Bradley Wiggins joins Sky

[slovakguy]

Sorry those are your poorly chosen words, that "no one's too blame." If that's the level of critical thought you're going to use, perhaps going back to third grade would be a good idea.

the truth is out then, yes? you are really only attempting to have me engage in the trading of insults? you won't respond to the point that you believe "...it as a strike against the characters of Wiggns and Brailsford. They're as much to blame as anyone else."

really, it's not as if we don't know that you pick on one point in someone else's post and when your point meets with a response you just start hurling insults about intelligence or whatever you feel will get the playground fight you want to begin.

 

[alienator]

the truth is out then, yes? you are really only attempting to have me engage in the trading of insults? you won't respond to the point that you believe "...it as a strike against the characters of Wiggns and Brailsford. They're as much to blame as anyone else."

really, it's not as if we don't know that you pick on one point in someone else's post and when your point meets with a response you just start hurling insults about intelligence or whatever you feel will get the playground fight you want to begin.

You completely misread that. My point was that it is simplistic to a fault to only blame McQuaid.
My point is not to trade insults but to say that blaming only McQuaid, to the exclusion of many others in the system, is short sighted and adds nothing of value.

 

[slovakguy]

fair enough, i misjudged your response.

i still maintain that mcquaid, as the person at the top of the uci administration, has been caught out on far too many matters. this issue, in which uci have no provisions in place to regulate which laws will be applied to govern rider contracts (placing the entire issue under the contract/labour laws of the country in which the rider has citizenship) is just another instance of his reactive administration. think back to the uci's position on the 2008 giro samples. mcquaid (and therefore the enitire weight of the uci) would not request retesting the samples for cera until the italian civil forces demanded the retesting. add to that his very public spat with aso over governance of testing in the tdf in 2008 and his threat to bar riders who dared to participate in aso events. and, more so, consider that his vision for cycling to go global has fallen down about his ears.

while i can in specifics agree with you that mcquaid is not personally responsible for wiggins' and brailsford's actions in this affair, i find it to be another proof that mcquaid is in charge of an organisation which governs international cycling much as the league of nations governed world affairs, that is, incompletely and incompetently.

 

[alienator]

trolling again

 

[Runitout]

Sorry those are your poorly chosen words, that "no one's too blame." If that's the level of critical thought you're going to use, perhaps going back to third grade would be a good idea.

Did your wife just leave you, or are you always this nice?

 

[swampy1970]

It's a very strong team for classics, medium mountain stages, flat stages, smaller tours. In fact it's strong enough in those situations to destroy most other teams out there. Should make the cobbled stages of next years tour very interesting. But I think when the high mountains rear their ugly heads this team doesn't have enough dedicated climbing firepower beyond Wiggins to do anything.

This may not be too much of a problem, I don't think Wiggins will be in yellow come the mountain stages and so Sky won't have to control the race. Stage 9 could be problematic with lack of climbing support, as could stage 17. Stage 16 is basically neutered by the 60 clicks from the top of the Aub to the finish.

It ain't all about firepower on those tricky flat stages. US Postal proved that 10 years ago when they ripped Banesto a new one. It'll be interesting to see how Brailsford and Bruyneel battle it out. Both are great planners but only one has really proven himself on the road...

The run into Pau is harder than the route suggests, so don't count out that run into the finish after the Aubisque. There's lots of gradual downhill sections that'll make it hard to catch a strong rider that escapes but the perpetual short, sharp rises will make for interesting viewing on the TV but will be hell for the riders.

The stage through the Jura prior to the first mountain top finish at Morzine should be interesting. Lots of big hills that don't really rank as mountains but it's all up and down. That'll be a leg killer...

... but none of that will matter to Wiggo, he'll be on Brailsford blood and just like half the GB track team his hematocrit will be pegged right under 50% because "they do super hard blocks of work and the complete rest that follows allows for a supercompensatory effect." *cough*

I predict that Wiggo will self destruct on the Port de Bales during Stage 15.

 

[gtm]

... but none of that will matter to Wiggo, he'll be on Brailsford blood and just like half the GB track team his hematocrit will be pegged right under 50% because "they do super hard blocks of work and the complete rest that follows allows for a supercompensatory effect." *cough*

I predict that Wiggo will self destruct on the Port de Bales during Stage 15.

Wiggo? 'Mr Clean' personified? On the strong stuff?

On reflection his showing in this years Tour was just a little bit too good to be true.