For the most part of 2013, Team Sky has morphed into a dominating team with an artillery of powerful domestiques, and on the eve of the 2013 Tour de France that looks set to continue.
More often than not through March, April, May, and June, they monotonously, yet exhilaratingly, controlled pelotons over the world and road their riders into the ground.
Their abilities shone in dominating any short tour they entered with relative ease; the likes of Vasil Kiryienka and David López García, as well as many others, outweighing their weight in gold when called to help out on the front.
Now, with Chris Froome looming as overall Tour de France favourite to anyone who thinks they know anything about cycling, surely Team Sky will look toward their phenomenally strong workmen to take their designated positions on the front of the peloton, as they have done all year long.
I have a quarrel though; the tactics of Team Sky can become so damn boring. The reason being as follows: Team Sky seems to breed Time Trialling Climbers (TTCs).
These guys have less acceleration than normal but more power against the clock.
Trained to sustain high wattage for long periods of time, the main benefit is in their time trialling, as long as they don’t start making vicous accelerations their climbing improves as well.
That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t train accelerations or ‘on/off repetition’ efforts, it just happens to be that Froome, Wiggins, and Porte, all happen to be amazing time trial riders (on the other hand, those Columbians are another breed all together and I’m not going to go there).
All this said, TTCs are theoretically less likely to be able to follow a series of sharp and debilitating attacks (from the swatch of aggressive Spanish mountain goats), but would benefit more from adapting a consistent pace to try monitor and calculate, their effort.
This makes for less aggressive, more controlled racing. Team Sky stick all their brutally strong workers on the front and whither everyone away, leaving Froome to make just one concise blow at the finish. Boring, right?
It’s not a new fad though, this whole ‘control movement.’ Lance Armstrong (remember him?) tended to implore this of his team at any given moment, but it’s painfully difficult to compare racing back then to what it is now.
Those guys seemed to be able to go on the attack with 10-15km of ascent to go (Sestriere, 1999) and not seem to worry so much about exploding, like the proverbial supernova.
So Armstrong generally just knifed the peloton at the base of the final climb with one or two phenomenal Spaniards at his disposal, and then we were always in for a great spectacle.
It’s different nowadays, racing is different; riders crack easier, race slower, and more often realize their limits before their motivation expected to.
I must admit it though, just because Team Sky’s approach is little more than calculated perfection, it is undoubtedly a beautiful spectacle to watch in another sense.
Just as their Tenerife altitude house probably sits equipped with all the gizmos and gadgets ready to tell the riders exactly how tired, skinny, happy, or twisted they are at any given moment, their Director Sportif sits in the car barking orders from a script drawn up by the hardest of the European cycling fraternity from the past hundred years.
It’s like that old animation creation, The Triplets of Belleville (worth a viewing if you haven’t already).
They’re out there being whipped like workhorses, and it’s what we all love to see.
The debate over whether this scientific approach to cycling is ruining the sport has been interesting to watch over the past few years.
Whether the thrill of panache and uncalculated aggression is becoming lost in a sea of regression analysis’ and standard variations, is up for debate.
Some say cycling’s not like it used to be, it’s ‘killing the sport.’ I too agree it becomes ‘boring’ on occasion, but I know it is just as much full of beauty.
Cycling has always been about extracting the most out of your body as possible, pushing physiological ability further than ever before and searching for the limits.
Just because riders are less animalistic and reckless in their tactical choices than they once were, doesn’t mean the sport is dying.
Even though some old-school Italians might not like to admit it, our sport is evolving, and modern day tactics seem to be a part of that inevitable calculated progression.
The science we embrace encapsulates cycling as the sport that is always pushing the limits of the human body, and this is an inspiring thing.
The near-microscopic gains we caress so dearly in cycling are incalculable in almost any other sport, yet we witness them on countless occasions in cycling; a perfect example being when Evans lost the ’08 Tour by 58 seconds after 3,559km of racing!
So yes, even though Team Sky are a carefully conjured, mathematic calculation of talent and hard work, it’s not only boring but also very exciting.
Follow Adam on Twitter @adamsemple
Joe smith
Guest
Sky's tactics as a team are very boring, I would say. A bit like the lance era when they would just send a line of guys up to ratchet up the pace and then Armstrong would attack and win. However, I do like the fact that froome attacks and doesn't just sit on the wheel of his rival, cough, wiggins, cough. Seeing him attack on the Ventoux, while in yellow, was a breath of fresh air compared to the current notion of "once you're in yellow, just relax and cruise to Paris," that is so common nowadays. Personally, I was rooting for quintana, as at least he had some balls, attacking from twice as far out as froome. Oh, and did anyone else hear froome saying afterwards, "I didn't attack, he just couldn't hold the wheel?" Who is he kidding? If you check the video, he clearly surges just before quintana becomes unhitched.
Colin N
Guest
Yeah should be a cracker. Thomas being injured for SKY will be a huge blow.
Colin N
Guest
Has anyone watched Froome? He's one of the most attacking riders out there.
Bones506
Roar Guru
They back the science and built a team of super domestique diesel riders - b/c they can as they have the cash. It will not be all their way this year - teams will not simply sit there and allow it to happen, further to that - Froome has already shown he will attack and counter attack if and when he needs to. Watch BMC try and put some time in tomorrow to SKY as a few of the SKY guys are injured. TTT will be great - awesome to see that close to the poorest team (in terms of funding) is Garmin and they are the favourites. OGE will have a red hot crack at tomorrow as well.
Bones506
Roar Guru
No need to apologise - you are entitled to your views. Understand now it was tongue in cheek.
John Fox
Guest
A perfect example of what you're describing - Wiggins last year "When we were riding on the front at 450 watts (of power) or whatever, someone would attack and Mick Rogers would say 'just leave him, he can't sustain it'" specifically, Stage 11, where van Garderen and Evans attacked, and Sky didn't try to follow, but just kept griding out the pace until they caught them again. Impressive, but dull.
Adam Semple
Expert
Tricky one Jim. The sport wouldn't function without teams because of the sponsors. The whole reason teams evolved was beause it was economical for the riders to pool travel, transport, massage therapy, mid race feed, etc. I would love to see an individual event every now and then, but without a doubt, there would be true corruption in those situations, as the stronger riders bought out the weaker, to do some dirty work. Money, and fame, bring corruption. Sport has both!
Adam Semple
Expert
Hey Dianne I totally understood the tongue in cheek there, and had a good cackle! I agree, on occasion an extremely random twist (with hopefully no dangerous after-effects), is an excellent viewing point!
Adam Semple
Expert
This is excellent. I agree, Froome is more explosive then his team portrays him to be. Also, 'Contador' Science.' Love it.
Adam Semple
Expert
I considered long and hard to add this into my article. It's such a tricky one. Certainly much better racing, undoubtedly, but the safety issues are the downfall. Mind you, racing down decents, with cliff faces, in the rain, isn't uber-safe either, so I'd love to see them get rid of the radios too.
Adam Semple
Expert
Lets hope Sagan doesnt just sart dominating the green so that result becomes predictably nullified as well. Rodriguez for sure, when it get's steep later on next week that's where my money is.
Adam Semple
Expert
Fantastic points! Me too! The Giro is better though ;-)
Dianne Andrews
Guest
sorry if I upset you Bones506, it was said tongue in cheek. I know it is a dangerous sport, and I don't like to see those idiots who run onto the road and I shudder when I see a dog on the road, but surely a little humour is not offensive. FYI I'm watching now!
Bones506
Roar Guru
'Surprise twists' - are you serious! With all due respect - do you even race let alone ride a bike? Bike racing is extremely dangerous and small mistakes can have massive consequences. You only needed to see what happened on stage 1. These guys are riding 3,700km in 2 weeks at serious speed - they are broken men by the end of it so why give them more challenges. If it isn't exciting enough for you - simple - don't watch it.
Bones506
Roar Guru
That doesn't solve anything - imagine had the riders not had race radio's in stage 1 - it was dangerous enough as is.
Jim Palmer
Guest
How does one fix corruption in these kinds of sports? Get rid of the whole idea of teams. Make the Tour de France a simple competition for individuals only, whoever finishes the whole thing first wins. Each rider has to take care of his own bike and maintenance. Yes it could be an attritional event, but wasn't that the original intent of the first TDF organized back in 1913?
Dianne Andrews
Guest
Adam, I realise you wrote this article before the bus glitch, but if organisers could arrange for more "surprise twists", then the TDF will be anything but boring. At least not for home viewers, don't know how participants will like it. :)
Sam Brown
Roar Guru
You make a few interesting points and I guess it all comes back to why you watch and love the sport; personally I most enjoy the unpredictable spectacle of the climbs and watch it for entertainment reasons, the science behind it all doesn't really interest me all that much. As a result of this I really dislike Sky and their perfectly calculated attitude and will be cheering for anyone but them this year (even the drug cheat Contador, who potentially benefits from a totally different type of science). As Burwood said, last year's result was just too inevitable towards the end and while it is undoubtedly impressive to watch such a dominant performance it didn't make for riveting watching. That said, Froome seems to have a little more of the explosive climbing ability than Wiggins, who is the very epitome of the TTC and Contador is a much more explosive GC contender than any of the guys from last year so despite the efforts of Sky to grind everyone down there could still be a little of the ol' climbing duels when it gets to the business end of the tour.
Chris
Guest
Last year sky could control the race. This year Andy, a fit cadel, TJ, contador back Sky will have more attacker than last year so game on people
Micko
Guest
take out the radio communication to every rider I say. The lets see how they can handle the pressure.