This Tour has taken a big turn for the boring. The bully is going to win, with or without his doped-up team.

AC sans whatever he was on a few years ago can't do jack about it. None of the "big guns" can. Echoes of Postal.

The green jersey is locked up.

So it's back to waiting for sprint stages. At least those don't require dope.

since the postal doping "program" required complicity by the UCI in order to succeed, then whatever the new "program" is could also be done with a similar handshake agreement.

alas my point about Cookson and Sky.
what's the bet that Porte is told to "sandbag it" after yesterday's effort? losing 10+ minutes on a stage when every other GC rider makes it...

also, i hope Vaughters post Martin's SRM file to show just what it took today. My bet is that they probably went along at 5.7-5.8w/kg on the climbs. Martin is one of my more "favored" riders, and i do hope that he's at least clean.

Vaughters>Brailsford.

I've met and talked to a lot of people in and around Garmin. If someone was doping on that team I'd be really surprised and would put it down to a case of someone being a dumbass as opposed to some systematic thing.

Garmin IS transparent...one of my teammates wrote the recent book on them and pretty much said he never ran into a closed door. Sky on the other hand played a lot of "today isn't good for us" with journalists.

I've heard of riders that don't like Vaughters as a person/manager. I've never heard of an issue of him on the issue of doping. He's been there. He knows what it's all about. He knows how much he doesn't like it on a very personal level.

At this point, the only thing that it going to stop the nonsense is the riders themselves. They need to self-police, and they don't. They need to stand up and criticize the _s4!7_ out of Sky. Don't ride with them. Let them ride a couple minutes up the road from the rest of the peloton. Make a farce out of the race until it changes. They won't do that, though, and what we saw tomorrow will continue.

While you're in the future, could you pick up a WSG and get me some closing prices ;)

I can only get my Delorean to 88mph every so often. You have to put in your orders ahead of time.



Ummmm....ya....how about 'yesterday'.

i thought this tweet from JV was sorta funny

and then someone posted this from Ireland

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BOle_9yCAAAhNe2.jpg

all of this, of course, in reference to

http://www.steephill.tv/2013/liege-b...C361096603.jpg

Today was interesting. Sky not looking so Postal with Porte failing utterly to repeat anything like yesterday's effort and Froome fending for himself. Long way to go, this isn't close to being over.

If Sky are doping it has to be institutionalised and systematic. Given the number of riders that have passed through their hands - and the fact that some of them have left in slightly acrimonious circumstances - I'd say it might be difficult to keep that quiet. And apart from a twenty-minute period yesterday, nobody has done anything superhuman.

Not planning to jump to any conclusions, personally. Let's wait and see what happens.

what I know is I'm not smart enough or connected enough to know if doping is done systematically, with a wink and a nod, or with riders going rogue.

Wish Movistar had traded off attacks on that last climb to try to put Froome into the red, but alas there were only a few half-moves from Quintana and that was it.

Then (it seemed like) Valverde yelled at him, and he backed off.. why??

Yea, it really is starting to look interesting. Movistar looked pretty good out there!

But if it's riders going rogue, the suggestion that the Sky team's consistency and collective efficiency is in itself evidence of doping would be unsustainable, wouldn't it? And given their legendary attention to detail (I don't think there's anything fake about that) I'd be pretty surprised if they weren't able to spot suspicious signs in the numbers turned out by a rogue rider. My view is, if they are doping it is probably organised by, or at least enabled by, the management.

And if they aren't, we'll see some more disasters like Porte's, today.

This is the problem... you can read what happened Saturday and Sunday pretty much however you want it. If you want to believe Sky's performance yesterday is definitive evidence of doping, you just say that Porte and the other Sky domestiques were told to ride badly today to prevent suspicion. If you are more optimistic, or at least more cautious in proclaiming the climb to Ax-3-Domaines as evidence of doping, you see yesterdays stage as a counterpoint, the expected result of a massive effort the day before.

I just don't think it's remotely reasonable to draw a firm conclusion either way. Personally, before Porte and especially Froome went on the rampage Saturday, I didn't think the Sky's vaunted train was looking all that impressive, and indeed if you subtract Porte's and Froome's efforts they didn't actually look to be "not normal," as a squad, not even as impressive as last year. And the domestiques who rode hard Saturday seemed to pay for it yesterday.

So I don't know what to think. I'm skeptical about the ride Froome did on Saturday, but I felt a good deal better about it after yesterday's stage. I'm also pretty skeptical about the supposition that Sky is on an organized program; most of the riders sure don't look like it. I think the biggest problem is, as discussed already, Sky's unwillingness to be transparent and release the data. They claim that it's too "noisy" and will be abused by alleged pseudoscientists, but without the data those same pseudoscientists are just going to estimate the numbers, and there's a lot more noise in those estimations. The problem with Sky is that, even if they are clean, they are acting as though they have something to hide, and that just isn't going to help them in the modern environment of skepticism and suspicion.

interesting podcast in which Mike Creed gives his opinion on Sky, and Froome, and doping. Listen from about 15 minutes in - as long as you don't mind bad language.

Head meet nail.

Their actions are deju vu Armstrong 2.0 to a scary degree.

Whether or not they are doping is almost secondary to them being completely full of sheet. I mean they were shocked to find out that the former Rabobank doctor they hired had a background of doping? And it took them a season to finally fire that guy while they were tossing guys like Julich under the bus to look like they were doing something while running away from questions.

They are transparent except they aren't going to give you any data or have an imbedded reporter. Especially if it's the guy who broke omerta.

And yes, anyone who questions them are psuedo scientists and wankers.

Full of sheet.

Yes, I agree with this. Whatever the truth about their cleanliness, Brailsford and his inner circle are arrogant, inward-looking and self-righteous. And they can't make up their minds about where they stand. To my knowledge they have twice invited journalists into the team only to think better of it, which looks appalling.

The only things that give me hope that they are just wankers, rather than cheats, are the huge difficulty of keeping a systematic doping programme quiet, and the fact that with the exception of last year's TdF, which suited them, they haven't looked remotely invulnerable. See the Vuelta last year, the Classics and Giro this year, Porte and Kiriyenka being toast on Sunday after their supposedly superhuman efforts on Saturday. If they are going Postal, they aren't actually very good at it.

Enough about Sky, how about that sprint today?! You know, the other guys that are doping..

If someone had done that to Cav, it seems like he'd be whining about it to no end. I guess the judges didn't seem to think much of it, so be it.

To be sure it wasn't an abnormal move in a sprint, but if someone isn't ready for a lean-in like that it seems like a dick move. It seemed like he did it on purpose to say "F you for letting this gap open in front of me, wanka".. maybe didn't expect dude to actually go down but still.

Anyway great to see Kittel upset the more obvious winners on the day!!

Having watched it again, I'd say it was a deliberate block by Veelers. he looks back at Cav before drifting right.

So T. Martin had blood on his crotch, nice.

Youch...what was cause or am I just naive?

Sucks for Cav..right or wrong in what he did yesterday fans did a disservice to cycling.

Nasty saddle sore I assume.. trying not to form a mental image!!

i'm so farkin' clueless i had no idea what this thread was about.

froomestrong. riding up the finishing climb head and shoulders above noted climbers contador (who hasnt got it), valverde, rodriguez, quintana, and others by over a minute. without ever really attacking, just lifting pace. not normal.

froomestrong. fighting a raging headwind he was able to nearly beat the 2 time TT world champion (who rode hours earlier when the headwind wasnt prominent). again, not normal.

froomestrong. going from someone no one had ever heard of to nearly winning a GT (vuelta 2011<?>) at the age of 26 and finishing 2nd in the TdF a year later. again, again, not normal.

if i were saxo or movistar ds, i'd be on the phone calling for a top secret meeting and collaboration. i wouldnt invite belkin because i think they're happy just being there with a shot at the podium.

Constantly improving in the young rider category like 11th than 6th(TdF). 2nd at british national TT in 2010. Top 15 finishes in 2011(i think it was 4th for the vuelta) on some big tours. 3rd in olympic TT. I mean sure it looks like he is doping and I probably have some tinted glasses as I do like the guy I just don't understand all the undue hate the guy has received?


edit: I take that back, wiggins was also not well received. Maybe it is the team?