Andy Schleck Discussion thread.

[LaFlorecita]

Sure I'm still a big fan

Andy will soon be back to this:

Yellow and white?

 

[Netserk]

Yellow and white?

 

[Christian]

Style icon

 

[movingtarget]

Yellow and white?

Signifying his split personality. Andy's either totally switched on or totally switched off. Please someone turn the power back on !

 

[platinum_eagle]

Hehehe

"Why Andy Schleck is a pure and clean cyclist?"

http://www.youtube.com/

 

[Vino attacks everyone]

Hehehe

"Why Andy Schleck is a pure and clean cyclist?"

http://www.youtube.com/

and that is why he'll never win

 

[LaFlorecita]

and that is why he'll never win

Exactly.

 

[shades1]

im a huge andy schleck fan but i now fear there will be no huge comeback , i hoped we may have seen something inspiring at the 2013 TDF but he never really showed us any spark .

this is obviously the year that is going to be "make or break" for him , for him to compete to the standards high enough to challenge froome , quintana , nibali i think its likely he will have to surpass his 2010-11 form which has to be a huge ask .

hopefully with frank being back this will also lift his motivation which i think he struggles with more than anything .

i would love nothing more than to see it happen but being realistic i just dont think its possible .

 

[Christian]

Getting to Froome's level I don't think is possible. Unless of course Froome fails to reach his 2013 level, which is possible. But getting back to his old level I am optimistic about

 

[Taxus4a]

im a huge andy schleck fan but i now fear there will be no huge comeback , i hoped we may have seen something inspiring at the 2013 TDF but he never really showed us any spark .

this is obviously the year that is going to be "make or break" for him , for him to compete to the standards high enough to challenge froome , quintana , nibali i think its likely he will have to surpass his 2010-11 form which has to be a huge ask .

hopefully with frank being back this will also lift his motivation which i think he struggles with more than anything .

I would love nothing more than to see it happen but being realistic i just dont think its possible .

He did a good Td F, he was in march with problems to finish a pro race, he was two yearrs withou finisdhing a 3 week race, and he was 20, with the possibility of to be 15 if he would have look for that.

He was in the second stage of Pirinees really strong, with the best riders, he was in a breakaway in alp Dhuez, looking strong, and he did a second ITT as well.
I read in forums rhat Andy was in his final, but he was good in tnhe Tour.

We will see in Oman some answers.

 

[Taxus4a]

Getting to Froome's level I don't think is possible. Unless of course Froome fails to reach his 2013 level, which is possible. But getting back to his old level I am optimistic about

I dont know if he could reach the level of 2011, but thay level was a level to face froome, of course.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/andy-schleck-unfazed-by-froomes-2013-performances

“And the previous year, on the Ventoux, I went up as quickly as he did this year, after I had attacked at the bottom and then ridden stop-start at the finish.

That is true, I have seen both videos, the wind direction was the same, and I understand Andy consider more impresive to Quintana, becouse his age, and becouse he attacked at the middle of Ventoux, and Froome attacked at 6 kms to the end, he managed to put quintana away, but Quintana was more impressive.

But Froome is a very good T trialist.

 

[myrideissteelerthanyours]

How can you not love Andy when le trendy cycling mafia comes in these threads and tries to bash him? He is the perpetual underdog because of this. Also the mark between being "pathedic" etc etc and being deemed acceptable is winning the tour so you gotta love a cyclist with such high standards. If he gets second at the tour he will be called "girly" "mentally weak" etc etc but if quintana got second in the dauphine he would be crowned god emperor of cycling.

The bottom line is Andy is very young and has plenty of time to find his form but he will never be deemed acceptable unless Porte for some reason continues to avoid the Tour AND Froome has bad luck and injuries.

 

[hrotha]

That's BS of the highest order.
Most everybody liked Andy when he first showed up. He earned the contempt of the fans by himself, through years of unrelenting effort.

 

[jens_attacks]

I dont know if he could reach the level of 2011, but thay level was a level to face froome, of course.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/andy-schleck-unfazed-by-froomes-2013-performances

“And the previous year, on the Ventoux, I went up as quickly as he did this year, after I had attacked at the bottom and then ridden stop-start at the finish.

That is true, I have seen both videos, the wind direction was the same, and I understand Andy consider more impresive to Quintana, becouse his age, and becouse he attacked at the middle of Ventoux, and Froome attacked at 6 kms to the end, he managed to put quintana away, but Quintana was more impressive.

But Froome is a very good T trialist.

taxus i don't know if this is one of you trademark stories but you should watch the both videos again. in one of them 200 hundred lunatics rode 200 kms at insane speed of 50 kmph. many guys said they were dead when they reached bedoin. the comparison absolutely can't be made

 

[Parrulo]

That's BS of the highest order.
Most everybody liked Andy when he first showed up. He earned the contempt of the fans by himself, through years of unrelenting effort.

Yup. I was a big fan until 2009. I loved the way he won the 09 LBL by attacking on RAF and not looking back a single time and how he and Frank attacked from far away on LGB stage of the Tour.

In 2010 i slowly started to realize that his performances were going to stay "ardennes and Tour only" forever so my interest in him started to fade away. By the end of the Tour after all whining and hypocrisy i truly disliked.

After that he gave me no reason to change my mind with his vuelta antics, his poor tactical awareness( i laugh out loud everytime i remember the way he and Frank raced LBL in 2011) and his endless whining.

Right now, after being irrelevant for like 2 and a half years (hasn't raced seriously since the 2011 Tour) he is just that, irrelevant. . .

 

[Afrank]

im a huge andy schleck fan but i now fear there will be no huge comeback , i hoped we may have seen something inspiring at the 2013 TDF but he never really showed us any spark .

this is obviously the year that is going to be "make or break" for him , for him to compete to the standards high enough to challenge froome , quintana , nibali i think its likely he will have to surpass his 2010-11 form which has to be a huge ask .

hopefully with frank being back this will also lift his motivation which i think he struggles with more than anything .

i would love nothing more than to see it happen but being realistic i just dont think its possible .

I can relate to your fear that he may never truly come back to his former levels. I'm a bit unsure myself if we will ever get to see a 2011 Andy again. But I still have hope.

His 2012 Tour went like I expected and was a fine performance IMO. His big chance could have been on Alpe d'Huez if he had gone in the original break with Tejay and Riblon, but alas what would have happened is pure speculation. Overall though his performance showed he had greatly improved past the low level he had been stuck at previously of DNFing getting dropped all the time.

I agree, he definitely has to show something this year. 2013 was about getting himself back in the game after a couple terrible years. 2014 has to be the year he shows us signs of his past self. I'll be watching closely.

 

[Taxus4a]

taxus i don't know if this is one of you trademark stories but you should watch the both videos again. in one of them 200 hundred lunatics rode 200 kms at insane speed of 50 kmph. many guys said they were dead when they reached bedoin. the comparison absolutely can't be made

Well, finally someone that argument a performance considering different circusntances, not just the good job you do in your blog climbing records... it is curious that only is used to say that a performance of Froome was great.

I dindt see the stage, I managed to see the final climb in a "bar", in León, Spain, and yes, I remember that was a hot day, at least in Spain, but the stage was all north to south, and all those days the wind came from the norhtwest.

Yesterday I was on my bike on a place were I reached 69 km/h, a week ago I managed badly to get 40 there... and all is for the wind...50 Km /h is not so impressive for me...it could be more impressed 35 in other conditions...

The stage in 2009 was shorter, but with some climbs:

And I remerber how it was all follen to pieces by echelons before the climb...so, people wanst fresh anyway that day... you can tell me, well...the previous in 2013 was harder...I could accept that, I dont know anyway, but I could accept that, I little bit more, but Andy did similar time attacking in the bottom and stoping and attacking, that is not the same that follow Porte s wheel...so, no way that Froome was better than Andy that day...

 

[Christian]

That's BS of the highest order.
Most everybody liked Andy when he first showed up. He earned the contempt of the fans by himself, through years of unrelenting effort.

It got way over the top on the forum though. I think that's a normal process in an internet forum, where every now and then people try to one-up one another, and all measure is lost.

 

[Parrulo]

It got over the top on this forum, because he was treated like a saint by the mainstream press and fans.

 

[Netserk]

It never really got OTT, just proportional with how pathetic Andy is/was.

 

[jens_attacks]

this year he will bounce back big time. both him and frank. like in the not so old days

did y;all miss this photo?

 

[myrideissteelerthanyours]

I was going to fish up one of numerous quotes ITT that explain my point but I knew netserk would be along soon enough to create fresh original content.

You cannot correlate race results with CNF popularity especially among the trendy mafia. Horner is a pariah. Also see Chris Froome, Mark Cavendish, the list goes on... just wait until Porte reveals his true powerlevel.

If you even imply that Andy won le tour '10 and AC was relegated to last place you are considered a Chris Horner tier pariah yourself.

This trendy bandwagon is a result, in my mind, of a lack of anything to talk about. People have no interesting opinions to share so they participate in this groupthink exercise of picking on the unpopular kids.

 

[Christian]

This trendy bandwagon is a result, in my mind, of a lack of anything to talk about. People have no interesting opinions to share so they participate in this groupthink exercise of picking on the unpopular kids.

I think this is true... in the heyday of the "Depreciation" threads, there was zero content and 100% who is hotter, who has the better dog, have you seen this picture of Alberto, etc. Of course I must also take my responsibility for partaking in it..... even now

 

[Carols]

That's BS of the highest order.
Most everybody liked Andy when he first showed up. He earned the contempt of the fans by himself, through years of unrelenting effort.

True. I was fan until he got booted from the Vuelta and his attitude hasn't improved much since then........

 

[movingtarget]

Andy has always been an enigmatic performer. On his day as good as anyone like his win at Leige and his 2010 Tour performance. He has to forget the last two years and start again. There are no excuses for him this year. With riders like Quintana and Porte on the rise and Froome, Rodriguez and Nibali riding in the best form of their lives, if he can't make an impact this year or next it's hard say whether he will make an impact in the future. The fact that much older riders like Evans are continuing to get better results than Andy makes you wonder about Andy's motivation.