Teams & Riders Alberto Contador Discussion Thread

[LaFlorecita]

Moving on

What do you guys think his schedule will be like? I believe he has more or less confirmed Tirreno, Dauphiné, TDF and Olympics. I would not be surprised if he does the exact same races as in 2014 - Algarve, Tirreno, Catalunya, Paisco and Dauphiné. If he could win Pais Vasco again he would become the shared record holder
Do you think he will also ride the Olympic ITT (not that he would stand a chance of course, just wondering if Spain would go for him or maybe for Castroviejo and Sanchez)
Will he ride La Vuelta? I don't know...

Do you have a profile of said TT-course? If the course resembles the one for the road race, surely it wouldn't be wise to count him out just yet.

EDIT: What Carols said.

I found 1 profile but can't copy it because it's in a PDF

it's 2 laps of 29.8km (bit long for Berto) with in each lap 2 "climbs" 1.2km @ 9% and 2.1km @7%. Besides that it's flat

 

[Carols]

Moving on

What do you guys think his schedule will be like? I believe he has more or less confirmed Tirreno, Dauphiné, TDF and Olympics. I would not be surprised if he does the exact same races as in 2014 - Algarve, Tirreno, Catalunya, Paisco and Dauphiné. If he could win Pais Vasco again he would become the shared record holder
Do you think he will also ride the Olympic ITT (not that he would stand a chance of course, just wondering if Spain would go for him or maybe for Castroviejo and Sanchez)
Will he ride La Vuelta? I don't know...

Do you have a profile of said TT-course? If the course resembles the one for the road race, surely it wouldn't be wise to count him out just yet.

EDIT: What Carols said.

I found 1 profile but can't copy it because it's in a PDF

it's 2 laps of 29.8km (bit long for Berto) with in each lap 2 "climbs" 1.2km @ 9% and 2.1km @7%. Besides that it's flat

Doesn't sound custom made for Berto to go up against the specialists. He needs more hills and technical descents to be a factor against the top ITTers in one day events.

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

Oh yeah, he totally was afraid in 2014, when he tried to win the tour
Beating him in the vuelta must have scared him really bad
And we know gaps is the plural of gap, now why does it matter? Show that you can type with less errors

Right on the money. Looks like some people don't have much common sense
Froome and Nibali are the ones who backed off when Contador said he'd do the Giro. And I'm saying that objectively, Contador took the position of doing the double early on and never changed his mind. Exactly a few days after that annoucement, Nibali and Froome said they'd put everything on the Tour.
Not hard to understand who avoided who.

lol @damian13ster who still doesn't realise AC rode the Giro. Yeah Contador finished almost 10 min off at the Tour, he understandably didn't do a 'great' race.
Like Froome finished 10 mins off at the Vuelta 12' after taking it easy at the Tour and all season long.

Lol what. Nibali and froome are supposed to alter their schedules planned last year on vibrators whim?

The tour de France is the biggest race. I'm not talking about fans who can decide the giro or vuelta are more important depending on which one contador has won more recently, but as a business. They are professionals. They make money from it and the place they make the most money and have the greatest chance to increase their brand and secure a better salary, is the tour. Especially fro froome who wants to get knighted and win sports awards and increase his popularity so he can sell more books and appear in adverts and get some good post career jobs etc.

They are not going to give that up cos contador decided he thinks his chances of beating them are better on the giro parcors

Hitch are you deliberately misreading his post or what? Froome and Nibali both stated - before Alberto announced he would ride the Giro - that they were considering riding the Giro. Then when Alberto did his announcement Froome and Nibali were quick to confirm they would just ride the Tour in 2015. That is obviously what Blurry meant, why you are putting words into his mouth I do not know.

No I'm not misreading blurry. He straight up said that nibs and froome were avoiding contador. And it's in character with other ridiculous things he has said.

And doesn't contador every year say he is open to doing the giro. I remember he refused to rule it out in 2011 (for next year) and in 2012 gazzeta even had the rumour that he would be back for 13. Ultimately he always ends up ruling it out in the season.

Same thing froome and Nibali were doing.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

No I'm not misreading blurry. He straight up said that nibs and froome were avoiding contador. And it's in character with other ridiculous things he has said.

And doesn't contador every year say he is open to doing the giro. I remember he refused to rule it out in 2011 (for next year) and in 2012 gazzeta even had the rumour that he would be back for 13. Ultimately he always ends up ruling it out in the season.

Same thing froome and Nibali were doing.

You are misreading him if you seriously think he wrote Froome and Nibali should change their schedule to suit Contador.

 

[Tonton]

Moving on

What do you guys think his schedule will be like? I believe he has more or less confirmed Tirreno, Dauphiné, TDF and Olympics. I would not be surprised if he does the exact same races as in 2014 - Algarve, Tirreno, Catalunya, Paisco and Dauphiné. If he could win Pais Vasco again he would become the shared record holder
Do you think he will also ride the Olympic ITT (not that he would stand a chance of course, just wondering if Spain would go for him or maybe for Castroviejo and Sanchez)
Will he ride La Vuelta? I don't know...

+1. In '14 his build up was impressive, at the Dauphine he was clearly above the rest. He was my favorite for the Tour. I would do the exact same program in '16. And no Vuelta. Long trip to scout the Games' course, know it better than anybody, Vino in the sunset .

 

[Afrank]

Moving on

What do you guys think his schedule will be like? I believe he has more or less confirmed Tirreno, Dauphiné, TDF and Olympics. I would not be surprised if he does the exact same races as in 2014 - Algarve, Tirreno, Catalunya, Paisco and Dauphiné. If he could win Pais Vasco again he would become the shared record holder
Do you think he will also ride the Olympic ITT (not that he would stand a chance of course, just wondering if Spain would go for him or maybe for Castroviejo and Sanchez)
Will he ride La Vuelta? I don't know...

Do you have a profile of said TT-course? If the course resembles the one for the road race, surely it wouldn't be wise to count him out just yet.

EDIT: What Carols said.

I found 1 profile but can't copy it because it's in a PDF

it's 2 laps of 29.8km (bit long for Berto) with in each lap 2 "climbs" 1.2km @ 9% and 2.1km @7%. Besides that it's flat

You could screenshot it.

 

[ray j willings]

Re: Re:

froome is the only guy who can force a tip top bertie to finish in 2nd or 3rd place in the tour and dawg is probably the biggest reason why contador hasn't won anything in the tour since 2010.

Which year, in your opinion, could Contador have won the Tour if not for Froome?

2015. I think if Froome isn't at the Tour Contador goes for the Tour in order to win the Tour rather than settle for a Giro.

You know full well that's Bullsh%% yet you post your comments anyway.

Sorry, just had to come in to correct this inaccurate mind reading attempt. I do not "know full well that's bullsh%%".

Coming from a pov that isnt overwhelmed by emotional bias, that's the opinion I have reached.

Btw. I do observe that despite claiming you are stating "facts", your core arguments you made are hypothetical. That froome wouldnt beat aru in the giro. And that froome wouldn't win the tour If one were to selectively pick out a stage on which he beat Quintana. The first one is not only hypothetical but imo bizzare and has no grounding in reality. The second is a silly premise to begin with and probably false as well.

In all reality how could Froome cope with that Astana machine for 3 weeks when he was struggling to hang onto Thomas's wheel towards the end of week 2? That's answers question 2 as well.
And I also posted"if you care to look a few pages back" exactly what Froome said when the 2015 tour route was announced. If you read it, it confirms that Froome switched his plans to avoid Contador and that is a FACT.

 

[fungusbear]

Moving on

What do you guys think his schedule will be like? I believe he has more or less confirmed Tirreno, Dauphiné, TDF and Olympics. I would not be surprised if he does the exact same races as in 2014 - Algarve, Tirreno, Catalunya, Paisco and Dauphiné. If he could win Pais Vasco again he would become the shared record holder
Do you think he will also ride the Olympic ITT (not that he would stand a chance of course, just wondering if Spain would go for him or maybe for Castroviejo and Sanchez)
Will he ride La Vuelta? I don't know...

I expecthe will do exactly the same schedule as 2014, with the Olympics the only major addition.

 

[LaFlorecita]

You could screenshot it.

Too much work

here is the link
http://www.uci.ch/mm/Document/News/NewsGeneral/16/89/84/RoadCyclingTimeTrial_Women_Neutral.pdf

I only found the women's course but the male course is the same, they just do the lap twice

 

[Afrank]

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Hmm it's actually possible to directly link to images on your computer now?

 

[Afrank]

Yep, you can upload attachments now. It's the purple box next to options below the textbox.

If the image is very large though only parts will be displayed and people will have to scroll across to see all of it. I usually re-size them to 960x640 if they are too big.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Yep, you can upload attachments now. It's the purple box next to options below the textbox.

If the image is very large though only parts will be displayed and people will have to scroll across to see all of it. I usually re-size them to 960x640 if they are too big.

Cool I didn't know that

 

[Valv.Piti]

Still a more hot thread than all the Vuelta-thread combined, haha

 

[Jspear]

Re:

Still a more hot thread than all the Vuelta-thread combined, haha

Why of course. Would you expect it to be otherwise?

 

[infeXio]

Re: Re:

Yep, you can upload attachments now. It's the purple box next to options below the textbox.

If the image is very large though only parts will be displayed and people will have to scroll across to see all of it. I usually re-size them to 960x640 if they are too big.

Cool I didn't know that

Just download Gyazo - amazing tool

 

[Tonton]

Re: Re:

In all reality how could Froome cope with that Astana machine for 3 weeks when he was struggling to hang onto Thomas's wheel towards the end of week 2? That's answers question 2 as well.
And I also posted"if you care to look a few pages back" exactly what Froome said when the 2015 tour route was announced. If you read it, it confirms that Froome switched his plans to avoid Contador and that is a FACT.

That is true. +1000.

 

[Carols]

Electress I cannot respond to your PM, it says you have Private Messaging disabled!

 

[djpbaltimore]

Re: Re:

In all reality how could Froome cope with that Astana machine for 3 weeks when he was struggling to hang onto Thomas's wheel towards the end of week 2? That's answers question 2 as well.
And I also posted"if you care to look a few pages back" exactly what Froome said when the 2015 tour route was announced. If you read it, it confirms that Froome switched his plans to avoid Contador and that is a FACT.

That is true. +1000.

Nothing Ray has ever posted about Froome has confirmed what he claims. It is entirely opinion stated as fact. I don't think Contador rode the Giro to avoid Froome and I don't think Froome avoided the Giro to ride the Tour because of Contador.

 

[Electress]

Re:

Electress I cannot respond to your PM, it says you have Private Messaging disabled!

I know, since I don't really intend to visit frequently, I don't want to be rude and not answer people if they send me a PM. Just forget it - doesn't really matter. I'll probably dip in every now and then when things cool down a bit.

 

[Carols]

Re: Re:

Electress I cannot respond to your PM, it says you have Private Messaging disabled!

I know, since I don't really intend to visit frequently, I don't want to be rude and not answer people if they send me a PM. Just forget it - doesn't really matter. I'll probably dip in every now and then when things cool down a bit.

Well I will miss you since you are such a brilliant poster . Don't let the few get you down, they aren't worth it! Just block them out and move on, it really does work .

 

[LaFlorecita]

Yes Electress - please stay - or at least come back next year when Alberto starts rocking again!

 

[LaFlorecita]

Berto rode a criterium in Belgium today, the way he looks right now he looks like he could compete in some spring classics with all this added bulk

 

[ray j willings]

Re: Re:

In all reality how could Froome cope with that Astana machine for 3 weeks when he was struggling to hang onto Thomas's wheel towards the end of week 2? That's answers question 2 as well.
And I also posted"if you care to look a few pages back" exactly what Froome said when the 2015 tour route was announced. If you read it, it confirms that Froome switched his plans to avoid Contador and that is a FACT.

That is true. +1000.

Nothing Ray has ever posted about Froome has confirmed what he claims. It is entirely opinion stated as fact. I don't think Contador rode the Giro to avoid Froome and I don't think Froome avoided the Giro to ride the Tour because of Contador.

You may be right but when the 2015 tour route was announced [ you can read froomes exact words I posted a few pages back] Froome thought the Giro suited him better as the tour was very mountainous and Giro- Vuelta
double seemed a better option . He also said that" Contador would be favourite to win the tour"
It was not until Contador made his plans clear i.e.the double, then Froome /Sky announced their plans in which Froome did a complete turn around and decided He would just ride the tour.
Make of that what you will.

 

[Carols]

Berto rode a criterium in Belgium today, the way he looks right now he looks like he could compete in some spring classics with all this added bulk

Oh my he does seem to have put on a few pounds, quite a few! The wife better cool it with the home made sweets .