Froome vs Quintana vs Contador

[Publicus]

Re: Re:

Dauphiné 14' was neither Contador's nor Froome's best. Maybe Froome's but certainly not Contador's. It's quite incredible to still pick that race, which is essentially preperation, as supposedly a reference point just because they were wheel to wheel lol.

I think thats the problem with you. In what world was Froome at his best at Dauphine 2014, but oh no, Contador most certainly wasn't?

It just doesn't make sense. You can tell that to yourself over and over, but it won't make it true.

I think given their approaches to the Dauphine, I would say that Froome was closer to his peak than Contador. That was true in 2014 and I think it was true this year as well.

How do we know? Its all based on what we'd like to think.

We don't know anything for certain. I'm only looking to prior approaches and their stated goals going into the this year's edition.

 

[Mongolian Torque]

Re:

podium in paris:

1.froome
2.thomas
3.landa

thomas to casually pat quintana on the back to acknowledge his talent

Whatever is a part of your Friday night recreational activities, I would like some...

No offense to Thomas as I believe he will have a great Tour, but I think he will blow his brains out on one of the climbs as FroomeSchmiegel's dom/lackie and lose a boatload of time and as usual, that's the end of the podium dream right there.

 

[SeriousSam]

We have a pretty good idea what Froome's peak is. His main focus has been the Tour for the past few years, and he's reached his peak there in 2012, 2013 and 2015. He'll likely reach that level again this year.

With Contador, it's much more difficult to say much because he hasn't done a Tour in peak condition, assuming his ceiling was unaltered, since he came back from his ban.

 

[rick james]

This is how I foresee the battle between the big three in this year's Tour:

IF Contador reaches Froome's level and appear equal ala 2014 - I'd say either Contador or Quintana win
IF Fromme is slightly above about Contador in a all -out-battle - I'd say Quintana wins.
IF Froome's is far above Contador's - I'd say either Froome of Quintana win.
IF Quintana's form has gotten much better than last year's - Quintana wins

IF all three go thermonuclear - WE ALL WIN

So Froome hasn't a chance?

 

[Mongolian Torque]

Not sure if Bertie was bluffing on Queen stage of Dauphine, but he didn't look 100% comfortable. FroomeSchmiegel on the otherhand did look comfortable but who knows? Maybe he did sh!t his pants and was holding on for dear life too.

Bertie will clobber you on the long steep stuff, just have another look at any Vuelta climb and see that raw power go Boom.

FroomeSchmiegel has great support and the key is to isolate him early and rough him up a bit. If Contador and Quintana can agree to duct tape a ball in his mouth and tag team him early on, then one of them should take the top podium this year.

Quintana and Contador both need to get up and stay up front as the Skybots do. They have learned a lot about position and rarely get caught out anymore. Tinkov always seem to miss the splits in recent history.

Overall, it should be great to see the trio smack each other around...while Contador is getting long in the tooth, I think he still has some punch left.

 

[Miburo]

We have a pretty good idea what Froome's peak is. His main focus has been the Tour for the past few years, and he's reached his peak there in 2012, 2013 and 2015. He'll likely reach that level again this year.

With Contador, it's much more difficult to say much because he hasn't done a Tour in peak condition, assuming his ceiling was unaltered, since he came back from his ban.

You've tour 2014 but i know you'll never consider that which is fair but i think he was a monster there. I'm not objective either though

 

[SeriousSam]

I agree that it it's very likely Contador would have shown his best post-ban GT level in that Tour, because he showed his best post-ban GT level in the Vuelta that year. But he crashed out too early for us to know what that level is. He showed nothing.

 

[Miburo]

He showed this though, and knowing how strong nibali was, it says something

 

[Cannibal72]

We have a pretty good idea what Froome's peak is. His main focus has been the Tour for the past few years, and he's reached his peak there in 2012, 2013 and 2015. He'll likely reach that level again this year.

With Contador, it's much more difficult to say much because he hasn't done a Tour in peak condition, assuming his ceiling was unaltered, since he came back from his ban.

To be precise, though, his peak was very early on in those three tours. The Dauphine will likely therefore be closer to his peak than it is for Contador.

 

[Mongolian Torque]

So what's the consensus....Froomeschmiegel peaks early and hangs on for dear life and Contador peaks late and goes on a holy terror to catch up and surpass?

Since Contador is only really focusing on the TDF this year, I don't really know if he has beast fitness or not this time around.

Having a go at Froome + Quintana will full gas should be really interesting however.

Too bad Froome is such a wuss that he doesn't go for GT doubles like the real men do.

 

[Walkman]

Re:

He showed this though, and knowing how strong nibali was, it says something

He showed what, a 4 second gap on Nibali on one stage?

We don't really have a good idea of how strong Nibali was that year. He did beat a bunch of no namers at the time and even if some numbers were impressive, remember that Armstrong posted some crazy numbers back in 2009, yet none would argue he was close to his old elf even if the numbers did indicate it.

 

[lenric]

Re: Re:

Dauphiné 14' was neither Contador's nor Froome's best. Maybe Froome's but certainly not Contador's. It's quite incredible to still pick that race, which is essentially preperation, as supposedly a reference point just because they were wheel to wheel lol.

I think thats the problem with you. In what world was Froome at his best at Dauphine 2014, but oh no, Contador most certainly wasn't?

It just doesn't make sense. You can tell that to yourself over and over, but it won't make it true.

I think given their approaches to the Dauphine, I would say that Froome was closer to his peak than Contador. That was true in 2014 and I think it was true this year as well.

How do we know? Its all based on what we'd like to think.

We don't know anything for certain. I'm only looking to prior approaches and their stated goals going into the this year's edition.

Well, reading on Contador's past Dauphine's performances, we can deduce he rarely was the best there.
So, if in 2014 he was pretty much even with Froome, that leaves us room to acknowledge that Contador was probably close to his best form (whether that means he peaked too soon or not). Possibly more so than Froome.
But, like you said, nobody (at least nobody here) can know for certain.

 

[boasson]

Re: Re:

He showed this though, and knowing how strong nibali was, it says something

He showed what, a 4 second gap on Nibali on one stage?

We don't really have a good idea of how strong Nibali was that year. He did beat a bunch of no namers at the time and even if some numbers were impressive, remember that Armstrong posted some crazy numbers back in 2009, yet none would argue he was close to his old elf even if the numbers did indicate it.

The only thing that we saw was that Contador was 2,5 minutes behind in GC as he abandons. And there were no illness and no crash before. Contador looked terrible at the cobblestage. Without suples, without power. The weakest of all GC riders. After that stage he was not able to drop Nibali at the first uphill finish, and it was by far not the strongest stage from Nibali. Two days later he crashed out. So i don't know why everybody hyped the 2014 Tour from Contador. He rode his worst first tour-week in his entire life.

 

[portugal11]

Re: Re:

He showed this though, and knowing how strong nibali was, it says something

He showed what, a 4 second gap on Nibali on one stage?

We don't really have a good idea of how strong Nibali was that year. He did beat a bunch of no namers at the time and even if some numbers were impressive, remember that Armstrong posted some crazy numbers back in 2009, yet none would argue he was close to his old elf even if the numbers did indicate it.

The only thing that we saw was that Contador was 2,5 minutes behind in GC as he abandons. And there were no illness and no crash before. Contador looked terrible at the cobblestage. Without suples, without power. The weakest of all GC riders. After that stage he was not able to drop Nibali at the first uphill finish, and it was by far not the strongest stage from Nibali. Two days later he crashed out. So i don't know why everybody hyped the 2014 Tour from Contador. He rode his worst first tour-week in his entire life.

Contador was in great shape. He is bad in cobbles!!! people are so dumb...that they don't understand this nothing have to do with shape but skills... is like ask to quintana if he could win a flat TT...

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Re: Re:

He showed this though, and knowing how strong nibali was, it says something

He showed what, a 4 second gap on Nibali on one stage?

We don't really have a good idea of how strong Nibali was that year. He did beat a bunch of no namers at the time and even if some numbers were impressive, remember that Armstrong posted some crazy numbers back in 2009, yet none would argue he was close to his old elf even if the numbers did indicate it.

The only thing that we saw was that Contador was 2,5 minutes behind in GC as he abandons. And there were no illness and no crash before. Contador looked terrible at the cobblestage. Without suples, without power. The weakest of all GC riders. After that stage he was not able to drop Nibali at the first uphill finish, and it was by far not the strongest stage from Nibali. Two days later he crashed out. So i don't know why everybody hyped the 2014 Tour from Contador. He rode his worst first tour-week in his entire life.

Contador was in great shape. He is bad in cobbles!!! people are so dumb...that they don't understand this nothing have to do with shape but skills... is like ask to quintana if he could win a flat TT...

It's mostly about skill yes, but I do think that boasson has a point: Contador lost time to Mollema, Van Garderen, Bardet, Pinot and Talansky. No matter how bad he is on cobbles, no way he should lose time to riders like those.

 

[Miburo]

Contador clearly got scared on the cobbles, wet cobbles are really different.

And he prob was confident that he would take time back on everyone else since he only cared about froome and he didn't wanna risk a crash.

 

[Brullnux]

Re:

Contador clearly got scared on the cobbles, wet cobbles are really different.

And he prob was confident that he would take time back on everyone else since he only cared about froome and he didn't wanna risk a crash.

I think he knew the threat of Nibali perfectly well, and I think he was just horrendous on the wet cobbles. Even on the dry ones he is bad. Even when he was following wheels he looked bad.

 

[Miburo]

Contador isn't that bad on dry cobbles. Wet cobbles are completely different, Boonen said it himself 'wet cobbles are for the real specialists".

And at that point nibali wasn't even anywhere close to Contador in terms of climbing. Based on how the season was going nibali was just a sidefigure.

 

[Brullnux]

Re:

Contador isn't that bad on dry cobbles. Wet cobbles are completely different, Boonen said it himself 'wet cobbles are for the real specialists".

And at that point nibali wasn't even anywhere close to Contador in terms of climbing. Based on how the season was going nibali was just a sidefigure.

Sure, but he must've been a fool not to consider Nibali as a threat considering his record in GTs and the previous year.

 

[Miburo]

I'm not saying he did it on purpose, obviously not. He was just bad on it but that day doesn't say anything about his shape.

 

[CheckMyPecs]

Nibali being two and a half minutes ahead of Contador when Bertie crashed out is a fact.

All the hype about Contador crushing Nibbles if he had stayed in the race is evidence-less speculation.

 

[Miburo]

Re:

Nibali being two and a half minutes ahead of Contador when Bertie crashed out is a fact.

All the hype about Contador crushing Nibbles if he had stayed in the race is evidence-less speculation.

That's not fair. Contador has crushed nibbles in every gt they raced together.

Contador was by far the best climber in that year and he crushed nibal too in the dauphine. And Contador usually is way better in the tour than dauphine.

It's fair to assume Contador would have taken back that time. Wouldn't have been easy though, that's for sure

 

[CheckMyPecs]

Re: Re:

Nibali being two and a half minutes ahead of Contador when Bertie crashed out is a fact.

All the hype about Contador crushing Nibbles if he had stayed in the race is evidence-less speculation.

That's not fair. Contador has crushed nibbles in every gt they raced together.

Contador was by far the best climber in that year and he crushed nibal too in the dauphine. And Contador usually is way better in the tour than dauphine.

It's fair to assume Contador would have taken back that time. Wouldn't have been easy though, that's for sure

2:30 is a long time in pro cycling.

 

[dacooley]

Re: Re:

Nibali being two and a half minutes ahead of Contador when Bertie crashed out is a fact.

All the hype about Contador crushing Nibbles if he had stayed in the race is evidence-less speculation.

That's not fair. Contador has crushed nibbles in every gt they raced together.

Contador was by far the best climber in that year and he crushed nibal too in the dauphine. And Contador usually is way better in the tour than dauphine.

It's fair to assume Contador would have taken back that time. Wouldn't have been easy though, that's for sure

all the tour contenders are way better in the tour than in the dauphine. And Nibali's 2014 Tour clearly stands out among all the grand tours he took place. his progression between dauphine and tour was incredible. not to speak about the gap of 2.30 in a sport in which sportsmen fight for a very little advantage.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Had Contador not crashed out, I would say that Nibali was still the favorite to win the Tour, but it was very close.