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

[Bye Bye Bicycle]

Ok, fine for me. And now out of this dreadful thread for me.

 

[jaylew]

FW is just a group ride with an uphill sprint in the end, at least the last many editions.

What's wrong with an uphill sprint I love finishes like that.

 

[Netserk]

What's wrong with an uphill sprint I love finishes like that.

I love races that are exciting for more than the last three minutes.

 

[Jagartrott]

No I'm not confusing the two issues.

FW is simply not dynamic or raced hard enough to be a big win.

Yet FW is almost always won by top class riders.
So to win it should mean something, no?

 

[Netserk]

Yet FW is almost always won by top class riders.
So to win it should mean something, no?

So E3 should be a bigger race than Flanders by the same standards?

 

[Jagartrott]

So E3 should be a bigger race than Flanders by the same standards?

That's not what I said.
I said winning a race where big names tend to win, means something in its own right.

 

[Ruudz0r]

This thread is about amazing Alejandro guys not about what is a more important race or why a race is more important.

Anyway Valverde will win a monument next year!

 

[Arredondo]

I love races that are exciting for more than the last three minutes.

It doesn't matter if you think it's exciting or not, it's about what the riders think. And they do think it's an important classic. So it's a big race, definitely up there with Amstel and Clasica.

GW isn't on the level of Fleche, just because the general level in the cobbles classics is lower then in the ardennes races.

 

[Netserk]

FW is under 200km. Not comparable to true classics like GW and AGR.

 

[SeriousSam]

Length doesn't matter. It's all about what you do with the length you have, and FW gives us an intriguing up hill finish almost always won by a top rider, in a race the top riders want to win.

Of course, if you have great length, all the better.

 

[Netserk]

I guess number of days also don't matter in stage races...

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

I guess number of days also don't matter in stage races...

What matters when determining prestige is who wants to win it and the priority they put on it. Flèche is one of a very small number of races each year where all of the possible top contenders will be there, will be in great form and will be determined to win. ie the riders treat it as a very high prestige race, therefore it is in fact a very high prestige race.

What is prestigious is a factual question, quite separate from the normative question of what "should" be prestigious, and separate again from the issue of what any individual finds more entertaining. It's perfectly reasonable to argue that the Flèche should not be prestigious or that it lacks entertainment value but it's deeply confused to think that it is not prestigious.

 

[Netserk]

It's prestigious, but not very much. It's mostly an in-between ride for those who aim for Liège. It certainly isn't among the ten most prestigious one day races.

 

[Afrank]

What matters when determining prestige is who wants to win it and the priority they put on it. Flèche is one of a very small number of races each year where all of the possible top contenders will be there, will be in great form and will be determined to win. ie the riders treat it as a very high prestige race, therefore it is in fact a very high prestige race.

What is prestigious is a factual question, quite separate from the normative question of what "should" be prestigious, and separate again from the issue of what any individual finds more entertaining. It's perfectly reasonable to argue that the Flèche should not be prestigious or that it lacks entertainment value but it's deeply confused to think that it is not prestigious.

Would they all be there, in form, and determined to win if FW wasn't fit squarely between AGR and the monument LBL?

FW's earned the repetition and title of a prestigious classic through history and as one of the Ardennes "triple." But at about 50 Km's shorter and with a course that guarantees little action aside from at the finish, does it deserve that title? I'm not so sure.

It's still a good win for any rider of course, but there are a lot of races better then FW that aren't considered as prestigious.

 

[jaylew]

The last several minutes of FW are some of my favorite cycling viewing minutes of the year. GW...not so much. But then I love an uphill sprint and I'm not crazy about flat bunch sprints.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Would they all be there, in form, and determined to win if FW wasn't fit squarely between AGR and the monument LBL?

FW's earned the repetition and title of a prestigious classic through history and as one of the Ardennes "triple." But at about 50 Km's shorter and with a course that guarantees little action aside from at the finish, does it deserve that title? I'm not so sure.

It's still a good win for any rider of course, but there are a lot of races better then FW that aren't considered as prestigious.

I do actually think it should be prestigious because it functions as a kind of puncheur's sprint championships - they are all there and they all really want it, sort of their version of San Remo or the Champs Élysées. But this is getting into the question of whether it should be prestigious again, rather than whether it is in fact very prestigious. On the latter point we seem to agree.

Flèche by the way is a race that I think would actually become less prestigious if it was a more entertaining and complex race. What the hilly guys seem to value about it is its simplicity - who can punch hardest, no messing around, no thinking about anything apart from timing your assault. There's a kind of numbskulled purity to it.

 

[Netserk]

There's a reason it wasn't a part of the World Cup. It's a good one-day race, but not among the most prestigious ones.

 

[roberttazman]

Now you are confusing whether a race is entertaining for you with whether it's desirable to win it from a reputation and palmares perspective.

Hell, the Tour de France is a low quality race more often than not, still the biggest race there is.

Exactly. Some of the most entertaining races to watch are juniors or amateurs, where there are all kinds of crazy attacks and things, but that doesn't make them more prestigious.

 

[roberttazman]

I guess number of days also don't matter in stage races...

By your reasoning then, Greg Lemond's 3rd TdF win was the least prestigious because it was on the shortest course?

As the ladies say, length isn't everything.

 

[Netserk]

By your reasoning then, Greg Lemond's 3rd TdF win was the least prestigious because it was on the shortest course?

As the ladies say, length isn't everything.

His second was shorter...

Did you see how I in my post wrote number of days and not length? Do you think any one-week stage races are more prestigious than any GT? Do you think there's a difference between saying that length matters and that length is the only thing that matters? Can you guess which one of those matches my opinion? Then you'll also note how your strawman uses the other one...

 

[Arredondo]

It's prestigious, but not very much. It's mostly an in-between ride for those who aim for Liège. It certainly isn't among the ten most prestigious one day races.

Outside of Belgium, nobody really cares about GW. And i'm in the thick of it

FW is just bigger then GW. In the last one, a lot of non-belgian stars see it purely as a last training for Flanders.

While FW is a race every specialist for AGR and LBL want's to win too.

And that's why it's a way bigger race then GW. By far.

 

[fanlockr]

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[Maaaaaaaarten]

lol, Valverde saying in an interview that this was his best year ever. Winning FW and Sebastian and losing LBL, GdL and the WC where you were one of the top favourites is now apparently better than winning LBL or the Vuelta.

Every rider who won a GT, a monument or the WC had a better year than Valverde, just saying.

http://www.wielerflits.nl/nieuws/29324/alejandro-valverde-het-beste-jaar-van-mijn-carriere.html
(they link to this Spanish site that I didn't read http://www.europapress.es/deportes/...compensa-trabajo-todo-ano-20141015112057.html)

 

[Ruudz0r]

lol, Valverde saying in an interview that this was his best year ever. Winning FW and Sebastian and losing LBL, GdL and the WC where you were one of the top favourites is now apparently better than winning LBL or the Vuelta.

Every rider who won a GT, a monument or the WC had a better year than Valverde, just saying.

http://www.wielerflits.nl/nieuws/29324/alejandro-valverde-het-beste-jaar-van-mijn-carriere.html
(they link to this Spanish site that I didn't read http://www.europapress.es/deportes/...compensa-trabajo-todo-ano-20141015112057.html)

http://movistarteam.com/news/2014-10-15/it-s-been-my-best-season there is the full version in English.

 

[Red Rick]

lol, Valverde saying in an interview that this was his best year ever. Winning FW and Sebastian and losing LBL, GdL and the WC where you were one of the top favourites is now apparently better than winning LBL or the Vuelta.

Every rider who won a GT, a monument or the WC had a better year than Valverde, just saying.

http://www.wielerflits.nl/nieuws/29324/alejandro-valverde-het-beste-jaar-van-mijn-carriere.html
(they link to this Spanish site that I didn't read http://www.europapress.es/deportes/...compensa-trabajo-todo-ano-20141015112057.html)

He's got a point. However he did not achieve his greatest wins this year.
Also, he's considering riding the Giro-Tour-Vuelta next year, or maybe San Remo and Vlaanderen. You might **** on him for getting a lot of 2nds and 3rds, but not for not racing all year round and only focusing on the Tour.