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Team Sky’s GC focus was also in evidence in the Vuelta yesterday. Kept the pace on to keep Froome safe until the 3km mark was passed then vanished into the peloton leaving Swift to go it alone.

Doesnt look good for sprinters in SKY anymore.

Cav will be at OPQS next year…..ex HTC DS’s are there and they have zero GC hopes-him and Boonen may clash at say San Remo, but other than that it seems an ideal fit.

Yeah all just part of the ‘subtle’ media campaign to pave the way for Cav leaving Sky on good terms for next season. Don’t think it’s much of an issue for other Sky sprinters that the team’s focus is GT GC, unless they become as dominant as Cav. Someone like Swift is better off focusing on one day race sprints and picking up Giro/Vuelta stage wins. EbH I reckon probably needs to move on unless he gets more classics support otherwise he’ll just become Swift’s bitch but with Thomas, Kennaugh, Stannard they already have plenty of riders that want to focus more on classics

It was always speculated that his stay at sky might be a short one. Cav’s a leader and a winner, makes sense he goes to a team that supports that. Be great to see him competing properly again, and might see more of him in the classics with the right support.

I like the idea of team sky and team sky+ 🙂

Would feel sorry for team Sky+1 though.

Cav has disapeared from the headlines since the tour, and now the veulta, along with the olympics, seems as if theyre pushing the young lad , geriant , and froom to be the new replacements for him.

How about some real competition for Sky,

http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/blog/proud-of-british-cycling

Team Virgin cycling? Maybe Branson can throw some money at UK cycling and we can have two top level teams 😀

Cav has disapeared from the headlines since the tour

Though he has appeared in at least one crit on the continent earning a reported £40k for showing up. Good money for a day’s work.

Don’t forget a couple of years ago he was saying he’d never leave highroad to join sky.

Froome on a different team would be entertaining though. I still don’t think he’s quite fast enough to take the 3+ minutes out of Wiggins he’d need to though.

the rumours in June* were that Sky was going to drop Pinarello on 2013 for Specialized. I’ve heard from a strong source this is a done-deal. One of the driving factors is that Cav signed a lucrative long term personal sponsorship deal with Spec, Sky are having to buy out this contract and so are effectively paying royally for the privilege of riding Pinarellos.

So I expect Cav to still be with Sky in 2013, riding Specialized. Although OPQS ride Specialized so he would be an even better fit there.

*
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/team-sky-to-ride-specialized-bikes-in-2013

crashtestmonkey – In late June, Pinarello and Sky confirmed 2013 so no go

Presumably they’d just ride whatever was the most cost effective*?

*whoever pays the most

Froome on a different team would be entertaining though. I still don’t think he’s quite fast enough to take the 3+ minutes out of Wiggins he’d need to though.

Most of the gap was due to a flat stage puncture…

Presumably they’d just ride whatever was the most cost effective*?

*whoever pays the most

Surely if specialized wanted to they could chuck more money and kit at Sky than Pinnarello? I expect Speccy just don’t need the publicity that much…

As for Cav leaving Sky? it maybe hints at the idea of it being a short term move aimed more at maximizing olympic/TDF headlines than part of the longer term Sky/BC strategy?

If the original goal was building a team with GC dominanation as well as always having a man in the mix for every sprint, is Cav departing an acknowledgement that the idea was completely outside the realms of achievability?

Most of the gap was due to a flat stage puncture…

~1:20 was a puncture

The rest was the TT’s

Next year with more hills maybe he’ll show an advantage, but on this year’s flat(ish) race I think Wiggins won fair and square.

Don’t forget a couple of years ago he was saying he’d never leave highroad to join sky.

But considering that the team lost their main sponsor and as a result were shutting up shop, he didn’t really have much choice!

The rest was the TT’s

“the rest” being less than 2 minutes, not the 3+ you were claiming earlier. Not that hard to visualise him taking that much (or possibly slightly less if there is less TT distance) in the mountains.

Cav back to riding a Specialized in 2013 for Omega Quick Step, that’s my guess.

…am I the only one who thought the decision for Cav to go to Sky in the first place was rather strange, as everybody knew what their plans and ambitions were?

Froome lost 2 min 17 secons on time trials. I’d forgotten how big the gap was on the last time trial.

I think basically its correct to Wiggins wone fair and square. Wiggins can’t acclelerate to react like Froome. That doesn’t mean Wiggins will get to the top last.

Its hard to call the Cav thing. I assume tour stage victories are his main ambition. Or he happy with stage wins in other tour and the classics?

oops 2 mins 2 seconds…

It wasn’t strange at all, I think his first choice would have been to remain at HTC (assuming they could sort out the pay/bonus situation otherwise he’d probably have wanted to be bought out of the contract) but when they folded he was left in a bit of limbo. No other team was really geared to replicating the HTC sprint train and with BC/Sky offering a place where he could focus his season around the Olympics, get paid a load more money and be in an infrastructure he was familiar and comfortable with then it was a bit of a no-brainer. Now with the Olympics over and the focus back to ‘normal’ pro cycling then he has to move on from Sky and it’s obvious Sky are going to make that easy for him and will likely allow OPQS/someone else to buy out his contract cheaply.

Its not quite as simple as counting time trial differences and punctures. Sky had a whole strategy in place and tailored their training to this end. Froome was designated as a dom to help in the hills and Wiggins even put on weight to become a stronger TT’er. You can’t really say Froomes better in the hills and Wiggins on the TT, this is the case but only by design. I think you will see a Wiggins akin to his 2011 physique next year. I just wonder if Sky’s adherence to the numbers will trump Wiggins right to be team leader and defend his jersey.

…am I the only one who thought the decision for Cav to go to Sky in the first place was rather strange, as everybody knew what their plans and ambitions were?

Not strange at all – bearing in mind Sky is effectively Brailsford’s Pro arm of British cycling, a background from which Cav appeared. He already knew the infrastructure etc. and considering someone like Sky only sponsors teams for the publicity, what better publicity could they have got – Cav & the best hope for winning the tour in a long time all on one team.

Its not quite as simple as counting time trial differences and punctures………..

True, but IF Froome was given free reign to blast up the mountains, then I think BMC and Liquigas would have spent more time at the front trying to wear him down, whereas the Wiggins tactic meant they (Sky) only broke away from the competition on the last mountain stage.

And if Froom had gone the first time he heard ‘Go’ not ‘Slow’, or the 2nd time whilst Wiggins was daydreaming, would he have been tired the next day, would that have left him tired for the last TT (if he wasn’t going flat out while Wiggo supposedly was on the limit then argualbly he should heve been in better shape than Wiggo)? Don’t forget he was almost dropped on a couple of other climbs so it’s not like he was leagues ahead.

Yeah Froome’s performance flattered to deceive in some respects. He was very strong no doubt and in a different team would have been a serious headache to Wiggins but the time he briefly dropped Wiggins was pure theatre. He himself had been dropped earlier on the climb and at that point on the stage Wiggins was no doubt at/close to his limit (as were the others) and given Froome was his team-mate why would he try and go with him (and risk going deep into the red and blowing) rather than just call him back, it doesn’t mean he wasn’t capable of putting the effort in and upping his pace enough to get back to Froome.
Froome as a GC contender in a rival team would have been more exposed than he was riding in a Sky shirt to and likely not as fresh in the mountains as he was. The crap with the race radio play acting and his missus on Twitter just make him look like a muppet with no class though – hopefully he’ll redeem himself with a good performance over the next couple of weeks.

Wiggins even put on weight to become a stronger TT’er.

Did he? Not much sign of any spare on him – have you got a reference for that, as my understanding is that he’d lost even more weight.

FWIW I don’t believe that Froome was as far ahead of Wiggins in the mountains as popular opinion suggests – it’s just that Wiggins doesn’t have the acceleration, so tends to plod his way back up. Or to be more accurate Wiggins is clever enough not to use what acceleration he might have (I find it very hard to believe he couldn’t jump a bit harder if he really had to), as he realises that being a “pure climber” and putting in a burst to get away before slowing down is actually pretty inefficient. I’d love to see the results of a mountain TT when they’re trying to get from bottom to top as fast as possible with no tactics – hopefully they’ll give us one next year, and then we’ll know who’s really the best climber 😉

Wiggins even put on weight to become a stronger TT’er.
Did he? Not much sign of any spare on him – have you got a reference for that, as my understanding is that he’d lost even more weight.

Hmmm I’m trying to find some actual figures but can’t. I got the gist of it from the documentary that was on TV. I believe he said he’d been spending time in the gym, one to strengthen his shoulder and also to be able to put more power down. I’ve possible added 2+2 and came up with 5 though.

– have you got a reference for that, as my understanding is that he’d lost even more weight.

Yes, lost weight over recent years but he did say that he had put a bit on for TT in a documentary.