Contador vs. Froome

[dacooley]

Re: Re:

froome did a really impressive ride for a guy who can't ride in wet, on cobbles, has no racing instincts, can't do nothing without his team and quickly goes in a complete meltdown once a real racing starts. for the years, people gave him so many disparaging defitions. that's so hilarious.

And for quite a long time it was true. But he's developed himself a lot over the years. He's more of a racer than Wiggins could every hope to be.

But the irony is actually that todays tactics revolved once again solely on 'be the strongest rider with the strongest team'.

nonetheless criticizing a rider for having capacity to outdo other competitors by watts is clearly something new. I can hardly fancy AC, Nibali or Quintana being blasted for dominant climbing performances and pure power superiority, though each of them has suchlike gt win under his belt. as of 2014-2015, froome has never been weak in wet. his descending ability as well as pavé proficiency remained more untested rather than feeble.

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

Re: Re:

So how much did you make betting on Froome to win the Giro when he made his attack?

I wrote days before Froome will win the Giro with a long attack from la Finestre and after the day before I wrote ir again, becouse it was quite obvious.

Link?

Lol

 

[rick james]

Re:

Think Froome might have one more GT in him, but it's unlikely to happen this year.

Lol

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

Think Froome might have one more GT in him, but it's unlikely to happen this year.

Lol

Thanks, cap'n hindsight

froome did a really impressive ride for a guy who can't ride in wet, on cobbles, has no racing instincts, can't do nothing without his team and quickly goes in a complete meltdown once a real racing starts. for the years, people gave him so many disparaging defitions. that's so hilarious.

And for quite a long time it was true. But he's developed himself a lot over the years. He's more of a racer than Wiggins could every hope to be.

But the irony is actually that todays tactics revolved once again solely on 'be the strongest rider with the strongest team'.

nonetheless criticizing a rider for having capacity to outdo other competitors by watts is clearly something new. I can hardly fancy AC, Nibali or Quintana being blasted for dominant climbing performances and pure power superiority, though each of them has suchlike gt win under his belt. as of 2014-2015, froome has never been weak in wet. his descending ability as well as pavé proficiency remained more untested rather than feeble.

Where do I criticize him for it? It's just that people equate it to tactical brilliance or huge bravery, which I think is bullcrap cause it was all down to the good ol' being crazy strong. And that's fine, but don't pretend like it suddenly means he has every other quality as well, cause things don't work that way.

 

[dacooley]

it would be really cool to finally see some gt won at the expense of tactical magic without having necessary watts. ascribing what froome's raid succeed to sheer force at 100% is pretty much doing exactly the same to any other well-turned long range attempts, fuente de and les-deux-alpes included.

 

[cantpedal]

Re:

it would be really cool to finally see some gt won at the expense of tactical magic without having necessary watts. ascribing what froome's raid succeed to sheer force at 100% is pretty much doing exactly the same to any other well-turned long range attempts, fuente de and les-deux-alpes included.

So the Sky train is a tactic, a rather successful tactic. It's just one that fans of non winning riders hate. Froome fans would hate it if it was anyone doing it to him race after race.

Any attack succeeds due to the application of "sheer force". what he did was read the race and take a shot. he could have waited to attack on the next climb or the last and maybe pulled out around 2 min. This attack put him in pink because of Toms tactical decisions as much as his own.

Anyone who thinks he doesn't know tactics should rewatch stage 9 of the 2013 TDF where he held off Movistar, Saxo and the rest of the field after being isolated early.

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Re:

Think Froome might have one more GT in him, but it's unlikely to happen this year.

Lol

Thanks, cap'n hindsight

froome did a really impressive ride for a guy who can't ride in wet, on cobbles, has no racing instincts, can't do nothing without his team and quickly goes in a complete meltdown once a real racing starts. for the years, people gave him so many disparaging defitions. that's so hilarious.

And for quite a long time it was true. But he's developed himself a lot over the years. He's more of a racer than Wiggins could every hope to be.

But the irony is actually that todays tactics revolved once again solely on 'be the strongest rider with the strongest team'.

nonetheless criticizing a rider for having capacity to outdo other competitors by watts is clearly something new. I can hardly fancy AC, Nibali or Quintana being blasted for dominant climbing performances and pure power superiority, though each of them has suchlike gt win under his belt. as of 2014-2015, froome has never been weak in wet. his descending ability as well as pavé proficiency remained more untested rather than feeble.

Where do I criticize him for it? It's just that people equate it to tactical brilliance or huge bravery, which I think is bullcrap cause it was all down to the good ol' being crazy strong. And that's fine, but don't pretend like it suddenly means he has every other quality as well, cause things don't work that way.

If you are tactically brilliant without the strength it generally won't succeed anyway. Froome's 2016 Tour attacking in the crosswinds and on descents you could argue was a lot more tactically brilliant than any other GC rider in the race even though the gains were not large. Contador's attacks would never had succeeded without the strength to back up his impulses and later in his career most of his attacks failed except for the 2017 Vuelta, and the 2016 Vuelta which benefited Quintana more than himself when he didn't have the strength to hang onto a podium position.

Sky are basically using the US Postal prototype. Ride for one leader and use up the entire team on the final climb. Dumoulin was a victim of circumstance in the Giro. He got stuck with the wrong group of riders and rode a feeble descent. If he had one one strong rider willing to work hard, Froome's attack would not have succeeded as well as it did. Instead he was stuck with Pinot who was ill and not working too hard, two riders vying for the white jersey and one domestique who was already tired. Sky planned the attack in advance so it seems they knew Dumoulin could be vulnerable on that stage and with riders all over the mountain in small groups it worked out perfectly for Froome and luckily he had the strength to pull it off unlike earlier in the race when he was struggling.

 

[LaFlorecita]

The only tactics involved in Froome's attack was the planning of that attack the night before. Once he launched his attack it was just down to pure strength, unlike for example Andy's attack in 2011 or Contador's in 2012.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Funny thing is Dumoulin saw it coming as well. He said Froome would go on Finestre and if the gap was around 30/40 seconds he could close it in downhill.
However in the race he made the decision to first wait for Pinot's mechanical and then for Reichenbach. Which I think costed him the pink on that day.
Still Froome would've won because he was far more powerful at that point and would've surely finished it off the next day

 

[dacooley]

I don't think sending teammates up the road with the aim of them helping when you bridge to takes much more tactical savvy than launching mountain train drilling the peloton uphill. talks about tactical brilliance in cycling always tend to be exaggerated imo, because there just a few possible maneuvers, everyone is well aware about them and each of them is well-researched.

why AC's and Froome's moves worked out so well is that they eventually managed to ensnare opponents to competing at exercise they have an evident edge at. Purito was a brilliant climber and finisher, but a terrible rolleur who pretty much has no practice at going solo on road race stages, so once he was gapped by about 30'', he was sentenced to bleed a lot of time on that day. It's a bit different with Froome / Dimoulin as Tom is a better tt'er. but what Froome could surprisingly find his best form alongside with the surprise affect and fdj riders disorganizing the chasing work decided the outcome in his favor

 

[Hayabusa]

Froome's attack was a mix of tactics, bravery and being the strongest rider. Anyone that can't accept that all three elements played a part in that stage is influenced by bias, one way or another.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Froome's attack was a mix of tactics, bravery and being the strongest rider. Anyone that can't accept that all three elements played a part in that stage is influenced by bias, one way or another.

Of course all 3 played a role, but strength aspect was by far most important, unlike for other long-range attacks in recent history.

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

I should have known where this would go when I bumped the thread...

 

[hazaran]

Folks, it looks like we can close this thread. Sure, Contador took a stage win (Spanish ADA) but he ultimately lost the overall in the final grand tour of the season - WADA. Not only did Froome prevail, he took the queen stage to Aigle, Switzerland - arguably the Spain finish suited Contador more.