issoisso wrote:
My mistake, it's 6 seconds uphill, not 10.
The rest of my point stands.
But even if he had lost 28 seconds combined, are you seriously arguing that he wasn't in dominant form because he lost 28 seconds over the season?? Especially a guy is a climber least of anything!

Ybodonk wrote:
So for each year the peloton is driving faster and faster, and becoming more and more clean ? That statement and fact is very self-contradicting when it comes to an extreme sport like our beloved cycling.

The graph below was put together by Alex Simmons, and it shows the time on the famous Alp d'Huez climb as a function of power output. There's a lot of data there but slide your finger across from a time of 38:30. That's the kind of performance (or faster) we saw in the previous generation. Then consider the more recent times - Frank Schleck did 40:46 in 2006, the first time in 12 years they didn't break 40. The best performances in the last 3 years are all slower than 41 minutes. That fits well with what I've added to the graph in blue and yellow - those are the equivalent performances to two climbs in the 2010 Tour, where riders simply don't get above 6W/kg anymore. Not even once, let alone repeatedly during the race, as they once did.

Aquarius wrote:
As kumazan mentioned : Tenerife gang.
Why Tenerife, and, besides riders, who "works" there among the pro cycling world ?

Alakagom wrote:
Also, what doctors live there ? Where you got that info from ?

kumazan wrote:


Fuentes lives in the Canary Islands, and both him and Ferrari are notable visitors of Tenerife.

I don't think that going to Tenerife, as an isolated fact, should be enough to generate suspicion though.

felix_29 wrote:


Yeah, the fitness in football has a lot to do with the fitness in cycling.

swsquires wrote:


Clearly you don't get the point I'm making. The English Premier League is seen my many as one of the fastest and most physical in football. One would expect the players to all be at the peak of fitness. The example I gave showed how that isn't the case. Conversely, in the world tour one would expect all riders to have similar fitness levels and quality of training. The point is that the assumption isn't necessarily correct. It doesn't matter what the sport is - at the top level things aren't as even as one would assume.

In cricket England became the number one team in the world. It wasn't from simply having the best players, as they don't. It was the result of taking training, fitness and preparation to a new level.

Although sport is fast approaching optimal levels in terms of maximizing physical capabilities, it isn't there yet.

I guess based on all the theories on here Usain Bolt must be on something, Peter Sagan, Michael Phelps, Roger Federer, Sir Chris Hoy, Messi, etc. It is a very sad existence if you can't believe in anything. In fact if you can't, why bother watching?

Kirchen_75 wrote:
You CAN NOT compare football with cycling that's just plain stupid. When a footballer is off form or fatigued you simply make substitution. You CAN NOT do this in lets say Tour de France...

felix_29 wrote:
In football some teams pay a lot of attention bringing their players into a good shape while others give a shit about it (it´s not that extreme, but you get it).
In cycling every team tries to bring their riders to 100%, thus differences in the quality of training are very small, if not not-existing.

That´s why you simply can´t compare cycling and football when i comes to training quality.
And try to think about what is possible with a shitty shape and brilliant tactics in football and what you could with the same in cycling.

TheManxMissile wrote:
While everyone may care some have access to better resources
unless your telling me Team UK Youth have the same training standards, resources and methods as sky?

lluuiiggii wrote:

So easy to compare UK Youth with Sky.. what about BMC and Sky? Lack of resources wouldn't be the reason why they'd have different training standards at least.

TheManxMissile wrote:


Okay Cofidis and Sky

felix_29 wrote:
In football some teams pay a lot of attention bringing their players into a good shape while others give a shit about it (it´s not that extreme, but you get it).
In cycling every team tries to bring their riders to 100%, thus differences in the quality of training are very small, if not not-existing.

That´s why you simply can´t compare cycling and football when i comes to training quality.
And try to think about what is possible with a shitty shape and brilliant tactics in football and what you could with the same in cycling.

felix_29 wrote:


Also Cofidis and Sky won´t have bigger differences. They both do spiroergometries and that realeated stuff and have experts who learned the same at their universities. Of course Sky pays better and thus might get more experienced guys, but I don´t see where Sky could have a big advantage over Cofidis.