc. etc. but Josh Edmondson could argue the same but as made the transition better. With Josh the jump has probably been higher. They would have had similar roles in races like L-B-L and Swiss Tour. I don't think it can be spun as anything other than a disappointing season so far, I was hoping he was saving it for Lombardy and the Worlds but he will need a drastic improvement in form to even get in the World's squad.

Anonymous

He was terrible yesterday, didn't once look like he was going to do something, sat in the pack and then on the bus.

reallyarunner

frosty99 wrote:

Spotted today at Gunnislake climb on cornwall/devon border according to my mum!

Seen him at same place today, he was fairly moving

argyllflyer

Pross wrote:

The thing is it's easy to say it's a big jump, different goals etc. etc. but Josh Edmondson could argue the same but as made the transition better. With Josh the jump has probably been higher. They would have had similar roles in races like L-B-L and Swiss Tour. I don't think it can be spun as anything other than a disappointing season so far, I was hoping he was saving it for Lombardy and the Worlds but he will need a drastic improvement in form to even get in the World's squad.

Brian Smith said during Fleche Wallonne that JTL has had a serious issue adapting to Sky's training methods. Bearing in mind that was said in April, and that BS went on to reveal that JTL was going to change how he trained from then on, it's likely a fair bit of '2 steps back, 1 step forward' will have been in play for a while.

The_Slowboat

Not in any of the squads for August, he had said earlier this year that the vuelta was earmarked as a grand tour debut for him. Doesn't look likely if he isn't racing beforehand.

RideOnTime

The_Slowboat wrote:

Not in any of the squads for August, he had said earlier this year that the vuelta was earmarked as a grand tour debut for him. Doesn't look likely if he isn't racing beforehand.

Sure?

mroli

Squads are up on the team sky page and he ain't in the squads for Ride London, the Vuelta a Burgos or the Eneco.

Some of his twitter conversations are around him defending ToB title, but he hasn't definitively confirmed/denied that. Am a bit gutted for him, but there was an interesting bit in the Daniel Lloyd cycling anthology piece where Serge Pauwels rolled his eyes at the Team Sky way of doing things saying that if they could re-invent hot water they would. Maybe it just isn't a great fit.

inkyfingers

JTL must have had a fair idea of what he was doing by signing for Sky, their modus operandi is pretty well known. Serge Pauwels was one of the guys they signed from the start, so perhaps a bit different in his case.

Sounds to me as if JTL decided to risk his burgeoning career in cycling's middle tier for a couple of years of big league money.

mroli

I think that's a bit harsh inky - he finished top 20 in the Worlds and if you look at the other riders, you (well, I) would have put money on him stepping up with the assistance of Sky. I don't think money would have been the sole driving force.

1 Philippe Gilbert (Belgium) 6:10:41
2 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Norway) 0:00:04
3 Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spain) 0:00:05
4 John Degenkolb (Germany)
5 Lars Boom (Netherlands)
6 Allan Davis (Australia)
7 Thomas Voeckler (France)
8 Ramunas Navardauskas (Lithuania)
9 Sergio Luis Henao Montoya (Colombia)
10 Oscar Freire Gomez (Spain)
11 Rui Costa (Portugal)
12 Tom Boonen (Belgium)
13 Oscar Gatto (Italy)
14 Peter Sagan (Slovakia)
15 Fredrik Carl Wilhelm Kessiakoff (Sweden)
16 Koen De Kort (Netherlands)
17 Michael Albasini (Switzerland)
18 Assan Bazayev (Kazakhstan)
19 Jonathan Tiernan-Locke (Great Britain)
20 Lars Petter Nordhaug (Norway)
21 Simon Gerrans (Australia)
22 Stefan Denifl (Austria)
23 Rigoberto Uran Uran (Colombia)
24 Daniel Moreno Fernandez (Spain)
25 Greg Van Avermaet (Belgium)
26 Bjorn Leukemans (Belgium)
27 Fabian Wegmann (Germany)
28 Alexandr Kolobnev (Russian Federation)
29 Vincenzo Nibali (Italy)

Richmond Racer

inkyfingers wrote:

JTL must have had a fair idea of what he was doing by signing for Sky, their modus operandi is pretty well known. Serge Pauwels was one of the guys they signed from the start, so perhaps a bit different in his case.

Sounds to me as if JTL decided to risk his burgeoning career in cycling's middle tier for a couple of years of big league money.

Dunno, but maybe a tad unfair, Inky...? You're JTL: you've had the top team in the ProTour strongly indicating interest in you since you won KOM in the '11 ToB. You start a winning streak in Europe Feb '12, but by which time you've pretty much already been offered a contract to turn pro with the no 1 team. Are you going to refuse their offer and accept one from a pro-conti team instead that will take you through to you turning 30? That may not enable you to ride some of the biggest races, but that's totally dependent on wildcards to those races? Add to that, this is a British team, and just like with OGE and Aussie riders, most (I know, I know - not all) Brit riders are going to be drawn to that.

How many riders would turn down the offer and go ride for the team in the league below?

okgo

So you are agreeing with inky totally then yes? That is what is being suggested?

Richmond Racer

okgo wrote:

So you are agreeing with inky totally then yes? That is what is being suggested?

Er, no. Inky's suggesting money as the motivator, whereas I'm suggesting other motives may have been behind his decision eg getting the chance to ride the biggest races i.e. WT.

iainf72

I did a bit of comparing who did better or worse under the Sky system a while ago. There are quite a lot of people who got worse so it's clearly not for everyone

Dowsett commented in the latest Cyclist mag that Movistar isn't that different from Sky, just Sky got to the n'th degreee

Pross

okgo wrote:

So you are agreeing with inky totally then yes? That is what is being suggested?

No it's not, Inky seemed to be suggesting it was a case of accepting better money over possibly winning more races at the lower level (which I don't think anyone can criticise a professional rider for doing and don't think Inky was either) whilst RR seems to be suggesting he moved to be in a bigger team and ride more high quality races which again is perfectly reasonable. I don't think any rider in JTL's position would have turned down the Sky offer for either of those two reasons.

Who knows, maybe he'll get it together over the winter and be back next season? He undoubtably has the talent or he wouldn't have won the races he did last season. If the coaching team at Sky are as good as you would expect then they should be able to find something that works for him, it's what makes a truly good coach.

Pross

iainf72 wrote:

I did a bit of comparing who did better or worse under the Sky system a while ago. There are quite a lot of people who got worse so it's clearly not for everyone

Dowsett commented in the latest Cyclist mag that Movistar isn't that different from Sky, just Sky got to the n'th degreee

Who has gone better since leaving? Gerrans is the obvious choice but can't really think of anyone else. I had high hopes for Nordhaug but he's had a nothing season (although mainly due to injury I think), Dowsett has possibly done better but you would expect him to be improving with age and experience. Even Cav hasn't improved his results since leaving (arguably one of his worst seasons other than the Giro red jersey). Plenty of riders seem to have stalled since moving to Sky though, unless I was a young stage racer with ambitions of GT success in a few years I don't think I would go there for reasons other than money.