Teams & Riders Alberto Contador Discussion Thread

[LaFlorecita]

And all the boys will have pink bar tape
Will Berto go fully pink though is the question

 

[jens_attacks]

Grande alberto!

So 9 and after le tour, 10 in the bag i wish
I really hope he stays until 2017 to beat merckx and bebest grand tour rider of all times

Vamos!

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

(Apologies for discussing doping issues in this forum. I won't respond to this again).

Its about time the UCI gave everyone back their wins. Its a shambles of a farce of a pile of wasted Haribo's
We know who won. To try and deny Bertie or Armstrong is just F%%%ing stupid given what we know.

Eh, he won the 2011 Giro (note the past tense), he's just no longer listed as the official winner.

"Official" bodies might be able to rewrite official records but they can't change real history...what actually happened. People who recognize all AC's wins know it's not official. They just understand what actually happened.

If Rasmussen had finished, of course he would have been the winner regardless of what officials found out later.

Alright people, we don't count paper victories

We count the real ones

9

I wonder if you posters would maintain the same line if after finishing first in a GT, a rider was found to have a motor in his bike. Still the real winner?

Anyway, backdated bans are big dull ***. Contador was allowed to race and he won. So he's the winner. Any statistic which says different is a stupid joke.

Do you think Contador would have preferred to have been banned two years prospectively? He got to serve his suspension with no time off except for a few months in 2012,so he didn't lose any further time getting back into shape. He entered the Giro fully aware that if he lost his case his results would be void. When you've tested positive, you're lucky to be racing at all. Racing knowing that if you really did dope and it's ruled that way you'll lose those results is still a better deal than not being able to race at all.

Ask all the riders who testified against LA for USADA if they would have preferred to trade their 6 month suspensions and backdated BS bans for several years of prospective suspensions. I've heard an awful lot of people say they got off light.

Slams head against desk. idk, perhaps because the itt and the contenders pre-conceived abilities before and the results after shaped the strategy and the dynamics of the entire effin race???

So you’re saying that the non-TT portion of the race, taken alone, is completely meaningless? That it provides zero insight into the climbing results of the riders? That if there had been no ITT, Contador still would have won by two minutes? That he would have climbed a lot better if he hadn’t had that cushion?

I regard that as a hypothesis, certainly worthy of discussion, but not as a slam-head-against-desk obvious conclusion.

I love the modern world of HD TV! You don't have to take some journalist word for it. You can find the truth all on your own!

I love the modern world of science! We don’t have to take the word of some journalist thousands of years ago. We can find the truth all on our own.

The difference between the motor and the other thing is that I would assume no one else is doing the motor.

The hesitation I personally have in acknowledging the ucis list, at least in discussions like this, stems from the knowledge that everyone on the list was doing the same thing, so it complicates things to pretend for the sake of pretending that one guy was behaving differently for two out of nine events, when we know that absolutely isn't the case.

If I thought contador had been alone then I absolutely would not give him 9 and probably would be arguing that he should have 0.

 

[Contadoraus Schlecks]

https://mobile.twitter.com/olegtinkov/status/604909315267436544/photo/1

Couldn't post the pic itself but take a look at Tinkov's Twitter

 

[No_Balls]

Re: Re:

If it makes you feel better to say that Landa (in particular) is a better climber, then go ahead. I would be foolish to argue the point. What do I care? Contador won the race. He has won 8 others (on the road), don't you think there is something correlative about him in particular other than his climbing that accounts for that? Or is it always just circumstance?

Seeing how Landa also did a lot of domestique duties and was kept on a rather tight leash, it's indeed quite logical to state that he was the best climber in this race (although I have a hard time believing he did it clean). You may not care about this, but several others here and elsewhere seemed to take offense to that, going as far as accusing people of trolling - trolling, just because someone doesn't agree with their position. I'm finding that all quite obnoxious and arrogant, and it spoils any serious discussion. If this was contained to this thread, that'd be OK, but it's also in the race threads and people are quite aggressive.

To be clear, I don't have any real race favourites, and I actually dislike Astana because I find them dodgy and I don't think people like Vinokourov should be involved in cycling. I look at races to enjoy the racing, and I don't particularly care who wins as long as he displays some kind of panache and I can more or less trust the result. So I don't really understand why people can be so 'into' one rider in particular - but I'm OK with it. What I'm not OK with is attacking other people for having a different view, or constantly shifting explanations post-date just so the story continuous to confirm the riders superiority. For example, the view 2 days ago (after the Cervinia stage) that Contador was such a boss for destroying Landa mentally, and that he could've attacked whenever he wanted. It's annoying to read such things in different forms every day also in the race thread AND at the same time see people being called trolls for stating another opinion (like Taxus, when he said yesterday that Contador in the current form would not be up to Froome and Quintana, and possibly Nibali and Pinot). "Don't feed the trolls" etc. Yeah.

I"ll answer too since it concerns me also.

Here's the deal:

1. The reason (some) AC-fans got furious by this was of course the early established narrative that Landa was in the race the better climber, and that climbing was all-important, before we actually knew this with certainty. Of course, given that they were all skybots it was necessary to quickly adopt Landa and conviently "forget" the embarrasing time trial from both Landa and Porte, and in systematic order of reducing the importance in Albertos victory, establish this point about climbing. Thats why we've seen the likes of Sam shifting stances from both pointing out the overriding importance of winning the Tour to the points about climbing rubbed in our face with clinical precision after each stage. When AC attacked in Cervinia the adopt attitude was faking that he'd cared and was "worried" it could jeopardise the Tour, at Mortirolo it was necessary to slam in AC-fans faces that Landa as the better climber could have done more, with the sole purpose of winding up fans. Now, the ring-leader tells its "a joke" and cries about "AC-fans". Of course, it gets heated sometimes, we are fans after all. What is definitively pathetic is houlier than thou-figures or self proclaimed voices of reason who takes a pleasure in winding up fans and then cries about the result.


2. As i was very active with that whole "destroy-Landa-mentally" thing. Whats strange with that? Its not like stating to the press saying "Alberto creates chaos in Astana" and "starts a war between me and Fabio" because of his shifted focus from Fabio to Mikel, directed who gets on the second step or who dont, is a normal thing to say to the press. Besides, we wouldnt even have this discussion if it was not for yesterday. Of course this statement could be wrong but again instead of confront me/us with that people take offense and goes crybabies "ohh, look how disrespectful THEY are". I see a lot of sneaky comments from the ton of sockpuppets which i dont care about but i suppose they are not a problem.

 

[LaFlorecita]

 

[Bronstein]

https://mobile.twitter.com/olegtinkov/status/604909315267436544/photo/1

Couldn't post the pic itself but take a look at Tinkov's Twitter

 

[Jagartrott]

Re: Re:

1. The reason (some) AC-fans got furious by this was of course the early established narrative that Landa was in the race the better climber, and that climbing was all-important, before we actually knew this with certainty. Of course, given that they were all skybots it was necessary to quickly adopt Landa and conviently "forget" the embarrasing time trial from both Landa and Porte, and in systematic order of reducing the importance in Albertos victory, establish this point about climbing. Thats why we've seen the likes of Sam shifting stances from both pointing out the overriding importance of winning the Tour to the points about climbing rubbed in our face with clinical precision after each stage. When AC attacked in Cervinia the adopt attitude was faking that he'd cared and was "worried" it could jeopardise the Tour, at Mortirolo it was necessary to slam in AC-fans faces that Landa as the better climber could have done more, with the sole purpose of winding up fans. Now, the ring-leader tells its "a joke" and cries about "AC-fans". Of course, it gets heated sometimes, we are fans after all. What is definitively pathetic is houlier than thou-figures or self proclaimed voices of reason who takes a pleasure in winding up fans and then cries about the result.


2. As i was very active with that whole "destroy-Landa-mentally" thing. Whats strange with that? Its not like stating to the press saying "Alberto creates chaos in Astana" and "starts a war between me and Fabio" because of his shifted focus from Fabio to Mikel, directed who gets on the second step or who dont, is a normal thing to say to the press. Besides, we wouldnt even have this discussion if it was not for yesterday. Of course this statement could be wrong but again instead of confront me/us with that people take offense and goes crybabies "ohh, look how disrespectful THEY are". I see a lot of sneaky comments from the ton of sockpuppets which i dont care about but i suppose they are not a problem.

You're "fans" and it's normal things get heated, others are "Skybots". OK.
Then some talk about pathetic, crybabbies and sockpuppets.

Do you seriously expect me to read this as a reasonable answer? You know, one without black/white arguments and personal attacks?

 

[Singer01]

Re: Re:

If it makes you feel better to say that Landa (in particular) is a better climber, then go ahead. I would be foolish to argue the point. What do I care? Contador won the race. He has won 8 others (on the road), don't you think there is something correlative about him in particular other than his climbing that accounts for that? Or is it always just circumstance?

Seeing how Landa also did a lot of domestique duties and was kept on a rather tight leash, it's indeed quite logical to state that he was the best climber in this race (although I have a hard time believing he did it clean). You may not care about this, but several others here and elsewhere seemed to take offense to that, going as far as accusing people of trolling - trolling, just because someone doesn't agree with their position. I'm finding that all quite obnoxious and arrogant, and it spoils any serious discussion. If this was contained to this thread, that'd be OK, but it's also in the race threads and people are quite aggressive.

To be clear, I don't have any real race favourites, and I actually dislike Astana because I find them dodgy and I don't think people like Vinokourov should be involved in cycling. I look at races to enjoy the racing, and I don't particularly care who wins as long as he displays some kind of panache and I can more or less trust the result. So I don't really understand why people can be so 'into' one rider in particular - but I'm OK with it. What I'm not OK with is attacking other people for having a different view, or constantly shifting explanations post-date just so the story continuous to confirm the riders superiority. For example, the view 2 days ago (after the Cervinia stage) that Contador was such a boss for destroying Landa mentally, and that he could've attacked whenever he wanted. It's annoying to read such things in different forms every day also in the race thread AND at the same time see people being called trolls for stating another opinion (like Taxus, when he said yesterday that Contador in the current form would not be up to Froome and Quintana, and possibly Nibali and Pinot). "Don't feed the trolls" etc. Yeah.

I"ll answer too since it concerns me also.

Here's the deal:

1. The reason (some) AC-fans got furious by this was of course the early established narrative that Landa was in the race the better climber, and that climbing was all-important, before we actually knew this with certainty. Of course, given that they were all skybots it was necessary to quickly adopt Landa and conviently "forget" the embarrasing time trial from both Landa and Porte, and in systematic order of reducing the importance in Albertos victory, establish this point about climbing. Thats why we've seen the likes of Sam shifting stances from both pointing out the overriding importance of winning the Tour to the points about climbing rubbed in our face with clinical precision after each stage. When AC attacked in Cervinia the adopt attitude was faking that he'd cared and was "worried" it could jeopardise the Tour, at Mortirolo it was necessary to slam in AC-fans faces that Landa as the better climber could have done more, with the sole purpose of winding up fans. Now, the ring-leader tells its "a joke" and cries about "AC-fans". Of course, it gets heated sometimes, we are fans after all. What is definitively pathetic is houlier than thou-figures or self proclaimed voices of reason who takes a pleasure in winding up fans and then cries about the result.


2. As i was very active with that whole "destroy-Landa-mentally" thing. Whats strange with that? Its not like stating to the press saying "Alberto creates chaos in Astana" and "starts a war between me and Fabio" because of his shifted focus from Fabio to Mikel, directed who gets on the second step or who dont, is a normal thing to say to the press. Besides, we wouldnt even have this discussion if it was not for yesterday. Of course this statement could be wrong but again instead of confront me/us with that people take offense and goes crybabies "ohh, look how disrespectful THEY are". I see a lot of sneaky comments from the ton of sockpuppets which i dont care about but i suppose they are not a problem.

pathetic

 

[hrotha]

1. Personally I'm a little upset that, after three weeks, I still don't know for sure who was the best climber between Contador and Landa. I suspect it might have been Landa towards the end of the race, but they only had like, what, one duel where all things were equal? (And that was a draw, too). It all depends on how you interpret Finestre: Contador having a bad day, or Contador blowing himself up by trying to follow Landa.

2. Being the best climber in the race matters little, and Contador was the best racer overall by far. I've found him tactically inept in the past, when he was young, but it seems to me he rode almost perfectly here, managing every dangerous situation masterfully and even playing one Astana against the other.

3. This thread is insufferable in high doses thanks to the fanboy/girl mafia. This is not your personal playground, and people are perfectly entitled to talk *** about Contador as they see fit.

 

[Miburo]

Re:

1. Personally I'm a little upset that, after three weeks, I still don't know for sure who was the best climber between Contador and Landa. I suspect it might have been Landa towards the end of the race, but they only had like, what, one duel where all things were equal? (And that was a draw, too). It all depends on how you interpret Finestre: Contador having a bad day, or Contador blowing himself up by trying to follow Landa.

2. Being the best climber in the race matters little, and Contador was the best racer overall by far. I've found him tactically inept in the past, when he was young, but it seems to me he rode almost perfectly here, managing every dangerous situation masterfully and even playing one Astana against the other.

3. This thread is insufferable in high doses thanks to the fanboy/girl mafia. This is not your personal playground, and people are perfectly entitled to talk **** about Contador as they see fit.

Nice post. According to Landa astana though contador was fine yesterday since he followed attacks from hesjedal and kruiswijk prior to Landa attacking.

So or that was a great bluff from contador or he blew himself up vs landa. i would go for the second one since he tried to follow landa. He wouldn't do that if he really felt bad.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

1. Personally I'm a little upset that, after three weeks, I still don't know for sure who was the best climber between Contador and Landa. I suspect it might have been Landa towards the end of the race, but they only had like, what, one duel where all things were equal? (And that was a draw, too). It all depends on how you interpret Finestre: Contador having a bad day, or Contador blowing himself up by trying to follow Landa.

2. Being the best climber in the race matters little, and Contador was the best racer overall by far. I've found him tactically inept in the past, when he was young, but it seems to me he rode almost perfectly here, managing every dangerous situation masterfully and even playing one Astana against the other.

3. This thread is insufferable in high doses thanks to the fanboy/girl mafia. This is not your personal playground, and people are perfectly entitled to talk **** about Contador as they see fit.

Good post hrotha

 

[Brullnux]

Re:

Grande alberto!

So 9 and after le tour, 10 in the bag i wish
I really hope he stays until 2017 to beat merckx and bebest grand tour rider of all times

Vamos!

I think he'll stay until 2017, race the 100th Giro against, hopefully, all the best riders, and then finish off his career at the Vuelta a España. He's very respectful towards races and their organisers, so he'll acknowledge that he should race the 100th Giro. I can't wait for that race already and it's still 2 years away. Contador vs Nibali + Aru vs Quintana + Valverde vs Froome and others. Hopefully they'll all turn up, and go for the Giro-Tour double and let AC win his final Vuelta.

 

[Jagartrott]

He has said this was his last Giro.

 

[ray j willings]

As a Bertie fan I have no issue with other "bertie haters / not fans" opinons .
This thread is a discussion about Bertie ,good, bad, opinions of everyone.
I think people need to lighten up a bit. I do think there is a bit of winding up going on but us Bertie fans should not let it bother us.
After all if we all had the same opinion it would be F%%$ing boring.

I post on the Froome or Porte thread and get called a troll for saying negative things " the truth IMO" about these Sky boys.

remember if you dish it out be prepared to take it and stop being hypocrites.

what is one mans trolling is another mans agreed view.

 

[ray j willings]

Hitch quote
"The difference between the motor and the other thing is that I would assume no one else is doing the motor.

The hesitation I personally have in acknowledging the ucis list, at least in discussions like this, stems from the knowledge that everyone on the list was doing the same thing, so it complicates things to pretend for the sake of pretending that one guy was behaving differently for two out of nine events, when we know that absolutely isn't the case.

If I thought contador had been alone then I absolutely would not give him 9 and probably would be arguing that he should have 0"

Spot on.

 

[Andro]

Re: Re:

Some of the Contador fans need to lighten up. The way a few I won't name pretty much abuse any poster who comes in here to say something that they don't immediately recognize as praiseful of Contador, is far worse.

Perfect summation of this thread. The main problem is that they also take their fanboy crap into the race threads and mock anybody who says something about Contador that is less than total praise.

 

[Carols]

Re: Re:

Anyone know what he's referring to in that pic? His 3 Vuelta victories? Would be somewhat disrespectful to the tifosi.

Your constant trolling is getting you into the red zone Sam. Give it a break now until July eh.

Err it was clearly a joke. If you read Serious Sam's posting history you would know that he is just about the last guy who would get on Contador's case for saying 3 giros.

Some of the Contador fans need to lighten up. The way a few I won't name pretty much abuse any poster who comes in here to say something that they don't immediately recognize as praiseful of Contador, is far worse.

No kidding, the three musketeers (LaFlo, iLoveCycling, Carols) have this thread locked and under control. They are lucky I cant say anything negative about Bert otherwise this thread would turn into another Porte/Fetancur style fireworks

I have never and will never abuse another poster. I simply put them on ignore.........if you consider ignoring baiters an issue that is your problem sir

 

[Carols]

Re:

That is a Nice bike and just my color

 

[ray j willings]

Re: Re:

Some of the Contador fans need to lighten up. The way a few I won't name pretty much abuse any poster who comes in here to say something that they don't immediately recognize as praiseful of Contador, is far worse.

Perfect summation of this thread. The main problem is that they also take their fanboy crap into the race threads and mock anybody who says something about Contador that is less than total praise.

This works both ways. Its best to lighten, up enjoy the banter be prepared to have it stuck to you as you do others or you can go on whinging and getting upset "boo hoo Im upset " when some one makes a joke or has said something you don't like.
This happens in non Bertie threads don't pretend it doesn't.
I can't say a bad thing about Porte or Froome without getting called names and let me tell you I don't give a sh%%
Whinge away if you must but it won't change the opinion or little digs that opposing fans love to get in.

 

[ray j willings]

How come know there are all these "baiters" around and I seem to be the only one who got banned

Its a Shambles,Where is the justice

 

[No_Balls]

Re:

Thats a pretty good summary Ray. They cry that they cant insult AC in a thread with his name because they then have to face some pretty heated counterarguments from "a mafia". After calling them out on their behavior they act offended and plays the morality card ( "jagartrotts" response is a prime example of this).

Oh well, this is my last response in this debate. This is a day to celebrate and nothing else

 

[Metabolol]

At this point I'm not sure how anyone can claim that Landa wasn't the strongest climber. However, Contador was the strongest overall and deserves the victory. If Contador wants to win the Tour then he has to improve and get much better back up on the important climbs than he did this Giro. At the same time I don't expect one team to dominate the Tour as Astana did in the Giro so that should give Alberto some more space.

 

[Squirbos_19]

Re: Re:

That is a Nice bike and just my color

Now why didn't he wear pink shoes on the bike? Would have looked much better than those awful black shoes

 

[Jagartrott]

Re: Re:

Thats a pretty good summary Ray. They cry that they cant insult AC in a thread with his name because they then have to face some pretty heated counterarguments from "a mafia". After calling them out on their behavior they act offended and plays the morality card ( "jagartrotts" response is a prime example of this).

Oh well, this is my last response in this debate. This is a day to celebrate and nothing else

"Insult Contador" - you mean anything that is not 100% positive (I have never insulted Contador)?
"Calling them out" - you mean name-calling, and accusing others of trolling?
"Morality card" - you mean advocating more actual debate rather than black/white nonsense?