If you were Chris Froome

Nothing to do with the time
Nothing to do with the time trail. Its all about his climbing, He’s a better climber than Wiggo and nothing to do with “Wiggo climbs at his own pace and keeps it steady” Froome could leave a few of the “big” guys standing on a climb if he was given a chance to do it

“chat coming out of France”
“chat coming out of France” B-)

“Obviously Froome seems stronger”

Not that obvious, or did he ride well within his limits on the time trial on team orders?

My 2p worth
After the Vuelta
My 2p worth

After the Vuelta Sky said they weren’t surprised by Froome, and that Froome had just made the breakthrough to the level they believed he could perform at. Just like Brad did in 2009, pre Sky. That’s more than just fitness or talent, but also the mental strength to push on and believe you can do it.

2010 was a bad year for Brad and Sky, similarly 2012 until now has not been great for Froome. It’s fantastic though to see the Vuelta wasn’t a fluke or form performance, and that Froome has the talent to be a GT winner.

I think 27 is a great age to be showing this kind of riding. Given that TdF winners average 29, and Cadel set a new record for age last year, I don’t think there’s a great hurry for Froome to be pushing and a 3 year deal may well include terms like ‘if we win the Tour, you’ll have the opportunity to lead the team in a GT in the next 2 seasons’.

Team Sky’s charter was originally to get a clean British win in the TdF within 5 years. That could be this year (cross fingers). If it is, then there will doubtless be new goals defined. Until it has been done though, all else is a dstraction, though BC’s goals need to be accommodated too (Olympic golds). What Team Sky’s new objectives might be are the interesting things to me, after this tour and how Brailsford thinks he can achieve them. Certainly Sky are bringing on talent that will be peaking beyond 2 years time with the younger riders (Dowsettt, Stannard, Swift, Thomas, Uran. Kennaugh and so on and so on), so I suspect 5 years was just a time box to define success or failure to the money men.

Next year I strongly believe if Froome can carry some form and health through the winter then Brailsford will be looking at letting Froome lead a GT, probably with Giro.

And yes, the Tour is a Team thing, but you can see from Cadel, if you haven’t got the legs to stay on, no team mate can get you home. Brad has the legs, and is using them how he knows best, tempo riding and conservative, not aggressively burning energy that he will need next week. When he has needed to, he has gone to the front or upped the pace, but only when necessary. Though I suspect leading out EBH was pure enjoyment to be in yellow, feeling good and being a grateful team leader.
Tempo riding might not be as good TV as an old fashioned high mountains 1 on 1 slug fest, but I like the results. Don’t worry Andy and Alberto will resume normal service next year.

Contract renewal time?? He
Contract renewal time?? He only just signed a 3 year contract after the Vuelta last year, so he’s still got over 2 years to go on that.

Wiggins is no better a rider than Froome, as will be shown in the future and if chat coming out of France is anything to go by, maybe even by the end of the tour 😉

I think bashthebox has a
I think bashthebox has a point, perhaps we are reading to much into Froome’s attack. We all know Wiggins is not a jumpy rider and Froome can be. That is how Sky are winning this tour, riding threshold up the climbs and having a bigger threshold than the competition, that is Wiggins strength. It would have been interesting to see if Froome had carried on if Wiggins would have clawed them back, we will never know.

I wonder whether now a good Sky tactic would be for Froome to shadow Nibali (though I guess he would struggle on the descents). If Nibali engineers a great attack Froome will stay with him and ahead of him on gc and if Nibali attacks and fails Wiggins strengthens his position in yellow.

Are you actually watching the
Are you actually watching the live or highlights bashthebox??

Wiggo isn’t doing all this dragging back. He’s following guys like EBH, Porte, Rogers and Froome up and down the stages, They set the tempo for him, he just has to keep pace…..

Omega, I think Froome has shown enough loyalty in a few different races now to Wiggo, that once he’s got his TdF win, he’d be willing to help Froome to something ELSE, Vuelta or Giro. Not this year though because of the Olympics 😉

I think it would be hard to
I think it would be hard to have such a change in dynamic without some serious shake ups elswehere. For Wiggins and Froome, they may work well together, and may not have success apart, but I don’t think they would have success if they switched places all of a sudden. Imagine being the boss one day, your employee gets promoted above you, and suddenly everything changes, nothing will remain the same, it won’t just be a minor shift

Who wouldn’t be tempted to do
Who wouldn’t be tempted to do that?! But Froome looks to be smart enough on the road to have worked out he is better off waiting for three years as a Super Dom, building up some smaller victories and stages, than by attacking his own team mate and jeopardising the risk of teams wanting to take him on. As long as he doesn’t begun to say that Wiggo only wins “small, shit races” a la Cavendish and Greipel, I reckon he’ll be fine, and a GT winner in the future, if not in the Tour