How good is Chris Froome?

DeVlaeminck

I reckon Merckx as he was would still compete to win Roubaix and flatter races today. His hour record and the way he did it suggests his engine was comparable to the top guys today and he could sprint.

tangled_metal

So are there any past legend you'd rate against today's leading riders if they were transported to this era?

okgo

I reckon Mercx in Roubaix is a good call, that sort of race where being super light isn't a thing, and just hard racing and a monster engine. Flanders, Roubaix etc I think are the most likely ones.

rick_chasey

okgo wrote:

He was also on EPO.

Makes ya fast .

Lanterne_Rogue

Tangled Metal wrote:

So are there any past legend you'd rate against today's leading riders if they were transported to this era?

Beryl Burton.

And the usual caveat of "with modern sports science" might not apply for once.

(I also reckon Freddy Maertens would have been a cult figure in the current peloton amongst a certain cast of cycling fan, me included)

above_the_cows

underlayunderlay wrote:

Beryl Burton.

This should be the answer to all cycling questions.

milemuncher1

Tangled Metal wrote:

So are there any past legend you'd rate against today's leading riders if they were transported to this era?

Hinault, once a nutter, always a nutter.

tangled_metal

What about Anquetil? What was he like? Would he be the sort to achieve in a modern setting?

mamba80

Tangled Metal wrote:

What about Anquetil? What was he like? Would he be the sort to achieve in a modern setting?

he certainly didnt believe in drinking only water.....

i would say Sean Kelly, whether he was on some drug regime is another matter, likely. But he had the right mental attitude to perform well in the modern era.

what is more interesting ref Froome, is would other members of SKY also win if they rode for say, Landa instead, i mean is froome an amzing cyclist or is he the one they all sacrifice themselves for, so he gets to the sharp end fresh.

Personally, i am always slightly skeptical when a cyclist who is exceptional in the mountains, can also be up there with the Tony Mrrtins etc in a flat TT.

the more Sky/froome win, the less i enjoy watching pro cycling, they ruin the sport.

tangled_metal

Was Pedro Delgado and Roche any good / clean? I first got into watching TDF in the year Delgado cracked on a MTF stage but somehow fought back to within a few seconds of IIRC Roche. Heroic effort I thought at the time. If he's a drug cheat when he did that it'll be disappointing for me.

RichN95.

Transport any great rider directly from the 80s or before and they would struggle. But give any great post war rider modern training and a modern race schedule and they'd still win big races, just fewer of them.

Richmond Racer 2

Tangled Metal wrote:

Was Pedro Delgado and Roche any good / clean? I first got into watching TDF in the year Delgado cracked on a MTF stage but somehow fought back to within a few seconds of IIRC Roche. Heroic effort I thought at the time. If he's a drug cheat when he did that it'll be disappointing for me.

Roche was a Conconi client towards the end of his s career. An investigation found that he'd doped in 1993 with EPO but statute of limitations

Delgado...tested 'positive for probenecid in 88, but although banned by the IOC it wasnt due to be banned by the UCI till a few weeks later. Given what subsequently came out about doping, Uncle Tom Cobbley & all... yeah.

tangled_metal

I retrospectively thought they might be doped but dropped out of cycling spectating for the clean up years so from that year with the police raid onwards until year before Wiggins won it is almost a complete gap.

The point I was trying to make earlier has been made more clearly by Rich. Doping aside, if you had the sport science in the past that you have now to level the playing field is there a real difference in talent now? The game has changed to one of focusing on the main goal for the athlete. Froome has GTs and the TDF as number 1. Sagan might have the classics, etc.
I guess I'm saying in the past the top cyclists competed pretty much all the top races from what is called the classics to the GTs. That created a certain type of athlete. Would that athlete just get buried by the modern specialists? Were those talented riders who would thrive in today's sport not achieving in the sport as it was in Merkx's day?

If this is the case then what would happen if the UCI changed the sport to make a real incentive to compete for everything? A pure fantasy speculation obviously but if the rewards came based on winning more than just the big GTs would the cyclists change? How would they change? Who would be bossing the sport?

joey54321

I think it's a pretty hard question to answer for two reasons
1) Drugs. Many former champions of the sport were on something to a greater or lesser extent. They clearly had lots of natural talent but it's difficult to know what impact anything they were taking had on their performances. There is an argument that everyone was on the drugs and that levels the playing field but I don't think that's true. Some people will respond better/worse to different drugs. Given the anti doping controls going on now it's much harder and far less accepted to be doping and this may impact certain individuals more than others.

2) Psychology. With the rise of TV/internet and the globalisation and commercialization of the sport, there is far more pressure and celebrity status with riders in today's peloton, particularly with the top guys. Combine that with the fact that riders now tend to peak and race at 100% for smaller and shorter periods means that more emphasis is placed on a particular race or block (e.g. classics, TdeF). It's difficult to know how this might have effected some of the top riders of the past as I imagine it adds a lot pressure to perform on the day. [Something I think Froome has in spades is a particular mental fortitude].

EnacheV

wait until he retires

probably 2nd all time after Merckx

Bo Duke

mamba80 wrote:

the more Sky/froome win, the less i enjoy watching pro cycling, they ruin the sport.

Look at the improvement in all the teams since Sky got serious. Its like football, a club can spend big and bring in the best players but all other teams are also improving, its only a matter of time before they're toppled.

In the meantime they've taken a drug fuelled sport into the next level in both performance and accountability. Not just that but track cycling is also benefiting - overall the 'cycling industry' is far stronger as a result.

If Sky dissolved as a team tomorrow for funding etc.. reasons, their legacy would be very strong.

okgo

mamba80 wrote:

Tangled Metal wrote:

What about Anquetil? What was he like? Would he be the sort to achieve in a modern setting?

he certainly didnt believe in drinking only water.....

i would say Sean Kelly, whether he was on some drug regime is another matter, likely. But he had the right mental attitude to perform well in the modern era.

what is more interesting ref Froome, is would other members of SKY also win if they rode for say, Landa instead, i mean is froome an amzing cyclist or is he the one they all sacrifice themselves for, so he gets to the sharp end fresh.

Personally, i am always slightly skeptical when a cyclist who is exceptional in the mountains, can also be up there with the Tony Mrrtins etc in a flat TT.

the more Sky/froome win, the less i enjoy watching pro cycling, they ruin the sport.

You don't get much draft going up a hill, when his last man peels off he'll have been working very hard for the duration and then has to attack. He is the best rider they have, easily, for grand tours, hence they work for him. Landa looked quite strong in the TDF, but actually when given a chance to attack solo he got nowhere. And he has a penchant for losing stages by leading them out, not that bright.

I have never got why they're mutually exclusive. Most of the best GC men at the minute are big guys who've got super thin, Dumoulin, Froome, Wiggins even. They're all up around 70kg, but they have the engines. Personally I find it more odd when Contador or Porte smash everyone in a TT, they're tiny men, but perhaps these days the aero side of things has taken the small man being shit at TT thing out of the question.

They clearly are not ruining the sport. What a stupid thing to say.

imposter2.0

mamba80 wrote:

Personally, i am always slightly skeptical when a cyclist who is exceptional in the mountains, can also be up there with the Tony Mrrtins etc in a flat TT.

Dunno why. Climbing and TTing are two of the main features of many GC contenders.

milemuncher1

The thing about the best racers of a bygone era is, that they were clearly the best of their respective bunches, at having very repeatable, and consistent, and higher, average metrics such as Power to weight, than their peers. They had no way to gauge it, whilst riding, other that how they felt, and how they were performing, relative to the other riders, based on time gaps and race positions. A lot of the 'black arts' of road racing, have been nullified by ( for example )Power meters, the readings from which, have been made available to all and sundry, during a race. If a rider goes for a false break, it only takes one look at their power output, to tell whether it's a sustainable break, or a decoy. The other teams will be straight on the radios to their riders, to let them know, either way. I think it would be interesting to take a current top performer, and transport them back in time to a Merckx et al era, and see how they perform relatively, technologically blind.

okgo

While I agree that powermeters will be used when climbing, I doubt Sagan is paying much attention to his when he's smashed it up a cobbled climb in a classic etc.

imatfaal

And power reading are not open for all to see. Selected riders have been chosen by their teams for their power reading to be broadcast; these are often the team "stalwart" or mad attacker. They do not tend to be the main sprinter or the main GC contender

dinyull

I think the point is, that Froome (or any of the GC guys) can see their own power reading and know whether or not their competitor is going into the red and whether to cover it or not.

If they were riding blind it would be much harder to judge, based solely on feel.

milemuncher1

Dinyull wrote:

I think the point is, that Froome (or any of the GC guys) can see their own power reading and know whether or not their competitor is going into the red and whether to cover it or not.

If they were riding blind it would be much harder to judge, based solely on feel.

Exactly

okgo

That said, most decent riders know what an effort feels like. Plus they could just use heart rate.

davidof

Tangled Metal wrote:

Was Pedro Delgado and Roche any good / clean? I first got into watching TDF in the year Delgado cracked on a MTF stage but somehow fought back to within a few seconds of IIRC Roche. Heroic effort I thought at the time. If he's a drug cheat when he did that it'll be disappointing for me.

Isn't it the other way round? Roche cracked on the la Plagne finish in 1987 and Delgado thought he'd won the tour but Roche fought back to trail in just a few seconds on Delgado? Roche was on oxygen after the finish and was advised to go straight to bed. Instead he walked down to dinner - in a canteen shared with 5 other teams - and gave everyone a big smile and had dinner. Word got back to Delgado.


Next day he was still smiling and put the hammer down from the first km. Delgado was so psyched out by this he didn't attack as planned feeling Roche was too strong. The reality was Roche could barely keep up.

bobmcstuff

Dinyull wrote:

I think the point is, that Froome (or any of the GC guys) can see their own power reading and know whether or not their competitor is going into the red and whether to cover it or not.

If they were riding blind it would be much harder to judge, based solely on feel.

I don't think it would make so much difference, given they all train with power so know what certain power feels like. Pacing is a trainable skill.

Also see fairly frequently winning riders with tape over their power number on their head unit- you don't need to see a number to know when you're going deep.

I think people read way too much into the impact of powermeters in races. Maybe if you could get rid of them in training too, but it's not like we never saw mountain trains etc in the pre power meter era.

People just like a whinge.

Lanterne_Rogue

bobmcstuff wrote:

Dinyull wrote:

I think the point is, that Froome (or any of the GC guys) can see their own power reading and know whether or not their competitor is going into the red and whether to cover it or not.

If they were riding blind it would be much harder to judge, based solely on feel.

I don't think it would make so much difference, given they all train with power so know what certain power feels like. Pacing is a trainable skill.

Also see fairly frequently winning riders with tape over their power number on their head unit- you don't need to see a number to know when you're going deep.

I think people read way too much into the impact of powermeters in races. Maybe if you could get rid of them in training too, but it's not like we never saw mountain trains etc in the pre power meter era.

People just like a whinge.

Seem to remember Froome himself saying that you can't ride to numbers - the best you can do is to think "I'm knocking out x watts and feeling good, so must be on a good day". I find the perception of them quite interesting though - it seems to me to be one of those things where people see accurate numbers and assume that they're meaningful in and of themselves, rather than a proxy for something else. The idea that your own numbers tell you precisely what anyone else is doing, or how they're feeling, is a particular stretch - riders aren't machines giving a reliable, consistent output. We see riders overcook themselves all the time - if they can't guess their own limit reliably, how on earth are they supposed to guess somebody else's?

It's just struck me, actually, that a bit of gamesmanship from Sky might be responsible for the obsession. Wiggins was pretty good at riding to a consistent power output, and that was the tactic in the mountains - simply grind everyone else off. Feeding the idea that he was somehow superhuman and just riding remorselessly to a given number might have been an attempt to demoralise everyone else by emphasising how much he was in control.

mamba80

okgo wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

Tangled Metal wrote:

What about Anquetil? What was he like? Would he be the sort to achieve in a modern setting?

he certainly didnt believe in drinking only water.....

i would say Sean Kelly, whether he was on some drug regime is another matter, likely. But he had the right mental attitude to perform well in the modern era.

what is more interesting ref Froome, is would other members of SKY also win if they rode for say, Landa instead, i mean is froome an amzing cyclist or is he the one they all sacrifice themselves for, so he gets to the sharp end fresh.

Personally, i am always slightly skeptical when a cyclist who is exceptional in the mountains, can also be up there with the Tony Mrrtins etc in a flat TT.

the more Sky/froome win, the less i enjoy watching pro cycling, they ruin the sport.

You don't get much draft going up a hill, when his last man peels off he'll have been working very hard for the duration and then has to attack. He is the best rider they have, easily, for grand tours, hence they work for him. Landa looked quite strong in the TDF, but actually when given a chance to attack solo he got nowhere. And he has a penchant for losing stages by leading them out, not that bright.

I have never got why they're mutually exclusive. Most of the best GC men at the minute are big guys who've got super thin, Dumoulin, Froome, Wiggins even. They're all up around 70kg, but they have the engines. Personally I find it more odd when Contador or Porte smash everyone in a TT, they're tiny men, but perhaps these days the aero side of things has taken the small man being shoot at TT thing out of the question.

They clearly are not ruining the sport. What a stupid thing to say.

why is that? the only opinion that matters is yours?
in any sport, if a team dominates, its detracts from the spectacle, an obv example is F1, at times it has become a race for 3rd place, same in the TDF, we all know that barring an accident, SKY will dominate, year in and year out, we get threads on how boring the route is etc etc it doesnt matter, its SKY that makes it boring!!!

I ve always looked fwd to the Vuelta for this reason but now SKY have targeted this race also..... exciting routes... made boring..... but yes i should have said for me it ruins the sport, you have a different view and like boring predictable racing :oops:

re big guys who have become thinner... odd that isnt it, time wil out if this is genuine or not but yes Contador/Porte should nt be smashing TT's and rarely do either.

milemuncher1

Drop weight at the same Power, and your Power / weight goes up. Power / weight is a good metric to have in the bag, but what actually matters is results. It's no good having a power to weight if 7-8 W/Kg, if you can't stay upright, and win stuff.

hypster

mamba80 wrote:

why is that? the only opinion that matters is yours?
in any sport, if a team dominates, its detracts from the spectacle, an obv example is F1, at times it has become a race for 3rd place, same in the TDF, we all know that barring an accident, SKY will dominate, year in and year out, we get threads on how boring the route is etc etc it doesnt matter, its SKY that makes it boring!!!

I ve always looked fwd to the Vuelta for this reason but now SKY have targeted this race also..... exciting routes... made boring..... but yes i should have said for me it ruins the sport, you have a different view and like boring predictable racing :oops:

re big guys who have become thinner... odd that isnt it, time wil out if this is genuine or not but yes Contador/Porte should nt be smashing TT's and rarely do either.

What utter drivel! Sky are dominant at the moment because they have the best rider in the World and they have taken the single-minded approach to put together a team to back him to the hilt in their goal to win the TdF and now the Vuelta. Other teams struggle because their strategy is usually less focussed and they don't put the whole weight of the team behind one nominated leader.

The racing is only boring for you because your personal favourite is constantly getting hammered. For me pro cycling has never been as exciting since Sky came into being.