Wiggo's form

finchy

BikingBernie wrote:

Does everyone really take everything that has been said about Wiggins' form at face value? Would people perhaps be just a little less credulous if Wiggns was Spanish, or Italian?

Depends on the Italian or Spaniard in question.

Pinotti? Sure, give him the benefit of the doubt.
Contador? I wouldn't take anything he said at face value.

plectrum

Wiggins isn't a cautious descender. It just depends on what he has to do on any given day. If he needs to charge then you can be assured that is what he will do.

If though he has a huge lead and by being cautious he will only lose 5-10 seconds then he would be 100% correct to be cautious.

As for everyone knowing his form; they don't know jack. Sky have been dominant and yet to even look as if they are pushing the top gear. As for knowing who the fave is, this is only detrimental if you havent got the mental strength to deal with it (Schleck!).

Armstrong was always fave, as was Contador, as was Indurain, as was leMond and all of them handled it with aplomb.

gsk82

i think people are chosing to remember things about cadel evans's climbing that dont exist.

has he ever put in a massive dig on a big climb against other top climbers? i seem to remmeber he won the tour last year with some good decending (albeit compared to schleck), chugging his way up mountains and battering the rest in the tt.

plectrum

johnfinch wrote:

BikingBernie wrote:

Does everyone really take everything that has been said about Wiggins' form at face value? Would people perhaps be just a little less credulous if Wiggns was Spanish, or Italian?

Depends on the Italian or Spaniard in question.

Pinotti? Sure, give him the benefit of the doubt.
Contador? I wouldn't take anything he said at face value.

BikingBernie;

Wiggins is completely outspoken in his stance towards doping as are his team and the boss Brailsford (as was his former Garmin team). Yes you could claim this is part of the elaborate hoax but in general those riders and teams who undergo a systematic doping policy either have no comment on doping or show open support for it, both doctors and formerly guilty cyclists.

Wiggins isn't a flash in a pan but a cyclist who has slowly got better and better; he is also a cyclist who has dominated one area of cycling and then refocused towards another. Finally he is a cyclist who when put up against cyclists who are clearly juiced he cannot keep up i.e. Contador or as in the Vuelta Cobo.

He isn't doing anything which leaves you scratching your head, it is just pure natural hard work and that is darn impressive.

plectrum

What I aprtly think explains a lot is confidence. Wiggins is performing and so his entire team hold their belief and can focus. Evans has had an average season and so BMC are still too much a team of individuals. As Bruyneel often said; TdF is about a team performance led by a winner and never just about a single person.

If BMC can sort out their strategy and mentality then they may be able to compete but based on the Dauphine so far they are a bit of a mess still. Sky on the other hand look very drilled (which is totally at odds with their sprint train)

r0bh

BikingBernie wrote:

I know Wiggins is a Brit, and most posters on this forum probably are Brits as well, but even I am a little surprised that no one has even raised a metaphorical eyebrow at the way Wiggins has been going, nor the reasons he has given.

(a) As Wiggins has said himself "it's not as though he was ever a shit rider". To win IP golds and world champs you need excellent physiology. He is now applying that in a different way.
(b) Vaughters said on Twitter the other day that Wiggins's lab numbers were the best he has ever seen (check out his Twitter feed from 7 June)

BikingBernie

plectrum wrote:

Wiggins is completely outspoken in his stance towards doping...

He used to be. In fact I used to admire him as a rider for this very reason. However, compared to the 'old' Wiggins of a few years ago, the 'contender' Wiggins has actually being very quite on the subject of doping...

plectrum wrote:

He isn't doing anything which leaves you scratching your head, it is just pure natural hard work and that is darn impressive.

Don't tell me, he is on his bike six hours a day 'busting his ass'. Meanwhile every other rider in the peleton spends their days watching TV... :roll:

BikingBernie

r0bh wrote:

Vaughters said on Twitter the other day that Wiggins's lab numbers were the best he has ever seen (check out his Twitter feed from 7 June)

Maybe, the question is why they are so good. Presumably, given that it was Vaughters who was talking, they were even better than Armstrong's, and we all know how he achieved his numbers.

r0bh

BikingBernie wrote:

r0bh wrote:

Vaughters said on Twitter the other day that Wiggins's lab numbers were the best he has ever seen (check out his Twitter feed from 7 June)

Maybe, the question is why they are so good. Presumably, given that it was Vaughters who was talking, they were even better than Armstrong's, and we all know how he achieved his numbers.

But this would have been in 2009 presumably. Are you saying he was doping when riding for Slipstream? When no-one thought of him as a contender?

finchy

BikingBernie wrote:

plectrum wrote:

Wiggins is completely outspoken in his stance towards doping...

He used to be. In fact I used to admire him as a rider for this very reason. However, compared to the 'old' Wiggins of a few years ago, the 'contender' Wiggins has actually being very quite on the subject of doping...

Apart from supporting the BOA's stance on doping and saying that it's good that Cadel Evans won last year's TdF because we finally have a champion we can believe in?

Why don't you just write him a letter saying "Dear Bradley, the following is a list of things that you must say in public so that I'll stop implying that you're a doper on a forum"?

BikingBernie wrote:

plectrum wrote:

He isn't doing anything which leaves you scratching your head, it is just pure natural hard work and that is darn impressive.

Don't tell me, he is on his bike six hours a day 'busting his ass'. Meanwhile every other rider in the peloton spends their days watching TV... :roll:

OR maybe the biological passport is genuinely making the vast majority of the peloton reluctant to dope and Wiggins is now riding against other clean riders.

plectrum

BikingBernie wrote:

plectrum wrote:

Wiggins is completely outspoken in his stance towards doping...

He used to be. In fact I used to admire him as a rider for this very reason. However, compared to the 'old' Wiggins of a few years ago, the 'contender' Wiggins has actually being very quite on the subject of doping...

plectrum wrote:

He isn't doing anything which leaves you scratching your head, it is just pure natural hard work and that is darn impressive.

Don't tell me, he is on his bike six hours a day 'busting his ass'. Meanwhile every other rider in the peloton spends their days watching TV... :roll:

Bernie,

a) he is as outspoken today as he has been previously; just look at his view towards the Contador case. It is though worth considering that to win yellow you do need some allies apart from your own team!

b) Sky have a huge budget and they have the most impressive set of training techniques. Wiggins left Garmin a team who are arguably the best in the world right now even though they don't have a superstar leader and Cavendish left HTC a speed machine. Both riders have been public at how everything at Sky is being done at a higher level.

Teams make a difference.

c) Certainly riders train to different extremes and that has always been the case dope or no dope. there have been times when everyone in the top ten doped but then there were still better riders based on performance and this was down to training as the dope was certainly the same on both sides. One could say that T-Mobile had the most impressive doping program but they still were beaten by Postal/Discovery time after time.

d) Just a quick couple of examples: Schlecks clearly don't have the mental strengths and what makes you think they save this lack of aspiration just for the race rather than throughout their entire life's. Vinokourov always a great cyclist but always carried a little too much weight, could have fixed this if he had the commitment.

Wiggins has been given a great opportunity; huge budget and total focus of Team Sky on him over up to 5 years. It is just that their plan is coming to fruition a year or two early. Look at the other guys: Contador - ended up in the Astana farce, Evans - ran for years on teams that treated him like crap. Schleck had perhaps the same level of backing as Wiggins and everyone knows it is just his weak ass yellow belly that prevented him from being a dominatn TdF star.

napoleond

Vaughters tweeted a couple of days ago begrudgingly that Wiggins physiologically was better than any other rider he'd seen.

plectrum

johnfinch wrote:

BikingBernie wrote:

plectrum wrote:

Wiggins is completely outspoken in his stance towards doping...

He used to be. In fact I used to admire him as a rider for this very reason. However, compared to the 'old' Wiggins of a few years ago, the 'contender' Wiggins has actually being very quite on the subject of doping...

Apart from supporting the BOA's stance on doping and saying that it's good that Cadel Evans won last year's TdF because we finally have a champion we can believe in?

Why don't you just write him a letter saying "Dear Bradley, the following is a list of things that you must say in public so that I'll stop implying that you're a doper on a forum"?

BikingBernie wrote:

plectrum wrote:

He isn't doing anything which leaves you scratching your head, it is just pure natural hard work and that is darn impressive.

Don't tell me, he is on his bike six hours a day 'busting his ass'. Meanwhile every other rider in the peloton spends their days watching TV... :roll:

OR maybe the biological passport is genuinely making the vast majority of the peloton reluctant to dope and Wiggins is now riding against other clean riders.

John,

I feel that it is the huge fines that is playing a major part. Garmin deserve a huge amount of credit as when they launched Vaughters stated that he wanted to change the psychology in cycling where being a pro cyclist was more than winning at all costs. Less pressure on their cyclists; I think a lot of the peleton now realise that they make good money, and have a limited career so why put it all at risk to win. If you are talented and work hard there are many ways in and now more than just the European clique teams to join. Garmin / Sky / Greenedge / BMC etc are doing things a bit differently as did HTC before them.

Where I do have concerns is the Belgium teams, Bjarne's merry men and Radioshack - oh and all Spanish riders!

plectrum

NapoleonD wrote:

Vaughters tweeted a couple of days ago begrudgingly that Wiggins physiologically was better than any other rider he'd seen.

Now or back then as he is completely different physiologically today than either at Garmin or before at High Road / Cofidis etc. Vaughters really can't take much if any credit for where Wiggins is today. It is Brailsford and Wiggins.

finchy

plectrum wrote:

John,

I feel that it is the huge fines that is playing a major part. Garmin deserve a huge amount of credit as when they launched Vaughters stated that he wanted to change the psychology in cycling where being a pro cyclist was more than winning at all costs. Less pressure on their cyclists; I think a lot of the peloton now realise that they make good money, and have a limited career so why put it all at risk to win. If you are talented and work hard there are many ways in and now more than just the European clique teams to join. Garmin / Sky / Greenedge / BMC etc are doing things a bit differently as did HTC before them.

Where I do have concerns is the Belgium teams, Bjarne's merry men and Radioshack - oh and all Spanish riders!

I am sure that the consequences of being caught doping are also an important factor.

RichN95.

plectrum wrote:

NapoleonD wrote:

Vaughters tweeted a couple of days ago begrudgingly that Wiggins physiologically was better than any other rider he'd seen.

Now or back then as he is completely different physiologically today than either at Garmin or before at High Road / Cofidis etc. Vaughters really can't take much if any credit for where Wiggins is today. It is Brailsford and Wiggins.

I think Vaughters can take some credit for getting him to bother about the road and believe in himself as a road racer.

napoleond

plectrum wrote:

NapoleonD wrote:

Vaughters tweeted a couple of days ago begrudgingly that Wiggins physiologically was better than any other rider he'd seen.

Now or back then as he is completely different physiologically today than either at Garmin or before at High Road / Cofidis etc. Vaughters really can't take much if any credit for where Wiggins is today. It is Brailsford and Wiggins.

He wasn't taking credit. He was stating what he saw in testing.

finchy

RichN95 wrote:

plectrum wrote:

NapoleonD wrote:

Vaughters tweeted a couple of days ago begrudgingly that Wiggins physiologically was better than any other rider he'd seen.

Now or back then as he is completely different physiologically today than either at Garmin or before at High Road / Cofidis etc. Vaughters really can't take much if any credit for where Wiggins is today. It is Brailsford and Wiggins.

I think Vaughters can take some credit for getting him to bother about the road and believe in himself as a road racer.

Yes, but did Vaughters help WIggins deal with his Inner Chimp? I think not!

plectrum

NapoleonD wrote:

plectrum wrote:

NapoleonD wrote:

Vaughters tweeted a couple of days ago begrudgingly that Wiggins physiologically was better than any other rider he'd seen.

Now or back then as he is completely different physiologically today than either at Garmin or before at High Road / Cofidis etc. Vaughters really can't take much if any credit for where Wiggins is today. It is Brailsford and Wiggins.

He wasn't taking credit. He was stating what he saw in testing.

Perhaps; I kinda got the impression that Vaughters doesn't say or do much if it doesn't benefit Vaughters.

plectrum

Thanks guys - today's brilliant Dauphine stage has lit the cycling fire and the weather is pretty perfect so of to do some hills!

We have the potential of a yellow jersey tour, Olympic road race champ, green jersey and many years of progress in some of the youth at Sky and developing in GB.

couldn't be happier!

BikingBernie

johnfinch wrote:

Why don't you just write him a letter saying "Dear Bradley, the following is a list of things that you must say in public so that I'll stop implying that you're a doper on a forum"?

The implication that he is not racing clean was slight and an aside to the main point that I was making. That is, given that almost every dominant rider and team of the last 2 decades has been shown to be doping at some level, doesn't anyone even stop for a moment to wonder whether the explanations given for Wiggins performances of late hold water, or is everyone so desperate for a British tour winner that they have traded in their critical faculties for a Union Jack flag? I think we have the answer.

As to things that Wiggins could say to increase my faith in him. Perhaps he could explain why he said nothing when he was kept off the TDF podium by a rider who not only has been implicated in doping by half the people he ever worked with, in that year's event raced with some very dodgy blood values, so much so that some prominent experts on doping publicly doubted that he was racing clean. I know if that was me and I was racing clean I would have been very vocal about it, but Wiggins said nothing. In fact he went out of his way to praise Armstrong and express his admiration for him!

BikingBernie

plectrum wrote:

I kinda got the impression that Vaughters doesn't say or do much if it doesn't benefit Vaughters.

Which is perhaps why he has said nothing about his time racing under Armstrong. So much for being a crusader against doping. :roll:

BikingBernie

Duplicate post.

BikingBernie

plectrum wrote:

Sky have a huge budget and they have the most impressive set of training techniques.

Such as training month in and month out all the year round so as to never drop below 95-97% of one's maximum performance? As I said, such a claim seems to run counter to everything that I have ever read about training and targeting one's main goals. Have the words 'over training', 'training cycle' and 'peaking' now been erased from the training manuals?

You say that Sky 'have the most impressive set of training techniques'. You obviously have detailed information on these to be so impressed. Please share what you know so that I and other may be similarly impressed and have any nagging doubts erased.

plectrum wrote:

One could say that T-Mobile had the most impressive doping program but they still were beaten by Postal/Discovery time after time.

So, perhaps the safest conclusion is that Postal/ Discovery actually had the most effective doping programme, or at least the personal programmes of riders like Armstrong were more effective than anything else out there. Why else would riders have been prepared to give Ferrari up to 15% of their income for his 'help'?

squired

I remember a few years back when Wiggo wasn't taking his road career seriously. Heading into a Tour de France he was talking about how he never did training sessions over 4 hours. It wasn't really a surprise that he didn't achieve a great deal. Now he is focusing properly and clearly dedicating himself 100%. You only have to read the recent articles in the Guardian and Telegraph (I think) about the training in Tenerife to see that Sky are far more professional than some other teams in terms of their preparation.

As for the whole talking about doping issue. It is easy when you are an outsider in a minor team to complain. When you are at the front I don't think it is a good idea to take pops at people and make enemies. Lets face it, within the peloton people know who is dirty and who isn't. The UCI probably also know - it is just that the biological passport values are maybe not enough to be deemed as positive.

tailwindhome

Bernie.

Kinda new here still, so take this at face value rather than an attempt to stir.

You obvious have doubts about the credibility of Sky and Wiggin's improvements. Have you the same doubts about the GB Olympic team?

tailwindhome

squired wrote:

Sky are far more professional than some other teams in terms of their preparation.

It's been a quick two months

viewtopic.php?f=40002&t=12847573

BikingBernie

squired wrote:

I remember a few years back when Wiggo wasn't taking his road career seriously. Heading into a Tour de France he was talking about how he never did training sessions over 4 hours. It wasn't really a surprise that he didn't achieve a great deal.

So 'train smart' is another phrase that has now been erased from the training manuals? Or have we all gone back to thinking that 6 hours at touring speeds makes you faster than, for example, a couple of 30 minute sessions at and above threshold?

Serious question! I would love to know how these revolutionary 'Sky training techniques' work.

BikingBernie

squired wrote:

You only have to read the recent articles in the Guardian and Telegraph (I think) about the training in Tenerife to see that Sky are far more professional than some other teams in terms of their preparation.

Plenty of other teams and riders seem to favour Tenerife as part of their 'preparation'. For example, Astana, Radioshack...

Here's an interesting quote:

The RadioShack team has responded to the list of riders leaked to L'Equipe today, reportedly showing how the UCI ranked the riders of the 2010 Tour de France for targeted testing...

"The UCI made a list, and it's their right to do so. I think it's a good thing they have a biological passport. They make a list based on different criteria - we don't know what the criteria are," Maertens said. "Then they made extra controls during the Tour de France which is perfect. Our riders were check a lot of times. Based on that, it's a good system."

He said there are many reasons why a rider could have been given a higher number. The team was never informed of any irregular blood values detected by the UCI for either Muravyev or Popovych, but other information could have factored into the UCI's ranking.

"Muravyev is a good example. We don't know why he's on the list as 8, it could be either because he trains in Tenerife - all riders who train there are high on the list.

http://www.cyclenation.co.za/news/inter ... eaked-list

Bottom line is, having trained in Tenerife is no proof of being more 'professional' than other teams, however you interpret the term 'professional'.

RichN95.

BikingBernie wrote:

squired wrote:

You only have to read the recent articles in the Guardian and Telegraph (I think) about the training in Tenerife to see that Sky are far more professional than some other teams in terms of their preparation.

Plenty of other teams and riders seem to favour Tenerife as part of their 'preparation'. For example, Astana, Radioshack...

Tenerife has guaranteed good weather all year round, lots of clear roads at over 2000m, good quality hotels both at sea level and altitude, excellent sports training facilities and is accessible daily from most major airports including Manchester. Why wouldn't you go there? Can you name somewhere better?