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

[Dazed and Confused]

Re:

Still a good Vuelta by him. He looks good for WC and Lombardia.

Absolutely.

A solid performance. Two stage wins, GC 5th and Green.

Very respectable.


And as you say he might not be done yet for this year.

 

[hfer07]

Re: Re:

Still a good Vuelta by him. He looks good for WC and Lombardia.

Absolutely.

A solid performance. Two stage wins, GC 5th and Green.

Very respectable.


And as you say he might not be done yet for this year.

Is he going to ride next year? If he does, I hope and pray he forgets all GT ambitions and goes freelance

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

Still a good Vuelta by him. He looks good for WC and Lombardia.

Absolutely.

A solid performance. Two stage wins, GC 5th and Green.

Very respectable.


And as you say he might not be done yet for this year.

Is he going to ride next year? If he does, I hope and pray he forgets all GT ambitions and goes freelance

Yes he'll be racing next year. He's still under contract for next year and from all signs (unless he just doesn't have it next spring) he wants at least one more contract after this one. I don't think you'll ever get him to forget GC ambitions for la Vuelta. However, he also needs to be completely free in la Vuelta and not required to do any work for any teammate for any reason in it either.

 

[Cookster15]

Re: Re:

Valverde has a long history of performing better on steeper climbs than on really long high tempo climbs.

Ofc, but to this extent?

Koronin: I enjoyed the stage regardless. It was the second best GT stage this year IMO, so I recommend you watching it - nice seeing the young guys play.

The difference has never been this big.

ValPiti, replay comes on at 1am. I highly doubt we will have power at our house where the DVR is set to record (hopefully t's not flooded either). I just don't think I can stay up that late and watch my boy suffer as badly as he did today. With what I'm dealing with personally (not having a clue if I ever have a home to go back to after the hurricane) I don't think I can handle it.

Whoa, sorry to hear of the Hurricane. Good luck with all that. As for as AV , hopefully he can recover and be a factor at the Worlds.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

Valverde has a long history of performing better on steeper climbs than on really long high tempo climbs.

Ofc, but to this extent?

Koronin: I enjoyed the stage regardless. It was the second best GT stage this year IMO, so I recommend you watching it - nice seeing the young guys play.

The difference has never been this big.

ValPiti, replay comes on at 1am. I highly doubt we will have power at our house where the DVR is set to record (hopefully t's not flooded either). I just don't think I can stay up that late and watch my boy suffer as badly as he did today. With what I'm dealing with personally (not having a clue if I ever have a home to go back to after the hurricane) I don't think I can handle it.

Whoa, sorry to hear of the Hurricane. Good luck with all that. As for as AV , hopefully he can recover and be a factor at the Worlds.

Thank you. With AV, I hope he can, but after this stage I don't think he'll be a factor at all. I think he put too much into the Vuelta and now has nothing to show for that either.

 

[wheresmybrakes]

Re: Re:

Still a good Vuelta by him. He looks good for WC and Lombardia.

Absolutely.

A solid performance. Two stage wins, GC 5th and Green.

Very respectable.


And as you say he might not be done yet for this year.

Is he going to ride next year? If he does, I hope and pray he forgets all GT ambitions and goes freelance

Yes he'll be racing next year. He's still under contract for next year and from all signs (unless he just doesn't have it next spring) he wants at least one more contract after this one. I don't think you'll ever get him to forget GC ambitions for la Vuelta. However, he also needs to be completely free in la Vuelta and not required to do any work for any teammate for any reason in it either.

So the UCI reduce team sizes for GC's supposedly for safety reasons and Movistar need to reduce their team even more just to keep one of their riders happy. Talk about shooting themselves in the foot and giving their rivals a helping hand. Maybe the team should just forget about the overall in the Vuelta and just go for stages for as long as V is in the team, then rethink about their ambitions once he's retired.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

Still a good Vuelta by him. He looks good for WC and Lombardia.

Absolutely.

A solid performance. Two stage wins, GC 5th and Green.

Very respectable.


And as you say he might not be done yet for this year.

Is he going to ride next year? If he does, I hope and pray he forgets all GT ambitions and goes freelance

Yes he'll be racing next year. He's still under contract for next year and from all signs (unless he just doesn't have it next spring) he wants at least one more contract after this one. I don't think you'll ever get him to forget GC ambitions for la Vuelta. However, he also needs to be completely free in la Vuelta and not required to do any work for any teammate for any reason in it either.

So the UCI reduce team sizes for GC's supposedly for safety reasons and Movistar need to reduce their team even more just to keep one of their riders happy. Talk about shooting themselves in the foot and giving their rivals a helping hand. Maybe the team should just forget about the overall in the Vuelta and just go for stages for as long as V is in the team, then rethink about their ambitions once he's retired.

Or just send a team to la Vuelta to support him in whatever it is that he wants to do. Yes they do need to keep him happy because even at 38 he is the one delivering results.

 

[lartiste]

Koronin: I hope and wish, that everything will be OK and you will return to your home soon.

Concerning our guy, may be he also started to have issues with regeneration. When I hit 38, I started to have big issues with regeneration, it is individual, but about 40 this happen so may be, he also started to have some issues like that.

 

[Koronin]

Re:

Koronin: I hope and wish, that everything will be OK and you will return to your home soon.

Concerning our guy, may be he also started to have issues with regeneration. When I hit 38, I started to have big issues with regeneration, it is individual, but about 40 this happen so may be, he also started to have some issues like that.

Thank you. I promise my situation here is not helping and probably making me a bit more irrational as well.

It's possible, and I know he's always said one of his greatest gifts has been his ability to recover. It's also possible that injury and rehab last year is still hurting him as well.

 

[Asero831]

I think he can recover. The thing here is that his strategy will be focus on following attacks of Ala and Simon.in WCRR
I do not think Igls will be raced hard so he can utilize his team. But surely there will be explosive attacks but it can be neutralized as no one will burn themselves before the final climb

On a 265km race, we really do not know how prepared they can be.

 

[pink_jersey]

Re: Re:

Koronin: I hope and wish, that everything will be OK and you will return to your home soon.

Concerning our guy, may be he also started to have issues with regeneration. When I hit 38, I started to have big issues with regeneration, it is individual, but about 40 this happen so may be, he also started to have some issues like that.

Thank you. I promise my situation here is not helping and probably making me a bit more irrational as well.

It's possible, and I know he's always said one of his greatest gifts has been his ability to recover. It's also possible that injury and rehab last year is still hurting him as well.

C'mon...I hear over and over again about how bad his injury was but he had a broken kneecap with no ligament tears(ACL). It's way better to have a broken bone than a ligament tear. He needed to stay more in bad and that affected his muscles but it's more than a year now since he had the operation. He probably recovered his muscles.

 

[Koronin]

Re:

I think he can recover. The thing here is that his strategy will be focus on following attacks of Ala and Simon.in WCRR
I do not think Igls will be raced hard so he can utilize his team. But surely there will be explosive attacks but it can be neutralized as no one will burn themselves before the final climb

On a 265km race, we really do not know how prepared they can be.

You have a point that they won't want to burn out before the final climb or even the final descent. Although I think it's Adam not Simon who the British will be racing for. Adam is the better one day racer, while Simon is the better stage racer.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

Koronin: I hope and wish, that everything will be OK and you will return to your home soon.

Concerning our guy, may be he also started to have issues with regeneration. When I hit 38, I started to have big issues with regeneration, it is individual, but about 40 this happen so may be, he also started to have some issues like that.

Thank you. I promise my situation here is not helping and probably making me a bit more irrational as well.

It's possible, and I know he's always said one of his greatest gifts has been his ability to recover. It's also possible that injury and rehab last year is still hurting him as well.

C'mon...I hear over and over again about how bad his injury was but he had a broken kneecap with no ligament tears(ACL). It's way better to have a broken bone than a ligament tear. He needed to stay more in bad and that affected his muscles but it's more than a year now since he had the operation. He probably recovered his muscles.

It is, and a ligament tear could have ended his career. The thing with the recover is he spent his rehab most working on getting muscle mass back and working to ensure he had his sprint more than working on climbing. Back in Nov he'd posted a video that showed his injured leg muscle mass was about half that of his good leg. Of course the video also had a lot of fans saying they had better never hear another commentator call him a climber again because his thighs and quads prove he's a sprinter not a climber.

 

[pink_jersey]

Re: Re:

Koronin: I hope and wish, that everything will be OK and you will return to your home soon.

Concerning our guy, may be he also started to have issues with regeneration. When I hit 38, I started to have big issues with regeneration, it is individual, but about 40 this happen so may be, he also started to have some issues like that.

Thank you. I promise my situation here is not helping and probably making me a bit more irrational as well.

It's possible, and I know he's always said one of his greatest gifts has been his ability to recover. It's also possible that injury and rehab last year is still hurting him as well.

C'mon...I hear over and over again about how bad his injury was but he had a broken kneecap with no ligament tears(ACL). It's way better to have a broken bone than a ligament tear. He needed to stay more in bad and that affected his muscles but it's more than a year now since he had the operation. He probably recovered his muscles.

It is, and a ligament tear could have ended his career. The thing with the recover is he spent his rehab most working on getting muscle mass back and working to ensure he had his sprint more than working on climbing. Back in Nov he'd posted a video that showed his injured leg muscle mass was about half that of his good leg. Of course the video also had a lot of fans saying they had better never hear another commentator call him a climber again because his thighs and quads prove he's a sprinter not a climber.

It's that really true nowadays? An ACL tear it's the worse injury an athlete can sustain but in the last 10 years even the soccer and the basketball players are recovering really well.
I think he is declining a little bit and that's all. Also, his schedule doesn't really help him. He is so much rounded that he thinks he can win every race.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

Koronin: I hope and wish, that everything will be OK and you will return to your home soon.

Concerning our guy, may be he also started to have issues with regeneration. When I hit 38, I started to have big issues with regeneration, it is individual, but about 40 this happen so may be, he also started to have some issues like that.

Thank you. I promise my situation here is not helping and probably making me a bit more irrational as well.

It's possible, and I know he's always said one of his greatest gifts has been his ability to recover. It's also possible that injury and rehab last year is still hurting him as well.

C'mon...I hear over and over again about how bad his injury was but he had a broken kneecap with no ligament tears(ACL). It's way better to have a broken bone than a ligament tear. He needed to stay more in bad and that affected his muscles but it's more than a year now since he had the operation. He probably recovered his muscles.

It is, and a ligament tear could have ended his career. The thing with the recover is he spent his rehab most working on getting muscle mass back and working to ensure he had his sprint more than working on climbing. Back in Nov he'd posted a video that showed his injured leg muscle mass was about half that of his good leg. Of course the video also had a lot of fans saying they had better never hear another commentator call him a climber again because his thighs and quads prove he's a sprinter not a climber.

It's that really true nowadays? An ACL tear it's the worse injury an athlete can sustain but in the last 10 years even the soccer and the basketball players are recovering really well.
I think he is declining a little bit and that's all. Also, his schedule doesn't really help him. He is so much rounded that he thinks he can win every race.

It's more the age with that injury, not the injury by it's self that would have been career ending.

 

[benzwire]

I agree that Valverde had a fantastic Vuelta. I think after this year, they should throw all support behind Landa. Quintana just does not seem to have that killer instinct needed anymore. Valverde, well time catches up to everyone and he should not be going for GC in any grand tour anymore (I honestly don't think that was his intention in this Vuelta at the beginning, but he ended up very close due to Quintana's ride, etc.).

I think Valverde should give Flanders and even Roubaix a shot. I think he will continue to do really well in the one day races and individual stages for the near future. He's just an awesome all rounder with a great racing mind.

 

[Blanco]

Re: Re:

I think he can recover. The thing here is that his strategy will be focus on following attacks of Ala and Simon.in WCRR
I do not think Igls will be raced hard so he can utilize his team. But surely there will be explosive attacks but it can be neutralized as no one will burn themselves before the final climb

On a 265km race, we really do not know how prepared they can be.

You have a point that they won't want to burn out before the final climb or even the final descent. Although I think it's Adam not Simon who the British will be racing for. Adam is the better one day racer, while Simon is the better stage racer.

I don't think so, I think they're at least equal. When they were younger Adam was the climber and the GC guy, and Simon was the stage hunter and guy for hilly one day races.

 

[Blanco]

The old Don was tired at the end I hope he can recover well for the most important race of the season. I have some doubts, but I also have hope

 

[mariposa]

I agree that Valverde had a fantastic Vuelta. I think after this year, they should throw all support behind Landa. Quintana just does not seem to have that killer instinct needed anymore. Valverde, well time catches up to everyone and he should not be going for GC in any grand tour anymore (I honestly don't think that was his intention in this Vuelta at the beginning, but he ended up very close due to Quintana's ride, etc.).

I think Valverde should give Flanders and even Roubaix a shot. I think he will continue to do really well in the one day races and individual stages for the near future. He's just an awesome all rounder with a great racing mind.

I agree or if he does do a GT make it La Vuelta and just go for stages.

I hope that he isn't too tired to give Innsbruck a really good shot.

 

[Koronin]

He said yesterday he's racing the Giro and Vuelta next year. I'm hoping with the Giro it will be as mentor/teacher/guide to Carapaz and Soler and go for some stages. Then let him have one more shot at the historic podium in his beloved Vuelta.

I really hope he can recover for the Worlds.

 

[tobydawq]

Oh, who honestly cares about the number of podiums in the Vuelta?

I have never seen Valverde talk about that. I have seen you mention it a thousand times, though.

 

[Valv.Piti]

I think only Carapaz and Valv should go to the Giro in some kind of duel leadership. Maybe Valverde feels like mentoring Carapaz and just hunting stage early on, who knows, it depends. Then you have Soiler, Landa and Quintana for the Tour. And then you see who is ready for La Vuelta.

 

[Blanco]

Re:

Oh, who honestly cares about the number of podiums in the Vuelta?

I have never seen Valverde talk about that. I have seen you mention it a thousand times, though.

Or the famous points jersey record :lol:

 

[Koronin]

Re:

I think only Carapaz and Valv should go to the Giro in some kind of duel leadership. Maybe Valverde feels like mentoring Carapaz and just hunting stage early on, who knows, it depends. Then you have Soiler, Landa and Quintana for the Tour. And then you see who is ready for La Vuelta.

Either way I really think Valverde should be doing to the Giro in a mentoring role. Yeah, let him go stage hunting if he wants.

 

[tobydawq]

He'll go for GC if he rides the Giro and he will do it well.

The guy just almost won the Vuelta without apparent GC ambitions, and you're talking about him as if he is past it.