Sky's marginal gains
No_Ta_Doctor
Posts: 11,320
Whenever Ross Tucker mentions Sky's marginal gains he always goes straight for "No Nutella" and "Fluffy Pillows". For some reason he always seems to forget stuff like "Warming down on rollers". I'm sure this is merely a memory lapse on his part and isn't in any way a deliberate ploy to belittle or denigrate the program, so can anyone here on BR help Ross remember some of the other stuff?
It would obviously help if we also knew which team first introduced the gain, when, and how many teams now do the same, but if you can remember a marginal gain not on the list then please go ahead and put it down, even if you don't know whether Mapei did it first in '97 or not.
It would obviously help if we also knew which team first introduced the gain, when, and how many teams now do the same, but if you can remember a marginal gain not on the list then please go ahead and put it down, even if you don't know whether Mapei did it first in '97 or not.
“Road racing was over and the UCI had banned my riding positions on the track, so it was like ‘Jings, crivvens, help ma Boab, what do I do now? I know, I’ll go away and be depressed for 10 years’.”
@DrHeadgear
The Vikings are coming!
@DrHeadgear
The Vikings are coming!
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I've worked at the Patent Office for twenty years and I've have rarely seen an invention that is more that a slight variation of what has gone before - yet 1995 seems like a different world. It's also the mechanism that underpins evolution.
As for sport - Colin Chapman was shaving small pieces off components to make them light and the car a lot lighter for at Lotus back in the 60s. LeMond looked for every innovation back in the 80s - I couldn't believe it when the man who won the Tour by eight seconds said he 'didn't believe' in marginal gains.
It's often misunderstood as a method of, for example, turning Cavendish into a climber, it isn't, but it may put Cavendish a bike length ahead of Kittel instead of a length behind. Sky just use it a catchphrase to emphasise that everything can be improved and all the pieces matter. In a conservative sport there were advantages to be gained.
In truth their biggest innovation was centralising the training to the degree that they did - only recently possible due to IT. (And investing a large portion of their considerable budget on it).
As euphemisms go, I'm sure you've done briefer ones that scan better...
Tough crowd
Also his beloved Kenyan runners. Also an area untouched and untainted by the stink of cheating
@gietvangent
In which case, why do any of you listen to what he says, and why is it worthy of discussion?
Qualidee
Cos its off season
I believe that he first made his media name by commenting on Oscar Pristorius' legs (during that whole CAS saga)...
It's slowly turning into a long form discussion of "sh!t people on Twitter say".
Or discussing issues affecting the sport such as the UCI reforms (or maybe just changes) to the WorldTour
Governing body structural reforms is as big a snooze as "2 times Tour de France champ rides really fast in a laboratory" and "cyclists go uphill faster when they lose weight".
But at least it's about actual pro cycling rather than some derivative thereof.
At the risk of also blowing my cover "it's our way of life". DBS for me, are you in cars?
@DrHeadgear
The Vikings are coming!
you blew that cover a while ago to those of us paying attention...
A quick google suggests various Sky alleged marginal gains:
- Using weather modelling to locate training camps
- using their own bedding
- intense training at high altitude
- reverse periodisation
- using dropbox
- hiring more staff
- monitoring food intake
- buying their own equipment rather than just using the sponsors (in ref to group sets etc)
- using those oval chain rings
- wind tunnels
- using antibacterial handgel
- painting the floor white in the maintenance truck
- redesigning the team bus...
- going back to basics
- practicing winning
- use new technology
- brailsford conducting the orchestra
- set a team charter - the line thang...
- build a strong CORE
- controlling the chimp
- managing the triangle of change
- sticking to their principles...
No flies on you
@gietvangent
Clearly they aren't doing very well at controlling the chimps.
You've also missed off sleeping in a winnebago and blocking the entrance to the car park for the French teams.
Regarding Ross Tucker, he is a scientist but so anti-Froome/Sky it's painful. He mixes with the other 'nothing Froome can do will persuade me he's clean' brigade and takes every single opportunity to write about Froome being a doper, conveniently forgetting all of the other GT contenders. What's worse, he thinks he is impartial. In other words an absolute Tucker.
Maybe that's why Mr Zanussi is going for Froome then. To balance out the Kenyan chat.
The only Sky / BC innovation is the Chimp control. Everything else has been around for years. And I'd argue that they have failed on their sticking to principals thing but apart form that, there is nothing new there.
@gietvangent
That's all it was.
- @ddraver
Cancellera and Cavendish did a good job discrediting that, so presumably journalists are now slightly scared to suggest that one.