Wiggo's form

BikingBernie

RichN95 wrote:

There were pictures of Wiggins at the 2009 Paris-Roubaix. A lot of people were shocked at who thin he looked. But then when he did well at the Tour, the likes of you piped up saying 'weight loss, where have we heard that before. Armstrong - that's where'.

No, it was Wiggins who came up with the 'weight loss' explanation of his performance in the 2009 Tour. Then people started to 'pipe up' about the parallels with Armstrong.

I've always had the physical ability to climb, but the big improvement this year is simply from losing weight. One kilogram of body weight over a 30-minute climb is one minute in time. That adds up to about 10 minutes over a three-week race, and if you start to add up the fact that you are shifting less weight every time you go up those little rolling hills we had on Thursday, every time you sprint out of a corner, it accumulates to a heck of a lot of time and energy.

I was climbing fairly well in the 2007 Tour, but I've lost seven kilos since then: 78 to 71. It's taken nine months, in little increments, without any sort of crash diet. I've had regular check‑ups with Nigel Mitchell, the nutritionist at the Olympic team, to make sure I'm only burning fat, not any muscle. The last one was the day before the national championship, 28 June. He said I didn't have an ounce of fat left on my body. I was at 4% body fat, which is just at the point where you begin to burn muscle because there's nothing else left. It's not a very healthy level to be at, but it's only for these four weeks. It's been perfectly timed. As soon as the Tour is finished, my wife Cath is going to tie me up and force‑feed me cake.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/20 ... -de-france

When people began to point out that the figures he gave made no sense (71 kg with 4% body fat = 68 kg lean mass and 3 kg of fat, add the 7kg that he said he lost = 10kg of fat, with a body weight of 78 kg that's 13% body fat) he changed his story.

Bradley Wiggins: The transformation
Monday, 28 December 2009

British Cycling's Matt Parker has coached Wiggins for several years, and it was him who did the calculations. "We've always known there's a road rider in there," he says. "Brad is a supreme athlete. He's an Olympic champion and world record holder, the power he produces, we knew he could climb well, maybe not in the first group every day, but definitely in the second, and that would give him a chance of being in the top 10 of the Tour."

Wiggins rode the Olympic Games last summer weighing 82kg. In the past he has ridden the Tour and Giro d'Italia at about 77kg or 78kg. The aim was to start the Tour this year at 72kg. It stands to reason that if you can produce 450 watts for 10 minutes weighing 72kg instead of 78, the gain in performance is going to be considerable. Enough, Parker says, to put him in the front group on the climbs.

"You develop a lot of muscle mass, particularly on the upper body, while training for the track over the winter," says Parker. "We wanted him to lose that, but to do it slowly, so that it didn't affect his power.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/lat ... ation.html

RichN95.

BikingBernie wrote:

No, it was Wiggins who came up with the 'weight loss' explanation of his performance in the 2009 Tour. Then people started to 'pipe up' about the parallels with Armstrong.

No you're wrong. Early in 2009, at Paris-Roubaix, everyone said "F*** me, Wiggins needs to eat something". This was then forgotten by the likes of you at the Tour.

No, that's unfair. You didn't forget it, because you never knew it in the first place as you don't really pay any attention to actual racing.

BikingBernie wrote:

When people began to point out that the figures he gave made no sense (71 kg with 4% body fat = 68 kg lean mass and 3 kg of fat, add the 7kg that he said he lost = 10kg of fat, with a body weight of 78 kg that's 13% body fat) he changed his story.

Good of you to completely ignore reduced upper body muscle. Such matters just complicate things, don't they.

BikingBernie

RichN95 wrote:

You've spent years on this forum and C+ before that almost exclusively posting about Armstrong. And now he's gone. I understand your loss and the need to replace him.

The only continuity between the the two is the way people are so willing to throw their critical faculties out of the window when it is their personal hero they are defending...

Anyhow, I bet Fat Pat is was watching Sky's performance today with some interest:

“For me, the evidence of the success of the passport seems on the road, in the race itself,” said McQuaid. “I am not going to say that cycling has been winning the war against doping, but I will say that we have turned a corner on doping, and that the peloton is cleaner than it used to be.”

It is widely believed that illegal performance-enhancing drugs, such as the blood booster EPO (erythropoietin), were prevalent in cycling from the early 1990s until fairly recently — a period in which spectacular performances were commonplace.

“In the big mountain stages, you never see the (team) leader surrounded by three or four domestiques. He usually finishes the climb on his own. That wasn’t the case during the big period of EPO,” said McQuaid.

http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/06/ ... ure_222978

BikingBernie

RichN95 wrote:

BikingBernie wrote:

No, it was Wiggins who came up with the 'weight loss' explanation of his performance in the 2009 Tour. Then people started to 'pipe up' about the parallels with Armstrong.

No you're wrong. Early in 2009, at Paris-Roubaix, everyone said "F*** me, Wiggins needs to eat something".

And instead Wiggins continued to lose weight for another 3 months. Supposedly...

Ignore the figures Wiggins provided, if that suits your agenda, but I doubt that Wiggins raced at 13% body fat at anytime during his pro career.

BikingBernie

plectrum wrote:

BikingBernie....... You are talking sh1t!

Does that mean you won't be giving us the benefit of your inside knowledge of Sky's

impressive set of training techniques

BikingBernie

RichN95 wrote:

BikingBernie wrote:

When people began to point out that the figures he gave made no sense (71 kg with 4% body fat = 68 kg lean mass and 3 kg of fat, add the 7kg that he said he lost = 10kg of fat, with a body weight of 78 kg that's 13% body fat) he changed his story.

Good of you to completely ignore reduced upper body muscle. Such matters just complicate things, don't they.

It wasn't me who ignored upper body muscle, it was 'Wiggo' when he first explained how weight loss led to him becoming a Tour contender, saying:

I've had regular check‑ups with Nigel Mitchell, the nutritionist at the Olympic team, to make sure I'm only burning fat, not any muscle.

:roll:

RichN95.

BikingBernie wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

BikingBernie wrote:

No, it was Wiggins who came up with the 'weight loss' explanation of his performance in the 2009 Tour. Then people started to 'pipe up' about the parallels with Armstrong.

No you're wrong. Early in 2009, at Paris-Roubaix, everyone said "F*** me, Wiggins needs to eat something".

And instead Wiggins continued to lose weight for another 3 months. Supposedly...

Ignore the figures Wiggins provided, if that suits your agenda, but I doubt that Wiggins raced at 13% body fat at anytime during his pro career.

What was the reduction in upper body muscle mass? Did you consider that?

Now Bernie would like you to believe that there has been no weight loss between this:



and this:



Losing weight, Tenerife, training, good team, foundation. Anything that Wiggins does that is similar to Armstrong, you crawl out of the woodwork and make accusations without anything specifically against Wiggins. The rest of cycling you don't bother with (apart from 20 year old doping gossip). You are clearly an Armstrong obsessive looking for a surrogate. It's like when I quit smoking. I needed Nicorette inhalers which seemed like smoking, but it wasn't.

BikingBernie

RichN95 wrote:

Now Bernie would like you to believe that there has been no weight loss between this:



and this:

Yes, he did probably lose a couple of kg off what was already a very thin frame. However, according to the Wiggins camp, he lost 11kg between those two photos, in the second version of the story mainly upper body mass. Have you ever seen what that much steak looks like? He should look like a body builder in the first picture!

Plus, according to Wiggins, in that second picture he still had 3 months of weight loss to go before starting the Tour. :shock:

RichN95.

BikingBernie wrote:

[
Yes, he did probably lose a couple of kg off what was already a very thin frame. However, according to the Wiggins camp, he lost 11kg between those two photos, in the second version of the story mainly upper body mass. Have you ever seen what that much steak looks like? He should look like a body builder in the first picture!

Plus, according to Wiggins, in that second picture he still had 3 months of weight loss to go before starting the Tour. :shock:

So you admit he lost some weight. It's clearly more than a 'couple of kg'. It might not be 11kg either, but he'd hardly be the first person to exaggerate. He probably lost 11kg after a month on the beer.

Given your past on this forum, if you want to make accusations against Wiggins, find some specific evidence, not some allusions to Armstrong (allusions to Armstrong are all you have presented). You are just coming off as little desperate for the old days, like a divorcee searching for someone who looks a bit like his ex.

BikingBernie

Anyhow, here is the new dominant, mountain climbing Wiggins in this year's race. I don't know about you but I wouldn't say that his performance can be attributed to being particularly emaciated. He certainly look bigger than in that famous 'Roubaix' photo. Much like he does in that photo taken in his track days in fact.



And here he is as a 'fat trackie' back in 2008, carrying almost another 25 lb.

RichN95.

He looks a hell of a lot thinner. Maybe not 25lb, but at least a stone, maybe 20lb. Hard to tell without scales.

Is this all you've got? The weight loss might not be quite as much as stated. If so, by your reckoning, that proves half the women at Weight Watchers are doping.

Your arguments are so weak. You used to be better than this. You should have retired with Armstrong.

BikingBernie

RichN95 wrote:

So you admit he lost some weight. It's clearly more than a 'couple of kg'. It might not be 11kg either, but he'd hardly be the first person to exaggerate.

Ok, maybe he lost 3 or 4 kg. Thing is it almost certainly wasn't an 11kg difference in his racing weight, as he and his coach claimed and he also looks heavier now than in that 'Roubaix' photo and nonetheless seems to be climbing better than ever.

Why is this important? Because it was just such a huge weight loss that was given by him as the reason why he was 'transformed' in the 2009 Tour. The numbers just don't add up and one would think that riders would be careful not to give spurious explanations for their performances given the sort of suspicions that less than credible 'exaggerations' give rise to.

Anyhow, in any case it seems that the secret is no longer 'weight loss' but the new training programme that his swimming coach has come up with...

BikingBernie

RichN95 wrote:

He looks a hell of a lot thinner. Maybe not 25lb, but at least a stone, maybe 20lb. Hard to tell without scales.

A 20lb difference between those two photos! Come on, if anything his legs look thinner in the 'track' one!

For most people a 20lb difference is the difference between 'skinny' and 'a right fat sod'.

thamacdaddy

Bernie is clearly a wind up and keeps shifting focus from 95% rubbish (which isn't that wild the best boxers like mayweather and pacquiao have maintained fighting weight and fitness all year round for years) to now weight loss.

Does anyone apart from bernie seriously think sky are on a team doping programme? If so get a thread together, otherwise stop trying to argue a point bernie will never concede as no-one including him has anything other than pop analysis to do anything with. This is actually ridiculous now

BikingBernie

John Wilcockson ‏@johnwilcockson

Haven't see a team do a TTT on a mountain like Sky is doing on the Joux-Plane since Postal did one on the Col d'Agnes at the 2004 TdF.

https://twitter.com/#!/johnwilcockson

dave_1

I can see BB's reason to doubt...the losing weight story is incredibly hard to believe. Indurain for example, and Armstrong used it too but they weren't fat before the big wins..so something else must have happened . However, it was good to see how slow these guys are now. The trend of slower climbing times is confirmed every season now..nobody is getting faster than the previous generation unlike the names below who were ascending climbs 5 minutes faster than their predecessors Fignon, Lemond,Herrera etc. The bio-passport is slowing things down a bit so maybe believe Wiggins? If we suddenly see climb record times reduced by 12%-14% like in 1995-1997 we know it ain't marginal gains

Porte today on Col de Joux Plane 35:36. Pantani1997 32:55 Ullrich 97 33:50

r0bh

@TheRaceRadio wrote:

Porte today on Col de Joux Plane 35:36. Pantani1997 32:55 (!) Ullrich 97 33:50

@Vaughters wrote:

@TheRaceRadio that is consistent with all the numbers we are getting these days. Remember, pantani/ullrich in 3 week tour. More fatigue.

@TheRaceRadio wrote:

@Vaughters Agreed. Pantani/Ullrich were 16 days into the Tour and the stage was 50km longer then today.....but 10% faster

P_Tucker

thamacdaddy wrote:

Does anyone apart from bernie seriously think sky are on a team doping programme?

Yes. One rider having a spectacular run of form is (given cycling's history) a teeny bit suspicious; half a team destroying the bunch in the Tour warm-up is quite frankly unbelievable.

finchy

r0bh wrote:

@TheRaceRadio wrote:

Porte today on Col de Joux Plane 35:36. Pantani1997 32:55 (!) Ullrich 97 33:50

@Vaughters wrote:

@TheRaceRadio that is consistent with all the numbers we are getting these days. Remember, pantani/ullrich in 3 week tour. More fatigue.

@TheRaceRadio wrote:

@Vaughters Agreed. Pantani/Ullrich were 16 days into the Tour and the stage was 50km longer then today.....but 10% faster

These figures will now be ignored by the Burn The Witch brigade.

Crankbrother

Wiggins seems to be running with the ball Slipstream gave him ... and that combined with increasing self belief, high team morale and the psychological (and perhaps actual) benefits of all the daft little 'marginal gains' could be the reason for his results in the past few seasons ... Especially when those you are competing against seem to be peaking and troughing wildly and with weaker teams ...

Froome on the other hand? Comes from nowhere (well, Barloworld) to find form at the last gasp to go from the potential dole queue to secure a juicy contract ... His secret is more interesting than Wiggins, and one we hear nothing of ...

Yellow Peril

Ithink it is just a matter of all of Sky's planets aligning at once. Some they have some control over (training and team/team selection per event) and others have played into their hands (lack of dominating opposition such as Contador/Schlecks and the prospect of a Tour with lots of TT's)

They aren't exactly smashing the race to pieces. Wiggo had one good TT ride to put some time into Evans but if this race was another week longer without anymore TTs you might favour Evans to clip off the front enough times to turn the show around.

A lot is being made of Sky's group performance here but isn't that what they do well? Isn't their problem when they have to think for themselves? when plan A goes tits up?

I also think it is silly to compare what Sky are doing in the Dauphine to what US Postal were doing long into week 3 of the Tour. I think lots of teams have the potential to dominate for a week (weren't Garmin similarly dominating the GC in the Giro at some point this year?) but not for nearly a month of full on racing.

Sky are clean, their tactics which we so often pull to pieces just seem to be working in these one weekers.

finchy

BikingBernie - your accusations of chauvinism are absolutely ridiculous. Here are a list of riders who have had a successful past couple of seasons without being accused of doping on this forum:

Cadel Evans
Thor Hushovd
Philippe Gilbert
Peter Sagan
Thomas Voeckler
Pierre Rolland
Samuel Sanchez

Now do you see where I'm going with this? People are unwilling to point the finger at Wiggins because there is zero evidence against the man and then you accuse other people of suspending their critical faculties... :roll: :roll:

At least with Lance Armstrong you could back it up with evidence, but here you just seem to be turning into a left-wing version of James Delingpole.

BikingBernie

Dave_1 wrote:

I can see BB's reason to doubt...the losing weight story is incredibly hard to believe. Indurain for example, and Armstrong used it too but they weren't fat before the big wins..so something else must have happened . However, it was good to see how slow these guys are now. The trend of slower climbing times is confirmed every season now..nobody is getting faster than the previous generation unlike the names below who were ascending climbs 5 minutes faster than their predecessors Fignon, Lemond,Herrera etc. The bio-passport is slowing things down a bit so maybe believe Wiggins? If we suddenly see climb record times reduced by 12%-14% like in 1995-1997 we know it ain't marginal gains

Porte today on Col de Joux Plane 35:36. Pantani1997 32:55 Ullrich 97 33:50

Good post!

I think the thing is that we all want to 'believe' in what we see again, and it is clear that old-fashioned nationalistic fervour and a desire to see a British Tour winner also means that many are resistant to thinking too critically about the reasons given for the recent successes of Sky and Wiggins. This is despite the fact that Wiggins himself said in an interview a while back that, given the recent history of pro cycling, he could not blame anyone for being sceptical of what they see and are told about his performances.

Perhaps we get all the stuff about the transformational powers of 'weight loss', 'revolutionary training programmes' and all the rest, even when it doesn't really make much sense and they are standard explanations given by heavy-duty dopers for their improved performances, simply because such a narrative fits in better with the 'Faster, stronger, higher' ethos of sport. In comparison saying 'The main reason we are winning is because recent controls on doping have reduced the advantage to be gained from it, and as a result the races are now pretty slow compared to a few years ago, so allowing clean riders to be competitive' makes the winners look less extraordinary.

(Similarly, I would argue that many want to believe that the 'secret' to success in sport is 'hard work', even though being lucky enough to have the right genes is actually the most important thing, largely because this fits in with the dominant 'American' political world view, which is nominally based on the concept of meritocracy, regardless of how much of a sham 'meritocracy' actually is in the real world.)

Anyhow, the Tour will be the real proving ground. Who knows, Wiggins and Sky might get their arses kicked, in which case no one will have any reason to wonder how they won it.

BikingBernie

johnfinch wrote:

BikingBernie - your accusations of chauvinism are absolutely ridiculous.

Er...

plectrum wrote:

Oh and ..... who cares! Tour is going to rock, Sky are going to pwn, Wiggo is going to win us a yellow and no-one is going to get caught for doping. Yippee - going to be a great 3 weeks!

dougzz wrote:

... I, as an Ingerland fan, am more than happy to see my Australian/Belgian Brit do the business.

finchy

BikingBernie wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

BikingBernie - your accusations of chauvinism are absolutely ridiculous.

Er...

plectrum wrote:

Oh and ..... who cares! Tour is going to rock, Sky are going to pwn, Wiggo is going to win us a yellow and no-one is going to get caught for doping. Yippee - going to be a great 3 weeks!

dougzz wrote:

... I, as an Ingerland fan, am more than happy to see my Australian/Belgian Brit do the business.

Oh FFS, if you're going to selectively quote my post then please don't insult the intelligence of other forum users.

P_Tucker

johnfinch wrote:

r0bh wrote:

@TheRaceRadio wrote:

Porte today on Col de Joux Plane 35:36. Pantani1997 32:55 (!) Ullrich 97 33:50

@Vaughters wrote:

@TheRaceRadio that is consistent with all the numbers we are getting these days. Remember, pantani/ullrich in 3 week tour. More fatigue.

@TheRaceRadio wrote:

@Vaughters Agreed. Pantani/Ullrich were 16 days into the Tour and the stage was 50km longer then today.....but 10% faster

These figures will now be ignored by the Burn The Witch brigade.

I don't think anyone is denying that the doping is less blatant - there aren't any "Mr 60%s" any more, but as long as there's money involved (and sometimes even when theres not - Dan Staite FFS) and the testing isn't foolproof, then riders will cheat. As we all know, you can drive a bus through the individual controls - hundreds of riders did it for years. As for the passport, we if you wanted to beat that then surely the best thing to do would be to dope a little bit all year, and maybe increase a little bit year-on-year so as to not have any sudden blips. Now who's good all year and has been improving season after season?

iainf72

P_Tucker wrote:

As for the passport, we if you wanted to beat that then surely the best thing to do would be to dope a little bit all year, and maybe increase a little bit year-on-year so as to not have any sudden blips. Now who's good all year and has been improving season after season?

The passport isn't looking for "steady" reading. It's looking for normal reading, which tend to move around. So to do, for example, transfusions while in the passport, you're going to have to do EPO too and that increases the risk of being caught.

Of course athletes can and will cheat. That's perfectly normal.

dave_1

BikingBernie wrote:

Dave_1 wrote:

I can see BB's reason to doubt...the losing weight story is incredibly hard to believe. Indurain for example, and Armstrong used it too but they weren't fat before the big wins..so something else must have happened . However, it was good to see how slow these guys are now. The trend of slower climbing times is confirmed every season now..nobody is getting faster than the previous generation unlike the names below who were ascending climbs 5 minutes faster than their predecessors Fignon, Lemond,Herrera etc. The bio-passport is slowing things down a bit so maybe believe Wiggins? If we suddenly see climb record times reduced by 12%-14% like in 1995-1997 we know it ain't marginal gains

Porte today on Col de Joux Plane 35:36. Pantani1997 32:55 Ullrich 97 33:50

Good post!

I think the thing is that we all want to 'believe' in what we see again, and it is clear that old-fashioned nationalistic fervour and a desire to see a British Tour winner also means that many are resistant to thinking too critically about the reasons given for the recent successes of Sky and Wiggins. This is despite the fact that Wiggins himself said in an interview a while back that, given the recent history of pro cycling, he could not blame anyone for being sceptical of what they see and are told about his performances.

Perhaps we get all the stuff about the transformational powers of 'weight loss', 'revolutionary training programmes' and all the rest, even when it doesn't really make much sense and they are standard explanations given by heavy-duty dopers for their improved performances, simply because such a narrative fits in better with the 'Faster, stronger, higher' ethos of sport. In comparison saying 'The main reason we are winning is because recent controls on doping have reduced the advantage to be gained from it, and as a result the races are now pretty slow compared to a few years ago, so allowing clean riders to be competitive' makes the winners look less extraordinary.

(Similarly, I would argue that many want to believe that the 'secret' to success in sport is 'hard work', even though being lucky enough to have the right genes is actually the most important thing, largely because this fits in with the dominant 'American' political world view, which is nominally based on the concept of meritocracy, regardless of how much of a sham 'meritocracy' actually is in the real world.)

Anyhow, the Tour will be the real proving ground. Who knows, Wiggins and Sky might get their arses kicked, in which case no one will have any reason to wonder how they won it.

I see Wiggins completed his first grand tour at age 25, finishing the Giro in 2005 for Credit Agricole- placing 123rd at 3hrs 32 minutes down. Up to 23 years old I think he will have had very little road racing, up to Francais D'jeux. He was only a pursuiter. My guess is that if he had had a solid road racing background before 23, then his development as a road man would have been a fair bit quicker. I reckon Wiggins has around 7 grand tour finishes in his legs now, all those build ups, methods and such like. I think it is not impossible that it has taken years to convert wiggins from short distance trackie to road man due to his lack of background in road racing, and just natural development in his late 20s like most sportsmen experience and also helped partly by banking all those grand tour miles in the legs over 5 years, to peak now. The bunch is cleaner now too...take for example that Pantani and Ullrich hit the joux plane in 1997 after 16 days of road racing in a stage 50km longer...and yet still 2 minutes 40 seconds faster than Wiggins yesterday on Joux Plane. Wiggins would have been nowhere if he hit his current form in the mid 1990s. That's my guess anyway. But the weight loss, I train harder, at higher cadence, miracle diets is an insult to the intelligence I agree, as you point out BB. Indurain and Armstrong, Ullrich..we all know what crap that was

dougzz

P_Tucker wrote:

thamacdaddy wrote:

Does anyone apart from bernie seriously think sky are on a team doping programme?

Yes. One rider having a spectacular run of form is (given cycling's history) a teeny bit suspicious; half a team destroying the bunch in the Tour warm-up is quite frankly unbelievable.

If they can do that in TdF it will be more suspicious, maybe. But I only watched highlights late last night and was very tired, but I'm sure I remember Harmon alluding to the fact that the pace was rather gentle, didn't he have a discussion with Smith regarding this. That would go some way to explaining Sky's little TTT at the front.

RichN95.

P_Tucker wrote:

thamacdaddy wrote:

Does anyone apart from bernie seriously think sky are on a team doping programme?

Yes. One rider having a spectacular run of form is (given cycling's history) a teeny bit suspicious; half a team destroying the bunch in the Tour warm-up is quite frankly unbelievable.

Then why are you not pointing the finger at Weening and Kiryenka? How did they hang in there without much trouble? Or Quintana who seemed to gain 40 seconds without ever looking on the rivet?

Porte, Wiggins, Rogers and Froome have all been in the top seven in a Grand Tour in the last three years, three of them while at different teams. You would expect them to be at the front end of a climb. But Weening and Kiryenka have never been in the top 20 of a GT. Why are they less suspicious just because they have a different jersey on?

Or maybe it wasn't that remarkable a performance and half the decent climbers had been in the early break and the other half weren't trying/off-form. I suppose you find it unbelievable when Sky destroy the field at the British nationals too.