Teams & Riders He's coming home!!!! Alejandro Valverde comeback thread.

[Koronin]

Re:

He will ride GP M. Indurain so no Flanders for him?

Do we actually know if he's racing GP M Indurain?

 

[Blanco]

Re:

[quote="Netserk"]Non-Spanish stage race wins:

Sandbox race
Tour Méditerranéen
Tour de Romandie
Dauphiné Libéré
Dauphiné Libéré


Of big stage races: Vuelta, 2*Dauphiné, Itzulia, 3*Catalunya, Romandie = 8 big stage race wins.[/quote]

Plus Abu Dhabi.

 

[Koronin]

This is basically an article about Alejandro comeback and the fact he's well liked with in the peloton for anyone who's interested. It's in Spanish (obviously).
http://www.marca.com/ciclismo/2018/03/26/5ab8e14d46163ff2308b45a3.html

 

[Bardamu]

My Spanish is a bit rusty, what do they say about him being well-liked in the peloton?

 

[Valv.Piti]

I can't imagine Valverde being too thrilled about going to Belgium, training and racing in rain and shitty conditions. Oh well, the race isn't hard enough for him this year either I think, but it kinda sucks he two classics he has done this year will be in horrible conditions. Still looking forward to how he approaches this race, imagine him on the front on Taaienberg.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

I can't imagine Valverde being too thrilled about going to Belgium, training and racing in rain and ****** conditions. Oh well, the race isn't hard enough for him this year either I think, but it kinda sucks he two classics he has done this year will be in horrible conditions. Still looking forward to how he approaches this race, imagine him on the front on Taaienberg.

"We need need a dude in his late 30s who's been winning monuments for over a decade to attack the Taaienberg"
"Bueno, consider it done"

 

[Bardamu]

It looked like he liked Strade despite the weather. Was the strongest in the race with Benoot.

 

[WheelofGear]

Re:

He will ride GP M. Indurain so no Flanders for him?

What a chicken.. Having an actual star on the awful Movistar cobbles team would have been refreshing.

 

[Jspear]

Re:

It looked like he liked Strade despite the weather. Was the strongest in the race with Benoot.

Bardet and WVA looked like the next two strongest on that day to me.

 

[Bardamu]

After he broke the race open he looked at the other favourites, which he shouldn't have. If I'm correct he nearly closed a big gap in the last few K's to WvA.

 

[Bardamu]

Checked his Procylingstats page, with an average result tomorrow he reaches 10k points in one-day races. Of the current peloton only Gilbert has more.

 

[Jspear]

Re:

After he broke the race open he looked at the other favourites, which he shouldn't have. If I'm correct he nearly closed a big gap in the last few K's to WvA.

Yeah he looked around while other stronger riders rode away and dished out some pain. I dunno....from watching the last 30 k he just doesn’t strike me as the second strongest guy. He wasn’t.

 

[Bardamu]

Could be, I thought he was atleast as strong as Bardet and WvA.

 

[Blanco]

Re: Re:

After he broke the race open he looked at the other favourites, which he shouldn't have. If I'm correct he nearly closed a big gap in the last few K's to WvA.

Yeah he looked around while other stronger riders rode away and dished out some pain. I dunno....from watching the last 30 k he just doesn’t strike me as the second strongest guy. He wasn’t.

He was banking on Bora and Sky to chase, cause they had numbers, but as we all saw it was a misjudgement
But I do think he was at least equally strong as those two.

 

[Valv.Piti]

He definitely was equally as strong, at least - I still think only Tiesj was stronger.

 

[DFA123]

Valverde currently among the top ten favourites for Dwars Door Vlanderen. Same odds as Benoot, Naesen and Stybar. Shorter odds than Vanmarcke, Degenkolb and Van Aert amongst many others.

The bookies are clearly absolutely terrified of him by now.

 

[El Pistolero]

Re:

Non-Spanish stage race wins:

Sandbox race
Tour Méditerranéen
Tour de Romandie
Dauphiné Libéré
Dauphiné Libéré


Of big stage races: Vuelta, 2*Dauphiné, Itzulia, 3*Catalunya, Romandie = 8 big stage race wins.

He never won Romandie and he only won the DL because he was the only one focusing on that race, the others were preparing for the Tour (which Valverde couldn't ride because he was banned from racing in Italy).

 

[Blanco]

Valverde is really a master of finding races which no one targets, cause he done that 116 times in his career

 

[El Pistolero]

Re:

Valverde is really a master of finding races which no one targets, cause he done that 116 times in his career

Lot's of small crappy races in those 116 wins.

I'll take Nibali's or Bettini's palmares any day of the week.

 

[Blanco]

Re: Re:

Valverde is really a master of finding races which no one targets, cause he done that 116 times in his career

Lot's of small crappy races in those 116 wins.

I'll take Nibali's or Bettini's palmares any day of the week.

Yeah 55 WT wins.

I wouldn't take.

 

[Koronin]

Re:

Valverde currently among the top ten favourites for Dwars Door Vlanderen. Same odds as Benoot, Naesen and Stybar. Shorter odds than Vanmarcke, Degenkolb and Van Aert amongst many others.

The bookies are clearly absolutely terrified of him by now.

This might be the craziest thing I've read about tomorrows race.

 

[El Pistolero]

Re: Re:

Valverde is really a master of finding races which no one targets, cause he done that 116 times in his career

Lot's of small crappy races in those 116 wins.

I'll take Nibali's or Bettini's palmares any day of the week.

Yeah 55 WT wins.

I wouldn't take.

These are the races that matter to great champions:

Milan-San Remo
Ronde van Vlaanderen
Paris-Roubaix
Liège-Bastogne-Liège
Giro di Lombardia

Giro d'Italia
Tour de France
Vuelta a Espana

World Championships Road Race
Olympic Road Race

I never look at just the quantity of wins to determine how great a cyclist is. What matters is the really big victories, how they were won (with panache or with passive racing behaviour) and the variety of races someone won.

Some of you guys spend too much time looking at online rankings like CQ Ranking, Pro Cycling Stats and the UCI WT Ranking. They have their uses, but in the end they're really not that important. A cyclist can score very low in these kind of rankings and still have a stellar season (Degenkolb in 2015 for example).

 

[Bardamu]

True, these are the biggest races. There are not many riders who have won a variety of them in the current peloton. Nibali, Gilbert and Valverde are the three riders standing out.

Winning the toughest monument on the calender 4 times ain't too shabby. Gilbert would sacrifice half of his victories for another victory in LBL. For Nibali it is the monument he bases is spring season on. You shouldn't downplay the victories of Valverde there.

I do agree that in thirty years time or so that for a GT/Classics specialist Valverde has just won one GT, and the least prestigious one of them. This means he will not be in the tier of Coppi, Bartali, Merckx etc etc. But his sheer consistency in both GT's and classics in a time many riders only ride either stage races or classics, his accomplishments should never be diminished.
Ask any rider for the most impressive rider of the 21th century and I guess most will say Valverde, Nibali, Lance, Gilbert, Contador, Bettini, perhaps Froome and Cancellara. In this group Valverde might not be the greatest, but it is stupid not to think he belongs in this tier.

 

[El Pistolero]

Re:

True, these are the biggest races. There are not many riders who have won a variety of them in the current peloton. Nibali, Gilbert and Valverde are the three riders standing out.

Winning the toughest monument on the calender 4 times ain't too shabby. Gilbert would sacrifice half of his victories for another victory in LBL. For Nibali it is the monument he bases is spring season on. You shouldn't downplay the victories of Valverde there.

I do agree that in thirty years time or so that for a GT/Classics specialist Valverde has just won one GT, and the least prestigious one of them. This means he will not be in the tier of Coppi, Bartali, Merckx etc etc. But his sheer consistency in both GT's and classics in a time many riders only ride either stage races or classics, his accomplishments should never be diminished.
Ask any rider for the most impressive rider of the 21th century and I guess most will say Valverde, Nibali, Lance, Gilbert, Contador, Bettini, perhaps Froome and Cancellara. In this group Valverde might not be the greatest, but it is stupid not to think he belongs in this tier.

Gilbert is skipping LBL to peak in Roubaix, so I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. And of course he would trade in his victories in small races for a Monument, everyone would.

And I'm not diminishing Valverde's results in LBL, I just don't like how he won them (with very passive racing behaviour). And nobody can deny that the Ardennes classics aren't what they used to be anymore. A lot of GT contenders skip the Ardennes classics these days or use them as glorified training rides (Nibali in the past, Froome, Quintana, Contador, etc.)

Froome in particular was second in the Mur de Huy stage during the Tour de France, and ahead of Valverde, so it's not like he wouldn't stand a chance in FW.

In the past we had Bartoli, Bettini, Vandenbroucke, Vinokourov, etc.

Now we have... Dan Martin...?

 

[Bardamu]

For years now Gilbert has not been able to compete in LBL. He realises his chances are much bigger in the cobbled classics where the competition is less strong and he wants to win all 5 monuments. If Roubaix always was his dream race he would have ridden it more than once. He did Flanders in the beginning of his career because he was able to combine it with his preparation for Amstel/LBL. Now in the end he does the cobbled races again because he is able to win there. Easy as that.
With the weapon he has, he has no reason to ride LBL any different.

But it is true that some classics are more prestigious in some years and less in other years. Flanders has really gotten more prestige the last couple of years with Cancellara and Sagan competing. Before that you had Hoste..Devolder...Nuyens..

Was thinking the other day how I missed the UCI Road World Cup. It was more prestigious than the WT Ranking and riders went for it. That's how you had riders like Bugno and Argentin riding Flanders and riders like Museeuw and van Petegem riding Amstel/LBL.
Half of the cobbled peloton stops after Roubaix, not to come back until the Vuelta to ride there anonymously in preparation for the WC where only some of them show their face.

That's why I really hope Nibali will win Flanders (really have no idea how he will do, but I hoped he would win MSR and he did). I want riders to have different kinds of goals in a season.

That's why Boonen for me was a very boring rider for most of his career. It was just Flemish races and Roubaix. He stopped doing the Tour and often the WC was too difficult for him. Such a shame because he is an incredibly likeable guy whose racing style was definitely not boring, despite being a rider with a great sprint.