mrhender said:
I can't decide if he's over-anxious or over-eager... I'd go with a mix of those...
I do think you may have a point..
Mabe he is finally aware of his own cababilties and limitations...
That could explain why he's reaching for pennies and not pounds...
The day he chrashed in Daphiné he became human..
it reminded him of his vulnerability and now he is insecure wanting for a sign of his supremacy that might never come...
I'd say that honeymoon is over and he does not any longer have the power to destroy his contestants...
I think people overestimate him from time to time. He is a very strong GT rider, one of the 3 best out there, but he is not the " superhuman" some people claim.
Last year he put in a dominant performance on Ventoux and Ax3 while having a similar power output on the climbs as Nibali this year. It was a year everything went right. Plenty of people have dominated 1 GT because everything fit perfectly and they had the form of their life ( like Froome had last year) . Off form Contador plus putting the hammer down when Rodriguez and Quintana were not at their best yet. Plus his TT ability.
That doesn't diminish his victory in itself, he could not do more than what he has done. He has a spectacular attack which impresses people because no one attacked at 110 rpm before. In the end it's just a different form of attacking. 1 GT where he was clearly the strongest ( 2013) , 1 which might have been close (2012) and 1 where he was marginally stronger than Cobo and Wiggins ( 2011).
He is a strong GT rider and at his absolute prime , but he also has shown his weaknesses and isn't " incredibly strong" like the best of Pantani, Armstrong, Indurain, Hinault or Contador.
Froome might win another couple GT's which would make him one of the best riders of his generation but he is not "phenomenal".
When you saw Tonkov at the 1998 Giro keeping up with Pantani in almost every mountain you could have believed he is another "great one". But in the end he was "just" one of the best of his generation.