Tour de France 2015

Fair point. Maybe just rent parking lots! I agree it is a huge operation already but honestly some of the dives the riders have to stay in are a joke. It wouldn't happen in other sports of the same calibre as Le Tour.

It's cheep but fair. He has a point.

It's cheep but fair. He has a point.

His point is twisted to score political points. By his twisted logic we could just as easily say had he not raced the issue may not have been discovered.

I, for one, can't wait until the sport is dominated by financial behemoths. Look at how cool my beloved soccer has become.

Granted, it is to score political points.

Re. The whole sky power data thing, I thought the primary concern was not necessarily the data but sky's reaction to it.

Sure, the hr data might be a bit unusual but there are also many potential explanations, several of which seem more plausible than doping (dodgy hrm for example).

Again, the power file synced to the video apparently doesn't show anything more than a fascinating insight into what it takes for a world class athlete to climb a famous mountain... That, and how great it would be if the UCI were to show real-time power data in TV coverage.

The questionable thing seems to be sky's reaction. Straight to lawyers, video removed from both YouTube and twitter, and user accounts instantly suspended. Sure, posts /videos occasionally get removed, but insta-bannning the accounts strikes me as unusual. Tons of things get leaked on the Internet but don't seem to be shut down as quickly or effectively.

If the data is so innocuous, sky's reaction seems a little overblown.

Which other teams consistently publish their riders power data?

http://veloclinic.tumblr.com/post/124045491453/w-balance-analysis-of-a-grand-tour-climb

So nothing really to see here, yet Vayer and Tucker think they have the smoking gun. Honestly I get why people are angry about doping, but there are trolls out there that would argue black was actually a dark shade of blue in their efforts to incriminate certain riders. The elephant in the room is those numbers are reasonable, non-mutant, non-alien, non-full retard, just the numbers of a world class athlete but no evidence of anything.

If the data has been stolen, how do you expect them to react? Let the thieves crack on? Allow their rivals an inside look at the rider they're trying to beat? There's a reason data is kept secret

Agreed - these multimillion dollar projects. If any business had proprietary tech, or data stolen they would shut it down in a similar way.

I'm glad the leak happened, I actually find it very reassuring about Froome, and Sky in general. The new line is that he's motor-powered now of course.

Seems like a pretty standard response of a large organisation being a victim of a criminal offence and a breach of personal data regarding an employee to me.

So the official story goes like this: there wasn't Froome on his hard disk so he was keeping the data on a flash drive plugged into his USB Porte and that's how it go stolen.

Brailsford Kennaugh believe it.

those numbers

Are also subject to measurement errors and model errors.

Which is probably why they aren't treated as a smoking gun by anyone that can do anything about it.

Froome has withdrawn from the Tour!

OMGs I knew it

I saw the video before it was pulled and the HR data looked well off, power went from 400 to 600 when he attacked Contador and his HR moved 2bpm. And the HR was lowwww.

How long was he at 600 for?

The whole effort to catch Quintana

Lars Boom dns today.

Just clocked I had a brain fart and got Boom and Basson confused here! Still a bit of a dickish tweet, but not nearly as bad as it was when I half-assedly processed the logic of it in my brain.

So it's sensible to think the HRM strap done fucked up.

IS THAT A PYRAMID?

Speaking of bullshit - do riders still use those fucking balancing magnets? Haven't noticed any recently.

Maybe thats how Froome managed to stay upright on stage (2?) this year?

ITV4 in wife beating shocker.