Has anyone ever won green and yellow in the TDF

[PJ520]

All this discussion reminds me of when Cassius Clay first arrived on the scene and was clobbering everybody. There would be heated discussions over whether he was better than Rocky Marciano. And it's about as fruitful.

[thirdcrank]

I'll try and put it another way.

Chris Froome beats the competition decisively, but by what would have been a narrow margin in some previous eras. This is after his entire season has been targeted on preparation for this one race. Dr Salaud, or whatever they call him, suggests among other possibilities that he may have some sort of motor fitted, even though on one stage, all the Team Sky bikes were seized by what Phil and Paul call the referees to be checked for just such gadgets, when none was found.

Earlier on this thread, it was suggested that Eddy Merckx dominance of the TdeF must be suspect. Anybody familiar with Merckx's era knows that he was a colossus. On yesterday's ITV4 coverage, there was a big banner at the roadside congratulating Thevenet as "Le tombeur de Merckx." ie his win was important for having brought down that rider. As has been noted, Merckx road everything and won much of it from Milan - San Remo to the Tour of Lombardy and competed on the track in winter, also finding time to nip off to Mexico at take the hour record without spending the usual time acclimatising to riding at altitude.

The sport is much bigger now with riders from many more countries and most trained to a much higher level. One of the biggest differences is that every rider in a race like the TdeF is a strong rider and today's team leaders get much more support than used to be the case from strong riders who might be good enough to star were they not riding in a support role.

I've probably posted before that a couple of years ago, when the media were beginning to cover the TdeF coming to Yorkshire, Brian Robinson was interviewed on what passes for the regional news, Look North We saw some library footage of the race in his heyday and it certainly looked tough. Given the opportunity to come the old soldier, he described conditions in his era as "rustic" and laughed as he said it. One of his stage victories was by some 20 minutes: a promenade stage when the whole field was happy to let him go. The prestige of a stage win today is such that there are no easy days.

All I'm saying is that no individual could dominate the sport today as Merckx and others did in the past. The competition in depth is stronger.

[ukdodger]

I'm wondering what possible motor you could fix to a racing bike.

There was an interesting discussion on R4 this morning about allegations against Froome and as was said after Armstrong doping allegations are not going to go away and those accused will never conclusively be able to prove their innocence.

[pete75]

I'm wondering what possible motor you could fix to a racing bike.

There was an interesting discussion on R4 this morning about allegations against Froome and as was said after Armstrong doping allegations are not going to go away and those accused will never conclusively be able to prove their innocence.

The stuff about Froome now is very like what people were saying about Armstrong round about 2001. Maybe we'll have to wait another 13 years for the truth to come out.

[Brucey]

....Merckx rode everything and won much of it from Milan - San Remo to the Tour of Lombardy and competed on the track in winter, also finding time to nip off to Mexico at take the hour record without spending the usual time acclimatising to riding at altitude.....

Merckx spent months training specifically for the record attempt. In his basement at home in Belgium he had what looked to me (and in fact had the effect of being) some kind of ghastly torture apparatus. The apparatus had Merckx training on the rollers with a kind of gas mask on, which was fed via a pipe that led from a unit that extracted a proportion of the atmospheric oxygen, thus simulating the effects of altitude.

He trained regularly on this apparatus prior to his record attempt. If you watch 'La Course En Tete' there is footage of him training this way. He looked to me to be in a worse state than at any other time in his career with the possible exception of the record ride itself, and I guess that would have been every day, or every other day at least, for months. It takes real willpower to do that.

Merckx was a phenomenon; an exemplar of the 'first you learn to ride, then you learn to suffer; if you don't learn to suffer, you will never win' school of thought.

cheers

[pete75]

....Merckx rode everything and won much of it from Milan - San Remo to the Tour of Lombardy and competed on the track in winter, also finding time to nip off to Mexico at take the hour record without spending the usual time acclimatising to riding at altitude.....

Merckx spent months training specifically for the record attempt. In his basement at home in Belgium he had what looked to me (and in fact had the effect of being) some kind of ghastly torture apparatus. The apparatus had Merckx training on the rollers with a kind of gas mask on, which was fed via a pipe that led from a unit that extracted a proportion of the atmospheric oxygen, thus simulating the effects of altitude.

He trained regularly on this apparatus prior to his record attempt. If you watch 'La Course En Tete' there is footage of him training this way. He looked to me to be in a worse state than at any other time in his career with the possible exception of the record ride itself, and I guess that would have been every day, or every other day at least, for months. It takes real willpower to do that.

Merckx was a phenomenon; an exemplar of the 'first you learn to ride, then you learn to suffer; if you don't learn to suffer, you will never win' school of thought.

cheers

Not according to this http://bikeraceinfo.com/riderhistories/ ... ecord.html which says he didn't decide to go for the record until August 1972 and didn't choose Mexico until after a visit to the Vigorelli on October 12th. The record was set on 25th October which didn't leave much time for preparation.
In my version of 'La Course En Tete' he's shown training on rollers but not wearing a mask.

[thirdcrank]

I obviously didn't know about the gas mask thing: the wide-eyed wonder at the time was that he had (apparently) managed to break the record without acclimatisation. I'm pretty sure that the source for that at the time was in JB Wadley's Coureur The magazine for the sporting cyclist.

It brings to mind another hero of those now far-off times, Don Thompson who won the gold medal in the 50km walk at the Rome Olympics after training himself to cope with the expected heat and humidity by stepping on and off his bathroom stool with the windows closed, heating on and an electric kettle steaming away as well. No Lottery Funding for him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Thompson_(athlete)

None of that detracts from what I'm saying which is that there is now a bigger pool of competitors many benefiting from scientific advances eg the Team Sky programme.

On the "knowing how to suffer" theme, anybody reading my posts of a few years ago will see that I believed that the excruciating cancer treatment had taught Lance Armstrong how to suffer.

Another star of an earlier age I've mentioned before in my ramblings was Eugene Christophe, patron saint of toeclips (toe clips? what are they, some will ask.) He lost hours (and the jersey) when he ran down the Tourmalet to a blacksmith's forge and was penaiised a further minute for recruiting a child to pump the bellows. Could any modern rider do that? Probably not because I don't think you can braze carbon fibre. As has already been pointed out, you can't compare sprortsmen across the generations. I picked the word carefully when I described Merckx as a colossus.

[pete75]

None of that detracts from what I'm saying which is that there is now a bigger pool of competitors many benefiting from scientific advances eg the Team Sky programme.

Yep and we all know what scientific advances is a euphemism for.

[thirdcrank]

... Yep and we all know what scientific advances is a euphemism for.

That's not what I meant, but it is obviously true that doping has become more sophisticated over the years, both in the substances used and the race to keep ahead of detection. A lot of the scope for rumour-mongering comes from the possibility that we can't be sure what's happening and beyond that, there's been the suspicion that blind eyes have been turned. But those doubts have always been there. I've been a Pangloss in the past and then been disappointed by new revelations more than once. EPO was a particular disappointment for me, because it seemed to be the first thing that would inevitably give a cheat an edge over a clean rider, while wrecking the health of those who took it.

My early info came from Coureur and the comic: cycling was rarely on the box. Eurosport was an eye-opener for me and I spent a lot of time enjoying the luxury of all that live coverage, with or without Duffers. But several times after more revelations, I've said "That's it, no more watching cycle racing." But I've been tempted back. In the early days of the the ITV4 coverage (I think) I was channel hopping before going to be and I came across Phil and Paul, and Floyd Landis was on a ride. In no time at all he'd been outed as a cheat. Longer term forum members may remember somebody (gar?) defending him against allegations by referring to his strict religious upbringing in the US outback.

The only thing that brought me back, yet again, was being laid up with my Achilles the first year that Team Sky rode the TdeF. I'm clinging again to the belief that they are kosher. I look to Chris Boardman's comments here, because he had a reputation of being clean. Perhaps I'm naïve.

As an aside, the human memory is a wonderful thing and us oldies can help a younger generation with appropriate advice and trips down memory lane, but the rose-tinted specs are best put away. (Or worn on the back of the head like the obligatory sunspecs. It would have the benefit of reminding us that we are looking backwards with them. )

[pete75]

The only thing that brought me back, yet again, was being laid up with my Achilles the first year that Team Sky rode the TdeF. I'm clinging again to the belief that they are kosher. I look to Chris Boardman's comments here, because he had a reputation of being clean. Perhaps I'm naïve.

Maybe but I've always doubts about anyone and anything tainted by association with Rupert Murdoch......

[Brucey]

this is what I was thinking of; thought it was in LCET but maybe I've not remembered correctly. I doubt that he 'accidentally trained like this on the off-chance that he might do the record'.... or 'accidentally had his 12-1/2lb bike built'.....so don't believe the hype/smoke/mirrors... it was surely all planned well in advance

cheers

[pete75]

this is what I was thinking of; thought it was in LCET but maybe I've not remembered correctly. I doubt that he 'accidentally trained like this on the off-chance that he might do the record'.... or 'accidentally had his 12-1/2lb bike built'.....so don't believe the hype/smoke/mirrors... it was surely all planned well in advance

cheers

Oh it was all done very quickly after he decided to go to Mexico http://bikeraceinfo.com/riderhistories/ ... ecord.html

"The Vigorelli was attractive because it involved little travel, would allow direct comparison with all but two previous Hour record holders going back to 1935, and would more readily satisfy the publicity demands of his Italian sponsors, notably Molteni sausages. But a trip to the Vigorelli on October 12 was disappointing. Days of rain left the track saturated and unfit for cycling.

Immediately Eddy began to think of Mexico. There were three principal reasons against such a trip and one for it. 1) He was well aware of Ferdinand Bracke's disasterous attempt in Mexico in 1969. Bracke had set the record in 1967 and this was his attempt to retake it from Ritter, but the thin air asphyxiated him. Eddy's solution was to ride a home trainer every day while hooked up to an air mixture equivalent to Mexico City."

[Brucey]

if you are trying to say that he acquired the apparatus, managed to do useful training with it, and then travelled to Mexico, all inside two weeks, then I'm sorry , I just don't buy it. It is almost certainly spin intended to make his record look even more remarkable. His trip to Vigorelli would have been at the behest of his Italian sponsors, to gain publicity, and would have been carried out even if he had no intention of riding there.

Look at it this way; Merckx had just dominated professional cycle sport (in a number of disciplines) for the previous four years or so, in a way that no-one had before and probably never will do again. So if he had been seen to train hard and then set a new record, no-one would have been the slightest bit surprised. 'Best cyclist in the world does best ride after careful preparation' isn't exactly a shocking headline, is it? No wonder then that they dressed it up for the crowds. It wouldn't be the first time that a professional cyclist has, erm, 'managed the public's expectations' and it won't be the last.

cheers

[pete75]

if you are trying to say that he acquired the apparatus, managed to do useful training with it, and then travelled to Mexico, all inside two weeks, then I'm sorry , I just don't buy it. It is almost certainly spin intended to make his record look even more remarkable. His trip to Vigorelli would have been at the behest of his Italian sponsors, to gain publicity, and would have been carried out even if he had no intention of riding there.

Look at it this way; Merckx had just dominated professional cycle sport (in a number of disciplines) for the previous four years or so, in a way that no-one had before and probably never will do again. So if he had been seen to train hard and then set a new record, no-one would have been the slightest bit surprised. 'Best cyclist in the world does best ride after careful preparation' isn't exactly a shocking headline, is it? No wonder then that they dressed it up for the crowds. It wouldn't be the first time that a professional cyclist has, erm, 'managed the public's expectations' and it won't be the last.

cheers

I'm not trying to say that , the Bike race info website is. It seems well researched and even has many interviews with riders from the past. Info on a website like that is more likely to be correct than the postings of random individuals on a web forum.

[Brucey]

I'm not trying to say that , the Bike race info website is..... Info on a website like that is more likely to be correct than....

even if it makes no sense at all...?

For the low-oxygen training to have been any real use, he would have to have done it for weeks not days.

cheers