Ineos Grenadiers

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.

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.

He’s been a massive loss

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.