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Controversal - Trailer for Paul Kimmage Rough Rider Documentary

Just picked up on a trailer for a forthcoming Paul Kimmage documentary 'Rough Rider' via Stickybottle website (http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news/trailer-video-for-new-rough-ride...). Makes for really uncomfortable viewing just after 6 minutes when the subject changes to Sky. I was knocked sideways by the question he posed about Sir Bradley. Carefully scripted, but just plain upsetting.

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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bashthebox | 10 years ago
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/apr/27/bradley-wiggins-giro-tim-ker...

A brilliant article that talks about Sky's coaching approach. As Tim Kerrison says, it's not marginal gains we're talking about here; having proper coaching produces disproportionate gains. Huge, huge gains.

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Gkam84 | 10 years ago
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SID, I'm going to call you out on it being Kimmage questions that forced Sky to get rid of some of the staff and riders.

It didn't take a genius to work out they had to get rid of some that had previous questionable doping results when they told everyone about their zero tolerance policy

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_SiD_ replied to Gkam84 | 10 years ago
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Gkam84 wrote:

SID, I'm going to call you out on it being Kimmage questions that forced Sky to get rid of some of the staff and riders.

Agree - he wasn't alone but as you can see from some comments above he seems to be the one attracting all the flak for it.

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ch | 10 years ago
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He did a good job of holding to his principles when it wasn't popular. He deserves a ton of credit for that.
At the same he has attributed his failure to get professional wins to doping by other athletes, while he admits taking amphetamines himself. Even a hero is human I guess.
I think Landis should be a good sport and split the coming winnings with Kimmage.

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ch | 10 years ago
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As the leaked information about Lances team showed, there is no way to effectively test for EPO. "Micro" doses taken intravenously will be undetectable within hours, while the effects are much longer lasting. Despite all the publicity, that fact has not changed, except that now it is public knowledge.

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ch | 10 years ago
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>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXPXHK7I1iQ
"Afterwards, Armstrong said he gave the stage to Pantani"

Gee, he felt guilty. What an honest guy.

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bashthebox | 10 years ago
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Anyone rewatched Landis' solo breakaway over 3 cols to win his tour? It makes for some fantastic hindsight viewing.

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stepho | 10 years ago
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i read the interview with him in Roleur and he comes across as a bit of a dick to be perfectly honest.

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bashthebox | 10 years ago
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I guess it's impossible to be at the top of your sport and not attract criticism from someone. Kimmage, and various very angry and ill-informed bloggers and tweeters, aim for Sky because they're the biggest target.

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farrell | 10 years ago
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It was the same Sticky Bottle, who referred, rather brilliantly, to Kimmage as Journalism Jesus.

That must have really got under Kimmage's skin.

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bashthebox | 10 years ago
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I was waiting for the USPS-style train argument. Very predictable.

They've got an incredibly strong squad made up of incredible strong climbers. The best way to remove the advantage from the out and out climbers like Nibali is to ride as hard as you can up the climbs, right on the limit. No chance to attack that way. It's a bit dull but incredibly effective. How can we assume Sky aren't doping like USPS did? Well, I've not seen anything like this from Wiggo or Froome. Have you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXPXHK7I1iQ

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Leviathan replied to bashthebox | 10 years ago
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bashthebox wrote:

I was waiting for the USPS-style train argument. Very predictable... can we assume Sky aren't doping like USPS did? Well, I've not seen anything like this from Wiggo or Froome. Have you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXPXHK7I1iQ

Jeez, I've not seen a clip like that ever. I remember watching the tour back then but it was the only cycling on tv; half an hour a day for 20 days in the summer. I had forgotten just what it was like. Now having access to races all year through many channels and ridden a few climbs myself, I know NO ONE today could make that kind of uphill charge.

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Stumps replied to Leviathan | 10 years ago
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bikeboy76 wrote:
bashthebox wrote:

I was waiting for the USPS-style train argument. Very predictable... can we assume Sky aren't doping like USPS did? Well, I've not seen anything like this from Wiggo or Froome. Have you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXPXHK7I1iQ

Jeez, I've not seen a clip like that ever. I remember watching the tour back then but it was the only cycling on tv; half an hour a day for 20 days in the summer. I had forgotten just what it was like. Now having access to races all year through many channels and ridden a few climbs myself, I know NO ONE today could make that kind of uphill charge.

I remember Contador going off like that......but enough said about that eh ?

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farrell | 10 years ago
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Interesting that it is coming from the Sticky Bottle site, wasn't it them that Kimmage publicly cunted out via Twitter recently?

He appears to be coming a very bitter and twisted individual whose schtick has become being abusive to anyone that doesn't want to join him making unfounded and potentially slanderous accusations.

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Gkam84 | 10 years ago
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I have copied this over from the other thread all about Kimmage's film....

I watched the trailer the other day....not something that interested me anymore. He's off to the TdF this year to make this film....He's just going to sensationalize everything and try and make a story from nothing....

I hope he doesn't, but the production team will edit it up that way in the end. Knowing this, NO team is going to talk to him or have anything to do with him. So what's the film going to be about.

An ex cyclist, who was RIGHT for many years about riders doping, wrote a book, got into various spats with people, got sued, had the case dropped and is now getting filmed travelling round France in a camper van following the sport he loves.....

I love cycling, I could go cause some arguments, does anyone want to pay for me to travel around France for three weeks trying to ask people questions and getting doors slammed and funny looks.....

Sometimes you need to be told when to LEAVE IT ALONE and get on with your own life, stop worrying about others...Someone needs to sit him down and explain.

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Simon E replied to Gkam84 | 10 years ago
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Gkam84 wrote:

An ex cyclist, who was RIGHT for many years about riders doping, wrote a book, got into various spats with people, got sued, had the case dropped and is now getting filmed travelling round France in a camper van following the sport he loves.....

So he was right then but not now?

He wrote the book first, about his own experience, but the reaction among his friends and former colleagues was such a shock (as he says in the trailer) that he couldn't leave it there. Verbruggen and McQuaid tried to sue for defamation, even though their case was ridiculous.

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Sometimes you need to be told when to LEAVE IT ALONE and get on with your own life, stop worrying about others...Someone needs to sit him down and explain.

I hope and pray that he tells them to f**k off. It suits the teams (many run by unrepentant dopers) and the UCI to keep it quiet. The sport will not change without massive pressure from us. If he is once more treated like a pariah for asking awkward questions that suggests to me that he's doing something worthwhile. By wanting Kimmage to shut up you are going to be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

bashthebox wrote:

I imagine it gets incredibly tiring and frustrating to have to constantly answer the same questions, questions that don't have a shred of evidence to warrant being asked.

No shred of evidence? Ah, you're pulling my leg now! The last minute refusal of access in 2010. Leinders, Yates, Barry and Rogers all had strong links to doping. The way Brailsford handled Leinders was dreadful. Then they belatedly hit the riders with this "confess or be gone" ultimatum, which was widely criticised (correctly IMHO).

bashthebox wrote:

The question is, why does Kimmage feel the need to ask questions almost exclusively of Sky and Wiggo? Why not Astana? Katusha? Blanco? Saxo? Movistar? IAM? Radioshack?

Fair point, I would like to know too. Most of those teams are toxic as hell. But Sky have touted themselves as a clean team, as being transparent. They are not convincing everyone. The USPS-style team massed on the front up the climbs makes some feel uneasy, and it prompts Kimmage to ask questions.

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_SiD_ replied to Gkam84 | 10 years ago
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First and foremost he's been invited to the Tour de France as one of the surviving 2060 cyclists to have finished the race. They'll all sit in a special stand on the Champs on the last evening - so to make out he's gate crashing the party for his own aims is a bit OTT.
He deserves to be there - if he wants to make a film when he's there - why not?

I think if he were picking holes in any other team other than Sky he might be getting a better hearing in the UK.

Sky/Brailsford made a total PR shambles with their Zero Tolerance policy.
It was Kimmage's consistency in questioning this polcy that forced the Sky Show Trial, resulting in half the back room staff resigning on "undeclared doping involvement".

The man is consistent - I look forward to the day when he stops "moaning" and "winging" - the sport will be in a much better place.

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NeilG83 replied to _SiD_ | 10 years ago
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_SiD_ wrote:

It was Kimmage's consistency in questioning this polcy that forced the Sky Show Trial, resulting in half the back room staff resigning on "undeclared doping involvement".

I would say that the reason for Sky having to reassess their zero tolerance policy had little to do with Kimmage, but was due to Barry, Julich and Rogers all appearing in the USADA report.

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MattT53 | 10 years ago
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In the end I'd sooner see 5 years of Kimmage's accusations flying (even if half of them are wrong) and sponsors dropping out if it means the UCI and cycling finally fully pull their finger out (something only a loss of earnings will achieve). Whilst obviously there have been a fair number of high profile admissions and some far more believable teams around now, you only have to look at some of the DS's and riders on certain teams to see nothing has really changed.

But then again, perhaps we should all just assume things are better and just enjoy the surprisingly turbo-charged climbing in the vuelta .....

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jova54 | 10 years ago
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I have contributed to his fighting fund as I don't doubt that Paul Kimmage has done a lot more good than most in exposing drug usage but he seems to have become a victim of his own publicity and now believes that he is the only arbiter of what is right and what is wrong.

If he's as good as he thinks he is he should provide proof and let people make up their own minds not use insinuation, innuendo and spiteful comments because he can't get all he wants.

Cycling's attitude towards drugs is changing and probably needs to change a lot more, but taking a pop at SKY and Wiggins because they won't play his particular game is not going win him any friends or help to prove his point.

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Simon E replied to jova54 | 10 years ago
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jova54 wrote:

If he's as good as he thinks he is he should provide proof and let people make up their own minds not use insinuation, innuendo and spiteful comments because he can't get all he wants.

I don't think it's about himself or his ego. He's asking questions and does not get satisfactory answers. Unlike many, he doesn't give up. He's not accusing, he's doubting and asking. As he states in one of the articles I linked to, he is querying why the Wiggins of 2012 has such different responses on the subject of doping to the Wiggins of 2007. Is that not a legitimate question?

Does the team's pathetic and delayed response re. Geert Leinders or non-answers as to why a so-called 100% clean team hired Rogers and Barry really give you confidence and mean you can make your own mind up?

Only when the questions are answered and serious doubts allayed will we be able to make our own minds up. Too many people who claim to be journalists just want to file easy stories and a bit of gossip and most readers are undemanding and content to let sleeping dogs lie. You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

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bashthebox replied to Simon E | 10 years ago
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Simon E][quote=jova54 wrote:

As he states in one of the articles I linked to, he is querying why the Wiggins of 2012 has such different responses on the subject of doping to the Wiggins of 2007. Is that not a legitimate question?

Only when the questions are answered and serious doubts allayed will we be able to make our own minds up. Too many people who claim to be journalists just want to file easy stories and a bit of gossip and most readers are undemanding and content to let sleeping dogs lie. You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

I imagine it gets incredibly tiring and frustrating to have to constantly answer the same questions, questions that don't have a shred of evidence to warrant being asked.
Wiggo in 2007 is not the same as Wiggo in 2013. In 2007, Wiggo was pretty new to the sport, having chosen to compete in the somewhat cleaner arena of track cycling - it's the same reason Brailsford took so long to get a road team up and running. They only wanted to race on the road when it became apparent that it was possible to compete and win clean - something they seem to have been proven right in.
Yes, they've mistakenly employed riders and a doctor who have later admitted to being involved in doping, and those people have then been pushed out of the team. They've made mistakes, but I imagine it's really fucking hard to find experienced people who are 100% clean - that's the legacy of doping in the sport. Everyone was at it for a very long time. They are at least makig a very public attempt to run a clean team. Doping is not tolerated at all, not now, not in the past. That was the very thing they were founded on, what sense would it make to go against that?
The question is, why does Kimmage feel the need to ask questions almost exclusively of Sky and Wiggo? Why not Astana? Katusha? Blanco? Saxo? Movistar? IAM? Radioshack? A hell of a lot more proven doping in these teams. As was mentioned above, the sight of Contador, Valverde and Rodriguez yo-yo-ing up the Vuelta climbs last year, leaving the strongest Tour climber in their dust, was... not normal. There you go, a little innuendo to end on.

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notfastenough replied to bashthebox | 10 years ago
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bashthebox wrote:

The question is, why does Kimmage feel the need to ask questions almost exclusively of Sky and Wiggo? Why not Astana? Katusha? Blanco? Saxo? Movistar? IAM? Radioshack? A hell of a lot more proven doping in these teams. As was mentioned above, the sight of Contador, Valverde and Rodriguez yo-yo-ing up the Vuelta climbs last year, leaving the strongest Tour climber in their dust, was... not normal. There you go, a little innuendo to end on.

This, this, and thrice this. I'd pay good money to see Froome's SRM files from the Vuelta - I don't buy that he was tired, he looked good and I reckon he was a good baseline for top-end clean riding in the Vuelta.

As for Brailsford, I think the worst you can say about him is that he's (or maybe his management team) sometimes a bit naive. The way in which relationships were handled with the likes of Leinders (and the ultimatum that saw several leave) is one example.

Ultimately, Kimmage is poison to the teams; either they let him on the bus for him to poke his nose in everywhere, generally making a nuisance of himself and upsetting people's single-minded focus (which is not good if you base your whole strategy on lots of tiny marginal gains) or you don't let him on, and he casts aspersions left right and centre. Sky's remit is to "Win clean", not to "ride clean" - that means that while doping is a no-go, they won't put an anti-doping PR exercise above their chances of victory.

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jova54 replied to Simon E | 10 years ago
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Simon E wrote:
jova54 wrote:

If he's as good as he thinks he is he should provide proof and let people make up their own minds not use insinuation, innuendo and spiteful comments because he can't get all he wants.

I don't think it's about himself or his ego. He's asking questions and does not get satisfactory answers. Unlike many, he doesn't give up. He's not accusing, he's doubting and asking. As he states in one of the articles I linked to, he is querying why the Wiggins of 2012 has such different responses on the subject of doping to the Wiggins of 2007. Is that not a legitimate question?

Kimmage's current campaign is based not on fact but on the fact that people are sick and tired of him asking the same questions, getting answers he doesn't like and then asking them again because there must be an answer that better suits his needs.

I ask again; Where is the proof? Just because Brad doesn't want to talk to him doesn't mean he has something to hide. Kimmage then passes on his opinion as fact and then the lazy people think it must be true because he was right about Armstrong. Yes he was but it doesn't make him right all the time.

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Does the team's pathetic and delayed response re. Geert Leinders or non-answers as to why a so-called 100% clean team hired Rogers and Barry really give you confidence and mean you can make your own mind up?

SKY made some mistakes, they believed answers they were given by riders they trusted to be honest. Are they the only ones? No. But SKY are an easy target because everyone, especially the great unwashed, has heard of them, not just in the UK but across Europe, the same cannot be said about most of the other teams in the peloton.

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Only when the questions are answered and serious doubts allayed will we be able to make our own minds up. Too many people who claim to be journalists just want to file easy stories and a bit of gossip and most readers are undemanding and content to let sleeping dogs lie. You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

The questions have been answered, not to his liking perhaps but hey, that's the way of the world. He should ask the questions, publish the answers and the supporting facts and then let people make up their own minds, not tell them what to think.

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bashthebox | 10 years ago
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Your arguments make no sense - as I already pointed out, David Walsh is embedded with Sky in their training camps. Walsh is at least as tenacious as Kimmage, and a far better writer to boot.

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bashthebox | 10 years ago
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I think Kimmage was not let on the bus because he's a really, really disruptive person and though one must acknowledge that he's done a lot to remove doping from cycling, he's also a bit of a dick. That seems to be his personality.
Sky are very happy to have David Walsh travelling with them, and he is at least as anti-doping as Kimmage - you definitely can't argue that Walsh is less likely to expose team doping practises than Kimmage.
He's tweeted a fair bit about Sky and Wiggo in his own inimitable, drawn out style. A lot of insinuations and innuendo - and as he admits, without evidence of any wrongdoing.
As a man obsessed by doping, he's probably not the man to lead the fight any longer. I'm not sure he can take a reasoned and unbiased view on any of it... he's been conditioned to suspect the leading teams and riders in the peloton of wrongdoing. He asks why the press aren't asking questions - maybe because there's no evidence of anything wrong?

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Simon E replied to bashthebox | 10 years ago
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bashthebox wrote:

I think Kimmage was not let on the bus because he's a really, really disruptive person and though one must acknowledge that he's done a lot to remove doping from cycling, he's also a bit of a dick. That seems to be his personality.

Or do you mean that he asks questions others won't? Remember all those hacks wringing their hands and feeling guilty back in October because they had turned a blind eye and courted Armstrong for so long?

Is he so insensitive that he'd disrupt the team's daily routine? He seemed to fit in fine with Garmin.

bashthebox wrote:

As a man obsessed by doping, he's probably not the man to lead the fight any longer. I'm not sure he can take a reasoned and unbiased view on any of it... he's been conditioned to suspect the leading teams and riders in the peloton of wrongdoing.

"Conditioned"? By whom?

I think it's called experience, the one thing that you and I don't have. The cold shoulder treatment, the former friends who refused to speak to him even though his book said nothing about them; the refusal of Michael Barry to be interviewed and much more. The omerta, as it's known.

Kimmage certainly has his place in cleaning up the sport. Maybe not as its figurehead or PR man, but I am 100% sure we wouldn't have got this far without him. Would you prefer a 'softly softly' approach where everyone just asks nice, easy questions?

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Simon E | 10 years ago
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My interpretation is that Kimmage still feels he has unanswered questions. He was going to be allowed on the bus etc in 2010 and it was withdrawn at the last minute but no reason was given.
http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/12357/Kimmage-disappointed-in-Wiggins-...

More here:
http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/12357/Kimmage-disappointed-in-Wiggins-...

Brad's recent comments about Kimmage don't help either:
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/paul-kimmage-accuses-bradley-wiggins-attac...

Kimmage was a voice in the wilderness for many years and virtually no-one believed him then either. That doesn't mean Sky are doping, but he feels the questions need to be answered. Being the passionate, determined bloke he is, he won't be fobbed off. He's prepared to make himself unpopular, to make his own life extremely uncomfortable because he's unwilling to just let the sport get on with not cleaning itself up. If we geuinely want to see pro cycling cleaned up we need more people like him.

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MattT53 replied to Simon E | 10 years ago
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Simon E wrote:

He's prepared to make himself unpopular, to make his own life extremely uncomfortable because he's unwilling to just let the sport get on with not cleaning itself up. If we geuinely want to see pro cycling cleaned up we need more people like him.

+1

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Stumps | 10 years ago
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Kimmage, although right in his Armstrong assumptions, seems to have slipped from view recently so asking the questions about Sky is his and no doubt his agents way of earning a few extra bob.

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