Future GT Winner (Edition 2021)

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Must be Vingegaard. Great climber with a solid TT and already 2nd in the TDF

 

[BigCoward]

Wiggins was absolutely battering Evans uphill and in the TT in the dauphine like a month earlier.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Xander Graham?

 

[gregrowlerson]

Wiggins was absolutely battering Evans uphill and in the TT in the dauphine like a month earlier.

Battering him uphill? He took a grand total of 15 seconds on one MTF.

Granted, he did beat him handedly in the ITT, but Evans was nevertheless doing a proper, perfect lead up to July.

When did Brajkovic ever beat Contador at the Tour?

 

[SHAD0W93]

Wiggins was absolutely battering Evans uphill and in the TT in the dauphine like a month earlier.

In the TT I would agree but the mountain stages was:
Stage 2: Evans gained 8 "
Stage 3: Wiggins gained 6"
Stage 6: Wiggins gained 15"
Wiggins gained 1'06" from the TTs and was beating him in every TT they raced that year.

Kloden while bad in 2010 was good in 2009 and could have podiumed without having to work for Armstrong and would have top 5 the 08 Giro if he didn't get sick. He was also finishing close to Tony Martin in the TTs that year and the TTs in general while climbing better and even winning a sprint. Though Kloden did have more TTs raced, Evans had rode the longer ones due to CdD and TdF. He finished 30", 46", +04", 09", +01", 17", and 09" and could have got it closer or beat Tony in Tour of Basque Country if he didn't have the overall secure so started riding safe. Evans finished 31", 8", 45", 09", 1'20", and 07".

Tony while yes not working as hard as Evans after the rest day was still in the breakaway and then had to ride in the groupetto to make sure Cavendish finished on top of his duties for Cav before considering HTC was doing majority of the work by themselves.

I still think people are underestimating how that Giro affected every GC contender. That was a monster Giro and Contador was clobbering everyone at will. He was definitely stronger in 2011 compared to 2010. While racing passively, the Schlecks lost the race in the downhill and not attacking more but maybe they were complacent and underestimated how strong Evans was.

Evans was strong all year in the mountains and TT and his recovery was really good. He avoided all the bad luck for the first time in a Grand Tour I believe and learned from his past mistakes. 2007 or 2008 Evans might lose the Tour when Schleck made his long range attack or the following day with Contador and Schleck attacking.

I think only Contador riding just the Tour would have beat him. Of course contenders crashing out changes the race but Evans still most likely wins as he is a better TT then JVDB, Vino, and Gesink and maybe more consistent at the time then Wiggins and Kloden in a GT .

 

[Rackham]

Xander Graham?

He needs to learn the ropes via doing domestique work for Pascal Eenkhoorn first.

 

[Big Doopie]

Lol at the almeida excessive love in the poll. And I like him as a rider!

glad to see that only riders who both climb and TT lead the charge tho.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Lol at the almeida excessive love in the poll. And I like him as a rider!

glad to see that only riders who both climb and TT lead the charge tho.

Needs more Masnada love.

 

[Bonimenier]

Needs more Masnada love.

This is a poll to see who we think will win a GT in the future. In Masnada's case we already know he will.

 

[BigCoward]

Battering him uphill? He took a grand total of 15 seconds on one MTF.

Granted, he did beat him handedly in the ITT, but Evans was nevertheless doing a proper, perfect lead up to July.

When did Brajkovic ever beat Contador at the Tour?

Brajkovic never backed it up by showing he could perform for 3 weeks. Wiggins did, poor comparison.
Battered was obviously obviously bit hyperbole.
If Wiggins hadn't crashed out I'd bet a lot of money he beats Cadel on that Tour, no way by himself he drops the sky train, and Wiggins is a much much better TT rider.
Obviously the train riding for GC may have meant a totally different race dynamic for all the contenders. We'll never know.

 

[42x16ss]

Hard to call losing in 2008 and 2007 unlucky when he was routinely dropping 2 minutes on a MTF.

The 2008 feed zone crash, and wasting energy chasing Vino in 07 and Ricco in 08.

Holding yellow instead of letting Schleck take it in 08 was entirely on Evans though

 

[42x16ss]

Crashes and bad tactics took out half of Pogacar’s rivals the last 2 years, do we consider him lucky too? Your opponent’s misfortune/misjudgement is a part of the whole circus of the Tour. I’m not a fan of Cuddles by any stretch, but when his opportunity presented itself, he took responsibility.

I don't disagree, his chase on the Galibier was both welcome and long overdue

 

[RedheadDane]

Needs more Masnada love.

Masnada is what happens, when Mas has nothing left.

 

[Descender]

Mas will win a Vuelta sooner or later.

 

[Cookster15]

Wiggins was absolutely battering Evans uphill and in the TT in the dauphine like a month earlier.

I see you admit "battering" was hyperbole. In any case Evans was riding himself into form at the Dauphine. A training race. Ask Iban Mayo. The TdF is July not June.

Brajkovic never backed it up by showing he could perform for 3 weeks. Wiggins did, poor comparison.
Battered was obviously obviously bit hyperbole.
If Wiggins hadn't crashed out I'd bet a lot of money he beats Cadel on that Tour, no way by himself he drops the sky train, and Wiggins is a much much better TT rider.
Obviously the train riding for GC may have meant a totally different race dynamic for all the contenders. We'll never know.

Lucky you didn't get the chance to throw your money away.

No way would Wiggo have kept up on stages 18 and 19. And likely Wiggo would have dropped time on the descent on stage 16 as well. As I said up thread, if Evans finished only 7 seconds behind Tony Martin in the TT no way would Wiggins have been much of any further ahead. Evans was at a higher level at the TdF than in the Dauphine that should have been obvious.

 

[SHAD0W93]

When did Brajkovic ever beat Contador at the Tour?

He beat Contador to the showers as Contador had to do the podium and drug test.

 

[BigCoward]

I see you admit "battering" was hyperbole. In any case Evans was riding himself into form at the Dauphine. A training race. Ask Iban Mayo. The TdF is July not June.


Lucky you didn't get the chance to throw your money away.

No way would Wiggo have kept up on stages 18 and 19. And likely Wiggo would have dropped time on the descent on stage 16 as well. As I said up thread, if Evans finished only 7 seconds behind Tony Martin in the TT no way would Wiggins have been much of any further ahead. Evans was at a higher level at the TdF than in the Dauphine that should have been obvious.

2011 Wiggins was 3rd of the GC contenders on angliru with poor prep. There is probably not a climb on earth that suits him less. He'd have been OK in the gentler, more regular TDF mountains against Cadel IMO.

 

[BlueRoads]

I'm a bit surprised by the lack of trust in Martinez. I mean, during the Giro some said Ineos should actually back him... over Tour winner and eventual winner Bernal...
He really needs to do something about his bike handling or at least pay more attention, but I would have expected a lot more votes for him and think they would be rectified. After all he was still 5th as a helper in the Giro... he did win the Dauphiné last year... He can time trial and climb decently enough, is on a strong team and is still only 25. Sure, he has Bernal and Carapaz in front of him, but if Ineos doesn't go with a one-leader approach I can see him winning the Giro once... And if there is no place for him at Ineos he could still switch teams and get a chance in later years.

 

[roundabout]

re 2011 Tour

Wiggins was 9 seconds behind Evans when he crashed out.

Transferring the Dauphine form 1-to-1 to the Tour does not work as Evans was significantly better at the Tour as evidenced by doing the Grenoble TT 1 minute plus faster than in the Dauphine.

There were no helpers at Sky at the 2011 Tour with the level of 2011 Vuelta Froome or the 2012 Tour team. I do not believe that Uran/Thomas/EBH/Zandio etc could have successfully stifled the race.

Evans was 3rd on GC before the final TT. This means that Wiggins either had to be top 3 in the road stages, which to his credit he managed to do twice in GTs (but with a better team than in the 2011 Tour), or be slightly worse, but beat Tony Martin in the ITT, which he did only once in 2011 in the wind-affected Romandie TT,

 

[perico]

They were both getting on, but they were both consistent classic winners (at a time when that didn’t disqualify you from being a gc contender), 1-week stage race winners (they had both won Suisse, Anderson won a Dauphiné, Kelly couldn’t stop winning P-N), they were consistent GT top-10 finishers, and Kelly had been very unlucky in the 87 Vuelta.

If we using the Tour as a benchmark, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to rate either of them ahead of Dietzen, whose best TdF finish was 61st.

I wouldn’t have rated Dietzen either and lower than the other, but none were real GT threats at the time other than Kelly, as he proved in 1988 that I was wrong.

 

[Red Rick]

Wiggins could've won the 2011 Tour?

I thought I was the one disrespecting Evans

 

[Leinster]

I wouldn’t have rated Dietzen either and lower than the other, but none were real GT threats at the time other than Kelly, as he proved in 1988 that I was wrong.

Kelly pulled out of the 87 Vuelta with a saddle sore on stage 19, while leading the gc. There were probably those around who would say “that was his big chance,” but very few who would dismiss him altogether.

 

[Pantani_lives]

And the week is over! Jonas Vingegaard Rasmussen is the winner of this tenth annual poll. His acceleration on the Mont Ventoux and subsequent second place in the Tour have gained him the forum's confidence. The future will tell if this guy from North Jutland can indeed win a Grand Tour.

Vingegaard 79
Almeida 59
Evenepoel 58
Mas 26
Martínez 9
Mäder 9
López 5
Vlasov 3
O'Connor 3
Haig 1

Thanks to anyone who voted!

 

[Leinster]

The top 3 for this year don’t have even a GT stage win between them. There’s a lot of faith being expressed here…

 

[SHAD0W93]

The top 3 for this year don’t have even a GT stage win between them. There’s a lot of faith being expressed here…

Good thing you don't need to win a stage to win the overall