Chris Froome tests positive for Salbutamol

Dr. Bre

loyatemu wrote: »

so apart from Lemond and Evans is there a single Tour winner in the last 30 years who is generally considered clean?

Sastre for me. Wasn’t a great time trialist. Good climber. Nothing unbelievable bout him. Interesting that no suspicious over nibali.

Dr. Bre

1bryan wrote: »

I think the 'like Froome did' might be the part that distinguishes Froome's trajectory from other riders who, agreed, generally peak closer to 30 than to 20. It's rare to see someone who doesn't show, at least some, potential of the rider they are to become, achieving world dominance.

I can only think of 2 instances in cycling where this has happened. One, Lance Armstrong who, has a more believable story imo, the other, Chris Froome.

What about Wiggins. He went from being at Cofidis just a time trialist who finished in the back of the peloton group. Then in his thirties starts being able to climb courtesy of sky.. Wiggins never looked a tour winner in his twenties

Weepsie

Lumen wrote: »

All riders improve in their late twenties, maybe apart from sprinters.

Particularly in terms of endurance and three-week performance.

Maybe you meant something different.

Not just this, but it was pointed out that there are a glut of GC winners, particularly in the last few 10-15 years of winners of riders who have gone from doing well to finishin top 50/40 to challenging for a win and then winning within 2 years of fairly unremarkable riding.

Froome is not alone in his being a seemingly middle of the road cyclist to being an all conquering GC winner. He went from 86 to 1 in the space of 6 years. That's not a sudden change that people paint. In the intervening years there was a top 40 place in a GC, a DSQ, a top 5 and 2 podiums.

That said, I still think it all stinks.

Weepsie

Dr. Bre wrote: »

What about Wiggins. He went from being at Cofidis just a time trialist who finished in the back of the peloton group. Then in his thirties starts being able to climb courtesy of sky.. Wiggins never looked a tour winner in his twenties

He won courtesy of the TTs in fairness, and clung on in the mountains. He put over 3 minutes into everyone in them as they were long flattish courses that were absolutely perfect for him.

crazy_kenny

MPFGLB wrote: »

Thanks for the reply but still doesnt add up for me

If you are racing one of the hardest races in the world you are expending alot of energy . Now if you also have a calorie deficit then you will need to call on your glycogen reserves before you burn fat

So how do you keep those reserves high and burn fat is what I dont get...glocogen needs to go down before fat burning kicks in

If Froome can deplete glycogen and draw of fat stores and is fat fueling buring adapted then that is another thing...but that would mean low carb diet or fasting and that is not what his diet says...His diet says low energy to me

I agree with Philippa York that losing weight in GTs in nigh impossible

From Ryan Mullen twitter account on 27th May during Giro:

“Update on the #84kg pre giro.

I'm #81kg as of today.

Still not a climber.”


He also tweeted the day Froome rode 80km solo to victory in Giro on 25th May:

“Today I did 300 watts average for 6 hours to finish 45 minutes behind the winner.

Hahahahaha.”

07Lapierre

Anyone know what SKY’s “Rocket Fuel” drink is?

Grassey

07Lapierre wrote:

Anyone know what SKY’s “Rocket Fuel†drink is?

The new sis 'beta fuel' drink being available for punters on their sportives next week

flatty

loyatemu wrote: »

so apart from Lemond and Evans is there a single Tour winner in the last 30 years who is generally considered clean?

Wouldn't be convinced by Evans. Sastres is far more likely to be clean imho.

Brian?

flatty wrote: »

Wouldn't be convinced by Evans. Sastres is far more likely to be clean imho.

I actually believed Froome was clean, until he failed a test.

Now I don’t know what to think, other than Froome escaping without a ban is a disgrace.

Raam

Dr. Bre wrote: »

What about Wiggins. He went from being at Cofidis just a time trialist who finished in the back of the peloton group. Then in his thirties starts being able to climb courtesy of sky.. Wiggins never looked a tour winner in his twenties

Wiggins was climbing well with Garmin in 2009, finishing 3rd in the Tour.

MPFGLB

crazy_kenny wrote: »

From Ryan Mullen twitter account on 27th May during Giro:

“Update on the #84kg pre giro.

I'm #81kg as of today.

Still not a climber.”


He also tweeted the day Froome rode 80km solo to victory in Giro on 25th May:

“Today I did 300 watts average for 6 hours to finish 45 minutes behind the winner.

Hahahahaha.”

You are mixing up weight loss as a by product of exercise with deliberate weight loss during a GT

Plus look where Mullen was when he lost weight not batting GC that is for sure..so low energy didnt matter so much

Quigs Snr

loyatemu wrote: »

so apart from Lemond and Evans is there a single Tour winner in the last 30 years who is generally considered clean?

Evans ? Hmmmm...

http://http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/evans-confirms-fitness-test-taken-with-ferrari-in-2000/

Macy0161

Dr. Bre wrote:

What about Wiggins. He went from being at Cofidis just a time trialist who finished in the back of the peloton group. Then in his thirties starts being able to climb courtesy of sky.. Wiggins never looked a tour winner in his twenties

He was also focussed on the track, where he won multiple gold medals!

For me it's not the performances now with Froome, it's the turn around in that Vuelta. Sky weren't even renewing his feckin contract, for all their subsequent pr bull about him "always having the numbers". Still, he definitely made it round the last giro better than his previous when he was kicked off for holding on to a Moto...

Enduro

MPFGLB wrote: »

You are mixing up weight loss as a by product of exercise with deliberate weight loss during a GT

Plus look where Mullen was when he lost weight not batting GC that is for sure..so low energy didnt matter so much

I'd presume the weight loss is damn near inevitable in 3 weeks of intense racing at the highest level... It sounds like Sky are attempting to optimise this inevitable outcome. So optimising rather than targeting, which is a lot more logical (and let's face it, not matter whether you love or hate them, Sky are not eejits). Definitely a high-wire act though... get it wrong on the too much loss side with an already low body fat athlete and it would be easy to envisage muscle loss leading to performance loss (As Ford2600 pointed noted). But get it right, and there are some nice marginal gains for the taking!

I'm reminded of a guy I used to mountain bike with who was an obsessive weight weenie, but more with the bike than himself (He was a whippet though). His purchase of a Dremel tool sent him off on a spate of removing bits of metal here, there and everywhere from his bike that he considered surplus. Twas no surprise to the rest of us to hear that key parts of his bike disintegrated mid race a few weeks later, leading to sub-optimal performance (DNF)! Some of the more outrageous rumours I've heard about the lengths some pro cyclists were apparently prepared to go to get their weight down (Drilling out surplus bone mass, springs to mind) fit nicely in with this mindset.

ford2600

Enduro wrote: »

I'd presume the weight loss is damn near inevitable in 3 weeks of intense racing at the highest level... It sounds like Sky are attempting to optimise this inevitable outcome. So optimising rather than targeting, which is a lot more logical (and let's face it, not matter whether you love or hate them, Sky are not eejits). Definitely a high-wire act though... get it wrong on the too much loss side with an already low body fat athlete and it would be easy to envisage muscle loss leading to performance loss (As Ford2600 pointed noted). But get it right, and there are some nice marginal gains for the taking!

I don't buy that you can have that precision about energy in/energy out.

A super lean elite athlete will resist weight gain if you try to deliberately over feed him; NEAT will increase, fidgeting etc and he'll recover better if training. One side of equation has effect on the other.

Climbing HC mountains while in a deficit could only end in poor recovery and being shelled eventually.

For nutrition to be the reason Froome wins requires other top teams to be mugs and a suspension of disbelief.

I'm in awe of the mtb riders bravery with the dremel!

Macy0161

ford2600 wrote: »

For nutrition to be the reason Froome wins requires other top teams to be mugs and a suspension of disbelief.

I really don't buy into this. Sky generally do awful PR, but on stuff like this they seem to know their market of the people that really want to believe the marginal gains stuff. Teams have been placing people with bottles/ food on the road for bloody decades!

CramCycle

Enduro wrote: »

and let's face it, not matter whether you love or hate them, Sky are not eejits

Its hard to tell if they are eejits or if they think we are all eejits. There has been nothing in their marginal gains spiels, bar the nice pillows, that every other team already does on a regular basis.They constantly contradict themselves, with Brailsford, Sutton and whoever their current top rider is, giving differing accounts on what they were doing to suit the narrative they needed to paint. It stinks of someone trying to cover stuff up.

I am sure alot of them dope, I accept that as part of the way it is, I wish it wasn't, but at least, for most of them, they don't preach about it, they say no if asked directly or join the MPCC and cast out anyone caught.

As for the points above about people going the unbelievable donkey to racehorse vs its not really true, he was a good cyclist but he was never going to be a great cyclist the way he was. Something changed, I am sure there is something very untoward, and oddly enough, i am not convinced it is all Skys doing (although possibly facilitated or had other help), I doubt there program is much different than anyone elses. He was going to be dropped, no one was going to pick him up and then, out of nowhere, he spins like a washing machine drying out your clothes and doesn't look phased at all.

TL:DR I don't think, if he was a well thought out doper, he was any worse than others in the peloton. I can't say what made him better than everyone all of a sudden, but I don't think it was biologically doping.

Maybe he hired Keith Barry

RobFowl

Cram, I have heard genetic doping is considered a real possibility in some cases. There was suspicions that's what LA was up to at the time..

CramCycle

RobFowl wrote: »

Cram, I have heard genetic doping is considered a real possibility in some cases. There was suspicions that's what LA was up to at the time..

To be honest, I do not know. I certainly don't think the technology and safeguards were around then. While I don't think they are around now either, the ability to do it, certainly has increased but it also would require two things, the prior scientific evidence that it was worth pursuing, which is possibly there, but then again, the test subjects to do it, you are not going to attempt to genetically alter someone who is already important to you without some proof, maybe not enough for a scientific study, but enough to convince you that there are no serious side effects. The burden of proof for scientific studies being far higher than the burden of proof to satisfy a persons gut feelings.

I do wonder whether CRISPR has opened up a new world of possibilities for this. In all of these cases of genetic doping though, the techniques and possibilities are full of risk and a lack of permanency.

flatty

Brian? wrote: »

flatty wrote: »

Wouldn't be convinced by Evans. Sastres is far more likely to be clean imho.

I actually believed Froome was clean, until he failed a test.

Now I don’t know what to think, other than Froome escaping without a ban is a disgrace.

There was a line in overcoming, released before Puerto etc, where bjarne riis bemoaned Sastre, saying that he had no idea how good he could be if only he prepared properly.
My overriding instinct is that he was clean then, and clean when he won the tour. Quintana rides like a clean cyclist.
Im cynical out, but reckon Sastre is the only clean winner since Greg Lemond, who was also undoubtedly clean.

CrowdedHouse

I'm waiting for Froome to say is that he cut down from 60 to 20 fags a day - marginal gains.

Sal Butamol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQCWY5ynBaw

Brian?

flatty wrote: »

There was a line in overcoming, released before Puerto etc, where bjarne riis bemoaned Sastre, saying that he had no idea how good he could be if only he prepared properly.
My overriding instinct is that he was clean then, and clean when he won the tour. Quintana rides like a clean cyclist.
Im cynical out, but reckon Sastre is the only clean winner since Greg Lemond, who was also undoubtedly clean.

I fully believe Sastre was clean. He spent years losing to donkeys who were blood and EPO doping. It was only when these were almost eliminated his natural ability won him the tour.

1bryan

Brian? wrote: »

I fully believe Sastre was clean. He spent years losing to donkeys who were blood and EPO doping. It was only when these were almost eliminated his natural ability won him the tour.

it wasn't exactly the most hotly contested tour ever, either. Wasn't frank schleck his main rival that year? He was always far too inconsistent to win it outright.

Brian?

1bryan wrote: »

it wasn't exactly the most hotly contested tour ever, either. Wasn't frank schleck his main rival that year? He was always far too inconsistent to win it outright.

It wasn’t, because Astana were excluded and Contador would have romped home.

It still needed to be won though.

retalivity

What about the man who beat froome in his breakout vuelta, juan jose cobo!

From saunier douval, piepoli and ricco to winning the vuelta in a team with menchov nothing to see here!

Nibali calling it like it is imo http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/vincenzo-nibali-calls-froomes-salbutamol-verdict-a-case-of-double-standards/

Galego

Nairo Quintana on Chris Froome boos: Sometimes you reap what you sow


http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/nairo-quintana-on-chris-froome-boos-sometimes-you-reap-what-you-sow/

Dr. Bre

Actually Evans was prob clean

RobFowl

I've long since decided not to invest my hopes and belief in any rider. I enjoy watching many and have no faith whatsoever in some (Valverde and Froome esp).