Not sure If anyone’s interested but as It was announced on the news Wiggins is going for the Tour as well as the Giro. I like the guy as he seems to have a bit of life about him and really hope he wins The Giro but doubt he could pull off a double.
What’s yer thoughts. ?

Not seen it yet are SKY having 2 team leaders ? Froome and Wiggins for the Tour.

Le Tour looks a bit more climby than last year, depends on the team orders I suppose, if he and Froome battle it out into the Alps to become leader then it may be detrimental to both. T Mobile of Ulrich/Kloden/Vino springs to mind. With less EPO I hope.

Depend sif sky will let him win both, he just rides the bike, but needs a lot of backup from the team riders etc.

He does come over well in the interview though.

Depend sif sky will let him win both, he just rides the bike, but needs a lot of backup from the team riders etc.

He does come over well in the interview though.

It’ll be a tactic to keep the other teams guessing.

Double thread and now a double post….this bodes well for wiggo to also do the double in a season……..i wonder what the odd are at the bookies?.

mind games, sky will declare they have two leaders, no other team can allow either any room.

It also gives Sky options, if one crashes out, has a bad day etc.

I don’t doubt that Froome is being given preference this year as the tour is more suited to him, but he will have to be in contention a week or two in, if Wiggins is in pole position after two weeks Wiggins may take on the role of sole team leader.

Froome isnt going to win the tour de france. And he wouldnt have won last year either – team orders or no team orders

7 flat stages
5 hilly stages
6 mountain stages with 4 summit finishes
2 individual time trial stages
1 team time trial stage
2 rest days

1 Team Time Trial which barring disaster is a stalemate, and four Summit finishes which should be in favour of Froome. So Wiggins for me would have to do it on the two individual TT’s and hold his own in the mountains, where he would have to cope with any explosive attacks in the last few KM’s on the mountain top finishes.

More comments here,

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/bradley-wiggins-giro-tour-double-1

Duplicate thread now closed.

Froome isnt going to win the tour de france. And he wouldnt have won last year either – team orders or no team orders

Well he would have though wouldn’t he?

If they had ordered Wiggins to stop on the line, or take it easy though the time trials to save himself for pacing Froome the next day, any any one of a million other permutations of team orders, Froome would have won.

He might not have been better than Wiggins, but he could have been given the win really easily if that had been the tactic.

On doing a bit of research I didn’t realise there was just under a month between Giro and Tour. Froomes build up to the tour has pretty much emulated Wiggins last year whilst Bradley has stuck to a few events and trained like a demon. Sky have looked bloody impressive in all early events except Flanders and Roubaix.

Still think Nibali and Sagan might be up there as well though.

Still think Nibali and Sagan might be up there as well though.

I don’t think Nibali is doing the tour and Sagan won’t be a GC contender.

Nibali for the giro though… Quite possibly.

sagan…. funny one .Great rider but he’ll be blown out in the back in the mountains. Still prob get 2 stages i think.

This year should be the best ever.

Nibali, contador, froome, wiggo, schleck ( if he gets in it), cadel, ryder hesjedal, van garderen, valverde. There’s loads out there, rodrigues could pee a few off in the mountains, but i think with porte et al sky will be too good again.

Not being an expert with guys like Henao and Porte as up and coming superstars supporting plus the likes of Stannard and Thomas in there Sky look like the strongest team. It seemed bizarre that Wiggins was confined to the Giro only after winning last years tour , surely the winner should be aloud to defend his title.

I think Sky are just keeping their options open with both Wiggins and Froome, remember Wiggins crashed out of the tour in 2011 so if you’ve got two real contenders on the team it makes sense to wait and see how things develop over the first week. If Froome is on form and isn’t given the nod as leader this year then I can’t see him staying at Sky next year if his ambition is to win it one day.

The tour this year should be great, personally I would like to see Froome win as payback for his team work in the tour last year and the vuelta the year before but I think if Contador is back on form then he’s going to be tough to beat.

If you are going for the double I’d be keeping quiet until I’d one the Giro, clearly a misdirection ploy by Sky

Contador couldn’t do the double. Wiggins won’t / can’t

personally I’m thinking Contador and rodriqueuz (sp?) are both stronger than Froome for the tour.

EDIT: if its a bluff, no ones told Froome

But in reply, Froome released a statement reading: “There has been much speculation regarding the leadership for Team Sky at the Tour de France this year. I have made it clear that winning the Tour would be my main objective for 2013.
“Attempting to win the Tour de France, is a massive undertaking, and will take total commitment from each and every team member.
“The Tour team has yet to be selected but with the depth of talent that we have at Team Sky, I have no doubt that the strongest and most willing riders will be there to support me.”

I suspect Froome is the main man at the tour as Wiggo has always been targeting the Giro. However, they will have 2 leads for the first week and see where they are from there. I suspect we will only know who is leading when Froome attacks on one of the mountain stages. If Sky ride tempo to chase him like they did last year then Wiggo is in charge, if they ease off then Froome is the man.

The order of the stages could see Brad in yellow after stage 11. Will Sky then order him to slow down to allow Froome to win? I can’t see that happening so I think they could end up racing each other. There’s obviously no love lost between them so could be a very explosive July.

This constant insistence in public that he’s going to be riding to win the TdF has diminished Wiggins a bit for me. In the past he’s not been too much about blowing his own trumpet but it certainly seems that this year he’s trying to maximise the coverage even at the expense of making Sky look a bit messy.

As others have said, lets see if he wins the Giro before he opens his trap about winning the double

Could it just be that strangely Wiggins has a policy of being honest rather than tactical. “Are you trying to win the Giro?” “Yes.” “Do you want to do the Tour/Giro double?” “Yes.”
Not sure if he or Froome will win either though if Contador is in top form.

It’s trash talk to mess with everyone’s heads. It’s Sir Bradley to you, anyway.

There’s def some mind games going on however it also makes perfect sense for Sky to have Wiggins and Froome at the TdF if both are capable of winning. They’d look a bit foolish to sideline Brad and then for Froome to crash or get ill during the TdF, also they’re pretty similar in how they race so it wouldn’t need different team tactics to support them. The only issues will be if Brad gets in yellow whether Froome would be allowed to attack in the mountains and if they’re in a lead group without other Sky riders and one has a mechanical does one of them stop to give a wheel to the other if they’re ahead of them on GC (unlikely!).
I’m not a big Froome fan but he’d have obviously won last year’s TdF if Brad wasn’t there. Whether he or Brad can match Contador though (if he’s in-form) I have my doubts, although at least he seems to have lost his TTing ability so it’s mostly about containing him in the mountains, no easy feat though.
Didn’t realize Nibali wasn’t riding the TdF, bit of a shame as although he’s a whinger he would spice things up, especially on descents in the mountain stages.
Plenty of others will hopefully be in form this year to, still it’s hard to see past a Sky or Contador win at the moment.

T’is all bluff and fluster. This is media creation at its very best, distracting other teams and fills the lungs with bull and bravado.
Let em fight it out on the hills I say.

POSTED 19 SECONDS AGO # EDIT