That was how many of us reacted when watching Sebastian Vettel’s shifty overtaking manoeuvre on Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber to defy team orders coming over race radio and take a controversial win in Formula One’s Malaysian GP on Sunday.

“Multi 21, Seb. Multi 21.” These were the only words Webber – incandescent with rage – said to Vettel in the drivers’ room after the bad-tempered race, thought to be a reference to the Red Bull team code for holding station (a technical motorsporting term for ‘not racing’).

“What part of Multi 21, Seb, Multi 21 didn’t you get? ” (Photograph: Hoch Zwei/Corbis)

Perhaps, back in July last year when Chris Froome was riding hard on the final climb to Peyragudes in stage 17, it was a similar radio order that saw the Sky super-domestique check his speed and slow for team leader Bradley Wiggins.

“Multi 21, Chris. Multi 21. Chris, Multi 21!” the order would have come through the earpiece on the three occasions young buck Froome opened up a tantalising gap over the yellow jersey of the veteran trying to hold his wheel.

Hours after Vettel put points before friends and team morale, Sky were going about their usual business of pretty much bleeding everyone else dry on the final two climbs of the day on the deciding stage of the Criterium International.

“People get carried away with the whole machine/robot kind of thing but at the end of the day, they are human beings,” said Sky manager Dave Brailsford a fortnight ago after Tirreno-Adriatico.

And yet, there were Sky doing their best not to de-humanise the race by setting what most French-language websites describe as an “infernal” pace. Joe Dombrowski, Jon Tiernan-Locke, Xabi Zandio and Kostanstin Siutsou all pulled hard on the front to chase down a break that included – rarity of rarities – Andy Schleck.

Then, Vasil Kiryienka – a new recruit from Movistar over the off-season – was in no way machine-like or robotic in decimating the field “to get us to that point where Froomey and I can attack at the end,” as described by Richie Porte, who had taken the race lead on Saturday after a second time trial victory in as many weeks.

Best buddies Porte and Froome rode hard together before there was a potential Vettel-Webber moment when last year’s Tour de France runner-up put in a huge dig and dropped the yellow jersey – before riding off into the sunset up the Col de l’Ospedale to take the stage and overall victory.

New BFFs Chris Froome and Richie Porte (Image: skysports.com)

Tasmanian Porte finished with a flourish to secure a double one-two for Sky – in both the stage and on GC. It was a job well done which “panned out more or less how we expected,” according to Froome. Porte agreed. “Tactically we were spot on today,” he said without any rancour at having lost the maillot jaune to his team-mate.

“The only important thing was that Team Sky won today. It’s always special to get a one-two on the podium, especially given the strength of the field we had here, and we’re super happy.”

One-twos are becoming something of a habit for Sky following their performance in the 2012 Tour and now here in Corsica. In fact, one-twos are becoming so old hat that expectations have grown.

According to a top secret source – a former adjoint sous chef currently on an 80-day rolling contract to source the best pasta and rice grains ahead of the Giro next month – Sky have visions of turning entire podiums black and blue and Rapha-hued.

“We all know that the original plan at Sky was ‘to create the first British winner of the Tour de France within five years’,” said the deputy chef’s assistant.

“Now, the use of the verb ‘create’ is a bit unfortunate there – especially for a team management bent on discrediting the notion that its riders can be built and programmed like robots – or, if you will, created like some kind of gastronomic dish.

“Anyway, I digress. They downgraded that aim to simply winning the Tour within five years – wholly needlessly, it turned out, because a British rider (albeit one created in Belgium) did manage to do that within a couple of years.”

Seeing two riders on the top rungs of the podium in Paris gave the ambitious Brailsford new ideas.

“They all went off and did the Olympics, tra la la, but it was clear that Dave was planning his next move. Which is quite simple: to have three – and not two – Sky riders on the podium in the Tour.”

The plan for July is for friends Froome and Porte to top the podium and Wiggins to take the third rung after himself winning the Giro (ideally ahead of Colombians Rigoberto Uran and Sergio Henao).

“It may sound crazy,” said the culinary source, “but actually that’s just the start of it. The ultimate aim is to send an entire nine-man team to the Tour and to place them in the top ten. That’s why Cavendish was flogged – they tried to test out his climbing ability last year, but Tim Kerrison decided that Cav couldn’t swim very well and was definitely never top-ten material and so wholly surplus to requirements.”

Is a Sky top ten in the future? (Image: skysports.com)

As such, the likes of Dario Cataldo, Uran and Henao are being conditioned to ride so ably as super-domestiques that they place themselves in the top ten by dint of everyone else in the peloton being completely shanked after three weeks of hell.

“You could say the Colombians and Darius – as we call him in the kitchen – are being groomed for their roles. In fact, chez Sky we actually call it being ‘froomed’ now.”

Such lofty ambitions bordering on the dictatorial have not made Brailsford lose his sense of humour, however.

“Dave had a bet with Sean Yates that, whoever the other rider is who finishes in the top ten alongside our nine boys, Sky will sign – regardless of his team or cost, provided his provenance checks out okay and he’s not mates with Bobby Julich.

“But you see, that’s what will make the whole thing exciting and keep the suspense going right to the end.”

In his latest column for Cyclismas, Blazin’ Saddles drops the wise-cracking facade and has a go at actually writing something vaguely serious…

Saddleblaze has a confession to make: he didn’t actually watch the 9.6km deciding time trial up the Col d’Eze in Paris-Nice. He was busy moving house and doing chores – but it came as no surprise when he saw that the rubber-faced Tasmanian Richie Porte had picked up both the stage win and the overall victory.

Later, once the dust had settled – or snow, if you’re a UK resident – Saddles had a trawl through his feed on Twitter to gauge the public reaction following Team Sky’s latest stage race victory. One tweet in particular stood out, and sparked a huge ding-dong debate.

With reference to Porte’s victorious ride over Andrew Talansky in the ITT, SuzeCY aka @festinagirl wrote:

23″ that’s a HUGE winning margin

— SuzeCY (@festinagirl) March 10, 2013

Respected cycling scribe and bouffant extraordinaire Daniel Friebe (@friebos) replied with a typically measured and insightful tweet:

@festinagirl Huge? Fairly standard. Poulidor beats Merckx by ’22 in 69, Michel Laurent by ’30 in 76, Roche by ’32 (from Indurain) in 89 etc

— Daniel Friebe (@friebos) March 10, 2013

And so sparked a war of words and opinions that rose up and down more ferociously than the raging seas in the terrible George Clooney film, The Perfect Storm (spoiler: they all die).

“Imagine what he’ll be like when he loses some weight,” quipped @festinagirl with reference to the portly Australian’s slightly tubby build.

@daveno7 wow, how fast will he go when he’s dropped a few pounds?

— SuzeCY (@festinagirl) March 10, 2013

She then dug up some stats from last year’s identical time trial up the Col d’Eze:

@friebos Wiggins, an acknowledged TTer, could only beat Westra by 2″ – Porte smashed the rest of the field without trying

— SuzeCY (@festinagirl) March 10, 2013

Having since watched the highlights of the final stage, Saddles can pretty much vouch that Porte’s efforts were not exactly in line with someone “not trying.” But for the sake of being an omniscient narrator here, Saddles will keep out of the argument. Besides, as @paddyjim threw into the ring, Wiggins did pick up a puncture during his winning ride last year, so those two seconds are kind of misleading.

“True but winning margin to 10th last year was just over 1min, winning margin to 3rd today was 1min 20+ secs – huge gaps,” returned @festinagirl, perhaps confusing the overall GC time gaps with those on the day (third place Nairo Quintana was 23 seconds down and the 10th place rider was 1:06 in arrears – that’s to say, “just over 1min”).

“You really think 23′ in a 20 minute race is a huge margin? In that case 1min is necessarily suspicious in a 55km TT. Come on,” replied an exasperated @friebos.

At this stage, a third party – ACF aka @Acycling_fan – entered the ring with a typically opinionated statement:

@friebos @festinagirl lets cut to the chase. Skys performances hav been US POSTAL style. guys who couldnt climb 1 yr are awesome the next yr

— ACF (@ACycling_fan) March 10, 2013

“Like? Some, not all, have certainly improved. They’ve also gone from leading teams to riding as domestiques,” replied @friebos, matter-of-factly.

“Where was Porte a team leader?” asked @festinagirl, forgetting Porte’s breakthrough seventh place in the 2010 Giro while at Saxo Bank. “Sure, Sky super doms have potential to lead elsewhere but that’s not unique to Sky.”

“Enough. We know what you think,” said @friebos, clearly eager to call time on a futile session of Sunday evening verbal fencing (after all, the final episode of gripping ITV drama, Mr Selfridge, was about to begin).

But the author of Mountain High and Eddy Merckx: The Cannibal couldn’t resist one final jab of the epée. “You have 7000 followers. Free to say what you like, but that’s a big audience to tell that someone is a fraud.”

This clearly got up the nose of the Prosecution’s tag-teamer @Acycling_fan, who jumped in with a seemingly personal jibe:

@friebos @festinagirl dan, you can keep the public stupid, just like the cycling press did for so Many years with Lance

— ACF (@ACycling_fan) March 10, 2013

“Simply not true. 95% of those who read cycling press had drawn correct conclusion about LA,” said the Defence, standing his ground.

At this point in proceedings, SBS young buck Al Hinds, who has followed the career of Porte intently since his time as cub reporter at Cyclingnews, pinged one off in support of the curly-haired Friebe:

@friebos @acycling_fan @festinagirl save yourself the pain mate. Not worth it.

— Alexander Hinds (@al_hinds) March 10, 2013

Clearly irate, the embittered @Acycling_fan came back with another fierce jab below the belt: “Well done Alex, keep the Omertà strong.”

Re-entering the room after perhaps warming up some dinner in the microwave (Findus Crispy Lasagne, allegedly), @festinagirl took @friebos to account with his comment about her misleading her lavish hoard of followers on Twitter.

“Not sure what your point is? All views are my own as are yours, presumably?” came the reply, prompting Britain’s leading young cycling journalist into a staunch defence of his own journalistic integrity: “I don’t and can’t print libellous supposition. We’re bound by same rules (no, laws) on here, or should be.”

There followed a long silence from the Prosecution. Once the case was taken back up, there seemed to be a marked shift from insinuations of doping to accusations of boredom-inducement and suffocation of the mystique.

As if it wasn’t enough for Porte to become the first Australian to win Paris-Nice while taking the queen’s stage mountain-top finish as well as the final uphill time trial, the Tasmanian was being chastised for doing it in a robotic and dour fashion.

Richie Porte ‘not trying’ up the Col d’Eze (Photo: AFP)

Anyway, time for Saddles to join the fray. Your humble cycling blogger finds the whole verbal spat rather irksome – and entirely symptomatic of the climate brought on by years of lies and shattered dreams.

But here’s the thing.

All cycling fans are allowed to be suspicious, for sure, but it’s getting out of hand when any admirable performance is greeted with a mass of jeers – a general wave of discontent that has the power to spread much faster in an era where Twitter reigns supreme, where everyone is a journalist and yet doesn’t feel they still have to adhere to the same moral framework the profession requires.

Given what happened before with Armstrong, brushes, and carpets, it’s become highly fashionable now for people – whether big or small – to throw the book at any performance that outdoes the other lesser performances on the day. There seems to be a consensus amongst a growing majority that no riders can improve without drugs; that riding “intelligently” is just another way of being “better prepared”; that Team Sky’s dominance is clearly a case of Groundhog Day.

It seems to Saddles that there are too many nihilistic iconoclasts out there bent on becoming the next Paul Kimmage. (You could say, even, that Paul Kimmage is bent on becoming the next Paul Kimmage – or at least a v2.0 Paul Kimmage – but that’s an entirely different tangent.)

Some cycling fans are distrusting of everything not through any measured thought, but on principle (but without principle). They’re doing it by default just so they can say – should something emerge at a later date – that they told you so. It’s a no-lose situation for them. Team Sky don’t get caught out – the suspicion still lingers; they do – hey, I told you so.

Granted, it’s probably not enough for many fans to take things on trust anymore. But by the same token, it’s not right for default suspicions to precede any form of appreciation of training methods, hard work, dedication and professionalism.

Yes, there’s a chance that Sky are US Postal mark two – but there’s also a much more likely chance that they are Sky mark one and are precisely what has emerged from the ashes of the American team.

With the top end of cycling relying pretty much on covert doping operations for nigh-on two decades, there was certainly a window of opportunity for a team coming in with advanced training methods centred around squad cohesion, teamwork, and marginal gains.

Yes, it’s not to everyone’s liking (the 2012 Tour de France was a dire spectacle, to be sure) but it’s damned effective.

“There’s no secret,” said Chris Froome after taking the Tirreno-Adriatico leader’s blue jersey over the border on Sunday. “It’s just continuing to work the way we worked in the last few years: training, measuring the training, and going back and doing it again. There’s not too much to it. It’s about getting the basics right.”

Vincenzo Nibali would agree – the Italian telling reporters on Sunday that he “paid a price for the infernal rhythm of Froome’s team in the finale.”

As for Porte, his time at Sky is “totally different” from his stint at Saxo Bank. “There is no other team training as hard as we do,” he confirmed. “The proof is in the pudding.”

(Photo: Getty Images)

Sky, it seems, have it sorted out. They have a roll call of GC riders – Wiggins, Froome, Porte – all ably supported by an interchangeable array of super-domestiques. The likes of Lopez, Uran, Henao, Cataldo, Zandio, Siutsou, and Kiryienka can all do a job if called upon – and that’s not even mentioning the classics riders and all-rounders like Thomas and Boasson-Hagen.

It is any surprise that Sky are so strong with such strength in depth and advanced training?

Yes, many of us share @festinagirl’s views when she says she’d much prefer watching riders like Voigt and Voeckler than a group of black-and-blue clad warriors dialing in the required wattage into their powermeters and riding to a programme.

But riders like Voeckler and Voigt are a dying breed. Besides, most of the ones we came to love over the past couple of decades had precisely the kind of preparatory help that many are so quick to accuse Sky of employing.

Fans need to be more realistic. By all means, be cynical – but do so for a reason and not merely in protest. Omertà is one thing, but a persistent finger-pointing and unmeasured hounding is just as bad.