BigFatCoward Posted May 11, 2014 Share Posted May 11, 2014 skip to page 9 for any chat about the vuelta. bit late on starting this years cycling thread, the early season GC contenders have had varied results, froome came back to form with a bang recently and looks a solid favourite for the tour, contador has looked amazing, hope his form holds, nibali not so good but hopefully will be where he needs to be come july, Quintana has been ok, cadel has just come off an excellent result. the giro started on Friday and Nairo Quintana is the clear favourite, despite his time loss in the team time trial, only rodriguez looks like a true challenger, with uran and cadel probably the next most likely to give it a go with early time gains being a little boost, majka is possibly an outside bet if he continues to develop. its a shame porte had to pull out as I thought he would be the only person who could have given it a real go, Quintana is clearly the class of the field. also shame that kennaugh had to withdraw, i'd like to see how he could handle himself as a team leader in a 3 week race, though this clearly now makes sky ridiculously strong for the tour as he will probably go there instead after his strong showing in the key mountain stages last year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calibandar Posted May 11, 2014 Share Posted May 11, 2014 I'm wait and see on Quintana. I think he might be as good as everybody's thinking, but he's only shown his Grand Tour skills, I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't have the form he had in the Tour. Uran should be able to step up a bit now as well, he has his own team now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigFatCoward Posted May 13, 2014 Author Share Posted May 13, 2014 sir brad was immense today, probably just guaranteed his tour spot. the giro has a couple of uphill finishes tom and Thursday, nobody will lose it, but it will indicate who has come here to play. expect Rodrigues to try and get the jump and take the time bonuses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Wolf Smith Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 Being a fan from the US, I really can't say anything. Since NBC bought Versus, and changed it to NBCSports, we don't get the Giro, instead we get Tour of Cali. I loved coming home and watching the Grand tours, before going to bed, or catching primetime replay. CA is 3 hours behind me, and so its the middle of the day when its live, and the replay is like 5:00 pm. We still get ToF, and a few random races, but its never advertised. All I get to see is a one page wire report of the race that gives only the basic of who won, who the leader is, and little more. I was surprised that Wiggins, and Cavendish are both racing Cali. Sorry, just had to bitch somewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigFatCoward Posted May 15, 2014 Author Share Posted May 15, 2014 well that put the cat amongst the pigeons. cadel now has a decent sized lead over Quintana and uran, rodriguez is toast. shame for people to lose it like that, the crash looked nasty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigFatCoward Posted May 17, 2014 Author Share Posted May 17, 2014 first big stage and ..... nothing much really happened with regards to the GC, other than Cadel showed he is for real so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deedles Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 I think the profile of the Giro held it back a bit this year. While next week will be awesome for the GC, I didn't get much excitement for most of it.Was slightly shocked by Cadel in the ITT, coming off road etcNow, must start shouting for Nico nor the descent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigFatCoward Posted May 27, 2014 Author Share Posted May 27, 2014 well that was fucking amazing, Quintana is a freak, best pure climber since pantani. its a shame he isn't going to the tour, i'd love to see him, contador, valverde and nibali at full strength all trying to kick lumps out of froome and trying to break up the sky train. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calibandar Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 I'd love to see that as well. Part of me was hoping this Giro would be a failure for him, for whatever reason, because that would have meant, as it usually does, that riders redirect their attention to the Tour. I have to say I was surprised by how quickly Quintana made his move. He was 6th or so and in stage makes the difference. It's a tight pack at the front btw. Uran is likely to finish on the podium but Evans will not make it. Aru is very good, so is Kelderman and Majka, plus Rolland has emerged as a sudden podium guy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 well that was fucking amazing, Quintana is a freak, best pure climber since pantani. its a shame he isn't going to the tour, i'd love to see him, contador, valverde and nibali at full strength all trying to kick lumps out of froome and trying to break up the sky train. Yeah even for a noob that was pretty magnificent to watch. I have no idea how he got the 2 minute gap on the descent (since the Italian TV coverage missed it), did he just catch the others napping and they didnt notice because they were so cold, or were they just not confident in taking the risk of descending that fast? Of course then he blew them away on the climb. I didn't know he wasn't doing the tour, that's disappointing. Seeing him take both in the same year as a rookie would be awesome, even if the Skybots are just going to take it again even if he did :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calibandar Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 Movistar is going all out for Valverde for the final time in the Tour.Tour line-up in terms of contenders looks amazing by the way.As for this Giro, it was a fine one. Quintana, Uran, Aru, Majka and Kelderman are young guys we might be seeing a great deal of the next decade. Aru has emerged as a remarkable climber and an interesting new Nibali type. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rorshach Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 I didn't know he wasn't doing the tour, that's disappointing. Seeing him take both in the same year as a rookie would be awesome, even if the Skybots are just going to take it again even if he did :P Quintana raced in last year's Tour de France, winning the polka dot jersey, the white jersey and coming second overall. So he's not a rookie :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 Pfft I'm using rookie in a general "young and relatively new on the scene" sense, not a specific proper meaning! Last years tour was the first cycling I've watched and was super impressed by him, so he's my first rider to cheer for.Unfortunately I came along too late to see Evans in his glory, he's still giving it a great try but doesn't look like he's got the legs for it now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rorshach Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 Pfft I'm using rookie in a general "young and relatively new on the scene" sense, not a specific proper meaning! Last years tour was the first cycling I've watched and was super impressed by him, so he's my first rider to cheer for.Unfortunately I came along too late to see Evans in his glory, he's still giving it a great try but doesn't look like he's got the legs for it now.I've always enjoyed Evans, he isa grinder and always seemed to be clean. He never had the acceleration uphill that the big climbers had, but he stayed the course. Real fighter. eta: verb tenses Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigFatCoward Posted June 7, 2014 Author Share Posted June 7, 2014 so the dauphine starts this weekend, very mountainous course which will see the 3 main favorites for the tour go head to head. froome is still favorite but a lot less so than last year when he clearly was stronger than contador. hopefully nibali has regained his form from last years giro and all 3 will kick lumps out of each other. bradley wiggins is riding in the tour of switzerland instead of the dauphine and has stated he won't be going to the tour (everyone knows froome hates him). i think this is a massive error, he is in amazing form, would be a massive help on the cobbles and he wouldn't have been dropped on the two stages last year where froome was totally isolated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slick Mongoose Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 I'm very disappointed, watching a tour with Wiggins and Froome in the same team would be very entertaining! Plus it would have been nice to see Sir Brad line up for an English start to the Tour. I imagine they were worried that they couldn't rely on Wiggins to support Froome if Wiggins felt he had a chance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deedles Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 I think it's probably the right decision for Sky but a regrettable on for the fans. Watching some old skool team rivalry might have been entertaining. You'd back Wiggins to do well on the cobbles, and especially on the last ITT. Having said that, I don't think he would have threatened Froome given the profile of the parcours. I think it's Bertie's year (again). He looked in stunning form earlier.Sadly, I don't think Nibali will feature. The Schleks are in poor form. Still, wouldn't have fancied Quintano to do that well last year, so there's always a chance of an upset. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigFatCoward Posted June 8, 2014 Author Share Posted June 8, 2014 the internet is going wild after froome, a notoriously bad bike handler put 8 seconds into everyone in a 10km technical time trial. until there is something more concrete he retains the benefit of the doubt, but it is all very suspicious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slick Mongoose Posted June 8, 2014 Share Posted June 8, 2014 it is all very suspicious. It's cycling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rorshach Posted June 8, 2014 Share Posted June 8, 2014 I agree he should get the benefit of the doubt. However, in practice, that's hard. Cycling isn't really a sport where you naturally assume that everyone's clean... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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