Teams & Riders Everybody needs a little bit of Roglstomp in their lives

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Lol, no one said it isn’t a strategy 😂 maybe actually read what people are writing instead of making assumptions.
The point being that strategy or not, riders really don't care how their wins are achieved, either some users in a remote part of the world find that boring or passive.

So of course you can call Roglic a "wheelsucker" from an entirely subjective point of view. It's as valid as calling him a slovakian. You're entitled to it but you're wrong.

On the other hand, if you came here to discuss, it's because you believe that there are more grounds to consider him a wheelsucker independently of your judgment. But so far you have not presented reasons for others to accept that Roglic is a wheelsucker outside of your own bias of whishing procycling to have mostly an entertainment value and that riders are subject to be judged according to that.
 
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The point being that strategy or not, riders really don't care how their wins are achieved, either some users in a remote part of the world find that boring or passive.

So of course you can call Roglic a "wheelsucker" from an entirely subjective point of view. It's as valid as calling him a slovakian. You're entitled to it but you're wrong.

On the other hand, if you came here to discuss, it's because you believe that there are more grounds to consider him a wheelsucker independently of your judgment. But so far you have not presented reasons for others to accept that Roglic is a wheelsucker outside of your own bias of whishing procycling to have mostly an entertainment value and that riders are subject to be judged according to that.
Sure everyone here that calls him a wheelsucker is wrong, except his fans. Wow what a coincidence.

Also being a winner and being a wheelsucker don’t cancel each other out. You can be both. There are thousands of examples of this. I’m surprised you don’t know this. You don’t follow cycling? Maybe checkout Stage 15 of this years Giro and look at Quintana. Masterclass in wheelsucking.
 
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Yes. He rides to his strengths, unfortunately that results in wheel sucking.

An accurate assessment. I don't know that it's even unfortunate. He climbs exceedingly well and has a very strong finishing kick. Why not ride with the group and grab wins?

In 655 pages (& in other threads), this topic (& argument) is like groundhog day here. It's the same thing over & over again every time. Aka something repeated ad-nauseum like the ultimate 'gotcha' to demonstrate Rog is not a great rider or something.

I'm usually not in the mood to answer but today I'll make an exception, so here goes: the entire notion of "wheel sucking & then MTF stomp = bad cycling" is so arbitrarily abstract in determining the 'quality' of riders to the point it's basically a hipster level variation of Alice in Wonderland's Mad Hatter Tea Party in pro-cycling.

Point being: People pretending solo attacks from way out are 'better' than a rider who crushes a small group in a sprint is something I disagree with entirely. I like suspense, i.e. soloing to the line does nothing for me unless I'm a fan of the rider in question. Give me a Roglič or a Valverde win any day over the most famous solo victories. I mean case-in-point did neutral fans enjoy Mathieu Van der Poel's recent Roubaix win from an entertainment perspective? I don't think so.

So the point here is whenever people say 'Rog is a wheel sucker' in a pejorative way, I just shrug tbh. It means absolutely nothing beyond demonstrating that person doesn't like him. Which is fine because this is sport & everyone has their favorites but what I don't agree with is people hiding behind some made-up make believe hierarchy of racing styles which Rog 'conveniently' is at the bottom of.

It's just fandom making stuff up, i.e. like people arguing 'who is a better superhero' between Iron Man & Captain America.

It's... irrelevant. What matters is the rider being good at his speciality & in that regard, Roglič is one of the best MTF sprinters on steep gradients in the world... & arguably the best (Pog is quite good at that as well).

This seems a fairly wild response to the comments above. No one said, suggested, or implied he's not a great rider. He is. It's simply explaining that because he has certain strengths, he rides a certain way. Which is indisputable.

If you think Roglič isn't a great rider, please raise your hand. Anyone? No?

By any measure, a great rider.
 
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I think the criticism that's possibly legit is that he can be too passive when he has good legs and miss out on time gains as a result because he prefers to wait for the sprint sometimes.

But a real wheelsucker is always skipping turns in a group when there's guys up the road, and Roglic basically never does that sort of ***.
Nice to see a clear, rational post on this topic.
 
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I think the criticism that's possibly legit is that he can be too passive when he has good legs and miss out on time gains as a result because he prefers to wait for the sprint sometimes.

But a real wheelsucker is always skipping turns in a group when there's guys up the road, and Roglic basically never does that sort of ***.
Yes, I agree. Rogla is often too passive, too conservative, and fails to grab many an advantage that may present itself. And, as others have noted, he plays to his strengths, to the point of relying too heavily on his stomping super powers. This may be a reflection of his personality, or it may be an artifact of coming late to the sport and not having honed the killer instinct at an early age.
 
His passivity has not cost him any race since the 2020 Tour.
Multiple monuments riding like Valverde despite being shown repeatedly he needs to attack if he wants to win.
2022 Vuelta stage 15 Jumbo rides the whole day to set up dropping Evenepoel days after his crash only for Evenepoel to blow up their train, and Roglic decides not to go with MAL and Mas to gain more time (even though he had gained a good chunk the day before). Then he overcompensates the next day and takes himself out of the race.
The of course previously mentioned 2023 Vuelta due to his passivity and team tactics. It’d have been nice if Roglic took a page out of 2009 Contador/Astana to show up the team.
 
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Yeah, I was hoping for a little better showing but it was not bad. Hopefully he can distance Remco on the climbs and win the race. I think it's important for him to be the best or close to the best climber of this race, especially looking forward towards the Tour.

He's expected to be one of 2-3 best climbers (or even the best) but distancing Remco may actually be quite difficult (if the Belgian can replicate this performance on climbs).