Cycling thread

[davek]

I suppose this is what I struggle with the most. The Sky era was typified by the whole marginal gains thing, and they were supposed to be the best because of looking under every stone for improvements. Despite this, they were way down on the EPO era riders, and the Sky train thing was supposed to be boring because they climbed at a tempo, as that was simply the most efficient way to ride.
Now, in a handful of years, riders are knocking the EPO era times for six and attacking left, right, and centre, having seemingly found all sorts of "marginal gains" that had evaded the Sky era teams.
I've said for a while now that with Pogacar, we're seeing things that have never been seen before. The history of the sport suggests you simply have to view that with suspicion. Throw in the terrible track record of those heading up the UAE team and it does seem unusual.

Nailed it.

And as you say, even when the marginal gains through use of equipment, seat positioning, nutrition yada yada yada is used to explain dominant performers it's still found to be a crock of .

They should have an 'enhanced' sport and have done with it.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Nailed it.

And as you say, even when the marginal gains through use of equipment, seat positioning, nutrition yada yada yada is used to explain dominant performers it's still found to be a crock of .

They should have an 'enhanced' sport and have done with it.

I'm sure it was a little bit of marketing bumph, but if you assume "marginal gains", or a more scientific approach to the sport began with Sky in 2009, we've kinda seen a U-shaped performance graph, with a marked dip after the EPO era, and then a huge uptick again after Covid. I don't believe that the Sky era folks were chumps, yet in a matter of a few years, we've seen performance gains akin to that when they introduced the special (now banned) swimsuit in swimming or those funky trainers in distance running.

La Marmotte - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You can see here, the trend line is pretty flat, yet in the Tour, for instance, not only have climbing times rocketed, but the race as a whole is about 2kmh quicker than the Sky era https://bikeraceinfo.com/tdf/tdfstats.html. To gain that amount of time in a few years, having had practically no gains in the last decade seems odd.

 

[FrenchDarrenBent]

Regularly fell afoul of much less strict and much less precise drug testing.
I liken the generations to tennis. Not the players but the technology. Comparing Merckx then to Pogacar now is like comparing Fred Perry with his wooden racket to Carlos Alcaraz now with his composite graphite racket. Had blood boosting, transfusions, EPO and all the designer stuff to cheat with been available then, he or someone else would have been using it and winning with it.

Evenepoel abandons.

He was still a remarkable specimen though, more akin to a Cancellara or Evenepoel with more climbing talent.
Drugs those days were primitive at best, with Rilatin and stimul or cortisones. They were available to everybody. My point being, Merckx never pushed anything Froome couldn't.

What we see here is almost ridiculous. Armstrong didn't win all the classics and combined two big tours in a season, averaging a minimum of 6,2w/kg a climb.

It don't mind utter dominance when it's achieved in a credible performance,like Froome, or Thomas, or 2020 Bernal

 

[davek]

I'm sure it was a little bit of marketing bumph, but if you assume "marginal gains", or a more scientific approach to the sport began with Sky in 2009, we've kinda seen a U-shaped performance graph, with a marked dip after the EPO era, and then a huge uptick again after Covid. I don't believe that the Sky era folks were chumps, yet in a matter of a few years, we've seen performance gains akin to that when they introduced the special (now banned) swimsuit in swimming or those funky trainers in distance running.

La Marmotte - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You can see here, the trend line is pretty flat, yet in the Tour, for instance, not only have climbing times rocketed, but the race as a whole is about 2kmh quicker than the Sky era https://bikeraceinfo.com/tdf/tdfstats.html. To gain that amount of time in a few years, having had practically no gains in the last decade seems odd.

Obviously human performance will improve and that can be for non-sinister reasons.

But the average speed for the last 4 Tours is out of place in that sequence in so far as they are consistently high (and much higher than pre-Covid era...although the quickest stage of the TdF at 50.63KPH was pre-Covid...just, in 2019). If the average speed this year is another 42KPH - which seems likely unless the pace slackens off - then we can say we've entered an era of sustained high speed that's taken performance to an unbelievable level.

 

[Ray Purchase]

One of the funniest books I have ever read.

 

[Rita_Poon]

He was still a remarkable specimen though, more akin to a Cancellara or Evenepoel with more climbing talent.
Drugs those days were primitive at best, with Rilatin and stimul or cortisones. They were available to everybody. My point being, Merckx never pushed anything Froome couldn't.

What we see here is almost ridiculous. Armstrong didn't win all the classics and combined two big tours in a season, averaging a minimum of 6,2w/kg a climb.

It don't mind utter dominance when it's achieved in a credible performance, like Froome, or Thomas, or 2020 Bernal

Is that what we are accepting? Is that the unspoken truth? The best physical specimen and also the most naturally talented on two wheels for his generation, further enhanced by the most cutting edge doping regime currently in use?

Where do contador and schleck stand in the post armstrong pre sky ineos pantheons of historic performances?

1996 riis
1997 ullrich
1998 pantani
99-05 armstrong
06 landis dq'd, pererio promoted (salbutamol inhalers issue here)
07 contador
08 sastre ('Don Limpio' it seems)
09 contador
10 schleck
11 evans
12 wiggins
13-17 froome
18 thomas
19 bernal
20-25 pogacar vingegaard era

So, in 30 years, there's sastre, evans, thomas (maybe) and bernal that are considered tour winners without the suspicion of doping. And there's still a significant element that are gunning for indurain

 

[Rita_Poon]

Oscar Onley is 23 in October. 4th in GC currently.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

You feel Vingegaard's beaten a bit mentally. I don't think he believes he can win anymore.

 

[Drico]

Pog is the best I've seen since Merckx and I can only barely remember him.

However his performance is absolutely mind-blowing and sadly my first thought is not what an incredible athlete he is but that it is impossible to achieve without drugs.

If he's clean then he's superhuman.

Oh, I gave up the cycling when we were all told, with a straight face, that Big Mig was the best because of his "extraordinary lung capacity."

I nearly choked on my clembuterol when I heard that one.

We won't mention the survivor of testicular cancer.

It's an incredible spectacle, but it's the Tour de Pharmaceutica now, just as the Olympics is the World Pharmaceutical Games. About as honest as the WWE.

 

[Drico]

The days of joe public being conned over 'out of this world' cycling performances ended with Armstrong. Even the Sky frauds were found out.

I'm amazed anybody who watches it does so thinking it's remotely natural. Do they?

I find it repulsive - because people died and die taking such chemical risks - but it's a spectacular event. I think one would have to be incredibly naive to believe any of it is clean, especially as so many in authority tried to pass off Armstrong and Brailsford as heroic superheroes rather than the cynical frauds they were.

 

[Root66]

He was still a remarkable specimen though, more akin to a Cancellara or Evenepoel with more climbing talent.
Drugs those days were primitive at best, with Rilatin and stimul or cortisones. They were available to everybody. My point being, Merckx never pushed anything Froome couldn't.

What we see here is almost ridiculous. Armstrong didn't win all the classics and combined two big tours in a season, averaging a minimum of 6,2w/kg a climb.

It don't mind utter dominance when it's achieved in a credible performance,like Froome, or Thomas, or 2020 Bernal

Froome is the least credible person in history.

An absolute no mark that turned amazing after sky's 'marginal gains'

Fantasy land stuff

 

[TheWinslowBoy]

Froome is the least credible person in history.

An absolute no mark that turned amazing after sky's 'marginal gains'

Fantasy land stuff

And so, so boring. Won 4 tours and the most exciting thing he did was running up a hill without his bike.
I gave up watching the sport then.

If Pog's juiced to the eyeballs at least he's still trying and failing to win Sanremo and Roubaix.

 

[Vedder]

It's on an industrial scale in cycling.

Both winners at Wimbledon this year have had doping bans in the last year or two. Its not just cycling. But it's cycling that gets all the bad rep

 

[Rita_Poon]

Not seen a team car push riders off for about ten years. And the hay bail crash looked really heavy resulting in race abandon.

 

[Rita_Poon]

Mildly embarrassing celebrating third place as a win. Been a while since that's happened. Oh dear haha.