Inside Team Sky - David Walsh *Spoilers*

mike6

TheBigBean wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

You think the reason people have a go at you is you oppose Sky. It's not.

Posters who criticise Sky aren't exactly warmly welcomed by this forum. Most of the old sages just keep quiet.

Criticism of Sky is not the issue. If there riders had been caught doping I would still be asking for lifetime bans from the sport, and be asking serious questions of the team management. They have not, and there results, though good are not outstanding. There are plenty of riders and teams that bear scrutiny and doubt, but it is fashionable to have a go at Sky as they do things differently.(Better)
If any team or rider in the sport gets unfair, In my opinion, criticism I will defend them. If I think there is a case to answer I would join in the criticism.

RichN95.

nic_77 wrote:

whiteboytrash wrote:

2013 folks. We should be asking questions.

And then listening to the answers!

And then misquoting those answers so that they suit a preset agenda.

nic_77

^^ quite mike6.

If there was a smell around Sky, I'd be in there like swimwear. Certainly not defending them. Hell, I don't like the Leinders thing one bit. However, I choose to direct my disdain towards those teams and riders against which there is tangible evidence.

whiteboytrash

nic_77 wrote:

whiteboytrash wrote:

2013 folks. We should be asking questions.

And then listening to the answers!

Yes and validating those answers.

Cyclists, teams and mangers have a habit of not divulging the entire sets facts. Sky included.

ddraver

Except that you don't give a monkeys about the answers to those questions when the answers are all boringly simple...

The fact that you have irked Rich, who is easily the most patient person on the forum, so much should make you ask a few questions of yourself.

The Sky haters always have the same themes
1) They think they re the sole voice of reason on the forum
2) They spout totally unsubstantiated rubbish and then get all shirty when people ask them to back up what they ve said
3) They then claim that they re being censored (despite having never been told to stop posting, usually in fact they re asked to post more so they can show us their evidence) or insulted (despite them firing insults left right and centre)
4) They sign off with the "we should ask questions" line ( (C)festinagirl2012 - seriously she should have copyrighted that line, she'd be flipping minted by now!)

There will always be another one along shortly

mfin

Fairdoos, the Sky bashing pseudo logic is in full swing lately. It is quite amusing. Christ I hate dopers, but the speculation here is just based on nothing worth bothering engaging with. I do love the way people can level their speculation of doping then defend it with a projection that the people who counter argue are blinkered Sky fans.

All it needs now is Dennis to pop in every 6th post with his amateur psychology babble and this could hit 50 pages in no time

whiteboytrash

ddraver wrote:

Except that you don't give a monkeys about the answers to those questions when the answers are all boringly simple...

The fact that you have irked Rich, who is easily the most patient person on the forum, so much should make you ask a few questions of yourself.

The Sky haters always have the same themes
1) They think they re the sole voice of reason on the forum
2) They spout totally unsubstantiated rubbish and then get all shirty when people ask them to back up what they ve said
3) They then claim that they re being censored (despite having never been told to stop posting, usually in fact they re asked to post more so they can show us their evidence) or insulted (despite them firing insults left right and centre)
4) They sign off with the "we should ask questions" line ( (C)festinagirl2012 - seriously she should have copyrighted that line, she'd be flipping minted by now!)

There will always be another one along shortly

Not sure why you're trying to draw battle lines between Sky and Sky haters - as you've labelled them.

Can't one have an opinion without being labeled? Perhaps a hater in your mind is actually someone who loves cycling in general?

Think about it. Just because someone disagrees with you, doesn't mean they are a "hater".

whiteboytrash

RichN95 wrote:

nic_77 wrote:

whiteboytrash wrote:

2013 folks. We should be asking questions.

And then listening to the answers!

And then misquoting those answers so that they suit a preset agenda.

And what agenda is that?

whiteboytrash

mfin wrote:

Fairdoos, the Sky bashing pseudo logic is in full swing lately. It is quite amusing. Christ I hate dopers, but the speculation here is just based on nothing worth bothering engaging with. I do love the way people can level their speculation of doping then defend it with a projection that the people who counter argue are blinkered Sky fans.

All it needs now is Dennis to pop in every 6th post with his amateur psychology babble and this could hit 50 pages in no time

Where's the Sky bashing? I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing unwarranted or unfair criticisms of Sky.

Sport is speculation. Will Man U win this weekend? is Rooney injured? Will they sell him?

Speculation is what makes sport so exciting. It's a part of sport.

blazing_saddles

OK, I'll bite on the subject Ventoux and being accurate.

Wbt keeps bringing up Ventoux because there is a common consensus among the Sky sceptics that because a couple of the Dutch riders who fared badly that day, claimed there was a headwind, there must have been a headwind..
Very handy of you wish to point the accusatory finger.
However, other riders (most noticeably Greg Henderson via twitter) claimed to have had a tailwind all the way.
Not so handy, so ridiculed or ignored altogether.

Photos with flags, hard to dispute, so lets have a look....

Headwind?



Small, I know but, Belgian flag says................tailwind.

Headwind?



Final right hander so, nope, tailwind.

Try further down the mountain a bit..............




Nope, still favourable.

Closest to a headwind photo I can find is a side wind......



Up the mountain, which means a tailwind for the first two thirds.

So there goes the as fast as theory.
2000: LA and Pantani within 5 seconds and that was riding straight into a confirmed semi gale.

whiteboytrash

If I had held on to the yellow jersey group for another 200 metres, I would have stayed in the same group as the Belkin riders Bauke Mollema and Laurens Ten Dam to the finish.

I ended up riding 15 seconds behind them the whole way up, then half-blew with 2km to go in the headwind.

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-s ... 423?page=2

Dan Martin disagrees.

TheBigBean

I think sometimes people forget it is possible to dislike a team for reasons other than doping, but maybe that is a topic for another day.

RichN95 wrote:

Who are these old sages that are keeping quiet then? And if they're keeping quiet, then how do you know what they think.

I don't. Just an inference from the silence of some .

RichN95.

TheBigBean wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Who are these old sages that are keeping quiet then? And if they're keeping quiet, then how do you know what they think.

I don't. Just an inference from the silence of some .

I haven't posted on the cyclo-cross thread. It's not because I hate cyclo-cross, it's because I don't care about it.

blazing_saddles

whiteboytrash wrote:

If I had held on to the yellow jersey group for another 200 metres, I would have stayed in the same group as the Belkin riders Bauke Mollema and Laurens Ten Dam to the finish.

I ended up riding 15 seconds behind them the whole way up, then half-blew with 2km to go in the headwind.

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-s ... 423?page=2

Dan Martin disagrees.

Another rider looking for a reason for not going well? Has to be true.
Must be that the flags and the riders who claim they had a tailwind that are lying, then.

Point is, you can't claim a fact when the evidence conflicts.

Yellow Peril

I've referred to it in the past but if the t'internet had been around 40+ years ago then the Sky haters would be Molteni haters and it would be Merckx instead of Froome that people would be bitching about.

To put things in perspective having seen them implode at various times during the TdF (also Little Pete's "end of turn" on Ventoux was a classic) and their appalling classics record then you realise that Sky's "dominance" comes down to predominantly the last 2 TdF's and a handful of one week warm up stage races.

If that bothers anyone then enjoy the spring classics, forget the first 3 weeks in July and pig out on the Giro and Vuelta instead.

TheBigBean

RichN95 wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Who are these old sages that are keeping quiet then? And if they're keeping quiet, then how do you know what they think.

I don't. Just an inference from the silence of some .

I haven't posted on the cyclo-cross thread. It's not because I hate cyclo-cross, it's because I don't care about it.

I think if I made a list of people who may not post something to avoid an argument, it probably wouldn't include you.

mike6

Yellow Peril wrote:

I've referred to it in the past but if the t'internet had been around 40+ years ago then the Sky haters would be Molteni haters and it would be Merckx instead of Froome that people would be bitching about.

To put things in perspective having seen them implode at various times during the TdF (also Little Pete's "end of turn" on Ventoux was a classic) and their appalling classics record then you realise that Sky's "dominance" comes down to predominantly the last 2 TdF's and a handful of one week warm up stage races.

If that bothers anyone then enjoy the spring classics, forget the first 3 weeks in July and pig out on the Giro and Vuelta instead.

Well said. A voice of calm in all the hysteria.

rayjay

I'm still trying to work out who had bad wind and did it effect the rider behind.

RichN95.

Delete

RichN95.

rayjay wrote:

I'm still trying to work out who had bad wind and did it effect the rider behind.

Well one rider's name translates as 'Beans' - so it's probably him

oneof1982

Don't normally post off season, but is this "whiteboytrash" fellow on a retainer from DB's publishers? 70 posts!!

Will no doubt get round to reading the book in January when it is reduced post Christmas, so not paying too much attention to the (extreme) details.

whiteboytrash

rayjay wrote:

I'm still trying to work out who had bad wind and did it effect the rider behind.

Probably the part Walsh didn't compute. Whilst giving Froome 40w due to the wind it must mean the rest were darn slow.

Super slow.

whiteboytrash

Blazing Saddles wrote:

whiteboytrash wrote:

If I had held on to the yellow jersey group for another 200 metres, I would have stayed in the same group as the Belkin riders Bauke Mollema and Laurens Ten Dam to the finish.

I ended up riding 15 seconds behind them the whole way up, then half-blew with 2km to go in the headwind.

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-s ... 423?page=2

Dan Martin disagrees.

Another rider looking for a reason for not going well? Has to be true.
Must be that the flags and the riders who claim they had a tailwind that are lying, then.

Point is, you can't claim a fact when the evidence conflicts.

I'm not claiming anything.

I'm just questioning Walsh's logic & method to explain Froome being so so much faster than anyone else in race and the times of former dopers.

Why does Walsh even look to explain Froome? He's clean right? So why go to great lengths to downplay all that occurred in the Tour?

Doesn't make a whole lotta sense.

blazing_saddles

whiteboytrash wrote:

I'm not claiming anything.
I'm just questioning Walsh's logic & method to explain.....

Really, only questioning Walsh?

whiteboytrash wrote:

........Froome being so so much faster than anyone else in race and the times of former dopers.

Why does Walsh even look to explain Froome? He's clean right? So why go to great lengths to downplay all that occurred in the Tour?

Doesn't make a whole lotta sense.

There's that same claim again. My reply is the same too. The picture post above.
I'm getting off your roundabout, now.

Pross

This could be the most tedious thread ever. Spoiler? More like spoiled! Is the book worth a read or are the 'inaccuracies' so bad as to make it pointless? Has anyone learned something new from reading it?

Yet another thread proving Frenchie's theory that anything Sky related gets disproptionate numbers of posts.

blazing_saddles

Pross wrote:

This could be the most tedious thread ever. Spoiler? More like spoiled! Is the book worth a read or are the 'inaccuracies' so bad as to make it pointless? Has anyone learned something new from reading it?

Yet another thread proving Frenchie's theory that anything Sky related gets disproptionate numbers of posts.

A month into to closed season and I'm bored stiff. I wouldn't be wasting my time going around in circles, otherwise.
Talking of circles, be watching Rachel in Newport, tomorrow evening.

mfin

Pross wrote:

This could be the most tedious thread ever. Spoiler? More like spoiled! Is the book worth a read or are the 'inaccuracies' so bad as to make it pointless? Has anyone learned something new from reading it?

Yet another thread proving Frenchie's theory that anything Sky related gets disproptionate numbers of posts.

A theory coming from someone who makes loads of other threads disproportionately long by moaning about Sky when it's not even relevant to the topic just to wind people up

rayjay

As anyone taken into account the effect of small woodland creatures dancing and causing vibrations on the road surface when Froome attacks. Brailsford has a lot to answer for.

whiteboytrash

Blazing Saddles wrote:

whiteboytrash wrote:

I'm not claiming anything.
I'm just questioning Walsh's logic & method to explain.....

Really, only questioning Walsh?

whiteboytrash wrote:

........Froome being so so much faster than anyone else in race and the times of former dopers.

Why does Walsh even look to explain Froome? He's clean right? So why go to great lengths to downplay all that occurred in the Tour?

Doesn't make a whole lotta sense.

There's that same claim again. My reply is the same too. The picture post above.
I'm getting off your roundabout, now.

Stick with it. If you believe it don't change your course.

I'll elaborate.

Walsh explains Froome was so good on Ventoux was probably because of this "tailwind". He compared Froome to Mayo's
ITT and every other time from the 1999 and 2004 ITTs up Ventoux to say - "look not so fast after all".

But he fails to mention they were ITTs, why?

He then talks of Mayo's side/tailwind in 2004. If he knew this do you think would have known it was a straight up TT as well?

He then talks about variables that the 2013 road stage was longer than 2009 to Ventoux but '13 was more "gentle" due to Cat 3 and not cat 4 climbs prior to Ventoux itself.

So the sum of those parts is he's happy to apply "gentle" in context of the category of the climbs but not so much the distance and not when comparing to ITTs, which he hides from the reader.

On Ax3 he says Froome was fresh as it was earlier in the Tour than when Ullrich & Armstrong climbed it (by 3 stages!). But fails to think that the ITT times up Ventoux would also be fresh-er than those who've rode as a road stage in a GT
Thus his analysis is so faulty it's looks like he's trying to hide something.

In finality. On Ventoux despite the wind, whether side, tail or head, Froome decimated everyone. As he did so on Ax3. It's not the wind or freshness making him so good. He's just eons better. Eons..

Why? Walsh doesn't bother to work that out. Or even begin to explain how he got so good. And if I'm to believe he's clean. Then he's he's probably best rider the sport has seen in 25 years. Chris Froome? Hmmmm, not sure about that.

greasedscotsman

More stuff on the delayed payments from Wiggins (if anyone is interested, it was mentioned on the first page of this thread...)

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/wiggins ... says-cound

OK, I know it's coming from Michelle Cound, but it's still interesting none the less. Mentions it wasn't prize money from the Tour, but a win bonus in Wiggins' contract with Sky.