Best Grand Tour of the year

[Eshnar]

all this people talking about the great depth of the Vuelta field... I wonder what position they think a guy like Talansky would get in the Giro.

 

[Cookster15]

Re:

all this people talking about the great depth of the Vuelta field... I wonder what position they think a guy like Talansky would get in the Giro.

Talanski is 5th @ 7:43 - about 3:30 behind Chaves in 3rd.

The Giro Chaves came 2nd @ 52 sec.

Not sure what your point is? I'd say Talanski would have finished higher in the Giro field.

 

[May0maniac]

Re:

all this people talking about the great depth of the Vuelta field... I wonder what position they think a guy like Talansky would get in the Giro.

This, lets not pretend that the Vuelta field was super strong, they had a few big names, but other than that...

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

all this people talking about the great depth of the Vuelta field... I wonder what position they think a guy like Talansky would get in the Giro.

Talanski is 5th @ 7:43 - about 3:30 behind Chaves in 3rd.

The Giro Chaves came 2nd @ 52 sec.

Not sure what your point is? I'd say Talanski would have finished higher in the Giro field.

No he wouldn't. Valverde, Kruijswijk, Nibali and Chavez were all stronger. And Chaves was 3 minutes down before Coathanger crashed. The Giro strength was not so much below the Vuelta. The sprinter strength was actually much better. The only reason people think the Vuelta was so much higher in quality is because of Quintana and Froome. Contador was out of shape so wouldn't in this form have done much better in the Giro.

 

[Cookster15]

Re: Re:

all this people talking about the great depth of the Vuelta field... I wonder what position they think a guy like Talansky would get in the Giro.

Talanski is 5th @ 7:43 - about 3:30 behind Chaves in 3rd.

The Giro Chaves came 2nd @ 52 sec.

Not sure what your point is? I'd say Talanski would have finished higher in the Giro field.

No he wouldn't. Valverde, Kruijswijk, Nibali and Chavez were all stronger. And Chaves was 3 minutes down before Coathanger crashed. The Giro strength was not so much below the Vuelta. The sprinter strength was actually much better. The only reason people think the Vuelta was so much higher in quality is because of Quintana and Froome. Contador was out of shape so wouldn't in this form have done much better in the Giro.

But it was still below the Vuelta not above which is the original point I replied to. Nibali wasn't that strong this year. He almost won by default. Chaves was stronger in this Vuelta than he was back in May and your point about him benefitting from Kruijswijk's crash just reinforces that point.

 

[Eshnar]

Re: Re:

But it was still below the Vuelta not above which is the original point I replied to. Nibali wasn't that strong this year. He almost won by default. Chaves was stronger in this Vuelta than he was back in May and your point about him benefitting from Kruijswijk's crash just reinforces that point.

based on what?

Talansky, Yates, De La Cruz, Moreno, Formolo, Bennett. Did any of these guys ever get a top 10 in any Giro or Tour?

(genuine question here... I suspect no)

 

[Cookster15]

Re: Re:

But it was still below the Vuelta not above which is the original point I replied to. Nibali wasn't that strong this year. He almost won by default. Chaves was stronger in this Vuelta than he was back in May and your point about him benefitting from Kruijswijk's crash just reinforces that point.

based on what?

Talansky, Yates, De La Cruz, Moreno, Formolo, Bennett. Did any of these guys ever get a top 10 in any Giro or Tour?

(genuine question here... I suspect no)

Based upon where Chaves rode in relation to Quintana, he was easily the 3rd strongest climber and the fact he benefitted by Kruijswijk's crash in the Giro. Pretty simple really.

 

[Eshnar]

Re: Re:

Based upon where Chaves rode in relation to Quintana, he was easily the 3rd strongest climber and the fact he benefitted by Kruijswijk's crash in the Giro. Pretty simple really.

I don't quite see the logic here... Was Quintana at the Giro? Was the Giro route comparable in any way to the Vuelta's?

 

[Alexandre B.]

Re: Re:

But it was still below the Vuelta not above which is the original point I replied to. Nibali wasn't that strong this year. He almost won by default. Chaves was stronger in this Vuelta than he was back in May and your point about him benefitting from Kruijswijk's crash just reinforces that point.

based on what?

Talansky, Yates, De La Cruz, Moreno, Formolo, Bennett. Did any of these guys ever get a top 10 in any Giro or Tour?

(genuine question here... I suspect no)

Talansky did grab a 10th in 2013.

 

[Cookster15]

Re: Re:

Based upon where Chaves rode in relation to Quintana, he was easily the 3rd strongest climber and the fact he benefitted by Kruijswijk's crash in the Giro. Pretty simple really.

I don't quite see the logic here... Was Quintana at the Giro? Was the Giro route comparable in any way to the Vuelta's?

Irrelevant. It was also irrelevant your earlier point about riders like Bennett or Moreno. We are comparing Chaves at the Giro and Vuelta. I explained why he was stronger now than in May based upon how he rode in relation to the winner. I also contend that Quintana and Froome would have beaten Nibali at the Giro in this form. You can chose to disagree that's fine.

 

[Gigs_98]

Giro was in my opinion the best one. It's pretty close though and I understand people who say they liked the Vuelta more.
The reason why I decided against the Vuelta is that the gc battle never seemed to be that close to me. It actually really was but there was only one stage where I thought Quintana could be in danger, which was after the Aubisque. Before that I thought Quintana will easily distance Froome on the remaining mountain top finishes and won't lose that much time in the ITT. Then the epic Formigal stage happened which was great but it kind of destroyed the suspense. The excitement I had after the Aubisque was completely gone after only one stage and my point of view was again the same one I had before the Aubisque.
The stages still were relatively good but Formigal was the only really incredible one. The battles between Quintana and Froome on the Aubisque, in Peña Cabarga and Aitana were what we hoped to see in July but there never were any real time gaps which made the races a bit dull. Camperona was cool but we had action for about 1.5 kilometers so the stage also was only mediocre and Lagos de Covadonga was imo the 2nd best stage of the vuelta but still clearly worse than at least four stages in the giro.

If I compare the gc battle of the vuelta to the giro there are actually a few similarities. After an epic stage 16 everyone thought the gc was over and we had the same situation like in the vuelta after Formigal. The big difference was that Kruijswijk crashed and all of a sudden we had a completely open fight. This was the final twist the narrative of the Vuelta was missing to make it probably the best gt I would have ever seen. But now the giro has a plot which could come directly out of a movie, while the Vuelta simply hasn't. Moreover the giro had more really good stages. The carnage of stage 14 was incredible, stage 16 was full of action on the whole day and had attacks from big gc contenders from 75 km out, stage 19 was one of the most exciting stages I have ever seen and finally stage 20 didn't have action for so many kilometers but the last 20 k's were probably the best 20 k's I have ever seen.

The only reason why I don't say the Giro is miles ahead of the Vuelta is because besides the mentioned 4 stages, the giro didn't have that much more. There were a few more good stages, like the MTT, stage 11 and the sterrato stage was also decent, but especially stage 10 and 13 were incredibly disappointing and I honestly remember how I wrote that this was one of the worst gt's I have ever seen before the final 8 stages started. Therefore it's only slightly better than the Vuelta.

And then there was also the tour...ugh

 

[Valv.Piti]

The top end level was clearly better in La Vuelta, but the depth after Kruiswijk and Lopez crashed out was probably slightly worse. It also makes it look bad that Konig fell asleep, Valverde lost 10 minutes one day and Sanchez crashed and therefore fell out of top-10. It could have looked much better.

 

[Eshnar]

Re: Re:

Based upon where Chaves rode in relation to Quintana, he was easily the 3rd strongest climber and the fact he benefitted by Kruijswijk's crash in the Giro. Pretty simple really.

I don't quite see the logic here... Was Quintana at the Giro? Was the Giro route comparable in any way to the Vuelta's?

Irrelevant. We are comparing Chaves at the Giro and Vuelta. I explained why he was stronger now than in May based up[on how he rode in relation to the winner. I also contend that Quintana or Froome would have beaten Nibali at the Giro in this form. You can chose to disagree that's fine.

he rode the same way in relation to the winner. He was 3' down on Kruijswijk coming into stage 19 and he was 4' down on Quintana coming into stage 19... So how does that compare? those 18 stages were pretty different in the two cases.

 

[Cookster15]

Re: Re:

Based upon where Chaves rode in relation to Quintana, he was easily the 3rd strongest climber and the fact he benefitted by Kruijswijk's crash in the Giro. Pretty simple really.

I don't quite see the logic here... Was Quintana at the Giro? Was the Giro route comparable in any way to the Vuelta's?

Irrelevant. We are comparing Chaves at the Giro and Vuelta. I explained why he was stronger now than in May based up[on how he rode in relation to the winner. I also contend that Quintana or Froome would have beaten Nibali at the Giro in this form. You can chose to disagree that's fine.

he rode the same way in relation to the winner. He was 3' down on Kruijswijk coming into stage 19 and he was 4' down on Quintana coming into stage 19... So how does that compare? those 18 stages were pretty different in the two cases.

I would rate Quintana Vuelta much much stronger than Kruijswijk Giro. No compare.

 

[Eshnar]

Re: Re:

Based upon where Chaves rode in relation to Quintana, he was easily the 3rd strongest climber and the fact he benefitted by Kruijswijk's crash in the Giro. Pretty simple really.

I don't quite see the logic here... Was Quintana at the Giro? Was the Giro route comparable in any way to the Vuelta's?

Irrelevant. We are comparing Chaves at the Giro and Vuelta. I explained why he was stronger now than in May based up[on how he rode in relation to the winner. I also contend that Quintana or Froome would have beaten Nibali at the Giro in this form. You can chose to disagree that's fine.

he rode the same way in relation to the winner. He was 3' down on Kruijswijk coming into stage 19 and he was 4' down on Quintana coming into stage 19... So how does that compare? those 18 stages were pretty different in the two cases.

I would rate Quintana Vuelta much much stronger than Kruijswijk Giro. No compare.

Quintana rode a route where was much harder to gain time though.

 

[Lexman]

Giro outcome was a thriller

Vuelta was nice racing

Tour was a borefest...

 

[Valv.Piti]

Its pretty obvious that Chaves (from Aubisque and on) time his form much better than in the Giro, he was spent the last few stages. He was incredible good the last week in this Vuelta, especially yesterday was hella impressive.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

Its pretty obvious that Chaves (from Aubisque and on) time his form much better than in the Giro, he was spent the last few stages. He was incredible good the last week in this Vuelta, especially yesterday was hella impressive.

One could also say Quintana and Froome became slightly worse at the end of the Vuelta because they have already ridden the tour. Generally it seems as if everyone underrates this factor. Quintana probably wasn't even in a better shape than in the tour, but everyone else was worse.

And besides this, Chaves was better in the end of the vuelta because he peaked for the last week, that doesn't mean though that he was generally better than in the giro. At least we shouldn't forget that Chaves lost big time in the first week of the Vuelta. He lost more time on Quintana in Camperona than he lost to Nibali in Rissoul, and Camperona is like a 3 kilometers long climb where the first attacks came around 1.5 kilometers from the finish.

 

[dastott]

Re:

The top end level was clearly better in La Vuelta, but the depth after Kruiswijk and Lopez crashed out was probably slightly worse. It also makes it look bad that Konig fell asleep, Valverde lost 10 minutes one day and Sanchez crashed and therefore fell out of top-10. It could have looked much better.

This. Froome, Quintana and Contador are the three best GT riders. OK, Chaves pushed Contador into 4th place but Contador enlivened the race majorly and was weakened by a crash. The Vuelta had a much stronger field for GC than the Giro, and has had for a few years now.

 

[Brullnux]

Re:

Its pretty obvious that Chaves (from Aubisque and on) time his form much better than in the Giro, he was spent the last few stages. He was incredible good the last week in this Vuelta, especially yesterday was hella impressive.

Chaves at Corvara was better than Chaves at this Vuelta. He was good in the last week because he was fresher than his rivals, not because he was in better shape than in May. He was spent in the last week of the Giro because he wasn't fresher than his rivals.

 

[Cookster15]

Re: Re:

Its pretty obvious that Chaves (from Aubisque and on) time his form much better than in the Giro, he was spent the last few stages. He was incredible good the last week in this Vuelta, especially yesterday was hella impressive.

Chaves at Corvara was better than Chaves at this Vuelta. He was good in the last week because he was fresher than his rivals, not because he was in better shape than in May. He was spent in the last week of the Giro because he wasn't fresher than his rivals.

Strange logic. Firstly, no way was Nibali that strong in the Giro, at least compared to his 2013 Giro and 2014 Tour form - both Quintana and Froome would have beaten Nibali in the form they had this Vuelta. So why wasn't Chaves fresh in the 3rd week of the Giro when it was the first GT of the season? He also benefited from Kruijswijk's crash. I say he is fresher now because he's in better shape, not because the Vuelta was a weaker field. You are always "fresher" when you are in better form.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Re:

Its pretty obvious that Chaves (from Aubisque and on) time his form much better than in the Giro, he was spent the last few stages. He was incredible good the last week in this Vuelta, especially yesterday was hella impressive.

Chaves at Corvara was better than Chaves at this Vuelta. He was good in the last week because he was fresher than his rivals, not because he was in better shape than in May. He was spent in the last week of the Giro because he wasn't fresher than his rivals.

Strange logic. Firstly, no way was Nibali that strong in the Giro, at least compared to his 2013 Giro and 2014 Tour form - both Quintana and Froome would have beaten Nibali in the form they had this Vuelta. So why wasn't Chaves fresh in the 3rd week of the Giro when it was the first GT of the season? He also benefited from Kruijswijk's crash. I say he is fresher now because he's in better shape, not because the Vuelta was a weaker field. You are always "fresher" when you are in better form.

This argument is like your Chaves argument. Rider X was worse than rider Y, because I say so. I don't have any proof, but just believe me, because I definitely know it.
And Brullnux said he was fresher in the 3rd week of the Vuelta because his rivals came out of the tour and therefore had a disadvantage. In the giro everyone started under the same conditions.

 

[Cookster15]

I base my comment upon logic and facts - not just because I say so

Proof was Steven Kruijswijk almost won the Giro but for a crash. The Vuelta was a stronger field than in the Giro as was Chaves. Froome and Quintana would have demolished Nibali in his 2016 Giro winning form. Obviously I can't change your minds. So be it.

 

[Carols]

Giro without a doubt! After a 'forgone conclusion' by many, it was Nail biting until the final mountain was climbed.

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

Its pretty obvious that Chaves (from Aubisque and on) time his form much better than in the Giro, he was spent the last few stages. He was incredible good the last week in this Vuelta, especially yesterday was hella impressive.

Chaves at Corvara was better than Chaves at this Vuelta. He was good in the last week because he was fresher than his rivals, not because he was in better shape than in May. He was spent in the last week of the Giro because he wasn't fresher than his rivals.

Strange logic. Firstly, no way was Nibali that strong in the Giro, at least compared to his 2013 Giro and 2014 Tour form - both Quintana and Froome would have beaten Nibali in the form they had this Vuelta. So why wasn't Chaves fresh in the 3rd week of the Giro when it was the first GT of the season? He also benefited from Kruijswijk's crash. I say he is fresher now because he's in better shape, not because the Vuelta was a weaker field. You are always "fresher" when you are in better form.

Last two stages of Nibali was pretty good. Not amazing but would've easily podiumed this Vuelta, and probably challenged both Nairo and Froome.

Chaves probably has worse recovery than Nibali and Valverde and it was a hard Giro week up to then so that's why he lost so much time. Here he is the freshest because he has raced less in the year and didn't do the Tour. It's not that strange. Chaves was stronger in the second week of the Giro than the rest of the year imo. The Vuelta top two were stronger sure but the depth of the Giro was better. Majka > Talansky, Uran > De la Cruz, Amador > Moreno. Zakarin would've come top 10 but he crashed. Atapuma and Siutsou were only in the top 10 because of breakaways really