Sky Cycling Team

You must be thinking of someone else, a less awesome rider, maybe a Brit, probably a doper.

Nope, I was thinking of ex-Mapei and T-Mobile rider Michael Rogers who was once a client of Dr Michele Ferrari.

The only way to keep up with the druggie teams is to get some druggies, surely?
Now they've realised that nice kit and a positive attitude count for shit in the filthy mire that is pro tour cycling.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/TeamSky

now here is a job i could probably do with my eyes shut.. Admin Manager that is..

Team Sky bikes now available from Halfords:

http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/pinarello-signs-up-with-halfords/014215

someone bought in a team sky "Froome" bike today into the shop, di2, dura ace pedals, DA c35 wheels, the whole nine yards. got chatting to him and basically the frame was wrecked and had clearly been crashed...but as he knew nothing about bikes didn't seem to phase him so i asked him "if you don't mind how much did you get it for" he responded with "nothing I won it in a competition, its chris froomes bike from 2012 tour de france" he then went on to tell me how he was going to race on it and it wasn't that valuable as he only came in "second" that year...
What a pillock

Wiggins v Froome II: Sky selection meeting for Tour of Spain - YouTube

^Awesome,haven't laughed so much in years

Thoughts?

For the real team? Impressed at the restraint in logos.

Designers have really been thinking outside of the box with that one!

No matter how nice the design I've just never liked any Sky kit... I think it's the colours, not into black with blue on pretty much anything

It's like wearing blue jeans with black shoes... No.

wearing blue jeans with black shoes

Yes.

Sky kit

No.

http://jeansandsheux.tumblr.com

No need to advertise such a stunning fashion combo, it sells itself.

Not quite the right thread for this, but all of this does make you wonder what the sponsors will make of it.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/mar/10/british-cycling-dave-brailsford-reputation-in-tatters-review

I posted something similar in the Doping thread, but to me there was always a massive conflict of interest between Team Sky and BC. Why is the focus only on Brailsford and Sutton, when Cookson and Drake were simultaneously on the boards of both? Not sure exactly when they stepped down - but this seems to be worth clarification.

Edit: https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/about/article/bc20121029-Home-Page-Message-From-Brian-Cookson-0 indicates they were on a Team Sky board in 2012, but it's described as a liaison board between Team Sky and BC entities, so a bit more complex than it seems at first.

Seems like Brailsford and Sutton were deified to the point where they believed they could do what they wanted.

I've personally lost some respect for the likes of Geraint Thomas, Rowe and Stannard for their stance behind Brailsford.

I'm not naive enough to have ever believed Sky were whiter than white and I have never been a fan boy of any team but I admit I probably got swept up briefly in the whole Sir Wiggo mania thing to a certain degree in 2012. On that basis, thing fucking stinks.

There's a lot of talk about a culture of fear and bullying at British Cycling after this report. I dunno about any of it: I reckon if you were to go over most coaching/management structures at top-level sport with a fine-tooth comb and apply normalised working practises I imagine many would come up short. Imagine Sir Alec Ferguson being told he was a bully and that he instilled a culture of fear in the dressing room, he'd laugh in your face. This was a man who was famous for his half-time 'hairdryer' and famously kicked a football boot into David Beckham's boot. If you crossed him, you were out.

He's also the most successful British manager of all time. And there's certainly a correlation between the two.

In a results-driven environment there has to be a degree of ruthlessness. Maybe Brailsford and Sutton wandered too far down that road but at the same time you can make the case they were pragmatic and that pragmatism drove the results that followed. And such pragmatism also means people get told some uncomfortable truths.

I just think it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. I imagine being in BC and being top of your game, like say Laura Kenny, and you're very well looked after. If you start to struggle I sure it gets pretty dark very quickly, and people are going to feel a lot of resentment.

Disagreements about managing talents in sport are inevitable. I'm much more perturbed personally by the 'no idea what was in the jiffy bag' element to all this.

I think the bigger story than the naughty boys at the back of the team sky bus with a jiffy bag of fluimicil thing is how they treated the female olympic crew and their deveolopment-i.e not giving them equal access to equipment, training camps etc despite public funding, sending the person responsible for managing their training on little jaunts with pharmaceuticals for Team Sky, and also their attitude to binning someone like Jess Varnish or marginalising Nicole Cooke.

Pretty fucking shit behaviour towards athletes who sweat just as hard as the males for far less reward.

We all know what was in the jiffy bag. Beconase.

British Beconase. French stuff not to be trusted.

The only person to marginalise Nicole Cooke, was Nicole Cooke. As the phrase goes, she could start an argument in an empty room (although I'd double check for signs of her father before declaring the room empty).

Emma Pooley is the latest to have her say;

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/mar/13/pooley-brailsford-british-cycling-fish-head

She's wrong though, a fish rots from the guts.

But I also find it ironic that Pooley has spoken up, as she benefitted from Sky's opaque selection process last year to get a, frankly, completely undeserved, slot on the Olympic road team. Dani King has far more of an axe to grind, but she's kept her own counsel.