How good is Chris Froome?

ddraver

I know this is becoming a soapbox of mine but you can see from the Sunweb vid how Tommy has basically given up before Stage 20...

The biggest threat to Team Sky is a rider or two thinking, 'we might as well try and win a race or two' rather than this podium is a good result for me bollocks

ddraver

adr82 wrote:

jerry3571 wrote:

whinge

OK, I admit it. I was too gullible, I believed too easily... I thought I could trust you when you said you were leaving this thread, back on page 35.

To be fair it's better than 1000 posts about how they're being censored. Irony is often strong with these...

above_the_cows

adr82 wrote:

Is Reichenbach a deep-cover Sky agent, cleverly using the Moscon incident to deflect any suspicion he's working for them?

It's definitely this. This is by far the most obvious. I mean his name is Reichenbach, you know a name associated with intrigue and sleuthing.

I hear Woet Poel's secret agent name is Watson.

blazing_saddles

jerry3571 wrote:

Still no one has found a 3 odd minute deficit over turned in one day for the last 40 years so I'll say that's my question not answered. As Kelly would say "Its Unbelievable"
Ok Ciao! Washing up beckons

B*llocks. Nice troll and run away.
I found you two within a few minutes.

iainf72

I'm curious - For those completely sure the ride was dodgy, can you give me your theory on how it was done?

If it was doping, why were they not doping for the rest of the race? Why get into a position where you're so far back? What kind of doping are we talking?

If it's something else, what is that something else?

blazing_saddles

RichN95 wrote:

gsk82 wrote:

kleinstroker wrote:

The York piece was OK, but when she says things like you cannot ride into form on a GT I have to question the purpose of the whole article.
If you cannot ride into form, then logic dictates you are always at peak form, day in day out, you can't have it both ways.

Ms York is also putting a lot of emphasis on Sean Kelly saying it was unbelievable. I could understand it if he said it was extra terrestrial, but unbelievable is quite a common word to use to describe something good.

And a word Sean Kelly, in particular, overuses.

Enough to turn anyone playing the drinking game into an alcoholic.

redvision

RichN95 wrote:

gsk82 wrote:

kleinstroker wrote:

The York piece was OK, but when she says things like you cannot ride into form on a GT I have to question the purpose of the whole article.
If you cannot ride into form, then logic dictates you are always at peak form, day in day out, you can't have it both ways.

Ms York is also putting a lot of emphasis on Sean Kelly saying it was unbelievable. I could understand it if he said it was extra terrestrial, but unbelievable is quite a common word to use to describe something good.

And a word Sean Kelly, in particular, overuses.

Pah! Compared to Kris Kamara, Sean Kelly is an amateur when it comes to describing something as unbelievable

RichN95.

iainf72 wrote:

I'm curious - For those completely sure the ride was dodgy, can you give me your theory on how it was done?

If it was doping, why were they not doping for the rest of the race? Why get into a position where you're so far back? What kind of doping are we talking?

If it's something else, what is that something else?

It's the same when people say "can you name another rider that has made a transformation like Froome?" And the answer is no. If he'd done it through doping surely they'd be several of them.

No_Ta_Doctor

iainf72 wrote:

I'm not sure about this "Froome was poor at the beginning of the Giro" thing. I think he was nursing an injury, but if you look at his performance on the "proper" climbs to the finish, he was generally there. It was just the more classics like / Giro-tastic shorter steeper climbs where he suffered. And a lot of those time losses were down to poor positioning.

After Etna he was rarely out of the top 10 overall. The last 3 days, Zoncolan, Etna are more his type of bag.

If you look at Tom in the Sunweb video, he was shattered by the time the last 3 stages came. And he knew Froome was strong.

We shouldn't be surprised this kind of ride is possible. It doesn't happen very often but it can be done.

The first part of that ties in (unfortunately, as we don't want him to get big-headed about it) with Rich's "injury affected his absolute top end, not sustainable threshold" theory. I'm genuinely concerned we might have to give him this one. I think there's probably a decent case that Froome was nowhere near as undercooked as the time gap suggested, though he did come in a couple of kg overweight (which he lost during the race).

And maybe Rick or ATC can confirm if that was standard Dumoulin dourness (in English interviews) or genuinely the look of a knackered man who was half beaten mentally already.

I did have a little laugh at the tactic of "letting Sky and M-S go at each other early on" combined with the tactic of "get people in the break". It was precisely getting people in the break (both Sky and Sunweb) that forced M-S to chase so hard so early. It pretty much did Sky's early stage job for them, with Yates breaking so quick.

The ride itself was exceptional, but not freakish. If Riis had done it with Contador everyone would be raving about his tactical genius. I suspect that aside from the typical meticulous attention to detail there was actually quite a lot left to race situation improvisation.

A couple of other posibilities might have happened quite easily - a climber might have been able to go with him and work with him, and Lopez might have got dropped (he looked like he was hanging in there a couple of times). If the latter had happened then Pinot might have ridden harder to keep him behind him and Karapaz might have put a shift in. They might not have had to wait for Reichenbach to do FDJ's work, and Dumoulin might have won the Giro. Or Froome might have found another tactic later.

above_the_cows

DrHaggis wrote:

I'm skeptical because:
a) I've been admitted to hospital with an asthma attack and put on oxygen, and it didn't take 8 puffs of salbutamol to know I had to go to A&E (I actually feel insulted by all the asthma claims in the pro peloton, mind you)

Are you a medical doctor? Surely you know that there are diffrent types of asthma and people react to asthma in different ways. And surely as scientist you know that the plural of anecdote is not data?

DrHaggis wrote:

b) A single person was putting time in a group with three people pushing (and two passengers). These three people were so bad at pushing they put at least an extra minute on the group behind where Pozzovivo was racing for the podium, and the Bora guys weren't precisely on the sunday social ride. So much so, that Pozzovivo's group cracked before the final climb.

Pinot and Reichenbach were not pushing on the descents. In fact the group waited, visibly slowed down to wait for Reichencbach, it was really obvious to anyone who watched the stage. Multiple times when they showed the data for relative speeds it was clear Froome was going faster on the descents. Case in point between Cesana and Oulx, Froome was going 20km faster (at around 60km/h) at particular points because Dumoulin (at around 40km/h) was fannying about, slowing to try and organise a chase.

Pozzovivo was not pushing. Did you not see people in his group get annoyed with him because he wouldn't ride, he was a passenger, when he took a turn at the front he immediately started drinking. Then George Bennett got really angry with him. This was all discussed in detail on the Cycling Podcast. Also the very idea of Pozzovivo closing a gap to either Dumoulin or Froome on anything but a climb is laughable, the man is the size of a plushy.

DrHaggis wrote:

c) Froome was poor for substantial portions of the Giro.

And? What are you saying that people's form can't improve? If so what's the idea of training at all?

DrHaggis wrote:

d) Froome's telemetry was stuck at 350W & 89 rpm for the whole race, and there are claims that his (and only his) data file are lost

Citation needed.

DrHaggis wrote:

e) Disneylandis.

tailwindhome

RichN95 wrote:

jerry3571 wrote:

Still no one has found a 3 odd minute deficit over turned in one day for the last 40 years so I'll say that's my question not answered. As Kelly would say "Its Unbelievable"
Ok Ciao! Washing up beckons

It's rare that a rider of significant ability has both the need and opportunity to do so. Most stages don't have something like Finistere in the middle of a stage.
Andy Schleck took 2.15 out of everyone at the Tour de France and he's a poor descend and time triallist.
In 1986 Hinault and LeMond took over four minutes out of each other on consecutive days and later together beat the whole field by five minutes. This sort of thing was more common back before EPO.

Contador did this all the time.
Quintana too.
It's why they're loved and Sky aren't

above_the_cows

knedlicky wrote:

Why isn't much about Froome's performances during the last mountain stages being attributed to his saddle change?
Presumably he was hoping to topple Yates and TD on stage 19, and it's said that hope is often at the bottom (in fact as Pandora discovered).

I suppose the main reason is that it's not good publicity for one of Sky's sponsors to have it revealed that Froome rode to victory (via stage 19 especially) on a competitor's saddle.
But looked at from another angle (yes, from below), if CF felt much more comfortable with the change, it would have brought him advantages both physically and psychologically on stage 19.

Is that true? He did have an awful lot of chamois cream and I thought his saddle looked different.

slim_boy_fat

Above The Cows wrote:

knedlicky wrote:

Why isn't much about Froome's performances during the last mountain stages being attributed to his saddle change?
Presumably he was hoping to topple Yates and TD on stage 19, and it's said that hope is often at the bottom (in fact as Pandora discovered).

I suppose the main reason is that it's not good publicity for one of Sky's sponsors to have it revealed that Froome rode to victory (via stage 19 especially) on a competitor's saddle.
But looked at from another angle (yes, from below), if CF felt much more comfortable with the change, it would have brought him advantages both physically and psychologically on stage 19.

Is that true? He did have an awful lot of chamois cream and I thought his saddle looked different.

Apparently so. Also the pink monstrosity of the final day had a pink Fizik saddle for the promotional shots but he rode it with a black Specialized saddle.

ddraver

Above The Cows wrote:

DrHaggis wrote:

I'm skeptical because:
a) I've been admitted to hospital with an asthma attack and put on oxygen, and it didn't take 8 puffs of salbutamol to know I had to go to A&E (I actually feel insulted by all the asthma claims in the pro peloton, mind you)

Are you a medical doctor? Surely you know that there are diffrent types of asthma and people react to asthma in different ways. And surely as scientist you know that the plural of anecdote is not data?

DrHaggis wrote:

b) A single person was putting time in a group with three people pushing (and two passengers). These three people were so bad at pushing they put at least an extra minute on the group behind where Pozzovivo was racing for the podium, and the Bora guys weren't precisely on the sunday social ride. So much so, that Pozzovivo's group cracked before the final climb.

Pinot and Reichenbach were not pushing on the descents. In fact the group waited, visibly slowed down to wait for Reichencbach, it was really obvious to anyone who watched the stage. Multiple times when they showed the data for relative speeds it was clear Froome was going faster on the descents. Case in point between Cesana and Oulx, Froome was going 20km faster (at around 60km/h) at particular points because Dumoulin (at around 40km/h) was fannying about, slowing to try and organise a chase.

Pozzovivo was not pushing. Did you not see people in his group get annoyed with him because he wouldn't ride, he was a passenger, when he took a turn at the front he immediately started drinking. Then George Bennett got really angry with him. This was all discussed in detail on the Cycling Podcast. Also the very idea of Pozzovivo closing a gap to either Dumoulin or Froome on anything but a climb is laughable, the man is the size of a plushy.

DrHaggis wrote:

c) Froome was poor for substantial portions of the Giro.

And? What are you saying that people's form can't improve? If so what's the idea of training at all?

DrHaggis wrote:

d) Froome's telemetry was stuck at 350W & 89 rpm for the whole race, and there are claims that his (and only his) data file are lost

Citation needed.

DrHaggis wrote:

e) Disneylandis.

Hang on...on twitter you re b1tching about being given too many papers to review but then you go and do this?!?!?

inseine

RichN95 wrote:

It's the same when people say "can you name another rider that has made a transformation like Froome?" And the answer is no. If he'd done it through doping surely they'd be several of them.

Interesting point on the cycling podcast that Tom took longer than Froome and was the same age when he started to do well in GTs. I haven't looked in detail at the stats but then people never do

above_the_cows

No tA Doctor wrote:

And maybe Rick or ATC can confirm if that was standard Dumoulin dourness (in English interviews) or genuinely the look of a knackered man who was half beaten mentally already.

I can't say for sure but he was as usual more dour in his English interviews but he'd lost his wee huisvrouwen favoriet sparkle in his eyes in his Dutch interviews and while he didn't seem beaten he didn't seem bullish either.

rick_chasey

He was fairly realistic, but then the Dutch are fairly straight, so it just sounded normal.

He would usually say 'Yates' form is really super and my form is just good. Unless he has a terrible day, he'll likely win, but i'll obviously do my best".

tailwindhome

inseine wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

It's the same when people say "can you name another rider that has made a transformation like Froome?" And the answer is no. If he'd done it through doping surely they'd be several of them.

Interesting point on the cycling podcast that Tom took longer than Froome and was the same age when he started to do well in GTs. I haven't looked in detail at the stats but then people never do

This stat may be true but it's misleading in that it suggests that Froome and Dumoulin had similar results/trajectories before they started to 'do well in GTs'

above_the_cows

ddraver wrote:

Above The Cows wrote:

Some stuff

Hang on...on twitter you re b1tching about being given too many papers to review but then you go and do this?!?!?

Shhhh David I've had some Monday evening wines op het terass in the 29 degree sun and can't possibly review something serious with real consequences.

rick_chasey

What that sunweb video where he predicts Froome's attack on the massage table the day before, along with his interview afterwards that he was pooped after the Finestra, is that he really must have been going gangbusters on the climb rather than 'letting him go' as I read it at the time.

No_Ta_Doctor

Rick Chasey wrote:

What that sunweb video where he predicts Froome's attack on the massage table the day before, along with his interview afterwards that he was pooped after the Finestra, is that he really must have been going gangbusters on the climb rather than 'letting him go' as I read it at the time.

Finestre was brutal. When Elissonde took the last turn at the front there was some serious suffering going on (actual climb times were apparently not that fast). I've no doubt Dumoulin gave what he could there and that Froome's attack was impossible for him to follow. The stage start had also been really fast and aggressive, think they even skipped a feed stop because the race was on.

above_the_cows

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Above The Cows wrote:

knedlicky wrote:

Why isn't much about Froome's performances during the last mountain stages being attributed to his saddle change?
Presumably he was hoping to topple Yates and TD on stage 19, and it's said that hope is often at the bottom (in fact as Pandora discovered).

I suppose the main reason is that it's not good publicity for one of Sky's sponsors to have it revealed that Froome rode to victory (via stage 19 especially) on a competitor's saddle.
But looked at from another angle (yes, from below), if CF felt much more comfortable with the change, it would have brought him advantages both physically and psychologically on stage 19.

Is that true? He did have an awful lot of chamois cream and I thought his saddle looked different.

Apparently so. Also the pink monstrosity of the final day had a pink Fizik saddle for the promotional shots but he rode it with a black Specialized saddle.

Yes I remarked on his lack of a pink saddle (or bar tape) during the stage. I guess they had to match the bar tape to the saddle so black saddle, black bar tape. Poor booger had terrible saddle sores by all accounts.

m.r.m.

Above The Cows wrote:

adr82 wrote:

Is Reichenbach a deep-cover Sky agent, cleverly using the Moscon incident to deflect any suspicion he's working for them?

It's definitely this. This is by far the most obvious. I mean his name is Reichenbach, you know a name associated with intrigue and sleuthing.

I hear Woet Poel's secret agent name is Watson.

Reichenbach was simply afraid of the fall.

The scrutiny of Froome's ride on stage 19 can be called "A Study in Pink".

above_the_cows

M.R.M. wrote:

Above The Cows wrote:

adr82 wrote:

Is Reichenbach a deep-cover Sky agent, cleverly using the Moscon incident to deflect any suspicion he's working for them?

It's definitely this. This is by far the most obvious. I mean his name is Reichenbach, you know a name associated with intrigue and sleuthing.

I hear Woet Poel's secret agent name is Watson.

Reichenbach was simply afraid of the fall.

The scrutiny of Froome's ride on stage 19 can be called "A Study in Pink".

Ooo well done. Well done.

mamil314

M.R.M. wrote:

Above The Cows wrote:

adr82 wrote:

Is Reichenbach a deep-cover Sky agent, cleverly using the Moscon incident to deflect any suspicion he's working for them?

It's definitely this. This is by far the most obvious. I mean his name is Reichenbach, you know a name associated with intrigue and sleuthing.

I hear Woet Poel's secret agent name is Watson.

Reichenbach was simply afraid of the fall.

The scrutiny of Froome's ride on stage 19 can be called "A Study in Pink".

Here's your coat, sir.

pblakeney

jerry3571 wrote:

Still no one has found a 3 odd minute deficit over turned in one day for the last 40 years so I'll say that's my question not answered. As Kelly would say "Its Unbelievable"
Ok Ciao! Washing up beckons

Try reading instead of spouting. Posted earlier with direct relevance to Millar/York.

PBlakeney wrote:

Well he/she should know as they lost a lead of over 6 minutes in the penultimate stage of the 1986 Vuelta.

pblakeney

No tA Doctor wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

What that sunweb video where he predicts Froome's attack on the massage table the day before, along with his interview afterwards that he was pooped after the Finestra, is that he really must have been going gangbusters on the climb rather than 'letting him go' as I read it at the time.

Finestre was brutal. When Elissonde took the last turn at the front there was some serious suffering going on (actual climb times were apparently not that fast). I've no doubt Dumoulin gave what he could there and that Froome's attack was impossible for him to follow. The stage start had also been really fast and aggressive, think they even skipped a feed stop because the race was on.

My theory, and it is only a theory.
Dumoulin did his standard stay just below the red line while Froome had mostly recovered from his crash pains and did a Hail Mary, probably going through the red line if he felt good. Just a theory.

m.r.m.

Pretty sure this is the accepted general viewpoint.


The main reason Dumoulin didn't catch Froome or limit his losses has to do with descending of Reichenbach and lacklustre cohesion of his chase group (next to his own personal form which wasn't great anymore).

pblakeney

M.R.M. wrote:

Pretty sure this is the accepted general viewpoint.

General maybe, but there is the vocal bunch...

kleinstroker

PBlakeney wrote:

M.R.M. wrote:

Pretty sure this is the accepted general viewpoint.

General maybe, but there is the vocal bunch...

Pretty sure they all sat watching stage 19 with folded arms, muttering to themselves or tutting loudly. They could have enjoyed an amazing day but no, they just sat there refusing to believe their own eyes.