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André Greipel Discussion Thread

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I always get anxious about the streak at the Tour.. last time he waited till the Champs Elysees.

Although I don't think Cavendish will be anywhere near the competitor this year.
 
Greipel meant business today:

174732_GMD_5693.jpg


More pics on steephill by Sirotti.
 
Cool pic showing how sideways his bike would get in the sprint. Seeing his peak of the sprint yesterday... the amount of force he looked to be pushing into the pedals was massive. Huge muscular body. Rarely seen anything like that. Looks really NOT aerodynamic so his power must be through the roof compared to sprinters like Cav. Now I see why they call him the gorilla :) I love his smile.
 
Re:

silvergrenade said:
Why does he have just 2 pages for a sprinter of his stature?
I expected a lot more

People on this forum only seem to care about Climbers, I believe the Boonen thread has around 9 pages? Cance has 18, Which is abysmal! And then Robert ****** Gesink who (with all due respect) isn't anywhere near those guys has 45 pages. This is one of the reasons that I also frequently visit other forums. Because tell me why do those guys have all those pages and classics riders bearely none? It's not like they're more entertaining to watch...

Edit: Go André, ain't nothing more beautiful than seeing a Gorilla smile!
 
Re: Re:

GenericBoonenFan said:
silvergrenade said:
Why does he have just 2 pages for a sprinter of his stature?
I expected a lot more

People on this forum only seem to care about Climbers, I believe the Boonen thread has around 9 pages? Cance has 18, Which is abysmal! And then Robert ****** Gesink who (with all due respect) isn't anywhere near those guys has 45 pages. This is one of the reasons that I also frequently visit other forums. Because tell me why do those guys have all those pages and classics riders bearely none? It's not like they're more entertaining to watch...

Edit: Go André, ain't nothing more beautiful than seeing a Gorilla smile!

I think for a guy like Gesink the number of pages in his thread is because he hasn't been as succesful as anticipated - bit like Betancur - not to mention his health issues.
Whereas with someone like Greipel it just doesn't gather that much discussion when he wins, because everyone expects it. Greipel riding an entire GT without any stage wins? I'm sure that will be cause for discussion. Luckily, though, this Giro won't be the one to find out.
 
Gesink: We had a lot of Dutch posters, plus a lot of posters who liked to wind up said Dutch posters, at the time where he was legit a top prospect.

Betancur: First the usual hype of a new great climbing talent, then the discussion and debate of what was happening to him, then the conversion of him into some kind of forum mascot, with dedicated following to his every performance, underperformance and photo of him not looking in peak shape.

Greipel: I like André Greipel, but the thing with him is that there's a lot of talk of him in other peoples' threads, most notably Cav's, and other threads about his rivalry with Cav. The guy is seldom anything but class - despite the effective PR campaign Cavendish was able to run back in his days of petulance leading to a lot of people criticising Greipel or deriding his insistence that he had what it takes to ride the bigger races, he mostly kept what he had to say pretty dignified, so hasn't often given us juicy controversial statements; he's not lazy and is a willing workhorse for the team in situations that don't suit him, and even some that do (working for Gilbert in Milan-San Remo for example), he's not laughably bad at anything - sure his climbing is autobus level, but he's perfectly reasonable and hasn't had to be saved from the dreaded hors delais often or been exposed uphill the way the likes of Guardini, van Hummel or Quaranta were. There was little reason to set up an early career thread which leads to massive debate over his potential, because he was already pretty established by the time he attracted his own thread.
 
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BullsFan22 said:
Carlos Betancur has 2000+ posts, while Andre Greipel has 57 (soon to be 58). I suppose if Greipel was greasing on donuts every day and showed up to race once every 18 months or so, then maybe he'd have 2000+ posts himself. Silly Gorilla!

But the purpose of the discussion threads isn't to rank riders by the number of pages their thread has (though I've heard disturbing rumours that some posters rank the prestige of races with this metric). It's for the community to have a chat.

If you want more Greipel content, post some things about him other people might be interested in talking about (in a sense you did that!). Rather than perfunctory congrats after a good result, I recommend speculation about how he'll do against his competitors going forward and whether he's the fastest
 
What makes a top sprinter decide between doing the Giro or not? Is it like GC riders where the Giro is expected to take something out of them for the Tour de France? Why didn't Greipel enter the TDF in 2010 after winning 4 Vuelta stages the year before? Why did he only ride the TDF and no other GTs in 2011-2014?

I'm used to focusing on GC riders so I don't know how sprinters race selection strategies work. I hope this generates discussion :)
 
Re:

Libertine Seguros said:
Gesink: We had a lot of Dutch posters, plus a lot of posters who liked to wind up said Dutch posters, at the time where he was legit a top prospect.

Betancur: First the usual hype of a new great climbing talent, then the discussion and debate of what was happening to him, then the conversion of him into some kind of forum mascot, with dedicated following to his every performance, underperformance and photo of him not looking in peak shape.

Greipel: I like André Greipel, but the thing with him is that there's a lot of talk of him in other peoples' threads, most notably Cav's, and other threads about his rivalry with Cav. The guy is seldom anything but class - despite the effective PR campaign Cavendish was able to run back in his days of petulance leading to a lot of people criticising Greipel or deriding his insistence that he had what it takes to ride the bigger races, he mostly kept what he had to say pretty dignified, so hasn't often given us juicy controversial statements; he's not lazy and is a willing workhorse for the team in situations that don't suit him, and even some that do (working for Gilbert in Milan-San Remo for example), he's not laughably bad at anything - sure his climbing is autobus level, but he's perfectly reasonable and hasn't had to be saved from the dreaded hors delais often or been exposed uphill the way the likes of Guardini, van Hummel or Quaranta were. There was little reason to set up an early career thread which leads to massive debate over his potential, because he was already pretty established by the time he attracted his own thread.
This makes a lot of sense.
 
After his stage win, I read that he had thought about his leaving the Giro last year for the whole rest of the year. So he has probably had some guilty conscience - especially because he wore the sprinters' jersey at the time he abandoned. Yet, I can understand why he chose to do it and this year it will make even more sense, since the sprinters don't really have anything to do after stage 13 (at least sprinting-wise).
 
He'll abandon after stage 13. It's the smart thing to do. Look at the profiles. Lotto needs him in the Tour and If he wants a chance at beating Kittel in the Tour this year, he can't afford to ride that last - for sprinters horrible - week one month before the Tour. It has nothing to do with a lack of respect, but all with trying to be 100% in both Giro and Tour which is impossible if you ride that last week just a month before the start of the Tour.
 
Re: Re:

carolina said:
RedheadDane said:
carolina said:
Is he going to finish the Giro?

Probably not, but he isn't gonna come out of the Giro without a stage win.

I'm really hopping he doesn't. It's such a lack of respect for the race. This is the only thing I don't like about him.

Huh? You're hoping he doesn't finish, but at the same time you think it's disrespectful to do so?
 
Re: Re:

RedheadDane said:
carolina said:
RedheadDane said:
carolina said:
Is he going to finish the Giro?

Probably not, but he isn't gonna come out of the Giro without a stage win.

I'm really hopping he doesn't. It's such a lack of respect for the race. This is the only thing I don't like about him.

Huh? You're hoping he doesn't finish, but at the same time you think it's disrespectful to do so?

Sorry. My english skills seem to be lacking lol

I'm hopping he doesn't leave.
 
I'm okay with sprinters leaving the Giro early. Top sprinters have infamously done this many times in the past, so the organizers are well informed about it, yet they still made a route that leaves no sprint stages in the last week. If they want to avoid a points leader abandoning then they should have at least a sprint in Milan. Riders have tough decisions to make for themselves, their teams, and their families.
 
Re:

spiritualride said:
I'm okay with sprinters leaving the Giro early. Top sprinters have infamously done this many times in the past, so the organizers are well informed about it, yet they still made a route that leaves no sprint stages in the last week. If they want to avoid a points leader abandoning then they should have at least a sprint in Milan. Riders have tough decisions to make for themselves, their teams, and their families.

They did have that last year, though, when Greipel was leading the points classification (and he even had one opportunity more on stage 17).

This year it would be much more understandable if he leaves early.
 

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