Ineos Grenadiers
Comments
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Very good point on the training side of things.
Sir Jim did an interview on Bloomberg recently where he was talking about Man Utd. He mentioned all the money spent and the managers that they had over the last 10 years and said they were on the whole good managers. The issue was the infrastructure and methods/training and that’s what he’s aiming g to fix first. He’s ensuring the right people are there for the players and the methods are cutting edge.
I wonder if he’s got the same enthusiasm for the cycling team because that’s exactly what Team Sky was like.
Grenadiers have some decent riders, they just need developed properly.
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I think with Ganna, and maybe Tarling and Pidcock, the Olympics threw a bit of a spanner in the works this season (and maybe last year a bit).
But Ineos don't have the magic dust anymore - everyone else warms down on rollers, everyone else bought a huge luxury bus, everyone else got a kitchen truck with a nutritionist-chef and everyone else takes their own bedding on tour now. The modernisation of cycling Sky brought was revolutionary - similar to what Wenger did to a boozy, junk-food eating Premier League - but mainly easy to replicate with a bit of cash.
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I still think the departure of Tim Kerrison has been the main factor in the Ineos decline. He showed repeatedly that if you gave him a rider with the physical capabilities to win GTs, then he could get them to the start line with the condition to achieve that.
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What fuelling strategy can help in a time trial that is usually done and dusted in an hour?
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He’s been a massive loss
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Maybe the issue isn't with Ineos? Think back to when Thomas won his Tour, he was comfortably 3 minutes ahead of Roglic in that race. The problem is, the watts that would get you a GT win 6 years ago make you an also ran today. Something has happened to turbo charge the sport in a few years, and whatever it is, Ineos aren't doing it. Maybe the team that shot to fame for marginal gains is missing what appears to be a huge elephant in the room, but that hardly seems likely.
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Ah no, misunderstanding, I wasn't clear.
I meant potentially fuelling strategies in general stage or one day racing, not TT's specifically, as you rightly say, most are over in less than an hour.
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Given that TTs almost only occur in stage races (aside from Worlds, Euros, national and Olympics) then fuling strategy in the days before that single hour of effort are probably quite important, especially for a 3rd week of a GT TT.
Sky mainly picked the fruit that wasn't so much "low hanging" as packaged in crates and ready to go. They coupled that with buying domestiques that could (and did) lead other teams and having a few exceptional athletes that could bring home the wins. I don't think they were particularly cutting edge in sports science, just ahead of all the other fairly old fashioned cycling teams, and with the cash to do something about it.
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That's some quite spectacular rewriting of history
To suggest that the team have gone from leading the sport (by a margin) to being dullards in a handful of years seems fanciful in the extreme. Equally, we have to remember that it's not exactly Gianetti's first rodeo. I don't recall Saunier Duval ripping up trees scientifically back in the day (I remember them ripping up trees pharmaceutically), yet now we're expected to believe that they've jumped ahead because Pogacar is doing things never seen before?
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The most likely reason they've jumped ahead, is because they have the biggest budget and, in terms of rider recruitment, are doing exactly what Sky did, i.e. buying in riders who'd be GC leaders on other teams to ride in service of Pogacar.
If you're going to throw around doping accusations, I think you need to provide evidence to back this up. Your only evidence is Gianetti's (very) murky past, but there are literally dozens of people involved in team management who have similar backgrounds.
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So it's okay to suggest improvements are due to unfounded changes in nutrition and training (I suppose at least we're not claiming a high cadence to be the reason), but not doping? Despite the history of both the sport and the people leading these teams? It's also worth remembering that Armstrong wasn't busted due to evidence or a failed test, but whistleblowers. I can't say I'm that confident of people being busted even if they are taken who knows what.
Re teammates, lest we forget, the likes of Yates and Sivakov were recently at Ineos, and I don't recall whomever was the team leader getting close to Pogacar et al when they were. Equally, it's hard to see how those people are much use when the team leader attacks from 40+ km out and rides solo for such a huge chunk of the race. I mean we saw on Saturday Pog putting huge chunks of time into the recently crowned World TT champion on the flat.
What we're seeing at the moment is unprecedented, and despite pretty much every cyclist since the sport began taking stuff they shouldn't be, we're suddenly supposed to believe that the sport has become rocket-powered since Covid to the extent that not only are times incomparable to 2019 but they're also smashing times from the darkest EPO period. At what point do people stop believing and thinking what they're seeing just doesn't add up? What would your point be Andy?
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My breaking point would be when evidence is provided instead of simple doubts and scepticism. As it was with LA., or even David Millar.
I heard an interview with Matej Mohoric recently where he said that nutrition and diet was playing a huge part in the peloton’s speed. I’ll accept that until proven otherwise.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.3 -
That's some tasty nutrition then. Paris Roubaix, for instance, was routinely run at around 5h50m during the 2010s before suddenly having 30 minutes lopped off. Changes in food in the last five years have had the same impact on speed as the introduction of EPO. Miraculous.
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You believe that £20k bikes, clothing, nutritionists, chefs and comfortable beds are a waste of money. Fine.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.2 -
Pretty much every interview with a rider now, especially one who's been in the peloton for a long time, talks about the huge changes they've seen in nutrition, and that riders are consuming figures of 120 grams of carbohydrate an hour during races. In Sky days the accepted wisdom was that a rider could not consume more than 70 grams of carbs an hour, so any claim that nutrition has changed are well founded.
I've no idea if Pogacar and UAE are doping or not, but as the best funded team they are able to put more money into more areas to ensure that everything is done to the highest level they can, just as Sky did. They hire the best riders, just as Sky did, they even outdo Sky in terms of talent identifying and development.
You cite Armstrong, but there was huge amounts of very clear evidence that something was afoot for years, i.e. team stuff dumping medical packaging in bins in lay-bys, which included packaging for banned substances, the working relationship with Dr Ferrari, who was known to provide the best doping plans, the unusual donations to the UCI after the TUE that wasn't, the bullying of any dissenting voice and the pile ons on anyone who dared challenge him.
I have seen nothing like this with Pogacar, but if others have then they should share it.
Performance always improves over time, that's one thing we should all know about sport, as accepted wisdom is challenged and new theories are tested and proven. It might be that Pogacar is doping, only time will tell us that, but so far the amount of evidence to back any accusations up is virtually non-existent.
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It's interesting that these enormous gains from food and nutrition haven't found their way into things like ultra-endurance cycling, where you might argue they'd be even more important. The times for Race Across America or Race Across the Alps are pretty consistent year on year.
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You're not comparing like with like. Most ultra endurance races are unsupported and riders only recourse to resupply is to stop and buy food in service stations and convenience shops.
A friend of mine, who has won the Transcontinental Race, describes ultra endurance racing as a bicycle mounted eating competition. His nutrition during these races is incredibly unhealthy as he just eats whatever high calorie food he can find and/or stomach at that point. It's not like he has a chef waiting to cook him a healthy meal at the end of the day, unlike the pro peloton.
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Do you actually watch any cycling and listen to the participants afterwards? They all say the way races are ridden has changed, and that the speeds are much faster now than even five years ago. Gone are the days when the break would go early on, then the peloton would peg the gap at five minutes then accelerate in the last couple of hours to bring it back. Now if a break gets three minutes it's unusual and the teams of the riders wanting to win the race are riding hard all day.
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It was my impression that it wasn't the chefs providing the gains but rather new gels and drinks that supposedly allow riders to digest more carbs than they otherwise could. I presume your friend must be using the same products in his races?
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It's the 'double whammy' of advancements in tech, and nutrition. The racing from the gun, and very little let up.
I've no idea if there's large scale doping, and until something is revealed, then I'm open minded.
As for Pogacar, I think he might be a genetic freak, and the human version of the 60's superhorse Arkle; who had a separate handicap system devised purely for races he ran in; his rating of 212 has never been surpassed, and likely never will.
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I've been watching cycling for around 30 years, so no need for the patronising remarks. I would ponder, if the riders are racing from the drop of the flag, how it's possible that those same riders appear fresh enough to obliterate the times up the climbs of some of the most notorious dopers, or as we see increasingly with Pogacar to simply ride away from the peloton at will, despite the pack seemingly being on the rivet. As I said earlier, he put minutes into the world TT champion on the flat on Saturday (and about 4 minutes into the rest).
I remember George Bennett referring to Froome's attack as "doing a Landis", but now that kind of thing is happening in every single race (incidentally, Bennett himself is someone who hasn't managed to keep up with the step change in pace since 2019 as he's gone from a regular top 10 to the autobus).
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You might remember that a lot was made about how Sky planned the exact nutrition requirements to sustain Froome's Giro attack, placing multiple team members on the route to give him the nutrition.
Every team is now basically doing that for every rider in every race
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Evenepoel said before the race that he was tired and looking forward to the end of the season. He's also done more race days, 61 to 58, than Pogacar, despite being out injured for a few weeks after the Basque Country crash, so he might have been more fatigued.
I think Pogacar sees Evenepoel as a potential challenger, so from a psychological perspective, I think he purposefully rode hard on the descent and on the valley road, and that road is definitely not flat as you are descending most of the time, at a fairly shallow gradient, because he wanted to get in Evenepoel's head and give him a real sense of defeat. For all the happy persona he projects, he also has that winner's mentality where he knows when to twist the metaphorical knife.
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The bikes are significantly quicker now than even 10 years ago.
There has been a significant advance in nutrition both on and off the bike in the last few years.
Riders have grown up training with power metres and understand their bodies much better.
More riders have proper coaches, and proper training plans than even 10 years ago.
Pogacar is a once in a (couple of) generation athelete.
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Exactly. Suggesting doping is such a lazy and tired answer.
We can't completely rule it out of course, but from that list there are a number of things that will deliver significant performance gains in their own right. For example I know my own aero disc brake bike is significantly faster than my old rim braked race bike to the tune either tens of watts or a couple of kph, so adding that plus nutrition, riding style, great rider, great team etc. all of which are worth at least as much - it's no wonder times are dropping and records are being broken.
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Well summed up, a collective improvement in many aspects of the sport over the last several years adds up significantly.
There could be doping, but until I see any hard evidence, it's certainly not going to be my default assumption, if I was of that mindset I'd simply stop watching the sport.
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I am not going to add to the are they or aren't they debate on doping. One interesting observation that I don't see mentioned with regards Pogacar is the definition of Zone 2. A lot of focus on his training is how much time he spends at what he and his coaches term Zone 2. Listening to his explanation and the numbers, I think this is actually more akin to Zone 3 or Tempo as we know it, based on Coggan's power zones. When I First did lab testing years back, the sports/ex scientist recommended 'Zone 2' to me (which was actually Zone 3, similar to Pogacar).
Pogacar says he regularly does 4-5 hours at this intensity which really is insane (go out and try 90mins at true tempo and see how it feels!). I have long suspected that the idea of doing 5 or 6 hours at LSD, maybe 45-60% of FTP is nowhere near as effective as shorter bursts at 75-85% of FTP.
I am not making a comment on whether or not I believe Pogacar is clean, simply that his ability to train huge volumes at such high intensity is IMO a big reason for his performances.
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He will be using them, but can't single handedly carry enough with him for the entire race due to it's length.
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Not sure that comparison applies, since it's different people causing the speed increase. There was no MvdP, WVA, Mads Pedersen etc. 10 years ago. The human race moves on in every sport. Romain Bardet has also mentioned oftentimes that the power values that got him a Tour podium are barely enough for a top 10 nowadays.
FWIW my speeds and power have also dramatically increased in both races and training through structured training, trying to consume more than 80-100g of carbs and more aero gear. Sustaining more than 5 W/kg isn't something I thought would ever be possible for myself and I still get my ass handed to me by conti pro's.
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4 or 5 hours at z2 or z3 is insane? That is what I do on a regular basis in the summer. I may be an outlier though based on an actual maximum HR of 187 in June and a resting HR of 44.
Based on power instead of HR? My ftp is 272W so riding at 200W for hours is fairly easy. I would full expect any pro to be many levels above that, Pog especially so.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0
