Tour de France

[CTBasketball]

Anyone watch? Or am I le only one.

 

[mauconnfan]

Tour de Cheat? Makes baseball look like a bunch of angels LOL.....sorry CT all good

 

[60'sfan]

Yes, you're the only one.

 

[CTBasketball]

Oh.

 

[Fishy]

I watch it daily. (The race is basically over, by the way.)

Yes, they may all be doped to the gills, but...

The testing they do in cycling is so much more strenuous than most other pro sports that they're just going to catch these people more often. The amount of dope flowing through the bloodstream of the defensive line of the average NFL team would likely put the peloton to shame. Most sports devise their drug testing to help assure them that they won't catch the cheats...

 

[CTBasketball]

Fishy what do you think of Chris Froome? Honestly I wouldn't be surprised that he is doping. I've never seen acceleration up Ventoux (or any other cat. 5) like that since the days of Lance Armstrong.

 

[Fishy]

I would be very surprised if there isn't something going on - his improvement was way too dramatic.

Two years ago, he was a journeyman and then he joins Sky and the whole group becomes Superman....doesn't pass the sniff test.

 

[ZooCougar]

Nobody in the NFL dopes. Or in the NBA either.

I watch it daily. When I get home it's virtually always on in the background. It's the sound of summer in my house.

 

[ZooCougar]

I would be very surprised if there isn't something going on - his improvement was way too dramatic.

Two years ago, he was a journeyman and then he joins Sky and the whole group becomes Superman....doesn't pass the sniff test.

In cycling, just like any other sport, when it's too good to be true, it always is. And if it sounds like BS then it probably is.

I really enjoyed Stage 13 with the crosswinds. Love it when the sport goes off script, and it looked like the road races that I am in here in Missouri and Kansas with the wind and the echelons.

 

[ZooCougar]

I watch it daily. (The race is basically over, by the way.)

Yes, they may all be doped to the gills, but...

The testing they do in cycling is so much more strenuous than most other pro sports that they're just going to catch these people more often. The amount of dope flowing through the bloodstream of the defensive line of the average NFL team would likely put the peloton to shame. Most sports devise their drug testing to help assure them that they won't catch the cheats...

Or like when a certain running back for the Minnesota Vikings miraculous heals and has a great season.....

 

[CTBasketball]

Baseball's steroid testing is a joke. As is football's and basketball's. Cycling gets a dirty rap because they test so often and use advanced testing procedures. Plus its easier to detect a doper based on their individual performance.

I would be very surprised if there isn't something going on - his improvement was way too dramatic.

Two years ago, he was a journeyman and then he joins Sky and the whole group becomes Superman....doesn't pass the sniff test.

100% agree. Sky used to be a joke. Bradley Wiggins wasn't even that good until he won last year, as a 32 year old. And Froome was a nobody until he was 27 years old. But like I said before, when I saw him take over in the Pyrenees I was like, "Wow he's really good." But when he took off today on a 11% gradient, sit in the saddle, and increase his cadence by like 100% I am now convinced drugs helped him up Ventoux. I haven't seen someone take over a stage so easily since Floyd Landis in 2006.

 

[ZooCougar]

Wiggins was a different type of rider before. He's an Olympic Track guy and TT specialist that used to basically be a lead out man in sprints.

He got bored with being one of Cavendish's minions at Columbia Highroad and jumped over to Garmin for a year. Garmin saw something in him and they decided to make him into a stage racer who could contend for the GC. He rode well at the Giro that year(2009 ), dropped a ton of weight and then somehow managed a 4th place at the Tour with basically the entire Garmin team supporting him.

Of course that was the year that Astana sift pedaled the tour to not embarrass Lance and Contador said "f this" and dropped his entire team anyways.

Once he figured out that he had a future, the new Sky team needed their British wonder boy and the rest is history.

Last year with the Tour leading into the London Olympics, somehow the Tour par course was very Brad Wiggins friendly, with easy climbs and long Tim Trials. It's really not BS when you think about it.

 

[ZooCougar]

Baseball's steroid testing is a joke. As is football's and basketball's. Cycling gets a dirty rap because they test so often and use advanced testing procedures. Plus its easier to detect a doper based on their individual performance.


100% agree. Sky used to be a joke. Bradley Wiggins wasn't even that good until he won last year, as a 32 year old. And Froome was a nobody until he was 27 years old. But like I said before, when I saw him take over in the Pyrenees I was like, "Wow he's really good." But when he took off today on a 11% gradient, sit in the saddle, and increase his cadence by like 100% I am now convinced drugs helped him up Ventoux. I haven't seen someone take over a stage so easily since Floyd Landis in 2006.

What Floyd did in 2006 was tactically brilliant. The whole peloton was exhausted and was in no mood to chase. Doubt that he took some magic medicine the night before, maybe a bag of blood, but if you read Tyler Hamilton's book, getting a transfusion during a grand tour is something that has to be planned months in advance,

 

[CTBasketball]

I guess you're right. The mountain time trial will be a huge test at the end of this year's Tour. I hate having TT's so late though, especially flat stage ones. Kind of separates the best overall riders from the people who took it easy in the mountains.

I'm a Schleck supporter so it sucks seeing him fall off the pace the past 2 years. Especially in 2011 when he lost the GC to Cadel in the TT.

 

[ZooCougar]

Froome will win that TT by minutes. And if he doesn't then it's because the team told him to dial it back to avoid suspicion.

Honestly, these days I find other races to be more interesting. Paris-Roubaix, Flanders, LBL.

GC riders are a bunch of wheel suckers Nothing like seeing Sylvain Chavanel or David Millar go on the attack with 30k left. The guys who are pulling in the front are the true badasses of the sport.

 

[CTBasketball]

Love seeing Nairo Quintana challenge the GC contenders. He's gonna be good.

 

[ZooCougar]

In a few years, look for an American named Joe Dombrowski, he currently rides for he evil empire (Sky).

 

[CTBasketball]

The cycling world, especially France, hates Americans haha. But I've heard of him and he should be good. Same with TJ Van Garderen

 

[ZooCougar]

The cycling world, especially France, hates Americans haha. But I've heard of him and he should be good. Same with TJ Van Garderen

No. They only hate Lance. And he deserves it. But at the same time it's stupid because he grew the sport while at the same time his activity nearly brought it to it's knees.

America is a major cycling nation. Look at who supplies all of the big teams. What is the only country outside of european ones that has a viable pro racing calendar? Look at how many teams are badged.

The funny thing about America is that people think cycling is a rich kid sport. In Europe, cycling is like boxing or maybe hoop. It's a poor kids way out. And... it's not nearly as popular over there as everyone assumes. Soccer and F1 are breakfast, lunch and dinner. Action sports are eating into everything else. Pro cycling is like the coal mining of pro sports. On some teams, the highest paid rider might be lucky to make the NFL league minimum.

 

[ZooCougar]

http://stevetilford.com/2013/07/15/its-all-about-froome/

Pretty good take on Froome's performance and why it may be suspect. Steve Tilford is a local racer here who has been a world champ in a couple of disciplines.

 

[tdrink]

Tour de Cheat? Makes baseball look like a bunch of angels LOL.....sorry CT all good

Cycling has retroactively stripped wins for positive tests a decade later. Anyone who cheats in the sport will eventually be caught since their blood samples are kept and retested when the the tests catch up with the ability to mask results.

Compare that to baseball, where there are tons of players positive blood samples, but the testing agencies aren't allowed to link the samples to names.

If lance Armstrong had a player,s union, he'd still be considered a hero. I'm glad he's no longer considered a hero, but not because he doped. Everyone did it, so the playing field was somewhat level. Maybe he won because he was a better doper, maybe he was a better doped rider than the other doped riders. By everyone's account he was a narcissistic, lying, über controlling, unmitigated a. That's why so many wanted to catch him. They did. And he got his due.

 

[bmayuc]

When I watch the tour de France I cannot help but admire modern EPO blood doping. A marvel.

Yes they are all doping... no nothing can be done about it. Cyclists are (because they have to be for reasons of dedication) quite insane imho. Who in their right mind besides cyclists and marathon runners wake up and go, " hey, I want to torture my body every day from the time im 14 to the time im 35."

With that said I LOVE watching the TDF for its tactical and strategic brilliance.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Fishy]

Cycling, on a local level, contracted a while back and is now growing again - at least in my experience. Triathlons and duathlons have helped - most of my cycling team now tends towards those than one-day road races or crits. (Part of me thinks it's because it's pretty easy for a solid cyclist to drop into a local tri/du and walk away with hardware. Why suffer for 70-miles for a 25th place finish when you can spend an hour walloping a bunch of dentists on their Cervelos in a duathlon?)

The northeast has a very active cycling scene - it's not convenient for me to get out there from NY, (and honestly, crits are not as appealing at 42 as they were at 22), but there's even a pretty good Tuesday night crit training series at the Rent. (Love this guy's videos from Bethel as well.)

 

[ZooCougar]

I race nearly every weekend in the KC area. It's a total blast.


I am really selective about crits, if the course has too many sketchy off camber corners I don't enter. I had a crash in the Tour of Lawrence that I could do nothing about. Too many dudes with all of the testosterone and no appreciation for the danger.

 

[tdrink]

I watched the video and those races look like a blast. I basically stopped road riding because I thought it was too boring(and a near miss with a car.) took up mountain biking instead and haven't looked back.

My BIL started road riding the same time I started mountain biking(6 years ago). He averages over 20 hours a week in the saddle and just finished a 300k raddoneur. His CV has improved greatly but he is still considered morbidly obese according to his BMI.

I've averaged less than 5 hours a week in the woods and within 2 years had dropped 50 lbs. to be within 5lbs of my high school weight. To me that proves you need very high heart rate intervals. They are automatically built in to the technical uphills in mountain biking, but they are avoided in distance cycling.

Looks like the crit races would have a person maxing out there heart rate to stay competitive. Maybe I should look into it. Bonus that there are no cars with texting drivers.