thechemist

I thought about posting this in stage 10 but after the initial interviews Cav really didn't apologize. He basically came out and said he was in the right, granted what happened to him today in the TT was not deserved.

I like the TT's simply in that I learn from them. I like seeing what helmet position they are in, how they ride over elevation, pedal stroke etc.

cthenn

BTW, Froome ran a 56x11 today. FIFTY SIX BY ELEVEN! Forget The Chicken...we have The Skeleton...and he TT's on a 56x11? Ridiculous, mutant power on a flat TT.

Oh, and he soft pedaled the last timecheck.

reef58

I agree they have talent to some degree, but which Sky rider won a Grand Tour prior to coming to Sky? How many podium finishes did the collective team have before coming to Sky? Some say the field is weak, but you have 3 past winners in this Tour. If you removed Sky from the equation this Tour may look similar to 2010 or 2011. The only difference is Sky. You have a guy , Froome, who went from being an obscure rider for the most part to dropping climbers like they were sprinters, and dominating flat time trials. If the guy was a prodigy I would just say, "wow he is good".

Cat4Lifer

So, Froome coming outta "nowhere" and winning stage-races left and right and dominating this year's Tour is proof of doping?!
It's not as if a rider hasn't before come outta nowhere to win stage-races left and right and dominate the Tour.
We need only to look back to the 90's and Indurain to see that this isn't unheard-of, and...oh ****, maybe he is doping.

Bacciagalupe

I'm not sure what that proves.

It's not like Sky has access to drugs that no one else can get. If Froome can get away with it, so can Valverde or Contador or Schleck or Evans or Cavendish, or any other top rider, or any team.


Schleck is still recovering from his injuries and being out. Evans is 36, and both he and TVG blew up on the same day. The days of Contador winning every GT he enters has been over for awhile.


The guy is skinny, has a lot of power, can TT, was pretty ill for a few years, took 2nd place last year. And like anyone else, he could lose the whole race with one bad day.

Ultimately, accusations based on performance doesn't work, because someone is going to be in first place, and someone is either going to be strong when others are weak, or put in a more consistent performance than everyone else.

reef58

Without watching Froome 24/7 I can't say 100%. I am surprised he is dominating so handily the likes of Alberto Contador. It wasn't long ago Contador was being hyped as one of the best stage racers in recent history, and now he will be beaten by 5 minutes or more by a guy up until 2 years ago hadn't had much success at all. Some may same Contador is on poor form, but it seems to me everyone is on their regular form, but Froome is on another level.

Rich Gibson 

Dinan

reef58

Evans, Schleck, TVG, and Contador, among others all cracked on the same day. 3 prior Tour winners not just beaten on a stage, but rather rode into the ground. What does that prove? Nothing I guess. It is odd that is all.

cincipeddler

Maybe team sky and the olympics squads really are just an incredibly well trained and disciplined bunch.............seem untouchable the last few years, very much like those east german gymnastics regimes from yester year.

Whatever it is, they are clearly doing something ''right'', its just a little odd that no other cycling team out there seems to be able to come close to training in the same way, it surely can't be one big secret regime can it, riders move teams, why doesn't rogers turn around and say ''hold on, this is how we trained at sky''?

UNLV_REB

Will someone please get Contador a steak so that he can challenge Froome? Please... these next two weeks are going to be boring otherwise.

ultraman6970

They have been using 54 and 56 for TTs for many many years now... lemond I believe that famous TT with a 55...

Leinster

That was the same with all those Lancetenants who moved on from Postal/Disco to other teams and went from being the guy who led the train and dropped all the other contenders, to being one of those other contenders who got dropped by the train. I guess Landis and Hamilton and Heras et al thought they were going to still have all the same old secrets, but they didn't.

Leinster

The TT finished at a lower elevation that it started, so must've been mostly downhill, and partly tailwind. The Shimano team all had 54x11 on for the sprint on Tuesday. Just because he had the 11 on board doesn't mean he used it, but better to have it and not need it and all that; I have a 52x12 that I never touch except down the steepest hills, but on the rare occasions I want it, I'm glad it's there.

bigfred 

I'm just amazed that people are commenting as though Froome has come from nowhere after having spent most of the '12 TDF listening to people talk about how they thought Froome looked stronger than Wiggins and should be leading the team instead. Bla, bla, bla. Well, now he is.

chasm54

OK, I preface this by saying that I am agnostic on whether Sky are clean or not. However, one thing they certainly can claim, with justice, is that they do train more systematically than other teams. No other team takes its whole squad away for six weeks at a time to do high-intensity altitude training, as Sky do. Individual riders do it. Maybe even two or three on the same team. Sky takes the whole bunch that are in contention for the Tour squad. Why don't the others do it? Money is one reason, Sky have a budget that is stratospheric compared with most of the other teams.

In Spain, during the winter, I met a young pro on the Lotto Belisol team. He isn't one of their top guys yet but he has ridden in and finished the Giro in each of the last two years. He was, effectively, left to his own devices throughout the winter, training on his own, sending his power files back to his coach but essentially doing what felt right to him without supervision. I thought that was remarkable, he thought it was perfectly normal.

You might be interested in this podcast in which Mike Creed talks about Sky, their training, and the doping allegations. It's long. Start listening at about 15 minutes in. The language is pretty ripe, so be warned if that sort of thing offends you.

Grumpy McTrumpy

6 weeks where they get to have blood samples exempted from the Biological Passport.

Bacciagalupe

Why would they be "exempt"? They're doing out-of-season tests, and are required to notify the UCI of their location so they can be tested.

Grumpy McTrumpy

High Altitude samples are discarded.

Grumpy McTrumpy

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...1.01822.x/full

Bacciagalupe

So stage 9 looked like team-wide dominance to you? Seriously? Everyone except Froome blew up.

Is Quintana doping? He came out of nowhere (1st year pro) and was able to attack Froome several times.


Cavendish has been insanely dominant for years. Do you plan to accuse him as well?

Plus, if Wiggins and Porte are doping, are they doing it wrong? Wiggins couldn't even make it to the TdF, and Porte lost 17 minutes in a single stage.

And again, it doesn't make sense that Sky and only Sky are capable of doping. Anything drugs they can get, so can any other rider on any other team.


Just because a rider knows Sky's training regime doesn't mean other teams adopt it, or can afford it, especially in a single year.

And if that "secret" regime is just getting riders together to build some cohesion and develop tactics, then yeah, that can be a huge advantage that other teams might not bother to replicate.

Nor does it make sense to say "he's #1 , they must be doping." Because someone is always going to be #1 . And in an event like the Tour de France, it's the one guy who looks better than the riders who are at the absolute top of the field.

Grumpy McTrumpy

reef58

Maybe he is, but he is also almost 5 minutes down. He also has a pedigree as a climber. His attacks were covered fairly easily and in one case he was then promptly dropped like a rock.

Froome winning the Tour I can buy that. Froome crushing everyone that is a different matter all together.

Bacciagalupe

I'm not so sure. Pellizotti got tested when he was at Tenerife, which is up there (12,198 ft). Wiggins trained at Tenerife last year, and Sky trained at Mallorca this year (around 4,000 ft).

The rider can suggest that altitude training threw off testing values. CONI bought it for Pellizotti, but the UCI and CAS did not.

Grumpy McTrumpy

testing can be for a whole lot of things. biological passports track blood doping markers and are only one of those things.

Bacciagalupe

Right, so last year he didn't beat Nibali by 3 minutes, Van Den Brouck by 7', TVG by 8, Evans by 12'.... Yeah.

And again, we've basically only had 1 mountain finish and 1 ITT. Yes, the deficits are big, but it's a long race, and Team Sky is not looking anywhere near as strong as last year.

I'm with Bigfred on this one. Last year, tons of Intarnet denizens were screeching like the Furies because Froome was being held back to help Wiggins on a few climbs. Now that Wiggins is out, it suddenly makes no sense that Froome is basically performing as well as he did last year? Really?