Cycling thread


Bruce Wayne said:
To be fair, 'if' you'd done absolutely everything the right way, had done the whole marginal gains thing and improved performances to the extent that not only have you delivered unprecedented success in terms of Olympic medals, not only had you won the Tour with a British rider for the 1st time ever, but then backed that up 3 more times, and had played a sizeable role in the incredible surge in popularity cycling has seen in Britain in the past few years, and after all that you had hacks digging dirt and looking for negatives, then you'd probably be pissed off too.

I'd be the same to be honest. I know a little about how tough the sport is, the kind of lives they (and this is all cyclists) have to lead to be where they are, so I'd be annoyed if people with no clue (@Sapie88) label you cheats and dopers. I'd be sickened if things were thrown over me as I competed. Cycling is about emotions, you're right, but that runs both ways. It's a beautiful thing that we can watch our heroes for free on the roadside, and ride the same hills they've made legends on, that's an incredible thing, but it comes with responsibility too. If we want that level of access then we need to behave responsibly.

It's the same every single year. Doping question after doping question, and you mention robotic answers, but there's surely only so many times and so many ways you can answer the same questions? A big part of that is that it's the Tour and so attracts a lot of people with barely a passing interest in the sport, and hence you don't get similar silliness at the classics, or even the Giro, but there's also a big part that is simply because it's Sky.
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Meh who cares loads of cyclists have gone through similar stints of their integrity/morals being questioned and they all did decent media work . Cancellara went through it a couple of times when he was linked to doping by Armstrong, when they thought he was using an engine in his bike et al. Boonen went through it in his twenties when he suddenly started crashing Ferrari's, snorted cocaine outside season, had sex with everything that moved. Contador, Valverde ... I can go on here there are loads of examples.

You're putting them on a pedestal; they are no different from everyone else. They shouldn't be able to avoid the questions that make them uncomfortable. Get through it like everybody else.

Cycling existed long before Sky and it will exist long after. They don't possess the god-given right to change the sport to how they envision that; shape it up to be a Sky tribute act.

Classy how Brailsford tells people to stick it up their arse etc. Even Bruyneel didn't do that. He banned one media-outlet for a very short time (9 days) from the press conferences and that was Sporza and that was over after a couple of days (here the kiss and make-up: http://sporza.be/cm/sporza/videozone/archief/MG_sporzatips/MG_sporzatips_gevuld/1.565686). But hey Brailsford doesn't like what Barry Ryan writes and that makes it all okay. Excuses excuses.

One aspect of marginal gains for me is throwing huge wads of cash in the research of how to use medication in the most effective manner to the brink of legality. It's legal so nobody can complain; another great UCI achievement. UCI is worse than FIFA.

If it were up to me I wouldn't invite any of them to the natourcriteriums (what is the English word for this; the traditional play pretend races after the Tour where you can see the Yellow jersey et al and the winner is decided beforehand. A bit like wrestling - not only because of the Lycra); they show disdain for the public. No need to include them in gravy-train. No need for Froome to get 50 000 € for 3 hours work. They don't deserve this.
 
Black Belt Jones said:
Restricting French media access to your team in le Tour de France is quite funny really, a bit of panache from old Dave.

Basically it's a sad situation all round, and there doesn't appear to be any trust left. Censoring journalists, bunker mentality from the team etc is obv wrong, but equally Sky shouldn't have to line up day in day out to have their baws kicked by lowest-common-denominator 'journalism' - Froome especially shouldn't have to field gotcha questions from the equivalent of the Sun each day after he's turned himself inside out on the road.

Hard to reverse out of this once things have broken down to this extent and I suspect Dave B will probably go in the near future. Not for any sensible or real reason, but the public ear is no longer at his disposal - you can keep showing your aris to it all for a time but you can't keep this up long term.
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Think your right, the tide has turned on this one. He will probably go before long. Also wonder what the Sky involvement will be longer term. Have'nt really got a problem with Froome and might even have a bit more respect for Brailsford if it was Sun- type journalists that he banned.....but it wasn't.
 
Bungle said:
It's not a hard life Bruce, they roll out of bed straight onto some needles to get their daily hit and then fly up the road high as a kite.

I could chuck my toddler on a BMX and as long as I gave him more peds than one of your lot he would blitz the tour de france, so stop crying.
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They have an extremely high pain threshold tbf. One of my favourites is Tony Martin (Der Panzerwagen). He's crazy. He rides some TT's with sanding paper on his saddle; so that he will stay in ideal position and not move a lot. This has painful consequences.

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Can't help but think this has been a pretty poor race. The stage today summed it up really. Ag2r tried to boss it, but didn't really do much damage, and neither Bardet or Uran looked capable of doing anything at all. It's been extremely close, yet not very exciting for that. The last time we had the podium so close together was 2003, and they were knocking lumps out of each other all the way round. This year they've just been marking each other. Bit of a snorefest imo.
 
Bruce Wayne said:
Can't help but think this has been a pretty poor race. The stage today summed it up really. Ag2r tried to boss it, but didn't really do much damage, and neither Bardet or Uran looked capable of doing anything at all. It's been extremely close, yet not very exciting for that. The last time we had the podium so close together was 2003, and they were knocking lumps out of each other all the way round. This year they've just been marking each other. Bit of a snorefest imo.
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I think they've tried to make a Bardet route and worryingly, because it is so close, they will think it's been a success.

By the way, how good is Kwiatkowski?
 
Bruce Wayne said:
Can't help but think this has been a pretty poor race. The stage today summed it up really. Ag2r tried to boss it, but didn't really do much damage, and neither Bardet or Uran looked capable of doing anything at all. It's been extremely close, yet not very exciting for that. The last time we had the podium so close together was 2003, and they were knocking lumps out of each other all the way round. This year they've just been marking each other. Bit of a snorefest imo.
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You're being friendly in your assessment here.

The familiar problem that a lot of teams perceive this race to be the most important race in the world and every place is important 4 goes after 5 etc. They aren't willing to lose the race to be able to win it. On top of that there isn't a Contador anymore who just goes for it; well there is but he isn't what he used to be. Gouvenou also managed to draw out an extremely boring parcours.

Next year one rider less/team don't think this will make a big difference but hey.
 

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