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

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What will Valverde's impact be the cycling world in 2012

  • Nuclear Holocoust

    Votes: 27 100.0%

  • Total voters
    27
Well, the point I was making was about versatility ... not the number of GTs won. And Flo, I'm just chatting away, as we all do in here. I was (and I'm not alone it seems) impressed with Valverde's ability to mix it with cobbled classics specialists yesterday. Nothing to do with baiting El Pisti ... which, is a bit of a joke, surely.
 
Re: Re:

Blanco said:
El Pistolero said:
armchairclimber said:
El Pistolero said:
armchairclimber said:
What a racer. I have gone from wincing at the sound of his name to applauding him. So many more arrows in his quiver than Alberto. Only Nibali is in the same league for completeness.

Contador has won a wider variety of races than Valverde lol.

Hilarious. Bless Contador, great rider, but a one trick pony compared with Valverde (and Nibali ... even Kwiat). :D
doesn't Chang the fact that he has won a wider variety of races than valverde (95% of his wins are the Same boring stuff)

Yeah, Valverde won solo on a climb, solo after a climb, solo after escaping on the downhill, won from breakaway, won bunch sprints, won reduced sprints on the flat, uphill sprints, won ITT's, but it's nothing compared to Contador's wider variety :lol: It's a fact :D
What do you want to consider here? the way he won stuff? The races he won? The distribution of how he won them? How he won which races?

Cause I think it's ultimately down to palmares, and it's not that versatile in my opinion.
 
Re:

armchairclimber said:
Well, the point I was making was about versatility ... not the number of GTs won. And Flo, I'm just chatting away, as we all do in here. I was (and I'm not alone it seems) impressed with Valverde's ability to mix it with cobbled classics specialists yesterday. Nothing to do with baiting El Pisti ... which, is a bit of a joke, surely.
You can express your thoughts without comparing to other riders, I'd say? I don't see why it would make sense to drag Contador into a comparison (who wasn't part of any ongoing discussion).
One could almost argue it's a bit unfair to Valverde to estimate his achievements based on a comparison to Contador. He's finally retired, and you're still giving Valverde a reason to be obsessed with him!
 
Re: Re:

Bot. Sky_Bot said:
LaFlorecita said:
armchairclimber said:
What a racer. I have gone from wincing at the sound of his name to applauding him. So many more arrows in his quiver than Alberto. Only Nibali is in the same league for completeness.
Why the constant comparisons to Berto and Nibs - what is the point - other than to bait El Pisti

I don't like both of them beacuse of the same reason, the same strongly - and to be fair Contador's palmares are so much higher that any comparison of them is just hilarious.
Which two riders don't you like? Berto and nibs, berto and valv or nibs and valv? And for what reason?
 
To Red Rick:

I want to consider how well-rounded as a rider Valverde is. He can be competitive in almost every race he enters, and most usually is, which is the ultimate quality no other rider has imo. Mikel Landa called him the most complete rider in Spain's history, I believe he knows thing or two... I like Contador very much, he was a great rider, a legendary one, but he just doesn't have that all-round qualities Valverde has.
 
Re:

Bardamu said:
Are there any successful riders of that era you like?

Full off-topic, but if you want:
Let's assume that succesful rider win at least one WT race (or a stage of GT) - we have plenty of them. And I have no bad feelings to all of them that has never been banned.
The most admired: still Froome (but in a few weeks he will probably become another Mr Nobody), Kwiatek, Moscon, but also Sagan and Nibali.
 
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Lampaert and Pedersen said Valverde's attacks were relatively easy to follow. No wonder Valderde won't start on Sunday.

Couldn't follow Benoot and Van Avermaet on the Knokteberg either, which isn't even cobbled (1.1km, average of 8%). All in all a very weak performance from someone who won 4 hilly monuments. Had no energy left for the sprint either at the end.

Sunday Sagan, Gilbert, Kwiatkowski and Nibali will also be at the start-line making the race even harder.
 
Re: Re:

LaFlorecita said:
armchairclimber said:
Well, the point I was making was about versatility ... not the number of GTs won. And Flo, I'm just chatting away, as we all do in here. I was (and I'm not alone it seems) impressed with Valverde's ability to mix it with cobbled classics specialists yesterday. Nothing to do with baiting El Pisti ... which, is a bit of a joke, surely.
You can express your thoughts without comparing to other riders, I'd say? I don't see why it would make sense to drag Contador into a comparison (who wasn't part of any ongoing discussion).
One could almost argue it's a bit unfair to Valverde to estimate his achievements based on a comparison to Contador. He's finally retired, and you're still giving Valverde a reason to be obsessed with him!
Why cant we compare Valverde to Nibali and Contador? I don't get it, its pretty natural to compare riders ability/palmares/versatility etc. But it obviously rubs you the wrong way since Contador is included in the comparison
 
Re:

El Pistolero said:
Lampaert and Pedersen said Valverde's attacks were relatively easy to follow. No wonder Valderde won't start on Sunday.

Couldn't follow Benoot and Van Avermaet on the Knokteberg either, which isn't even cobbled (1.1km, average of 8%). All in all a very weak performance from someone who won 4 hilly monuments. Had no energy left for the sprint either at the end.

Sunday Sagan, Gilbert, Kwiatkowski and Nibali will also be at the start-line making the race even harder.


Valverde suffers with such weather conditions, we now that, he said he didn't even eat during the race, that explains the lack of fuel at the end. He made a good race, but Flandes is more tough.
 
Yeah, him not competing in Flanders is a huge downer. I really looked forward to it - oh well, maybe next year, but he doesn't have too many years left. The startlist for Flanders is insanely strong, him competing would make it incredible... Next year I hope he skips Catalunya and rides E-3, Dwaars, Flanders, Amstel, FW and LBL and Paris-Nice as the sole stage race in that period (if he intends to ride Flanders anyways - else just line up in Catalunya and destroy people as usual)
 
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Re: Re:

Valv.Piti said:
LaFlorecita said:
armchairclimber said:
Well, the point I was making was about versatility ... not the number of GTs won. And Flo, I'm just chatting away, as we all do in here. I was (and I'm not alone it seems) impressed with Valverde's ability to mix it with cobbled classics specialists yesterday. Nothing to do with baiting El Pisti ... which, is a bit of a joke, surely.
You can express your thoughts without comparing to other riders, I'd say? I don't see why it would make sense to drag Contador into a comparison (who wasn't part of any ongoing discussion).
One could almost argue it's a bit unfair to Valverde to estimate his achievements based on a comparison to Contador. He's finally retired, and you're still giving Valverde a reason to be obsessed with him!
Why cant we compare Valverde to Nibali and Contador? I don't get it, its pretty natural to compare riders ability/palmares/versatility etc. But it obviously rubs you the wrong way since Contador is included in the comparison

Imo, the Valverde/Contador/Nibali palmares comparisons don't really make sense since they are different riders with different strengths.
At the end of the day, it'll come down to completely subjective evaluations of the value of their respective victories, ie. is a LBL victory "better" than a San Remo victory, is a Vuelta victory better than a Giro victory, how many monuments equals 1 GT etc. Then you'd perhaps also have to account for the way these riders have obtained their wins (is Contador's Fuente De victory better than one of Valverde's wins in FW, for example).

Sure, you can compare them as GT riders based on their merits in Grand Tours and you can compare them as classics riders based on their performances in classics. But why would you compare a non-classics rider like Contador to a classics specialist like Valverde? In this case, it makes more sense to compare Contador to another pure GT-rider like Froome.
It can be fun to discuss all these things, but the comparison is pretty hard to make, I think.
Now, talking about who's the more versatile and the better allround rider is another case and here I think it is quite clear that Valverde and Nibali are better allrounders than Contador.
 
Re: Re:

El Pistolero said:
armchairclimber said:
What a racer. I have gone from wincing at the sound of his name to applauding him. So many more arrows in his quiver than Alberto. Only Nibali is in the same league for completeness.

Contador has won a wider variety of races than Valverde lol.

Contador has won primarily stage races and stages of stage races. I believe he has only Milan-Turin as a single day event that he's won. Valverde has won a grand tour, made multiple grand tour podiums, won multiple stages of grand tours, multiple stage races, multiple one day races, made the podium of multiple wcrr's.... the list goes on.
Both are very impressive riders but I would have to disagree with you.

Edit: I neglected to mention Contador's ITT victories. That adds to his versatility but it still doesn't bring him up to being equal or surpassing Valverde when it comes to the range of their palmares. They are both great riders in my eyes, two of my favorites (along with the guy in my avatar!)
 
Re: Re:

El Pistolero said:
armchairclimber said:
El Pistolero said:
armchairclimber said:
What a racer. I have gone from wincing at the sound of his name to applauding him. So many more arrows in his quiver than Alberto. Only Nibali is in the same league for completeness.

Contador has won a wider variety of races than Valverde lol.

Hilarious. Bless Contador, great rider, but a one trick pony compared with Valverde (and Nibali ... even Kwiat). :D
doesn't Chang the fact that he has won a wider variety of races than valverde (95% of his wins are the Same boring stuff)

I think we have opposing definitions of what "wider variety of races" actually means.
 
Let's talk wide variety.

1 unique monument
1 unique Grand Tour.
2 unique classics.

Then we're down to stage races and semiclassics.

In terms of big wins, it's not much more diverse than a guy like Contador.

The range where he competes is very large. The range where he wins big, is very narrow.
 
Re:

Red Rick said:
Let's talk wide variety.

1 unique monument
1 unique Grand Tour.
2 unique classics.

Then we're down to stage races and semiclassics.

In terms of big wins, it's not much more diverse than a guy like Contador.

The range where he competes is very large. The range where he wins big, is very narrow.

What a laughable post. Contador was a great rider, but his entire palmares consists of winning mountainous or very hilly stage races - with one minor semi-classic which also finished on a mountain. There is no variety - he was about as specialized as it gets. Ultimately he was a guy with incredible w/kg at aerobic threshold - but poor anaerobic power and a terrible sprint.

Valverde wins hilly stage races, rolling stage races, high mountain stage races, monuments, classics, reduced bunch sprints, technical descents, TTs. He's probably the least specialized, most versatile rider in the peloton.
 
Re: Re:

Valv.Piti said:
LaFlorecita said:
armchairclimber said:
Well, the point I was making was about versatility ... not the number of GTs won. And Flo, I'm just chatting away, as we all do in here. I was (and I'm not alone it seems) impressed with Valverde's ability to mix it with cobbled classics specialists yesterday. Nothing to do with baiting El Pisti ... which, is a bit of a joke, surely.
You can express your thoughts without comparing to other riders, I'd say? I don't see why it would make sense to drag Contador into a comparison (who wasn't part of any ongoing discussion).
One could almost argue it's a bit unfair to Valverde to estimate his achievements based on a comparison to Contador. He's finally retired, and you're still giving Valverde a reason to be obsessed with him!
Why cant we compare Valverde to Nibali and Contador? I don't get it, its pretty natural to compare riders ability/palmares/versatility etc. But it obviously rubs you the wrong way since Contador is included in the comparison
Of course sometimes it can be fun or interesting to compare riders. But to me, it makes no sense to say "wow, Valverde is so versatile, MUCH MORE VERSATILE than Contador". You could make that comparison with 150 other riders and get the same result, but somehow it's always Contador that ends up in silly comparisons that fail to prove anything.

Contador is clearly less allround than Valverde so why does Valverde's versatility have to be "tested" against Contador's?
And yes, that rubs me the wrong way. Why are people always comparing other riders to Contador in a way that diminishes his achievements and him as a rider? I've personally never felt the need to detract from other riders when praising my favorites, like "wow, Contador is so daring, much more daring than Froome or Valverde" or "wow, Mathieu van der Poel's technique is so impressive, much more impressive than Van Aert's".
 
Didn't feel like people were diminishing the compliments of Contador here. Being a GT rider in itself means that you are an all-rounder. The fact that Contador won 9 GT's in his career makes him one of the best all-rounders of the 21th century. I also think it is a small shame we rarely saw him in one-day races, but he was such an attractive rider in every stage race he entered I didn't really mind.
 
Re: Re:

DFA123 said:
Red Rick said:
Let's talk wide variety.

1 unique monument
1 unique Grand Tour.
2 unique classics.

Then we're down to stage races and semiclassics.

In terms of big wins, it's not much more diverse than a guy like Contador.

The range where he competes is very large. The range where he wins big, is very narrow.

What a laughable post. Contador was a great rider, but his entire palmares consists of winning mountainous or very hilly stage races - with one minor semi-classic which also finished on a mountain. There is no variety - he was about as specialized as it gets. Ultimately he was a guy with incredible w/kg at aerobic threshold - but poor anaerobic power and a terrible sprint.

Valverde wins hilly stage races, rolling stage races, high mountain stage races, monuments, classics, reduced bunch sprints, technical descents, TTs. He's probably the least specialized, most versatile rider in the peloton.
Lately I have been compiling a list of "highlights" of Contador's career to include in a fantasy GT tribute - a Giro, TDF and Vuelta tribute. And I can only say, he was not as specialized as you seem to think. He didn't have much of a sprint which I think is the only thing you can fault him - it cost him a great many victories. But he could be competitive in ITTs ranging from pan-flat to mountainous, punchy finishes, downhill finishes, and uphill finishes, and could drop everyone on gradients ranging from 4-5% to insanely steep, regardless of the length of the climb. On his palmares you'll find many different types of wins. Obviously with him being a climber without a sprint he'd need some form of hilly terrain to be competitive, but saying he is "as specialized as it gets", that's a great many bridges too far. I even think if he had raced some minor races that were perhaps out of his comfort zone, he could have won several and people like yourself wouldn't speak as badly about his versatility.

Yes, Valverde is more versatile, his sprint is deadly and he was very impressive yesterday, but please don't detract from Contador's achievements. I don't see why that's necessary.
 
Re: Re:

LaFlorecita said:
Valv.Piti said:
LaFlorecita said:
armchairclimber said:
Well, the point I was making was about versatility ... not the number of GTs won. And Flo, I'm just chatting away, as we all do in here. I was (and I'm not alone it seems) impressed with Valverde's ability to mix it with cobbled classics specialists yesterday. Nothing to do with baiting El Pisti ... which, is a bit of a joke, surely.
You can express your thoughts without comparing to other riders, I'd say? I don't see why it would make sense to drag Contador into a comparison (who wasn't part of any ongoing discussion).
One could almost argue it's a bit unfair to Valverde to estimate his achievements based on a comparison to Contador. He's finally retired, and you're still giving Valverde a reason to be obsessed with him!
Why cant we compare Valverde to Nibali and Contador? I don't get it, its pretty natural to compare riders ability/palmares/versatility etc. But it obviously rubs you the wrong way since Contador is included in the comparison
Of course sometimes it can be fun or interesting to compare riders. But to me, it makes no sense to say "wow, Valverde is so versatile, MUCH MORE VERSATILE than Contador". You could make that comparison with 150 other riders and get the same result, but somehow it's always Contador that ends up in silly comparisons that fail to prove anything.

Contador is clearly less allround than Valverde so why does Valverde's versatility have to be "tested" against Contador's?
And yes, that rubs me the wrong way. Why are people always comparing other riders to Contador in a way that diminishes his achievements and him as a rider? I've personally never felt the need to detract from other riders when praising my favorites, like "wow, Contador is so daring, much more daring than Froome or Valverde" or "wow, Mathieu van der Poel's technique is so impressive, much more impressive than Van Aert's".
Because some posters in this thread are trying to claim or imply that Contador was more versatile or had a greater variety of wins. Obviously they are going to get called out on such ridiculous comments.
 
Re: Re:

DFA123 said:
Because some posters in this thread are trying to claim or imply that Contador was more versatile or had a greater variety of wins. Obviously they are going to get called out on such ridiculous comments.
You clearly didn't see which post started that discussion, which was a post by armchairclimber stating, out of the blue, "wow, Valverde has so many more arrows in his quiver than Contador" or something similar.
 
Re: Re:

LaFlorecita said:
DFA123 said:
Red Rick said:
Let's talk wide variety.

1 unique monument
1 unique Grand Tour.
2 unique classics.

Then we're down to stage races and semiclassics.

In terms of big wins, it's not much more diverse than a guy like Contador.

The range where he competes is very large. The range where he wins big, is very narrow.

What a laughable post. Contador was a great rider, but his entire palmares consists of winning mountainous or very hilly stage races - with one minor semi-classic which also finished on a mountain. There is no variety - he was about as specialized as it gets. Ultimately he was a guy with incredible w/kg at aerobic threshold - but poor anaerobic power and a terrible sprint.

Valverde wins hilly stage races, rolling stage races, high mountain stage races, monuments, classics, reduced bunch sprints, technical descents, TTs. He's probably the least specialized, most versatile rider in the peloton.
Lately I have been compiling a list of "highlights" of Contador's career to include in a fantasy GT tribute - a Giro, TDF and Vuelta tribute. And I can only say, he was not as specialized as you seem to think. He didn't have much of a sprint which I think is the only thing you can fault him - it cost him a great many victories. But he could be competitive in ITTs ranging from pan-flat to mountainous, punchy finishes, downhill finishes, and uphill finishes, and could drop everyone on gradients ranging from 4-5% to insanely steep, regardless of the length of the climb. On his palmares you'll find many different types of wins. Obviously with him being a climber without a sprint he'd need some form of hilly terrain to be competitive, but saying he is "as specialized as it gets", that's a great many bridges too far.

Yes, Valverde is more versatile, his sprint is deadly and he was very impressive yesterday, but please don't detract from Contador's achievements. I don't see why that's necessary.
No-one is detracting from Contador's achievements. He's won seven (or nine) GTs and loads of stage races and pre-ban was the best stage racer in the world for a period. But he wasn't versatile. He exclusively won races with lots of climbing, and did well occasionally in flattish TTs, solely thanks to his insane aerobic power and excellent recovery. It's not a slight on Contador, it's just how it is.

A great stage racer and a good cyclist.
 

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