Cycling thread


Walken said:
Anyone who disagrees with Bruce is a 'parasite', he's not far off attempting a citizens arrest here
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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2017/jul/05/dave-brailsford-team-sky-bumptious-cycling is an example of what I mean. She hasn't written a single cycling article in the past year. Nothing about the many races that take place throughout the calendar. Nada. Yet she feels sufficiently emboldened to write an article attacking the man, despite it being laden with errors and mistakes, all so she can fulfill her editorial quota and get some page views. Parasite.
 
Bruce Wayne said:
For me, you give someone the benefit of the doubt until they give you reason not to. I'd apply that to anyone to be honest, whether team or rider. Now this may be the British (or English speaking at least) point of view, but there is a sense that the traditional cycling nations don't like Sky because they challenge their mindset, that riding and training in the old fashioned way is just fine, and you can only improve on it by using drugs. It underpins the sneering approach to 'marginal gains', despite most of the things they've done since entering the sport having been subsequently copied by the other teams.

To a large extent that applies to their style of racing as well. If you look at the hour record, you won't have riders 'attacking', it'll be a constant (very high) pace. With Wiggins as GC leader, that's what Sky tried to boil a mountain down to - an hour time trial at a constant pace, hence the train. Wiggins wasn't a great climber by any means, but he could time trial well.

Now of course, that style of racing was quite robotic, hence why they never did well in the classics, or in less controllable GTs such as the Giro, but their style has been copied by other teams.

It isn't exciting. It isn't emotional or charismatic, and as someone that got into cycling via Pantani, it's about as far from his style of racing as you can imagine, but it is effective, and I can appreciate teams/riders that wring everything out of themselves, even if it isn't exciting to watch, and I'm not sure it's an approach that warrants the constant stream of accusations with very little substance to them. In Britain at least, our media have a long history of building up heroes only to try and knock them down. Nothing changes in the 'hero', but rather in us. Sky/British Cycling have reached that point now, and they're attracting gossip mongers who have their own agendas to push, and with very little interest in cycling. The sport will be around long after these parasites have latched onto something else to get their pound of flesh.
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It's quite simple why nobody likes Sky tbh. I think it boils down to arrogance, and having no respect once so ever for the traditions of the sport and downright bullying behaviour. The problem is I don't think you want to see their arrogance; compare it to any other team (you can even compare to US Postal if you like). Ask questions or even simple observations and get blocked or whatever. It can be an innocent observation like; the cadance of Froome reminds me a lot Armstrong's cadance. Already was there from the beginning, but I chose a more recent example.



Or maybe it's the hypocrisy? Their very very peculiar form of no needle policy. Or the lost laptops or whatever. Or Leinders. Could go on but don't. Their whole holier than thou attitude?

I agree a lot they could learn from; for instance the TT gear of Bardet was nothing more than a joke and apparently he doesn't even do decent practice on his TT bike (according to Bakelands, his teammate).

I won't even go into their style of racing. It's atrocious. As long as that eh style is reserved for the TdF I'm quite happy tbf. Luckily they can't do that in the classics.

Don't have an issue with Marina Hyde her columns; it's in style with most of her columns. That being said I acknowledge that the British press is the most ferocious in Europe. The thing is they apply this to everything and everyone. But who knows maybe you'll get lucky and Rupert Murdoch takes over Sky and it all goes away a bit - at least in his newspapers (I haven't followed the saga; maybe it has already succeeded or such; I don't know).
 
Armel said:
It's quite simple why nobody likes Sky tbh. I think it boils down to arrogance, and having no respect once so ever for the traditions of the sport and downright bullying behaviour. The problem is I don't think you want to see their arrogance; compare it to any other team (you can even compare to US Postal if you like). Ask questions or even simple observations and get blocked or whatever. It can be an innocent observation like; the cadance of Froome reminds me a lot Armstrong's cadance. Already was there from the beginning, but I chose a more recent example.



Or maybe it's the hypocrisy? Their very very peculiar form of no needle policy. Or the lost laptops or whatever. Or Leinders. Could go on but don't. Their whole holier than thou attitude?

I agree a lot they could learn from; for instance the TT gear of Bardet was nothing more than a joke and apparently he doesn't even do decent practice on his TT bike (according to Bakelands, his teammate).

I won't even go into their style of racing. It's atrocious. As long as that eh style is reserved for the TdF I'm quite happy tbf. Luckily they can't do that in the classics.

Don't have an issue with Marina Hyde her columns; it's in style with most of her columns. That being said I acknowledge that the British press is the most ferocious in Europe. The thing is they apply this to everything and everyone. But who knows maybe you'll get lucky and Rupert Murdoch takes over Sky and it all goes away a bit - at least in his newspapers (I haven't followed the saga; maybe it has already succeeded or such; I don't know).
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Absolutely spot on.
 
William Fotheringham has been laying the shoes on Froome all tour, as per, and rounds things off with another negative article in the guardian today saying he's done - over the hill and on the slide.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/b...hris-froome-will-not-win-five-tours-de-france

Sticking his neck out there somewhat - need to see what Froome looks like in the Vuelta before making these sort of predictions, but he's so anti-Froome it can't be taken as any sort of serious analysis.
Fotheringham is also retiring from covering the Tour - great cycling journalist (up until recently) and writer, remember reading his Tour reports years back when it had very little mainstream coverage in the UK media.
 

Black Belt Jones said:
William Fotheringham has been laying the shoes on Froome all tour, as per, and rounds things off with another negative article in the guardian today saying he's done - over the hill and on the slide.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/b...hris-froome-will-not-win-five-tours-de-france

Sticking his neck out there somewhat - need to see what Froome looks like in the Vuelta before making these sort of predictions, but he's so anti-Froome it can't be taken as any sort of serious analysis.
Fotheringham is also retiring from covering the Tour - great cycling journalist (up until recently) and writer, remember reading his Tour reports years back when it had very little mainstream coverage in the UK media.
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It is an odd thing to say. As one of the comments said, it's akin to posting an article straight after Speith's win in the golf saying he'll never win another major. I'm just not sure what the point of it is, and to be honest I'm not sure who the contenders are at the moment.

Porte has looked great this year, but is the same age as Froome and shown little sign that he can string it together across a GT. Quintana has had a funny old year and looked some way off of his best. Dumoulin did well in the Giro but I can't really see him challenging Froome. Nibali is also 32 and whilst he's an incredibly canny racer, I suspect he's not quite at that level. Bardet is clearly a talent but didn't really show any signs that he had the beating of Froome in a Tour that was built for him. Landa is clearly a talent, but can he string it together as a team leader?

The last few Vueltas have offered up perhaps the best indication, as teams have teamed up on Sky a bit to try and ambush them. You sense that's more possible in the Vuelta though because the Sky team isn't quite as strong as their Tour team. Should be a good race though, and the Vuelta has had a breath of life in recent years, with strong fields customary from those who did the Giro, and those who underperformed at the Tour combining to make a decent lineup.
 
Bruce Wayne said:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2017/jul/05/dave-brailsford-team-sky-bumptious-cycling is an example of what I mean. She hasn't written a single cycling article in the past year. Nothing about the many races that take place throughout the calendar. Nada. Yet she feels sufficiently emboldened to write an article attacking the man, despite it being laden with errors and mistakes, all so she can fulfill her editorial quota and get some page views. Parasite.
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she no parasite. Well respected, experienced journalist. Writes on a broad range of topics, royal family, Brexit, ukip, FIFA, tennis, prem league. Sadly no Everton so far. Some pieces I agree with, others I don't. Thought the Brailsford piece was more or less bang on. Certainly not laden with errors and mistakes. Given the subject range above I'm sure she doesn't have to write about cycling to fulfil her editorial quota, why would she?
I stopped counting when I found about 5 articles she's written on cycling in the past year or so.
 
Blue toffee said:
she no parasite. Well respected, experienced journalist. Writes on a broad range of topics, royal family, Brexit, ukip, FIFA, tennis, prem league. Sadly no Everton so far. Some pieces I agree with, others I don't. Thought the Brailsford piece was more or less bang on. Certainly not laden with errors and mistakes. Given the subject range above I'm sure she doesn't have to write about cycling to fulfil her editorial quota, why would she?
I stopped counting when I found about 5 articles she's written on cycling in the past year or so.
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Proof bruce hates women as well as the working classes
 
Blue toffee said:
she no parasite. Well respected, experienced journalist. Writes on a broad range of topics, royal family, Brexit, ukip, FIFA, tennis, prem league. Sadly no Everton so far. Some pieces I agree with, others I don't. Thought the Brailsford piece was more or less bang on. Certainly not laden with errors and mistakes. Given the subject range above I'm sure she doesn't have to write about cycling to fulfil her editorial quota, why would she?
I stopped counting when I found about 5 articles she's written on cycling in the past year or so.
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She's OK - tragic Piers Morgan connections aside. She hasn't written a single article about cycling that I've ever seen - you think Hyde chipping in with the 97th piece on isn't Shane Sutton sexist eh? counts as an article about cycling? She has no discernible interest, passion, or knowledge of cycling and is just phoning in some drivel on the personalities involved because it's in the news and that's her job.
 

Blue toffee said:
she no parasite. Well respected, experienced journalist. Writes on a broad range of topics, royal family, Brexit, ukip, FIFA, tennis, prem league. Sadly no Everton so far. Some pieces I agree with, others I don't. Thought the Brailsford piece was more or less bang on. Certainly not laden with errors and mistakes. Given the subject range above I'm sure she doesn't have to write about cycling to fulfil her editorial quota, why would she?
I stopped counting when I found about 5 articles she's written on cycling in the past year or so.
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Yes mate; I am also finding it quite odd that we're discussing whether she (or somebody else) has the right to write about something cycling related. We're not discussing the content of the article but the person Marina Hyde; argumentum ad hominem. Does she have enough passion for the sport or knowledge of cycling to write about something borderline cycling related. The article is about his style of communication and recent failures (like the failure to keep track of medical records); all written in a humorous way, not nasty in any way.

Quite a sad affair in my view; it's not like e.g the article in a certain French newspaper (more a low-level tabloid) claiming that Froome is under investigation for mechanical doping in the previous Tour without any proof once so ever. The unsubstantiated mechanical doping article: not cool, Marina Hyde's article: acceptable.

Still I still don't see why Team Sky should receive special treatment from all those that went before them; but okay.

Scepticism is always good; and reading other viewpoints than your own is commendable.
 
Post Tour criterium season is in full swing I see. That's a bloody great beer.

DFmrad2UIAAbddI
 
Chris froome blocked me on twitter when I dared to suggest his inhuman attack on contador on ventoux had all the hallmarks of a motor.

F anyone wants to watch it it's hilarious.. He just spins his legs faster and drops contador in a flash, it's almost comical.

Personally I think sky use motors especially froome
 
arminisgod said:
Chris froome blocked me on twitter when I dared to suggest his inhuman attack on contador on ventoux had all the hallmarks of a motor.

F anyone wants to watch it it's hilarious.. He just spins his legs faster and drops contador in a flash, it's almost comical.

Personally I think sky use motors especially froome
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I had a go on the new electric Brompton today and did the same to everyone at the traffic lights. Suckers.
 

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