Better Cobblestone rider: Boonen or Cancellara?

[Magnus]

IPeople are calling into question Cancellara being the best bike handler because of 1 crash and i am ridiculing the idea.

But considering E3 2011, AGR 2011, RVV 2012, ORR 2012 it might be reasonable to question the narrative that FC is the best bike handler in the world.

 

[The Hitch]

But considering E3 2011, AGR 2011, RVV 2012, ORR 2012 it might be reasonable to question the narrative that FC is the best bike handler in the world.

AGR and olympics fair dues.

RVV no because it was a bottle that brought him down.

What happened in e3 2011?

But part of being the best bike handler is that you are constantly taking risks. A **** bike handler like Schleck or Basso meanwhile who knows he will crash if tries anything, takes every corner every descent

 

[silverrocket]

Im not mocking anyone. People are calling into question Cancellara being the best bike handler because of 1 crash and i am ridiculing the idea.

Maybe " a few people" need to stop taking a discussion among anonymous posters on the internet personally.

You are ridiculing a misrepresentation of something I said (or rather, did not say). Most people would take that personally.

I am mostly just irritated, since knee-jerk responses to certain posts, and angry responses to things that were never even said, have derailed the actual discussion. Let's start again:

I don't think Cancellara is as good at positioning or strategy as Boonen is, and that's why Boonen is the better cobblestone rider.

 

[The Hitch]

You are ridiculing a misrepresentation of something I said (or rather, did not say). Most people would take that personally.

I am mostly just irritated, since knee-jerk responses to certain posts, and angry responses to things that were never even said, have derailed the actual discussion. Let's start again:

I don't think Cancellara is as good at positioning or strategy as Boonen is, and that's why Boonen is the better cobblestone rider.

I wasnt even talking to you.

Not that I care if you take what i say personally or not.

And to prove it:

**** you

 

[Parrulo]

hitch stop being rude and condescending to other posters or you will receive a warning maybe even a ban as you have been doing it to any1 that disagrees with you for a while all over the forum.

also particularly funny to see you calling out some new poster on this thread(sorry to said poster but i didn't fix the name) and froome19 on another thread for being "new cycling fans" when in fact from what i recall(please correct me if i am wrong) you have seen a grand total of one of tom boonen's PR wins live. . . . would you be happy if i used that very same argument to prove how your opinion that cancellara's is better then boonen was wrong just because i have watched all 4 of his wins?

anyway let's all behave including me.

 

[The Hitch]

hitch stop being rude and condescending to other posters or you will receive a warning maybe even a ban as you have been doing it to any1 that disagrees with you for a while all over the forum.


also particularly funny to see you calling out some new poster on this thread(sorry to said poster but i didn't fix the name) and froome19 on another thread for being "new cycling fans" when in fact from what i recall(please correct me if i am wrong) you have seen a grand total of one of tom boonen's PR wins live. . . . would you be happy if i used that very same argument to prove how your opinion that cancellara's is better then boonen was wrong just because i have watched all 4 of his wins?

anyway let's all behave including me
.

I dont see anything in the rules saying I cant be rude to people. Nor has anyone ever been in trouble for being rude to me.

Its actually quite bizzare and Orwellian even to castigate me for saying " I wasnt even talking to you" when the poster has accused me of talking to him in something I said, when I was in fact directing my post at someone else.

Take a look through the history if you wish, I was responding to Pistrolleros response to Afrank.

So when the poster accuse me of "mocking him" when i wasnt even talking to him, can you think of a better response than " I wasnt talking to you?"

As for the 2nd part of your post youve actually made a lot of assumptions about me and my posts and arguments, despite only having bits of information. Youve filled in the blanks yourself.

For example

Assumption 1

have been doing it to any1 that disagrees with you for a while all over the forum

Am I being rude to people, yes?

Does that mean I am rude to "everyone who disagrees with me?" or even people who disagree with me in general? no, i have been rude(ish) to a couple of posters this week. But all of them have been rude to me too.


If you are going to treat being rude as an offense then you can can go back through about 10 000 forum posts between me and El P and get us banned from all future publishing sites for life.

And while your at it, you should send a request to Al gore to have the man behind the Ryo Hazuki account banned from all the internets.

To take the whole thing entirely literally, you can look through this thread or all my posts even, and see that unless I have a beef with someone then I do not treat them , whether they argree with me or not, with rudeness nor condescension and for the most part follow the golden rule.

Hell just 3 minutes ago i pressed "post reply" in a response to my mortal enemy cineteq where I behaved in a manner most befit a gentlemen.


Assumption 2.

froome19 on another thread for being "new cycling fans" when in fact from what i recall(please correct me if i am wrong) you have seen a grand total of one of tom boonen's PR wins live. . .

Correct, I only saw Boonen win once (09 I didnt see this Boonen win since I switched off the tv in anger)

But yes you are right I am a relatively new at watching all but the Tour since i only got cable 4 years ago, though i did follow the sport away from the tv before (not religiously though)

That is the correct bit. The incorrect assumption you make with that information is that my attack on Froome was an attack on new cycling fans or an attack on their opinions.

The attack on Froome was part of a wider conflict going back to May, when Froome responded to someone who had praised one of my thread intros from last year by saying that he could easily do better.

Its perfectly natural that when someone says that, but has no writing talent of his own, and has an omniscient correction posting style but thinks that Igor Anton is a mountain only climber who has never shown half the hill climbing skill of Danny Moreno, I will hit back.

The fact that he was not rude to me in the very thread in which I responded does not mean that my response was not unprovoked.

Assumption 3

would you be happy if i used that very same argument to prove how your opinion that cancellara's is better then boonen was wrong just because i have watched all 4 of his wins?

BTW You cant "prove" an opinion wrong that way, only call it into question. Nor was I attempting to prove Froome wrong, i was mocking the concept of Contador having to show Froome he is good enough for him.

But more importantly if you looked through my posts in this thread I already aknowledged in about 10 of them that Boonen was better before 2010 and my entire argument the whole time has been that Cancellara is better in the present.

So if you want to keep hitting me on that point, keep hitting. The rest of my army is half way to China.

 

[Scott SoCal]

You are ridiculing a misrepresentation of something I said (or rather, did not say). Most people would take that personally.

I am mostly just irritated, since knee-jerk responses to certain posts, and angry responses to things that were never even said, have derailed the actual discussion. Let's start again:

I don't think Cancellara is as good at positioning or strategy as Boonen is, and that's why Boonen is the better cobblestone rider.

I'm not sure I agree with the last sentence. While no expert I have seen both of them at RVV and PR since 2008.

Tactically, they race differently. Boonen is rarely far from the front and FC tends to ride up and down the group. I think FC has more raw horsepower than does Boonen and I think they both know it. FC rides like he can do anything he wants, anytime he wants. Boonen rides to conserve until its time to race, which is smart.

It's not better necessarily, it's just different tactically. I can point to different times in both races where, over the years, they have both made poor tactical moves... and brilliant ones.

They are both superior to everyone else. If they are both going well Cancellara wins more often than Boonen. My opinion.

 

[El Pistolero]

I'm not sure I agree with the last sentence. While no expert I have seen both of them at RVV and PR since 2008.

Tactically, they race differently. Boonen is rarely far from the front and FC tends to ride up and down the group. I think FC has more raw horsepower than does Boonen and I think they both know it. FC rides like he can do anything he wants, anytime he wants. Boonen rides to conserve until its time to race, which is smart.

It's not better necessarily, it's just different tactically. I can point to different times in both races where, over the years, they have both made poor tactical moves... and brilliant ones.

They are both superior to everyone else. If they are both going well Cancellara wins more often than Boonen. My opinion.

This makes me wonder if you ever saw Boonen race.

Cancellara sure as hell doesn't go well that much if he's supposed to win more than Boonen.

 

[auscyclefan94]

This would have to be the closest legitimate poll on this forum yet. Forum totally split on the question.

 

[ElChingon]

This would have to be the closest legitimate poll on this forum yet. Forum totally split on the question.

Both are great, it just boils down to who one favors for any random thing, either one would be a welcome guest on a fantasy Cobblestone Team.

 

[Scott SoCal]

This makes me wonder if you ever saw Boonen race.

Cancellara sure as hell doesn't go well that much if he's supposed to win more than Boonen.

Been watching Boonen since he was working for Hincapie.

Cance oozes horsepower. Boonen doesn't. I think it's one of FC's problems. How many times have you seen FC try to win from the front? Maybe over-confidence or whatever. And that's not a dig at Boonen... he's spectacular. But I don't remember anyone accusing Boonen of having a motor on his bike, do you?

And to be clear, Boonen was damned fortunate to win RVV this year. If Pozatto was a little more aware on the last time up the Paterberg, Boonen gets third. But he won and he crushed a poor tactical effort from Sky at PR. He won and nobody can say different.

In 2010, FC rode Boonen off his wheel. Until Boonen does that to FC, mano a mano FTW, then I'll take the guy who can and does throw down the chili.

 

[Netserk]

6. no insulting other members. This includes counter-insults ("he started it").

. .

 

[El Pistolero]

Been watching Boonen since he was working for Hincapie.

Cance oozes horsepower. Boonen doesn't. I think it's one of FC's problems. How many times have you seen FC try to win from the front? Maybe over-confidence or whatever. And that's not a dig at Boonen... he's spectacular. But I don't remember anyone accusing Boonen of having a motor on his bike, do you?

And to be clear, Boonen was damned fortunate to win RVV this year. If Pozatto was a little more aware on the last time up the Paterberg, Boonen gets third. But he won and he crushed a poor tactical effort from Sky at PR. He won and nobody can say different.

In 2010, FC rode Boonen off his wheel. Until Boonen does that to FC, mano a mano FTW, then I'll take the guy who can and does throw down the chili.

Boonen is often the first one of the favorites to drop the bomb in many cobbled races. The Taaienberg for example is his hill and he always attacks on it in races like Omloop het Nieuwsblad and the E3 Prijs Harelbeke. He doesn't ride conservatively at all. Always does his fair share of work in a break, if not the most work of everyone...

Boonen has dropped Cancellara many times before and you're only describing one year: 2010. You're ignoring everything else. Cancellara has only been that strong in 2010. He didn't even drop Boonen at Roubaix that year. He waited till he was at the back of the group to attack.

Pozzato gave everything he had on the Paterberg. Boonen only dropped a meter and quickly made contact again. It was because of a gearing problem. We would see Boonen at the back of the group quite a lot and he even made contact with the team car to check out his gearing system. He couldn't switch gears anymore and was stuck on a big one.

Cancellara was also damned fortunate to win Roubaix in 2006 when nobody marked him yet and a train made sure no one was ever going to get back to him.

Seems people base their whole Cancellara stand point on one race: the Ronde van Vlaanderen 2010. The 2008 Paris-Roubaix was just as much a mano a mano battle as that one.

 

[Scott SoCal]

Boonen is often the first one of the favorites to drop the bomb in many cobbled races. The Taaienberg for example is his hill and he always attacks on it in races like Omloop het Nieuwsblad and the E3 Prijs Harelbeke. He doesn't ride conservatively at all.

Boonen has dropped Cancellara many times before and you're only describing one year: 2010. You're ignoring everything else. Cancellara has only been that strong in 2010. He didn't even drop Boonen at Roubaix that year. He waited till he was at the back of the group to attack.

Pozzato gave everything he had on the Paterberg. Boonen only dropped a meter and quickly made contact again. It was because of a gearing problem. We would see Boonen at the back of the group quite a lot and he even made contact with the team car to check out his gearing system. He couldn't switch gears anymore and was stuck on a big one.

Cancellara was also damned fortunate to win Roubaix in 2006 when nobody marked him yet and a train made sure no one was ever going to get back to him.

Boonen has dropped Cancellara many times before and you're only describing one year: 2010. You're ignoring everything else. Cancellara has only been that strong in 2010. He didn't even drop Boonen at Roubaix that year. He waited till he was at the back of the group to attack.

Bad tactical error on Boonen's part, eh? And while Boonen didn't get much help chasing FC, he sure didn't bring him back, did he? If FC had been in Boonen's group at PR this year Boonen never, ever would have went that far out and we all know why.

Pozzato gave everything he had on the Paterberg. Boonen only dropped a meter and quickly made contact again. It was because of a gearing problem. We would see Boonen at the back of the group quite a lot and he even made contact with the team car to check out his gearing system. He couldn't switch gears anymore and was stuck on a big one.

Pozatto was setting tempo. Had he known Boonen was getting popped there would have been a different result.

 

[El Pistolero]

Bad tactical error on Boonen's part, eh? And while Boonen didn't get much help chasing FC, he sure didn't bring him back, did he? If FC had been in Boonen's group at PR this year Boonen never, ever would have went that far out and we all know why.



Pozatto was setting tempo. Had he known Boonen was getting popped there would have been a different result.

Yeah, that's why Pozzato said he went all out on the Paterberg.

Never mind, I see you're just making stuff up now.

http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/2444/Ronde...Boonen-Versnelling-haperde-op-Paterberg.dhtml

 

[Panda Claws]

Must be Pozzato's riding style. He never seems to suffer.

 

[Scott SoCal]

Yeah, that's why Pozzato said he went all out on the Paterberg.

Never mind, I see you're just making stuff up now.

http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/2444/Ronde...Boonen-Versnelling-haperde-op-Paterberg.dhtml

Maybe it's google translate, but Pozatto wasn't quoted in the article.

Even if he said that, what else would he say?... " Yeah, I saw that I had Boonen at his limit... even dropped a few meters. But I decided I'd let up because I feared Ballan."

He never attacked on the Paterberg, just rode hard tempo. Had he known Boonen was on the edge Pipo finds a way to attack.

At any rate, my opinion is just that.

 

[El Pistolero]

Maybe it's google translate, but Pozatto wasn't quoted in the article.

Even if he said that, what else would he say?... " Yeah, I saw that I had Boonen at his limit... even dropped a few meters. But I decided I'd let up because I feared Ballan."

He never attacked on the Paterberg, just rode hard tempo. Had he known Boonen was on the edge Pipo finds a way to attack.

At any rate, my opinion is just that.

That's an article about Boonen's gearing problem, not Pozzato. I'll edit my post later when I find that interview.

 

[Magnus]

AGR and olympics fair dues.

RVV no because it was a bottle that brought him down.

What happened in e3 2011?

But part of being the best bike handler is that you are constantly taking risks. A **** bike handler like Schleck or Basso meanwhile who knows he will crash if tries anything, takes every corner every descent

I thought he came from behind due to crashes (in E3) but maybe my memory fails me and it was all due to mechanicals (but frankly, being a good bike handler is (in part) also about avoiding mechanicals).
Not being brought down by bottles in feed zone is part of being a good bike handler imo.

So crashing a lot is imperative to being a good bike handler?

And since you bring up Schleck, wouldn't it be fair to say that his (Frank) spectacular TdS crashes (who founded the 'Schlecks are bad bike handlers'-narrative) was due to attacking and taking risks on the descend?

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

boonen and his gearing "problem" I guess you are the only one who still believes that crap

 

[El Pistolero]

boonen and his gearing "problem" I guess you are the only one who still believes that crap

Why would he make excuses when he won the race? You're so quick to judge yet you're the first one to make excuses when one of your favorite riders fail.

I guess you're the only one that believes what you say.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

oh this is typical 4 year old calimero. "let's turn exactly everything the other said around to attack him!"

in dutch: "wat je zegt ben je zelf met je kop door de helft." I don't know if there is an english saying for this but this is what we used to say when we were 4 and el calimero still does it

 

[El Pistolero]

oh this is typical 4 year old calimero. "let's turn exactly everything the other said around to attack him!"

in dutch: "wat je zegt ben je zelf met je kop door de helft." I don't know if there is an english saying for this but this is what we used to say when we were 4 and el calimero still does it

Is that the come-back of a five year old that you copied on a different forum and keep posting here?

It's a genuine observation. You make all kinds of absurd predictions and when they don't come out you come with silly excuses to explain the failures your favorite riders.

It's pure hypocrisy. The only reason I'm turning around what you say is because your guilty of making up excuses for your favorite riders. It's hilarious to see you hating on Boonen for making up excuses when you're even worse than him.

Or you could just admit that you hate Boonen because he's Belgian instead of trying to find reasons to hate him. I think everyone knows why you hate him, stop this little act.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Why would he make excuses when he won the race?

Because he didn't want to acknowledge that he was weaker than Ballan and Pozzato on the hills, I would guess.

 

[El Pistolero]

Because he didn't want to acknowledge that he was weaker than Ballan and Pozzato on the hills, I would guess.

Then why did he say Pozzato was stronger than him on the hills?