I read that today also, but I don't think it's a great piece.

It starts well, but when it gets to the Ventoux attack it starts to lose credibility, imho. It discusses the the heart rate not responding - well we all know that heart rate lags well behind power, and he was attacking in 5 - 15s bursts. The rest of the time he was riding at Threshold. The HR seems to react as expected to me.

He lost weight, plenty of people do.

He made a sudden breakthrough, plenty of athletes do.

Then the rest of the 'evidence' is presented in a similar manner. The article seems to suggest unless you are pedalling the same cadence, power, god knows what else as all other riders, you are a cheat. Well, I have no idea who is clean and who isn't - but someone has to win. And when they do they are a cheat.

It was the same with Yates - he won a couple of stages in the Giro, and twitter accounts like DiggerForum were posting the usual accusations. Yates then duly exhausted himself, if anything a sign he was probably NOT doping, and the same 'experts' said nothing.

It's getting a bit boring.

If you really have to ask, then you haven't been paying attention to WWF on wheels closely. It's all about the entertainment factor. For a single sport, there is more drama in cycling than Days of Our Lives.

Good analysis and fair points.

I think the heart rate question is valid. It’s not like it’s a one off ramp up of power and then he goes easy. I’d expect the heart rate to eventually move with several power ramp ups and then “recovering” at a very high power output.

Plenty of people lose weight, but the skinny sky look is not one of health and power. Purely based on looks, but it does not look natural at all.

The most concerning bit to me is the motors. They are out there and it sounds like little is being done to find them. Yes, I know they have the x-ray machines.

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https://twitter.com/mungub

Floyd Landis was just interviewed on the cycling tips podcast. The interview talks about Froome from 42 minutes, onward. Landis, laughs when asked if Froome was doping and then basically says, of course he was doping, he got caught with double the limit of allowable drug, how can people think that he was *not* doping. Whether or not he gets off on a technicality, is a whole other point, and that is a moot point, per Landis.

They also talk about the success of a long range attack, and he wasn’t surprised that Froome could pull it off. Interesting conversation.

https://cyclingtips.com/...ines-doing-a-landis/

The problem in saying that because one rider / team is dominant they must be doping is that it fails to account for the fact that cycling feats are measured against other riders. Let's suppose for a moment that Eddie Merckx 2.0 shows up - a one in a generation rider who will win many grand tours and will dominate the sport for a decade. How that rider fares will largely depend on what happens in the peloton





The problem is that we don't don't really know if this Merckx 2.0 is clean or not, and we don't really see if the peloton is clean or not. These data points are hidden from us. All we see is that one rider is dominant. How we choose to interpret this tells us more about what we believe about the state of cycling (e.g. our own beliefs) than it does if that rider is doping or not.

Now there are certainly ways we can judge if a particular rider's performance on a climb was otherworldly. VAM is used frequently, as is w/kg over a specific duration. However, if we're talking about Merckx 2.0, he (or she) already breaks all the records of those who came before.

Now I'm not saying that Froome is or isn't doping, or is or is not Merckx 2.0. What I'm saying is that it's hard to tell - even from one dominant performance, or even a series of dominant performances because we only have access to results which are relative to other riders and we don't know who or even if there is a Merckx 2.0.

To me, the Finestre feat wasn't so much explained by doping, but rather by desperation and circumstance. Froome needed 3 mins on both Yates and Dumoulin. The only way to get those 3 minutes was by a daring raid that probably had less than a 10% chance of succeeding. The reason we don't see these types of raids that often is that they're usually bound to fail and riders are apt to covet their Top 5 or Top 10 and play it safe. When we do see these types of raids, its because there's a Contador-type rider who doesn't care about riding for 4th overall. This was Froome's position at the start of the 3rd week. Additionally, Froome was helped by who made the chase group. If any of the following things happen, Froome doesn't get those three minutes:

• Dumoulin follows Froome over the Finestre
• Dumoulin has a domestique make it over the mountain
• Either Carapaz or Lopez don't make the split (the other will help)
• Pinot misses the Dumoulin group (Lopez and Carapaz now both want to leapfrog Pinot)
• Pozzovivo makes the Dumoulin group (He has an incentive to catch Froome since he was ahead at that point)
• Literally anyone else in the top 12 makes the Dumoulin group (since they have an incentive to get higher on GC)

I don't know that Dumoulin could have gone with him, otherwise he would have.

Shoot, that's why I didn't win my last road race. Because I didn't just follow the guy who attacked up the big climb.

That's kind of the issue. How for more than two weeks Froome is, at most, on par with Pozzovivo, et al. Maybe a bit less. Then on one day can open up a minute on everyone during a climb. It wasn't because he caught anyone by surprise. As soon as Wout Poels, et al started going full gas at the base, everyone knew it was coming. No one goes to sleep on Froome. No one. He took that first minute because no one could go with him. No one.

Generally speaking, that's pretty rare in cycling. Where suddenly you get better than everyone. Of course Sky/Froome was "planning to reach top form in week 3." I'm not sure how that works. But kudos to them if they such a fine handle on Froome's physiological progression during a Grand Tour that they can predict that sort of thing. When all the other teams, who also employ very smart people, are pretty much in survival mode. If he'd *started* in obvious better shape, then fine. I'd understand that. It's a huge advantage to just show up fitter and ride at, say, 80% FTP on average when everyone else is at 90%. Then you show up in week 3 in really good shape, comparatively. I don't get how you get that much better from the same starting point. #marginalgains. It's possible, of course. It's just eyebrow-raising.

I get that you can't use performance itself a a reliable indicator of doping.

But you can add it as a puzzle piece to the circumstantial body of work. And Sky and Froome have a body of work that suggests there might be some discrepancy from their public statements and reality. Maybe.

Truly remarkable performance at just the right time? Check.
Adverse analytical finding? Check.
A whole slew of team doctor shenanigans? Check.

(and I could list a few more)

Any one of those things can be explained away. After all, who here hasn't accidentally received anabolic steroid shipments because of a shipping snafu?

But when you look at them in totality, the piece starts to reinforce each other, and gel into a narrative. At least for me. But half my daily nutrition is Sky h8erade shakes. So there's that.

Just fwiw, this didn't actually happen. Froome topped out on Finestre with about 30 seconds on the Dumoulin group. He then more than doubled the gap on the descent and added time on the flats. Rate of ascent on final climb was roughly par with the chase group.
Frankly, I think the fact that he was (literally) still in sight at the top of the climb is part of why he managed to pull this off; not much urgency displayed by that chase group on the descent and early on the flats.

(Note, please: I'm not at all offering this as commentary on the state of anyone's "preparations")

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My point had more to do with if Froome had the legs or not. Yates could well have recovered and would have been the leading candidate to follow. Still - I see it following Froome as a series of choices that each rider makes. at that level, and only halfway through the stage, putting in that kind of surge may have been physiologically feasible for a number of riders. The trouble is what it does to the rest of your race. Most guys are going to blow up after a few minutes at that pace so they elect not to. Dumoulin's strategy is especially to ride to power, so when Froome attacks, Dumoulin looks to his garmin, decides that following the wheel would be crazy, and grinds it out at his chosen watts. All the other riders are likely making similar calculations about whether to bridge to the next group or not with most expecting the race to reasonably come back together. This is why we get Lopez and Carapaz together (one attacks, and the other follows), and why Pinot follows with Dumoulin (because he sees can put time into Pozzovivo).

I agree that peaking in week 3 is an odd way of putting it. I can see coming in undercooked - i.e. with less fatigue - and banking on others fatiguing faster, which would certainly be a valid strategy if you're trying the Giro/Tour double. The issue is that we don't know the baseline - if everyone else trained the same way, how would they be? Froome hasn't raced any of those riders in a long time so we don't know if he started at 80% and held it there while everyone else started at 85% and dropped to 75% in the 3rd week. Froome didn't recover so well after Zoncolan and then recovered again in time for week three. This, to me, is more suspicious than the actual attack, but we've seen it before with how Nibali won in 2016.

Merckx 1.0 tested positive at least 3 time: 1969, 1973, and 1977 and received a ban from cycling for each respective positive. It's pretty safe to assume that those weren't the only times he used dope, just like most cyclists before him, then, and now.

The testing has always been generally impotent at catching the cheats, and the UCI (or an independent body) should really focus their attention on making sure motors are not in the sport, so at least we know cyclists are solely using their bodies, and the fans should just enjoy the gladiator show that these professionals put on.

I'm pretty sure Yates was done the day before. He was in trouble before the Sky meat tenderizer crew had finished and handed the baton to Froome.

This is an article that compares Froomebutols 80Km attack to other recent extraordinary winning attacks during GTs by elite riders.
I've not vetted the hard statistics but is it readily apparent that the stage 19 attack was "out of this world"!

https://www.reddit.com/...9_attack_with_other/

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res, non verba

All gaps are doubled after 40oz of haterade. I stand corrected.

He's doping! Why does anyone question it?

Spot on! Don't know why some people bother with sport with these attitudes.

Wow. I would love to hear you guys' explanation for the "accidental" delivery of testosterone. How many times has a big box of steroids accidentally showed up on your doorstep?

that is not a "great" piece. biased and full of circumstantial evidence/facts. i'm not saying i believe froome is clean, but that article was not good. does sky do sketchy, shady stuff? sure. you surprised? you shouldn't be.

that video with power and HR is absurd. does anyone even know where that came from, who made it, how they made it? how do you know it's 100% accurate, perfectly synced up, and not messed with at all? all these haters and skeptics question everything in the world, yet you'll watch one video you know NOTHING about and take it as perfect accurate truth to support your arguments. laughable. he attacked for about 15 seconds, that means there's a greater chance he has a motor because of how motors can work sometimes, somebody says. laughable. the article is just meant to provide ammunition to the weak-minded froome haters.

the finestre, to me, was believable in terms of the circumstances. the rest of his career and achievements? that's up for debate and it's certainly possible that he's dirty as heck.

but that article was crap IMO.

I've read that earlier, and while it does a good job of listing the long range attacks of the modern peloton, you can't really use it to argue one way or another to see if he's out of this world or not. The reason people don't try 80km attacks is because they usually don't work and people are trying to protect a GC position. Sometimes the 30-40km stuff works, but usually that doesn't work either. This is why the only 80km solo range attacks we've seen before are from Coppi or Landis. Obviously Landis was juicing, but we're still left with a sample size of 3. (there may be others, but I'm not aware of any others 80km or greater)

I just watch for entertainment and don't bother trying to explain it. Probably would have to quit watching sports altogether if I wanted to be assured everyone was playing fair. Shoot...they even cheat in little league baseball.

Really not a good article, and while i am not comvinced Froome is clean or doping, i am quite sure he is doping as much or as little as the rest of the contenders.
Regarding him being faster than Lance and Pantani, i wonder how much of that gain can be attributed to better equipment/pacing, seems at least part of it would be explained by that.

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

My take is that Sky has a proven capacity to use couriers to transport questionable medical compounds and that they could have used these to deliver blood bags for the last rest day of both the Vuelta and Giro.

The salbutamol is then explained by Froome using large amounts during the off season to keep his weight down at the same time as he drew blood for future doping.

I always thought it odd how crazy he is spinning. It just looks so uncomfortable. I ascribed it to individual preference but the moto thing crossed my mind before.

But after reading th e article and watching the clip, the attack at 28 mins looks so strange. I'm not speaking of heartrate but rather how the movement looks. It seems so different from everytime another pro attacks, as if he just magically gets faster.

I think the weight subject also very dubious. Losing weight and looking like Froome is the easy part. Being that light but maintaining power and performance not so much.
I've been at the Froome BMI myself and I performer poorly, even on the climbs. You can only get so much away from your natural body type and still perform well.

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10k - 30:48 / half - 1:06:40

http://www.cyclingweekly.com/...-sastre-video-176563

Lots of breaks more than 80k just on days they don't necessarily count..........

234k in 91, I remember voights being long

The outrage over doping in cycling baffles me. It has never been clean. The people who used to do it then ran the teams and now they run the sport

It is pretty unlikely they have experienced a damascene conversion isn't it...........

This makes a lot of sense. Kind of like Contador ending up with traces of platicizers along with Clenbuteral on the second rest day of the 2010 TdF but if I recall correctly no tracers of either the day/s before..