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".