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19 Jul 12
00:51
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Date Joined:
27 Nov 03
Here's why:
Those sepia-toned pre-Sky days...
On climbs, the GC candidates would all look at each other. The guys who felt strong, or felt that their opponents were weak would put in monstrous attacks. Those that could keep up, did so, and those that cracked got dropped. Pace then slows a bit with the big favourites, and it happens all over again. Repeat to summit. Great fun to watch.
Now...
Brailsford has brought two things above all else to the Sky team that other teams have respectively only given a cursory nod to, and ignored altogether.
Both are directly related to his time as one of the world's best track coaches.
The first is that he's clearly absolutely smashed into his team the importance of pace, and knowing exactly how fast everyone in the team can afford to go without cracking.
Either he's instilled a keen sense of it into all his riders, or he's sitting in the car with heart rate monitors, speedos, and a computer program with complex conditional functions, and he's telling them whether to speed it up/slow it down or whatever.
Other teams have taken bits and bobs of this approach but have never really gone full tilt at it, either because they couldn't afford it, or because they prefer to judge it more by feel/touch/instinct.
Brailsford brought his obsession with getting the pace right straight from the track. It would be interesting to see how Sky fared if race radio was banned. Anyway, this is only a minor component of the 'death of entertaining climbing' bit.
The killer is this: Brailsford has simply applied the tried and tested track philosophy that the most efficient way to get from A to B is to maintain a constant effort throughout. No changes of pace, no bursts and rests, just constant effort - like a metronome.
Track cyclists have known this for years, but it's no accident that the track disciplines in which GB really excelled under Brailsford weren't the messy ones, like the scratch races, the Madison or Keirin. Our medals came in pursuits and time trials.
For some reason, road racing teams picked up the principle, but only half implemented it. Ask any road cyclist what the secret to successful time-trialling is and they'll tell you that it's maintaining a steady, constant effort throughout - not to go out too fast or too slow.
Brailsford has simply been the first to extend the principle rigidly to the mountains. The quickest way to the top is to maintain a constant effort from base to summit. No bursts, no rests. Sky have barely responded to an attack in this race. They've just kept going at that same steady level of effort, tick, tock, tick, tock and sure enough, every attack has been reeled in.
This is what will kill the fun, when other teams pick up on the sheer inefficiency of punchy attacks in the mountains.
The one exception was today (Stage 16), when I suspect they realized that Nibali could do some damage on the descent, and that they could actually use him to pace them down the mountain much more effectively than they could do it themselves.
Of course they could not have done all this so devastatingly without concentrating pretty much entirely on the Tour - everything else being either a stepping stone, afterthought or irrelevance, but the same was true of Banesto and US Postal.
Those sepia-toned pre-Sky days...
On climbs, the GC candidates would all look at each other. The guys who felt strong, or felt that their opponents were weak would put in monstrous attacks. Those that could keep up, did so, and those that cracked got dropped. Pace then slows a bit with the big favourites, and it happens all over again. Repeat to summit. Great fun to watch.
Now...
Brailsford has brought two things above all else to the Sky team that other teams have respectively only given a cursory nod to, and ignored altogether.
Both are directly related to his time as one of the world's best track coaches.
The first is that he's clearly absolutely smashed into his team the importance of pace, and knowing exactly how fast everyone in the team can afford to go without cracking.
Either he's instilled a keen sense of it into all his riders, or he's sitting in the car with heart rate monitors, speedos, and a computer program with complex conditional functions, and he's telling them whether to speed it up/slow it down or whatever.
Other teams have taken bits and bobs of this approach but have never really gone full tilt at it, either because they couldn't afford it, or because they prefer to judge it more by feel/touch/instinct.
Brailsford brought his obsession with getting the pace right straight from the track. It would be interesting to see how Sky fared if race radio was banned. Anyway, this is only a minor component of the 'death of entertaining climbing' bit.
The killer is this: Brailsford has simply applied the tried and tested track philosophy that the most efficient way to get from A to B is to maintain a constant effort throughout. No changes of pace, no bursts and rests, just constant effort - like a metronome.
Track cyclists have known this for years, but it's no accident that the track disciplines in which GB really excelled under Brailsford weren't the messy ones, like the scratch races, the Madison or Keirin. Our medals came in pursuits and time trials.
For some reason, road racing teams picked up the principle, but only half implemented it. Ask any road cyclist what the secret to successful time-trialling is and they'll tell you that it's maintaining a steady, constant effort throughout - not to go out too fast or too slow.
Brailsford has simply been the first to extend the principle rigidly to the mountains. The quickest way to the top is to maintain a constant effort from base to summit. No bursts, no rests. Sky have barely responded to an attack in this race. They've just kept going at that same steady level of effort, tick, tock, tick, tock and sure enough, every attack has been reeled in.
This is what will kill the fun, when other teams pick up on the sheer inefficiency of punchy attacks in the mountains.
The one exception was today (Stage 16), when I suspect they realized that Nibali could do some damage on the descent, and that they could actually use him to pace them down the mountain much more effectively than they could do it themselves.
Of course they could not have done all this so devastatingly without concentrating pretty much entirely on the Tour - everything else being either a stepping stone, afterthought or irrelevance, but the same was true of Banesto and US Postal.
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good post history maker....
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Really interesting post, but I’m not sure I share the pessimism for the entertainment value of mountain stages in future tours.
The first thing worth noting is that many of the world’s best climbers are missing from this tour for various reasons. Obviously some of those reasons mean they may not be as effective when they return, but the shortage of genuine top class climbers has certainly been a factor in Sky’s ability to control the race in the mountains. In truth, I’m not sure it’s been a vintage tour in terms of the overall strength in depth either. Had there been a Merckx, Hinault, Indurain or Armstrong in the field, would we be having this discussion? The other thing to consider is the resources Sky has at its disposal in terms of personnel. Its team leader is the best time trialer in the field, who has developed into a strong tempo climber in the mould of Indurain or Ullrich. The team also has Chris Froome, so they have the two strongest riders in the tour and they’ve tailored their training, team selection and race plan to maximise the talents of these two riders. Whilst the science does tend to support the theory that even pacing is the most efficient way of getting from A to B, history tells us that it doesn’t necessarily always produce the best race results. If we go back to the late 70s and early 80s, when African runners were starting to come to the fore in middle and long distance events, they introduced the concept of erratic, uneven pacing to disrupt the efficient, even paced efforts of their rivals. The Africans had figured out that training in a way that allowed them to run inefficiently gave them an edge over those who trained to run efficiently, i.e. it allowed them to carry the burden of inefficiency that others couldn’t. I read an article recently which tells of elite Kenyan athletes running 50 x 400m reps in a single session, which is fairly brutal. Talking of brutal, when he broke the marathon world record in Berlin last year, Patrick Makau ran the 10k split from 25k to 35k in 28:58 and decimated a top class field. The point of the above is that even tempo is great so long as there are no rivals in the field who can carry the burden of working inefficiently. This year, the closest rival Sky has is Vincenzo Nibali and, without belittling his efforts, he’s no Patrick Makau or Eddie Merckx. In summary, I think the OP is a very accurate summary of this year’s tour, but I’m not sure how meaningful it will be for future events. It may become the textbook way to ride the tour if your team has the best time trialer, who can climb effectively when surrounded by a strong team on a course profile that favours the time trial over the mountain stage. However the OP also alludes to the fact that Dave Brailsford’s successes on the track tend not to be in the ‘messy’ events. Grand tours, and the mountain stages in particular, tend to be ‘messy’, which is why I’m hopeful that future tours will produce more fireworks in the mountains than this one. |
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Interesting stuff.
I read recently that sponsor money fell significantly in the dope woe years. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/14110600 Sky have shown that lots of money relative to others can deliver a most emphatic result (of course, the money must be spent well too). Are we, I wonder, going to see a big growth in sponsor expenditure in the next few years, albeit from a relatively low base? The time would seem to be ripe: the sport is getting on top of its dope problem, cycling (both sport and casual) is growing in a big way and, as Sky's success suggests, it may be the only way to win. |
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It doesn't help that the best "clean" climber Andy Schleck is not in the field. He would not be leading the GC but he might have disrupted SKY's rhythm isolated Wiggins to some extent.
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Absolutely spot on History Maker, and should it continue year after year,then heres one former watcher coming up.
Quiet possibly the most boring tour ive ever watched,certainly as far as i am concerned anyway. |
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Absolutely spot on History Maker, and should it continue year after year,then heres one former watcher coming up.
Quiet possibly the most boring tour ive ever watched,certainly as far as i am concerned anyway. |
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oops!
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HM, interesting post. I am with all the other posters above who want to see this method tested by an exceptional and aggressive climber.
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Bring back Floyd Landis
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an 'aggressive' climber is an inefficient climber
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great read from the OP
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Good posts. Have to give Wiggins and co some credit though, yes they look very relaxed and efficient and the technology will help but theyve always got a huge group behind them doing exactly the same pace.
I don't know why other teams arent attacking them in a coordinated way, maybe theyre being broken up by going after different coloured jerseys but i suspect its because Sky are working everyone else in the race much harder than it looks and not even necessarily at an even pace. Im not sure if I mind the extra technology or not. On one hand it means that sky are letting the suicidal attacks go but on the other hand it means they wont give up on 'apparent' lost causes. The timing of Cavandish today being a good example I think. |
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Trouble is H M most of those that put in those monstrous attacks were later proved to not be doing it under their own steam.Maybe this is a sign of things to come with the cleaner sport.
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