- So, Nibbles…? (GC spoiler if you live on Mars)
Yeah it doesn’t sound all that high until you consider they’re hitting 6W/kg after 150-200km, I can do it for about 2 mins when fresh….
We’ll never know will we, everyone capable of those numbers is already riding in the peloton and will swear blind they haven’t doped. A proper study of the capability is impossible.
Posted 3 years agoYeah it doesn’t sound all that high until you consider they’re hitting 6W/kg after 150-200km, I can do it for about 2 mins when fresh….
I suppose, but its also concentrating on just the GC main contenders, I read the articles as (very broadly) indicating GC contenders fall in the ~5.6 – 6 W/kg range, the thing is everyone on the tour has to ride the preceding 150-200km so perhaps more advantage is to be derived from a well disciplined/structured team or a controlled Peleton Getting the GC big boys to the bottom of the mountain with minimal Watts expended…
Is there any GC analysis factoring in Team support?
I mean If the other 8 guys in a team are in a similarly high W/kg range then you’re laughing, if your team is falling apart disipline wise, poorly trained, unwell or plain knackered Domestiques or they’ve crashed out, well you’re well behind the curve to start with…You could suggest the “Smart” doping strategy for a team chasing the yellow jersey is to have a Lead rider who has trained hard to be at the top end of “Plausable” while staying as clean as a whistle and simply supporting him with an army of juicers who won’t be under quite as much scrutiny… Discuss.
Either way it’ll be future analysis of all that frozen blood and wee, not spreadsheet extrapolation that answers any of these doubts…
Posted 3 years agoI’m a bit lost with this 6w/kg ‘benchmark’. w/kg is calculated using a rider’s FTP/cp60 but they’re using Nibali’s Hautacam ascent as evidence of him hitting over 6w/kg. He climbed Hautacam in about 30mins though, so surely his CP30 is 6w/kg – you can knock a few % off to get his FTP, which would come in at , I’m guessing, about 5.8, using FTP=CP20 x 0.95)
Still a long way ahead of some of the fastest climbers though… ten Dam rode Hautacam at 5.5w/kg to 8th place, according to his Strava numbers.
Getting the GC big boys to the bottom of the mountain with minimal Watts expended…
Good point – again from Strava, ten Dam did the last climb of the Clasica San Sebastián at 4.5w/kg after burying himself to get Mollema on the podium.
Posted 3 years agoAnd it’s not just about having having a couple of “High output” Domestiques, it’s about them not falling off the back and getting DQ’d once they’ve placed their man and recovering to do it all again the next day(s), there needs to be a strategy that takes advantage of that if you’ve got rider’s that can do it…
I guess everyone is focussed on the old LA way of doping, Build yourself a superman who can just stamp the rest into oblivion, any newer doping based strategies will probably have to be a shade subtler and a bit more tactical, what sort of magic juices are there that might aid repeated recovery to a baseline level rather than outright strength/power/endurance?
If there are still keen dopers and doctors in the sport, then they’ve got to be looking at new/different stuff now… including how to make performances look more “Plausable”…
Posted 3 years ago‘m a bit lost with this 6w/kg ‘benchmark’. w/kg is calculated using a rider’s FTP/cp60 b
It’s not FTP, it’s just the average power (or maybe NP) they put out over the duration of the climb. You can have w/kg for a 5 minute effort, or a 60 minute effort, for example.
Posted 3 years agoYeah, I only skimmed the links and didn’t realise they were just comparing times on specific climbs.
Ftp would make more sense to compare riders who haven’t ridden the same races… Even I put out 6w/kg on some climbs!But as the riders don’t generally release their ftp I suppose that’s all we’ve got to go on.
Posted 3 years agoFtp would make more sense to compare riders who haven’t ridden the same races
Not really, where they shine is in the mountains, so that’s what you want to look at. I’d hazard a guess that Tony Martin’s FTP is among the highest, but that wouldn’t make a relevant comparison here.
Posted 3 years agoYeah, and for the likes of Cav and Kittel, it’s probably something like their 10 second w/kg (or even w/cd – i.e. drag) that’s critical and that’d be well up in the 20’s.
Posted 3 years agoI know what you’re saying, although I was talking about GC guys.
Posted 3 years agoOooft!! It appears the whole Astana team is at it…
Posted 3 years agoOh dear, and so it begins again…
Posted 3 years agoseriously?! – oh FFS.
Posted 3 years agoBenefit of the doubt , again, or no smoke without fire and all that?? Hmmmmm
Posted 3 years agoFeel free to embed, can’t from my phone…
Posted 3 years agoOne is unfortunate, two looks like carelessness, three?
Only one was in Nibali’s TdF squad, and one has been caught for steroids, errrr steak and it’s esay to see how two brothers in the same team might have the same “preparation” 😉
But given the head of the team, it does not bode well. Any teams looking for a new GC rider this off season? If I was Nibali, i’d be looking for a new team.
Hutch wrote a good article in the comic a week ago about cycling being a team sport, right up to a member of the team being caught. Unlike say the men’s 4x100m relay, where one down, all down.
Posted 3 years agoEpic carelessness by Davidenok surely. If he was knowingly taking an easily detectable steroid, then why go and win a stage when you know you’ll be tested? Bizarre really.
Posted 3 years agoBut given the head of the team, it does not bode well.
and previous team leaders; Armstrong and Contador in ’09. I really wish Nibali was riding on a different team 🙄
Posted 3 years agoIf he was knowingly taking an easily detectable steroid, then why go and win a stage when you know you’ll be tested?
mix-up with the blood bags, then ?
Posted 3 years agoStill pretty careless to have saved a bag of tainted blood.
Posted 3 years agoJesus. Surely the nail in their pro licence coffin!
Posted 3 years agoJust as well Astana haven’t just signed a doctor with a long history of doping, then things would look really dodgy
Oh wait…they have…what are the currents odds on a Frenchman winning the TDF…in 2014 ?
Posted 3 years agoQuite a good article on inrng questioning whether Nibbles should leave Astana.
Posted 3 years agoYes, I know this is the continental outfit, not the full team…
Was reading an interview with Nibbles the other day in one of the papers (Grauniad possibly), and it was interesting that the last Astana rider caught doping, Nibali had to do some research on, because he had no idea who he was. (Or so he says… Because of course, he’s guilty by association)
He didn’t seem too bothered, so long as the guys around him are good guys. But it doesn’t seem a good place for him to be. I dare say he’s either up to his eyeballs in freshly transfused blood, or he just doesn’t see the perspective of the outside world.
Posted 3 years agoHaha was just about re re re bump this!
Madness, you couldn’t write this shit! Now, it’s not all the World Tour team but seriously WTF, they are linked. In my eyes there’s no way Astana can have a WT licence next year.
Posted 3 years agohttp://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/nov/20/vincenzo-nibali-astana-cycling-tour-de-france
nibbles interview mentioned above
Not good and it is hard to not be suspicious
Posted 3 years agoCannot disagree with that Flashy…and trust me I tried 😉
Posted 3 years agoI really hope their license review goes badly – though I don’t know if the continental team will be taken into account – if not then this feels like cycling taking a huge step backwards.
Posted 3 years agoThe UCI / ASO can’t really afford to refuse participation can they, I mean the UK/Europe/USA aren’t the only countries that watch Pro Cycling and certainly it’s wider audience the Governing Bodies seek..
As for Nibbles, he’ll stay, it’s where the money is.
Posted 3 years agoThat is brilliant.
But I really hope Nibbles is clean! Him and Aru need to get the hell outta dodge.
Posted 3 years agoI don’t quite understand why everyone seems to give Nibali the benefit of the doubt. He’s never had mine. ymmv
Posted 3 years agoMr Nibali, what was it that first attracted you to the multi-million euro deal with Astana ?
There was a great interview on the cycling podcast earlier in the year (sorry can’t find the link) with Astana’s PR guy – a superb raconteur explaining the basis behind the whole Astana project. Now admittedly he was a real master of spin etc, but the way he put was it was part of a great plan to use Kazakhstan’s immense oil wealth to develop the whole country (Norwegian style). It was always the powerhouse of soviet cycling, but now a lot of ex-cyclists have ending up running businesses and they are using it to promote the Astana Expo in 2017.
Well, they certainly got a lot of people talking about Astana !
He also explained the Kazak attitude to cheating is somewhat different to the Europeans – don’t get caught, but if you do you serve your time and then the slate is clean. None of this hairshirt, forgive me malarkey.
Nibbles win is tarnished, but at the same time he does appear to have a team within a team and kept the kazaks at arms length – apparently he didn’t want Iglinsky in his tour squad. But his choice of doctor seems very odd for someone who professes to be Mr Clean. Unless Astana gets kicked out, it looks like he hasn’t much choice other than to see out his contract. But if he signs the extension he’s been offered, his credibility will be in tatters.
Posted 3 years ago2017?
Posted 3 years agoWhile I’m against criminalising doping itself, I reckon that doctors like Ferrari should certainly be allowed to be put in jail if proven to have helped athletes cheat. And the team managers.
Posted 3 years agoWhy do you draw a line between the medics and the athletes? One cannot exist without the other.
Posted 3 years agodoctors have a professional code to follow. IMO doping breaks those rules and there are already laws in place to prosecute for that though maybe not explicitly stated.
There will always be individuals who cheat regardless of how clean the culture is in any sport. They should continue to be dealt with as at present though maybe with stiffer sanctions for those who don’t provide information on where they sourced their drugs from). The key is to sort out the culture – that’s the team managers and doctors – that’s what leads to wholesale corruption of sports.
Posted 3 years agoTo paraphrase a comment on road.cc’s fb report.
I can’t believe Dr Ferrari would risk his reputation by allowing himself to be pictured with the Astana team…
Posted 3 years agoHas the Gazetta been sitting on these pics for a year then?
Is it not saying that it’s the italian anti doping authorities who have the photos, not the newspaper:
Posted 3 years agoAccording to the Italian paper, Ferrari attended the team hotel in Montecatini Terme thirteen months ago. Unbeknownst to the team, so too did anti-doping investigators, who reportedly have photographs of the doctor talking to various members of the team.
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