Gesink Discussion Thread

[Kwibus]

Lol vdb and.nibali above sanchez and menchov.

Please explain to me under what logic can one dismiss the best climber around (Andy) like that bbut then say that jvdb can win the tour ?

Andy worse than ever. well he will peak for the tour no, regardless of how cap he was in races he doesn't care about

Your acting like Calimero when it comes to Sanchez. Specially when someone forgets to mention him.
D_T was just giving VBD and Nibali as examples, but I guess he should've named all other possible riders that could come behind Schleck and Contador....
That's quite a list!
Basso, Scarponi.....etc... Oh wait now I almost forget Sanchez as well! I don't want to do that else The Hitch comes storming in yelling how the hell we could forget Sanchez!

 

[will10]

Hitch's repeated reminders of Sanchez and Menchov are quite entertaining.

 

[Froome19]

Hitch's repeated reminders of Sanchez and Menchov are quite entertaining.

I have a feeling they will become even more so, when it comes to the 3rd week of the tour.....

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Your acting like Calimero when it comes to Sanchez. Specially when someone forgets to mention him.
D_T was just giving VBD and Nibali as examples, but I guess he should've named all other possible riders that could come behind Schleck and Contador....
That's quite a list!
Basso, Scarponi.....etc... Oh wait now I almost forget Sanchez as well! I don't want to do that else The Hitch comes storming in yelling how the hell we could forget Sanchez!

I even explicity said there are 7/8 contenders this Tour which normally implicates Sanchez. But yeah everytime someone forgets to mention Sanchez by name it's a Hitch drama.

And yeah I really do think Vandenbroeck and Nibali are not that much worse than Sanchez or Menchov, if they are worse at all. Menchov was not exactly impressive last year and has had some injury problems this year too....
Sanchez, can't put my finger on him. On his day he is excellent and stronger than ever, but a week later he is 'meh' again.

 

[El Pistolero]

He was only bad for one stage in the Tour last year.

 

[Arnout]

Sanchez always has one bad day in which he loses 1-2 minutes too much and of course he always loses a minute in a random flat stage too.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

He was only bad for one stage in the Tour last year.

I'm not talking about his GC consistency. Just general from month to month. Compared to 2010 I expected a better Sanchez in the Tour 2011 despite his stage-win and mountain jersey. And then this year he was stronger than ever in Pais Vasco, but not so really good in the classics, although I know he peaked in PV and not the classics.

What I'm saying is you're never certain with Sanchez

 

[Arnout]

I'm not talking about his GC consistency. Just general from month to month. Compared to 2010 I expected a better Sanchez in the Tour 2011 despite his stage-win and mountain jersey. And then this year he was stronger than ever in Pais Vasco, but not so really good in the classics, although I know he peaked in PV and not the classics.

What I'm saying is you're never certain with Sanchez

He was still strong in AGR but had a flat at a bad moment, LBL was always an afterthought and he had a cold in the week before.

Usually he is on good form for the races he wants to be good in though, but he uses many other courses only for training purposes, something I don't necessarily agree with, but who am I.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

He was still strong in AGR but had a flat at a bad moment, LBL was always an afterthought and he had a cold in the week before.

Usually he is on good form for the races he wants to be good in though, but he uses many other courses only for training purposes, something I don't necessarily agree with, but who am I.

The same guy who said this

"Gesink didn't look comfortable on the Big Bear stage near the end, I don't expect him to do well to be honest."

We're all wrong a lot of the time. Cycling is unpredictable. And we might have certain feelings about certain riders which turn out to be wrong.
Guess we'll see in July. Sanchez is definately on my topfavorite list, to win..
Just with 7/8 others, like I said before, there is no 3/4 topfavorites for me this year.

 

[boomcie]

YAWN. Can boomcie and Pisti please stop being stupid. Thanks.

Please remind me when I'm being stupid, cause I have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[Arnout]

The same guy who said this

"Gesink didn't look comfortable on the Big Bear stage near the end, I don't expect him to do well to be honest."

We're all wrong a lot of the time. Cycling is unpredictable. And we might have certain feelings about certain riders which turn out to be wrong.
Guess we'll see in July. Sanchez is definately on my topfavorite list, to win..
Just with 7/8 others, like I said before, there is no 3/4 topfavorites for me this year.

Hehe yeah backfire is a *****. You must've missed my admittance of my first mistake since 1974 later in the topic though

 

[Froome19]

Please remind me when I'm being stupid, cause I have no idea what you are talking about.

Your avatar for a start...

 

[boomcie]

Your avatar for a start...

Elaborate please.

 

[Froome19]

Elaborate please.

I would rather not get involved.

But if you take a quote from previous posts you should bother to read all off them.

Edit: Sorry it seems like the other posts were deleted.

 

[greenedge]

I think him, Samu, Nibali, Andy and Rolland will make the race exciting in the mountains which i will look forward to.
I don't consider him a top TDF favourite but he has evidently not reached his peak ( still recovering ) and so he won't have the same problem of Rogers in 2010 so he can definitely be considered a top 5 threat.

I think he will also be super motivated for the WC. The Vuelta would suit him a lot too ( but he would probably do Canada instead ).

Congrats for recovering.

 

[webvan]

I'd never been a big believer in Gesink but his 2012 TOC was rather impressive, especially the ITT in which he lost very little time to a specialist like Zabriskie, compare that to his dismal ITTing at the 2010 TDS to measure the progress made. Now why the heck can't Schleckett do the same thing?

He did seem to be struggling at the end of Big Bear but that's his style and everyone seemed knackered, even the self-described "second best climber in the world", who admittedly had been on the offensive all day. As a side note, where the heck did his 2010 ITTing go ?!

I do hope Gesink doesn't have his usual spell of bad luck though, broken finger, broken leg, bereavement, he's had it all.

 

[Spine Concept]

I'd never been a big believer in Gesink but his 2012 TOC was rather impressive, especially the ITT in which he lost very little time to a specialist like Zabriskie, compare that to his dismal ITTing at the 2010 TDS to measure the progress made. Now why the heck can't Schleckett do the same thing?

He did seem to be struggling at the end of Big Bear but that's his style and everyone seemed knackered, even the self-described "second best climber in the world", who admittedly had been on the offensive all day. As a side note, where the heck did his 2010 ITTing go ?!

I do hope Gesink doesn't have his usual spell of bad luck though, broken finger, broken leg, bereavement, he's had it all.

He has indeed had a lot of bad luck, but I do not ever recall a broken finger. Unless my memory is completely failing me at the moment, which might well be the case. Anyway, I'm glad he has made you a believer now. He's an honest hard worker who deserves more respect than he's getting from some posters on here. I just hope that even though it's hard to time a peak in Gesink's case he can go well in the Tour, maybe not up to his full potential, but that he can show himself, and if it goes well, get a top 5 spot.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

i think he is referring to the broken wrist in Tour 2009?
Anyway it would be good for Rabobank if both Mollema and Gesink are in top form for the Tour. They could try something in the 3rd week. As for Kruijswijk he'll be a bit of a wildcard since it's his first tour

 

[theyoungest]

Kruijswijk is indeed a complete unknown in the Tour, although I rate his Giro just as high or higher than Mollema's Vuelta. I mean, Mollema was climbing with guys like Monfort, whereas Kruijswijk followed an attack by Contador at some point.

I do think that Mollema could be a good Tour rider, in the sense that he doesn't give a sh.t about anything, and can handle the pressure of that crazy race.

 

[webvan]

Oops, yes, broken wrist in the 2009 TDF.

Since we have some Gesink followers here, when did he start producing good ITT results? I only have the 2010 TDS and 2012 TOC as benchmarks right now and the progress is striking. It seems he's the climber with the best ITTing at this time?

 

[theyoungest]

Oops, yes, broken wrist in the 2009 TDF.

Since we have some Gesink followers here, when did he start producing good ITT results? I only have the 2010 TDS and 2012 TOC as benchmarks right now and the progress is striking. It seems he's the climber with the best ITTing at this time?

He has always had some decent TTs in him, but before only on hilly courses. Now he's worked on his aerodynamics, and learned to stay in the TT position a bit more. It already showed last year, when he got on the podium in Tirreno and Pais Vasco, both not because of his great climbing but because of his great TTing. He even challenged Evans for the Tirreno win.

He's not a pure climber, the guy is close to 70 kgs so in theory he should be able to put out the Watts. Strangely enough, so is Andy Schleck.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Oops, yes, broken wrist in the 2009 TDF.

Since we have some Gesink followers here, when did he start producing good ITT results? I only have the 2010 TDS and 2012 TOC as benchmarks right now and the progress is striking. It seems he's the climber with the best ITTing at this time?

He was Dutch junior ITT champion at the age of 17
He was 7th at the World Championships ITT for Juniors in 2004
In his 2nd year as professional, he was 10th at the Olympics ITT in Beijing as well noted top 5 in Pais Vasco ITT and top 10 in Tirreno ITT, all in 2008
He has had several other top 10 and top 20 placings in ITT. The Tour de France 2010 time trial and Tour de Suisse 2010 time trial I have always seen as an anomaly. That's where he got his 'bad ITT' reputation from, while really, he always limited the damage really well before those 2 time trials.
Since then he picked up his old ITT form and even improved beyond that.

He has, in a sense, always been a good time trial rider, but 2 bad time trials in 2010 ruined that image completely.

 

[webvan]

Thanks that's very interesting, that terrible 2010 TDS really stuck with me. Good to know the 2012 TOC was not a fluke. Could be "his" year then!

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Thanks that's very interesting, that terrible 2010 TDS really stuck with me. Good to know the 2012 TOC was not a fluke. Could be "his" year then!

Dunno, his bad ITT's seem to come when there's a lot of pressure on it (TdS he was leader, TDF is always important).
So it's also a mental thing. We'll see in the Tour how he goes.

 

[theyoungest]

Dunno, his bad ITT's seem to come when there's a lot of pressure on it (TdS he was leader, TDF is always important).
So it's also a mental thing. We'll see in the Tour how he goes.

His TT position was just awful back then, he was basically a parachute on a bike. And he didn't stay in the TT position enough. I don't think it was the pressure, that's what the Dutch media made of it, but they didn't look at the pictures.