Has it been all a bit too easy for Bradley Wiggins to win the tour?

It’s been the least interesting Tour I can remember. Only Tommy Voekler has tried to make it exciting. All a bit lacklustre imo.

Seems like it’s been a forgone conclusion since Bradley took yellow, with little if any challenge from anyone else, could anyone else really have won it apart from Chris Froome?

It’s looked easy because Sky as a team have done such a great job, not because he’s had a walk in the park.

See yesterdays thread.

Just searched for “yesterdays thread”, didn’t come up with anything

Easy? No, just no one else (team or individuals) has put in the same effort either in the build up or during the race..

“I feel strange,” he (Wiggins) said. “I don’t know what to feel at the moment. You do something like that and then you sit somewhere like this and that fellow asks a question and straight away it’s in a negative sense. So after everything I’ve done this year, it’s like you still have to justify it. ‘Oh yes, you’ve won the Tour, but it is going to be remembered for these people not being here?’

“I don’t think all the people who came out from the UK to stand on these climbs in the past two weeks give a monkey’s about that. For me, no one’s actually praised me yet. No one’s said, ‘you’ve been there since the Tour of Algarve in February, winning races – you went to Paris-Nice, you’ve respected the history of every race you’ve been to, you’ve raced and trained and answered all the questions of the press all year.”

His voice quavered as his words picked up speed. “You’ve really taken it on. You came to this Tour as the favourite from Liège and I haven’t dropped out of the first two of the GC [general classification] for three weeks now. You’ve answered all these doping questions as articulately as you can.

“But it’s all still in the negative sense. It’s ‘don’t you reckon that it’s just because Alberto’s not here?’ All year it’s been, ‘have you peaked too early?’ And even now, no one’s actually said, ‘Bloody good on you, mate, well done.'”

When the translator began to render his words into French, Wiggins broke in with a final thought. “I don’t think Frank Schleck was in the race when he went positive,” he said. “And I don’t think Di Gregorio was ever going to do anything on GC.”

To his list of achievements this season, Wiggins could have added that he arrived at the Tour having just become the first man in cycling history to win Paris-Nice, the Tour of Romandie and the Dauphiné stage races in the same season. His Guardian column last week, in which he articulated his defence against those who insinuate that his remarkable performances justify suspicion, aroused widespread admiration and converted many doubters. The emotional force of Thursday’s outburst may have changed a few more minds.”

Guardian

If i’d known how easy it was i’d have entered myself.

A life time of dedication and hard work, sacrificing the social/family life us 9-5ers take for granted. Oh and cycling a bejillion miles round france in three weeks

I know what you mean about it seeming dull, it might look like Sky have just pootled along but they have neutralised all the other teams by simply being too strong (EBH and Froome in particular) and the other teams are made up of professional athletes, believe it or not

Riding 3,500k over some of the highest peaks in the world? Yeah… its been a ****ing doddle! 🙄

His Olympic gold medals were probably a piece of piss too

Nibali and Evans both had chances – they were not strong enough.

Could Froome have beaten Wiggins? Perhaps. Its a bit academic really isnt it as he rides for Wiggins.

Best man is going to win.

Best man team leader is going to win.

Strongest man will finish second this year and win next.

Not easy and far from dull (IMO)
More of a “thinking cyclists” Tour than a “comic book hero” Tour maybe, but in addition to the GC there’s been Voekler’s taking of the KoM, resurgence of French cycling in their stage wins, exciting contest for young rider, last hurrah for some of the “old timers” and the back of the mind feeling that “Wiggins/Team Sky can’t just ride away with it can he/they ?”

Haven’t enjoyed a Tour as much as this for ages, and not just for partisan reasons……

Strongest man will finish second this year and win next.

there is no proof of that. Unless of course you want to compare wiggins and froome against each other in TTs….

there’s loads more to winning a grand tour that just being the ‘strongest’ rider.

It’s been the least interesting Tour I can remember

Typical attitude when a Brit is winning anything, lets put them down and say it’s shit. Can’t see how its very different to any other tour over the recent past.

If it’s boring, and it certainly hasn’t been for me, then it’s every other teams fault not Sky.

Sometimes you have to work very hard to make something very difficult look easy.

Maybe the thread title was trying too hard to be contraversial, but he has made it look easy and no one else has mounted anthing like a serious challenge.

And yes, when you look at his year, it’s been incredible.

I am confident that he’s riding clean too.

I don’t think it’s been boring at all. But then I grew up watching Big Mig and Banesto do much the same thing in the early 90s and I loved watching that too. Maybe I’m just weird, I dunno.

Wrong @djaustin

Just searched for “yesterdays thread”, didn’t come up with anything

Clicky

I’ve been enjoying it, nice to see the young riders coming up too – Sagan and Pinot, obviously.

No – wwaswas sums it up perfectly. Why the OP? Have you seen how many strong riders have been dropped in the last few stages while Wiggo and team have kept their relentless march towards success. Complete stranglehold by team sky and very impressive combination of individual skills into the best team of the tour. Shame it has the sky logo on it, but can cope with that (just)…

Strongest man will finish second this year and win next.

As far as ‘strongest man’ or Vroom Froome better than Wiggins then you don’t know that at all, do you. You don’t know what percentage effort wiggins was putting in compared to froome, froome was there to work for wiggins, so might have been working at 90% max compared to wiggins at 85%. But you just don’t know and anyone saying froome is better than wiggins, when their on the same team, with one working for the other hasn’t got a clue.

Yeah although I wouldn’t call this TdF a classic it’s been no less interesting than most of Big Mig’s and Lance’s Tour wins. The only characters that have added much excitement in TdF’s in the last twenty years have been dopers. It’s pretty obvious is the top guys aren’t doping and doing similar training then they’re not going to be jumping away but minutes into each other on each mountain stage so the whole thing gets more predictable (barring injuries and illness), that’s a price worth paying IMO.

When the translator began to render his words into French, Wiggins broke in with a final thought. “I don’t think Frank Schleck was in the race when he went positive,” he said.

I’m clearly being a bit of a ‘tard, but what does this actually mean?

Gary_M – Member
Strongest man will finish second this year and win next.

As far as ‘strongest man’ or Vroom Froome better than Wiggins then you don’t know that at all, do you. You don’t know what percentage effort wiggins was putting in compared to froome, froome was there to work for wiggins, so might have been working at 90% max compared to wiggins at 85%. But you just don’t know and anyone saying froome is better than wiggins, when their on the same team, with one working for the other hasn’t got a clue.

Froome could have taken time out of Wiggins in the last couple of days, had he been allowed to. Was clearly waiting for him on the climbs. He might have been able to win it, he might not, the only pity is we didn’t get to see him try.

If Froome had been on a different team and so competing against Wiggins, he’d not have had Team Sky riding for him and so would probably still not have won.

I think it’s been a great Tour. There’ve been fewer flat stages where they let a break go then the sprint teams reel them for a sprint finish and Sky’s dominance have mean the smaller teams have been treating stages almost like classics and attacking and going for stage wins, which has lead to some great stages.

When the translator began to render his words into French, Wiggins broke in with a final thought. “I don’t think Frank Schleck was in the race when he went positive,” he said.

I’m clearly being a bit of a ‘tard, but what does this actually mean?

“Not in the race” as in he had already dropped too much time to be a GC contender by the time he withdrew.

Froome could have taken time out of Wiggins in the last couple of days

How do you know that?

IMO it was particular interesting in the first 2 weeks because of the GC standings + crashes + the possibility of things kicking off in the Pyranees after nothing really happening in the Alps.

It’s simmered down since and is Wiggo’s barring a crash.

Toblerone stages never really delivered.

Impressed with Sagan, TJ and Voekler.

True there’s not been much action around the GC most of the time, but we have had: escapes caught and passed with the finish line in sight; escapes getting away ending with cat and mouse sprints; swashbuckling mountain climbing for the KOM competitions; and a few bunch sprints including one lead out by the yellow jersey; and a huge number of big crashes followed by riding with blood-soaked injuries.
If that’s boring go and watch golf!

Seems clear to me that the massive strength of Sky is what’s done it. Particularly having Froome on the team too.

He might have been able to win it, he might not, the only pity is we didn’t get to see him try.

his chance will come, perhaps wiggins will be supporting him, perhaps they’ll be heading up rival teams. Froome can have no complaints, Sky set out to win the jersey not win stages, he’d have known that from the start. He’s had a great tour, massively increased his exposure and will undoubtedly lead a team in the next year or two. It would be interesting to see how strong he is AGAINST a similar sky team led by Wiggins. Evans and Nibali failed to make an impression, I wonder if he could do better?

When he says that he lost concentration yesterday it could be construed that he’s finding it easy. Froome had a much more killer instinct trying to get even more time over Nibali. I’m surprised that Wiggo wouldn’t want to absolutely bury any of his rivals.

“All the way up that last climb my concentration had gone, everything about performance had gone. Chris was egging me on to take more time and I was in another world, really.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/18914331

I said it yesterday, I’ll say it today. Was last year boring as well because Cav had 3 or 4 world class sprinters delivering to within sight of the line day after day so he could then take the win? Clearly it’s not just Cav otherwise he’d have done the same this year – equally if Goss had been the chosen one last year instead of Cav then i assume he’d have won almost as many stages.

It’s a team game, with an individual winner. Sky have dominated the GC just as HTC dominated the sprints last year. Just because it’s happened at 1/5 of the speed, doesn’t make it any less impressive.

Is there any chance that radio communication between the cyclists and team managers will get banned in future? A quick Google search looks like they tried it a few years ago without much success.

There is a show on ITV4 now about Wiggins.

Froome could have taken time out of Wiggins in the last couple of days, had he been allowed to. Was clearly waiting for him on the climbs. He might have been able to win it, he might not, the only pity is we didn’t get to see him try.

Yeah, maybe… Wiggins might look sometimes like he couldn’t match him on the climbs, but he’s managing his efforts with the single goal of being in yellow in Paris, and Froome isn’t. Also you don’t really know how it would play out over a few days in the mountains- Wiggins can’t put the spurts in like Froome, but he can motor along more steadily pretty handily. For me it’s far from clear that Froome would necessarily have spat him out if he’d been allowed to try, over the course of a few days in the Pyrenees.

That said, I reckon he could, and should, have had the stage yesterday.

Froome could have taken time out of Wiggins in the last couple of days

Cobblers! It takes more than a turn of speed to be a team leader and No1 rider. Theres a lot more too it! Bradley himself found this out the hard way on his first tour for Sky. He was suitably bollocked by Brailsford for not taking the responsibility seriously enough.

Anyway..Bradley said last night that Froomes chance will come and he could well be supporting him. The Sky/Team GB set-up is famously unsentimental, and is no respecter of reputations. If they thought Froome could win it over Bradley, that’s how they’d have set the team up from the start

I do think he/they should have let Froome go for the stage win yesterday though

Froome could have taken time out of Wiggins in the last couple of days, had he been allowed to. Was clearly waiting for him on the climbs. He might have been able to win it, he might not, the only pity is we didn’t get to see him try.

The plan is to get Wiggins to Paris wearing the yellow jersey.
Anything else is not the plan.

Changing that plan now would be a really stupid idea.

Don’t forget, Froome lost time earlier due to a crash. I think he could have taken time out of Bradley at multiple mountain stages, all else being equal, and more than enough to overcome the time trial deficits. Hence I think he is the strongest rider this year. However, he has shown he’s a team player and his reward will come, either in the Vuelta or next years TdF (or both).

The Sky/Team GB set-up is famously unsentimental

This.

The Sky/Team GB set-up is famously unsentimental, and is no respecter of reputations

Kenny > Hoy in the sprint for example

Anyone saying Froome is much stronger than Wiggins clearly doesn’t have a clue about road racing, let alone grand tours. The team is a massive part of anyone winning (clean), if Froome had Sky and Wiggo had Cofidis then yeah Froome probably would have won. Seeing as they’re on the same team then you really can’t draw any conclusions – both of them arrived relatively fresh for the big mountain top finishes – the times when Froome was working on the front were the very steep sections where it is much less of a benefit to the guy on the wheel.
Is Froome better at putting in some fast out-of-the-saddle attacks? Probably – that’s the only thing we really saw (and even then only twice) but had they been competing against each other then why would Wiggins have let him get to that point in a stage so fresh? Answer is he wouldn’t, he’d have set a much higher tempo earlier on rather than continually holding a bit back most of the climbs (in case Nibali/Evans etc.) attacked. A mountain TT would have given us a better indication of relative climbing ability but there wasn’t one. And even if there was and Froome won it then I highly doubt he’d have won it by enough to recoup time lost to Wiggins on the flatter TTs.
So stop being dicks drawing stupid conclusions from a gap that opened up for about 10 seconds on one stage and Froome goofing about at the end of yesterdays stage when Wiggin’s head was clearly elsewhere.