Teams & Riders Alberto Contador Discussion Thread

[Valv.Piti]

I know, I know. Still, I think he lost like 3-4 minutes on 5 kilometres on Chat. 2 minutes on 3 kilometres on Peyragudes etc. It has happened for him regularly this year is all I try to say.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

I know, I know. Still, I think he lost like 3-4 minutes on 5 kilometres on Chat. 2 minutes on 3 kilometres on Peyragudes etc. It has happened for him regularly this year is all I try to say.

I think he lost 2'40" or something, the rest he lost in the downhill and run in to the finish.

Apart from PdbF, every mountain stage of his has been confounded by crashes or long range attacks;

 

[Jspear]

Just watched the last 5 K. I don't like when a breakaway wins...you see less of the GC riders. Anyways. I don't think we can pull much from this positive or negative. I'm still gonna wait before I get to happy. That said, I'm very relieved that he didn't lose more time.

 

[Angliru]

Re:

Just watched the last 5 K. I don't like when a breakaway wins...you see less of the GC riders. Anyways. I don't think we can pull much from this positive or negative. I'm still gonna wait before I get to happy. That said, I'm very relieved that he didn't lose more time.

Well he finished ahead of Bardet, Nibali and Aru, regaining some of the time he lost, so that is definitely a plus. Considering that there was no effort made to reel in the break that doesn't bode well for those three. As was mentioned earlier, it's the multi-climb longer stages that have been Contador's undoing. I hope that will not be the case in the next 2 & 1/2 weeks.

 

[No_Balls]

Re: Re:

Remains to be seen how he performs in harder stages but if this is his level, stage 3 hurts a lot more

Relax and enjoy the carnage he will make in harder stages. Froome is too strong, he will fade in the third week.

crystal ball time

We will see. This froome looks very similar to the one we saw in the 2012 vuelta.

Really baffling that Froome appears so fresh. Didn't he just win the 3 week TDF? I means it takes a lot mentally and physically to win a Grand Tour? Either TDF is now a joke or maybe we will see TDF impact later.

The scary part might be that Froome eased during the Tour with the double in mind. Just a thought although a uncomfortable one.

 

[No_Balls]

Re: Re:

So Contador has finally ran out of gas, inspiration, desire who knows. The posters who still feel they need to post in this thread and make derisory
comments make me laugh. You really know **** all about cycling. Contador is simply THE best GT rider we have seen in the last 30 years, bar none.

He is a great rider but not the best. He has one 100% Pukka TDF win from 2009, one given to him and one taken away. IMO his Giro and Vuelta victorys are great but they are not the Tour.

We all know that Froome will finish with a better record. He is better Physically, Mentally and is improving in every other aspect that's required to be the greatest ever GT rider. He stays on his bike and stays out of trouble riding with fource and aggression. And for the record he is at this point clean as a whistle.

Contador brings excitement to a race but by the last 10 k it usually falls flat, no different to madcap long range efforts on Flat stages.

His best moments where good to watch but not sure there is to much to miss about the last few years at Tour where he damn well should be able to at least go man on man with Froome rather than get dropped by his team mates, Often simply showing lack of Athletic ability.

You have any proof Froome is clean?

Given that the mods allows bots dropping innuendos I assume its ok to raise the question.

 

[Jspear]

From the horses mouth. The most recent CN article.

"I felt a whole lot better than on Monday and getting to be similar to how I felt before coming on the Vuelta," Contador said afterwards.

"But I don't want to read too much into this and start feeling euphoric. It was a short, very explosive uphill finish, and the long climbing tests will come in the second week of the race above all.

"But yes, I'm pleased and overwhelmed by how much affection the fans have shown me again on the roadside. It was like I was racing round in front of my block of flats at home. There was so much support and my thanks to everybody for that."

Talk quickly turned to how he could fight for the overall, but Contador was very cautious about that particular possibility.

"First it was a question of seeing how I felt, then we will work out what I am going to do from this point on, what options I really have," he said. "As I said, the GC is complicated, and I don't want to get too optimistic about this. The most important thing was to recover a bit, and the race will end up deciding how everybody is.

 

[Red Rick]

Now a lot depends on if he can recover more than this.

 

[rick james]

I think he'll be fine from now on, just that one day of having the *** has cost him

 

[chiocciolis_calves]

If he struggles the rest of the Vuelta, this performance today will more than make up for it. Grit.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Re:

Not unexpected he would do a lot better, especially on an easier, one-effort stage. He will probably do the same on Cati and Sol and sneak into the top-10 going in the 2nd week at some time, but it remains to be seen what his level is on harder stages where Sky goes gas. There is lots of stages this year where he cracked hard after a hard day and lost a bunch of time in a very, very short time - the Dauphine stage, Chat, Peyragudes and 2 days ago altho that admittedly was a much easier stage than those 3 hard stages. Still Rabassa was raced pretty hard according to many riders.

Good points.

I didn't see all of yesterday's stage, but I watched stage 3, and that penultimate climb was really raced on, making any weakness that a rider had, properly exposed on the final climb. We have seen a recurring theme with Alberto's top level still being very good, but with his endurance being a question mark. This can even relate to his epic long range efforts in the last two Paris-Nice editions being on short stages, same with stage 13 of this years Tour. We even saw a record time from him up Croix der fer, but then a fade on the Galibier.

Last night's final climb was strikingly similar in profile to the MTT in last year's Dauphne, which Contador won. His abilities and weaknesses these days might contrast with those of Nibali, who is still often strong on multi mountain stages in the third week. Given that AC is out of it as far as the GC goes, and Nibali is probably Froome's main rival, then I wonder if Sky won't race many stages hard, and make them explosive rather than endurance based? Nibali seems to struggle with that. This will of course help Contador to move up in the GC, and maybe finish top 5, though it would make the racing worse if we just see waiting until the final 5 kms.

 

[Jspear]

Re:

If he struggles the rest of the Vuelta, this performance today will more than make up for it. Grit.

Let's not get carried away. He literally only did what Michael Woods did.

 

[Climber123]

Re:

I know, I know. Still, I think he lost like 3-4 minutes on 5 kilometres on Chat. 2 minutes on 3 kilometres on Peyragudes etc. It has happened for him regularly this year is all I try to say.

It happened in Jun/Jul, certainly not Feb-Apr where he was really good. This was his best mountaintop finish since last year regardless of difficulty or length.

 

[Climber123]

Re: Re:

If he struggles the rest of the Vuelta, this performance today will more than make up for it. Grit.

Let's not get carried away. He literally only did what Michael Woods did.

Michael Woods is exceptional on these climbs, give him credit

 

[axl]

Re: Re:

If he struggles the rest of the Vuelta, this performance today will more than make up for it. Grit.

Let's not get carried away. He literally only did what Michael Woods did.

Michael Woods is exceptional on these climbs, give him credit

You can also say that he did what Aru, Bardet, the Yates couldn't. Froome couldn't do better than him and some said Chaves struggled at a moment before coming back. It was a very specific but strong performance.

 

[Jspear]

Re: Re:

If he struggles the rest of the Vuelta, this performance today will more than make up for it. Grit.

Let's not get carried away. He literally only did what Michael Woods did.

Michael Woods is exceptional on these climbs, give him credit

Alright. He only did what Tjay was able to do.

 

[Simurgh]

Encouraging signs today! I hope he can keep it up, especially in the multi-mountain stages later in the race

 

[Netserk]

Tomorrow, more!

 

[LaFlorecita]

Grande Alberto
The King. The Legend. The Champion. My Hero.

 

[johnymax]

That was beautiful to watch. It's a shame there's no time gain for him in the end but the shape is more than encouraging to do some serious attacks later in the race.

 

[Forever The Best]

The Great One _O_

 

[Carols]

He's feeling frisky Indeed tomorrow more!

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Nice show today and the best climbing we have seen from Alberto since Paris - Nice. Fired a warning shot, that's for sure.
Damn that Andorra stage, though ....

 

[LaFlorecita]

He looked good today and yesterday and Stetina looked really good today as well. I just saw he crashed in at the top of the final climb though hopefully he recovers, he can be really useful.
The Andorra time loss is unfortunate but maybe it's better this way. Of course if he finishes within 2:30 of the winner it'll suck majorly but if not, at least we can enjoy him without being nervous about GC all the time.

 

[Climber123]

He clearly had the measure of Froome today. Near the top he opened a nice gap, looked back and like.. Yeah I got this