(long time lurker, used to be active a long time ago but lost interest during Sky era. I had to create a new account because I need to rant… bear with me)
So I watched Paris-Nice and I don’t even know what to think anymore.
It irks me that there is a fan war that inundates social media but it really goes nowhere as both camps (“he’s soooo washed and was always a shitty rider who only won because of his superior team” VS “the sun will shine tomorrow, he just needs time, and if it doesn’t work for him it’s ok… the only thing that’s matters is his happiness”) are just seeing this situation in b/w terms and not contributing to the discussion in a meaningful way. We can see with our own eyes that something is wrong, claiming that he was always like this but it was swept under the rug as he was handed all his victories by his team is such a laughable take that I won’t bother, but the opposite is not helping either, those fans that reject any attempt at critical thinking by stating that it doesn’t matter if he’s essentially transformed into a different person, as long as he’s smiling and he says he will keep fighting… they are also getting on my nerves. And I am not even active on social media but they are all over the place
So I need some to hear some reasonable takes from my fellow Rogla fans here because nothing makes sense.
How come a guy that survived and won a though, wet, cold, Giro with an injury that wasn’t trivial and a team that wasn’t the best (and he was not used to riding with part of that team), then moved to an admittedly decent GC team, that had already won a Giro (so used to cold/wet), kept his coach so they could replicate most if not all the conditions that worked for him.. and almost froze to death in a race he’s participated before and managed more or less OK? This doesn’t make any sense, are Bora that shitty or is it something else?
The guy has been a professional cyclist for 10 years, he’s raced in all sorts of weather, are you telling me he doesn’t know he isn’t great in the cold and only managed to do well in those races because his old team knew how to interpret is body signals without him even realising and now he doesn’t know how to navigate the cold and/or tell his new team this is an issue?
And even if this was the case, WTF is his coach doing then? Shouldn’t he had all the data, know all his weaknesses and warn the team? I can understand riders might not be smart or aware of many things because they get paid to ride a bicycle from A to B as fast as they can, but they have tons of professionals around them whose job is to know all this, take notes, keep track of the data and analyse it etc. What was the point of keeping the *** coach then?
I’m having a hard time believing that after all the shitty situations he’s been in, and all the lessons learned, they would all be so amateurish and fail in such a basic way. I can’t believe it’s only this.
And don’t get me started on the whole “well he has to spend way more energy because the team is weak/they don’t know him/he has to get used to the materials”. Again, he’s been in worse situations before, with a weak team and shitty conditions, mostly on his own, in tough races with decent rivals, and he’s managed way better than he did this week. I can understand a dip in form, I can understand age is a factor and he might be in the beginning of his decline, but he’s a complete different rider than he was in October when he fought his way to an almost impossible podium, in the type of race he struggles the most with, with poor team support. It’s been 5 months, not 5 *** years, he shouldn’t be struggling to keep up with *** Lidl domestiques or whatever riders kept dropping him yesterday.
Even if he had finished 3m down but had given the impression of having tried I could believe this is a process that takes time and he’s been taking it slowly to ensure all the bases are covered, with no pressure, but he looked lost, as if this was his first race ever, as if he didn’t know what to do and was on his own trying to survive. Bora are not such a disastrous team (as proven by their decent Tirreno), they ride on Specialized, one of their nutritionists was hired to give a seminar to VLAB, they have won a Giro and had decent results in other GTs in recent years… there is absolutely no reason why this change would be so disastrous and the latest interviews with their DS and boss absolutely prove this, they were surprised that things were so bad and, reading between the lines, don’t know the reason why, which is worrying.
So ignoring all the hot takes, do you honestly believe it’s just the new team, new everything and the cold? It makes sense that all these factors would play a role, but I wouldn’t expect such a huge impact (neither did they…), it’s just not possible that a rider that started getting big results from the get go in less than ideal circumstances (because his old team had to catch up with him) would move to a team that’s in a better position to support him than his old team was when he started, and yet he has regressed so badly that he’s even worse than he was in 2016?
/end of rant
Thanks for reading my wall of text, I’m disappointed because I’m a huge fan and I want him healthy and competitive for many years, and I’m also frustrated as this was shaping up to be a great year with an engaging battle for the TdF podium but now I feel pretty deflated after the first important stage races of the season. Did we curse the riders by getting too hyped?
tl;dr I don’t believe the cold weather and having to get used to everything new can explain such an abysmal performance that nobody expected. Make it make sense please
So I watched Paris-Nice and I don’t even know what to think anymore.
It irks me that there is a fan war that inundates social media but it really goes nowhere as both camps (“he’s soooo washed and was always a shitty rider who only won because of his superior team” VS “the sun will shine tomorrow, he just needs time, and if it doesn’t work for him it’s ok… the only thing that’s matters is his happiness”) are just seeing this situation in b/w terms and not contributing to the discussion in a meaningful way. We can see with our own eyes that something is wrong, claiming that he was always like this but it was swept under the rug as he was handed all his victories by his team is such a laughable take that I won’t bother, but the opposite is not helping either, those fans that reject any attempt at critical thinking by stating that it doesn’t matter if he’s essentially transformed into a different person, as long as he’s smiling and he says he will keep fighting… they are also getting on my nerves. And I am not even active on social media but they are all over the place
So I need some to hear some reasonable takes from my fellow Rogla fans here because nothing makes sense.
How come a guy that survived and won a though, wet, cold, Giro with an injury that wasn’t trivial and a team that wasn’t the best (and he was not used to riding with part of that team), then moved to an admittedly decent GC team, that had already won a Giro (so used to cold/wet), kept his coach so they could replicate most if not all the conditions that worked for him.. and almost froze to death in a race he’s participated before and managed more or less OK? This doesn’t make any sense, are Bora that shitty or is it something else?
The guy has been a professional cyclist for 10 years, he’s raced in all sorts of weather, are you telling me he doesn’t know he isn’t great in the cold and only managed to do well in those races because his old team knew how to interpret is body signals without him even realising and now he doesn’t know how to navigate the cold and/or tell his new team this is an issue?
And even if this was the case, WTF is his coach doing then? Shouldn’t he had all the data, know all his weaknesses and warn the team? I can understand riders might not be smart or aware of many things because they get paid to ride a bicycle from A to B as fast as they can, but they have tons of professionals around them whose job is to know all this, take notes, keep track of the data and analyse it etc. What was the point of keeping the *** coach then?
I’m having a hard time believing that after all the shitty situations he’s been in, and all the lessons learned, they would all be so amateurish and fail in such a basic way. I can’t believe it’s only this.
And don’t get me started on the whole “well he has to spend way more energy because the team is weak/they don’t know him/he has to get used to the materials”. Again, he’s been in worse situations before, with a weak team and shitty conditions, mostly on his own, in tough races with decent rivals, and he’s managed way better than he did this week. I can understand a dip in form, I can understand age is a factor and he might be in the beginning of his decline, but he’s a complete different rider than he was in October when he fought his way to an almost impossible podium, in the type of race he struggles the most with, with poor team support. It’s been 5 months, not 5 *** years, he shouldn’t be struggling to keep up with *** Lidl domestiques or whatever riders kept dropping him yesterday.
Even if he had finished 3m down but had given the impression of having tried I could believe this is a process that takes time and he’s been taking it slowly to ensure all the bases are covered, with no pressure, but he looked lost, as if this was his first race ever, as if he didn’t know what to do and was on his own trying to survive. Bora are not such a disastrous team (as proven by their decent Tirreno), they ride on Specialized, one of their nutritionists was hired to give a seminar to VLAB, they have won a Giro and had decent results in other GTs in recent years… there is absolutely no reason why this change would be so disastrous and the latest interviews with their DS and boss absolutely prove this, they were surprised that things were so bad and, reading between the lines, don’t know the reason why, which is worrying.
So ignoring all the hot takes, do you honestly believe it’s just the new team, new everything and the cold? It makes sense that all these factors would play a role, but I wouldn’t expect such a huge impact (neither did they…), it’s just not possible that a rider that started getting big results from the get go in less than ideal circumstances (because his old team had to catch up with him) would move to a team that’s in a better position to support him than his old team was when he started, and yet he has regressed so badly that he’s even worse than he was in 2016?
/end of rant
Thanks for reading my wall of text, I’m disappointed because I’m a huge fan and I want him healthy and competitive for many years, and I’m also frustrated as this was shaping up to be a great year with an engaging battle for the TdF podium but now I feel pretty deflated after the first important stage races of the season. Did we curse the riders by getting too hyped?
tl;dr I don’t believe the cold weather and having to get used to everything new can explain such an abysmal performance that nobody expected. Make it make sense please
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