WheelofGear said:
Nibali was definitely not the strongest in 2014. Come on, he was not even close to Contador who were superior for most of the spring season and in the Dauphiné. Contador would have beaten him in all of the mountain stages. I mean, Peraud was even able to hang on to him in two of the hardest stages.
Froome is always a big question mark, but I think he would have been stronger too. He had a good but extremely inconsistent season. He is always yo-yoing.
Nibali is a great all-rounder, no doubt about that. But nowhere in his career, he has been a better climber than Alberto. From 2010 to now. Only in 2013 and perhaps this year, Contador has not been the best climber of the year. He was banned in late 2011 and early 2012, but in the Giro of 2011 and Vuelta of 2012 he was by far the strongest.
Nibali had a higher average w/kg on the decisive climbs than Froome did in the TdF 2013 (5.99-6.05 vs. 5.96 from what I have seen), and they both went quite hard until they had a massive advantage. Remember that Contador was dropped hard by such numbers in 2013. He was, admittedly, a lot stronger in 2014, but it is by no means a given that he "would have beaten him in all of the mountain stages". Not to mention that Nibali's w/kg numbers were significantly higher in the TdF '14 than Contador's Giro '15 numbers.
If we look at the TdF '14 and Vuelta '14, Contador produced higher w/kg on short climbs, whereas Nibali was at least as strong on the 30-50 minutes long climbs in terms of w/kg.
(
http://cyclingtips.com.au/2014/10/vuelta-a-espana-climbing-speeds-how-should-we-interpret-the-data/ - I found my graphs here)
Also, he was the smartest GC-rider at the Vuelta in '12, but he was seldomly the strongest. He even said so himself in interviews after the race. Purito and Valverde were definitely on his level (and slightly above at times).
It is not to say that Alberto is not a great athlete; I just think that Nibali gets way too little credit for his TdF-win. It is not his fault that Froome and Contador crashed out, and his climbing performances are up there with the best the last five years (in terms of w/kg, although I know very well that these numbers do not tell all there is to tell).