• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

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

Page 287 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

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

  • Nuclear Holocoust

    Votes: 27 100.0%

  • Total voters
    27
Sort of ;)
On a serious not I don't see why he can't out sprint Nibali for example, or Bernal, or even tired Valverde. Stranger things happened, we saw last Sunday something similar.

The difference is that Mads Pedersen is very fast and often has the role of a leadout man whereas Fuglsang is sort of a slug.

I also think that he would have a fair chance of beating Nibali or even Bernal, should it come to that, but certainly not Valverde even if his sprint seems to have deteriorated a bit over the last year.

How Fuglsang managed to beat Alaphilippe in Amstel is still a mystery to me and I have to see something similar happen again for me to actually believe that he can do stuff like that.
 
Too hard, I doubt.
Too late, in last couple of seasons yes.
This season, however, could be different. He didn't raced as much as usual, he should be lot fresher this time.
IMHO is more the distribution of racedays that count rather than the actual number, if you have to peak already for the Tour and carry on for the Vuelta when you arrive in the fall you are more tired than a rider that rode the Giro and then had a break in june or july before peaking for the Vuelta or one that after the Tour rested and skipped the Vuelta to focus on the end of the season, even if you have ridden a lower number of days since the beginning of the year.
Looking at the riders that have won the Lombardia, the number of riders that have done it after riding both Tour and Vuelta (since the Vuelta moved to september) is limited and only Purito in 2013 rode both for the GC.
 
IMHO is more the distribution of racedays that count rather than the actual number, if you have to peak already for the Tour and carry on for the Vuelta when you arrive in the fall you are more tired than a rider that rode the Giro and then had a break in june or july before peaking for the Vuelta or one that after the Tour rested and skipped the Vuelta to focus on the end of the season, even if you have ridden a lower number of days since the beginning of the year.
Looking at the riders that have won the Lombardia, the number of riders that have done it after riding both Tour and Vuelta (since the Vuelta moved to september) is limited and only Purito in 2013 rode both for the GC.
Except Valverde didn't peaked for the Tour, he peaked for Vuelta, and I think he can very well hold that form till Lombardia, cause he had done it before, with more racing days and with riding for GC in both Tour and Vuelta (2013, 2014). Only concern would be if he recovered well after WC, cause he was frozen there, but I guess he's ok since he's racing Emilia.
 
Except Valverde didn't peaked for the Tour, he peaked for Vuelta, and I think he can very well hold that form till Lombardia, cause he had done it before, with more racing days and with riding for GC in both Tour and Vuelta (2013, 2014). Only concern would be if he recovered well after WC, cause he was frozen there, but I guess he's ok since he's racing Emilia.
That he can hold the form is obvious because he has always had extremely long peaks but i think the tiredness takes out some edge also from him, otherwise he would have won more in the fall, also the fact that he won the Vuelta in 2009, the year he was forced to not ride the Tour, i don't think is a coincidence and i've always thought that a couple more Vuelta wins would have been possible without riding the Tour.

Anyway this year he was already in shape at the Tour and if we exclude the Planche he basically rode for the GC also there, otherwise would have gone like last year, also in the interviews he said that he prepared very well for the race.
 
Who is he gonna beat without riding the Tour?

I dont think Valverde's Vuelta win was his most impressive climbing
IMHO there are at least three years that was doable for him without the Tour in the legs: 2012, 2014 and 2015.

In 2012 there was a subpar Contador coming off the suspension that won in the way we know and was already close.
In 2014 there were Froome and Contador coming straight from injuries (and that year he had even to work for Quintana on Aramon Valdelinares while in the leader jersey before Quintana crashed out leaving him free to ride his race).
In 2015 the race was won by the freaking Aru that in the final mountain stage was escorted to the win by his team with the cooperation of Purito that didn't have the "huevos" to try something (and probably only following Quintana and Majka could have been enough), all riders that aren't stronger than him.
 
IMHO there are at least three years that was doable for him without the Tour in the legs: 2012, 2014 and 2015.

In 2012 there was a subpar Contador coming off the suspension that won in the way we know and was already close.
In 2014 there were Froome and Contador coming straight from injuries (and that year he had even to work for Quintana on Aramon Valdelinares while in the leader jersey before Quintana crashed out leaving him free to ride his race).
In 2015 the race was won by the freaking Aru that in the final mountain stage was escorted to the win by his team with the cooperation of Purito that didn't have the "huevos" to try something (and probably only following Quintana and Majka could have been enough), all riders that aren't stronger than him.
2015 maybe, but I don't really think Valverde really suffered much from riding the Tour before La Vuelta, and 2015/2016 were the only years he was better in the Giro/Tour than in the Vuelta, and in 2016 his form in Giro/Tour wasn't high enough to win La Vuelta.

As for that 2015 Vuelta, it's easy to sleep on Aru because of his recent misses, but he was pretty strong that Vuelta. And looking back I'm not sure how to rate him in that Tour. He wasn't close to Quintana or Froome and was simply the most consistent of the rest. I think his level that Tour was fairly similar to that of the 2014 Vuelta.

Lastly, in 2012 he wasn't great until the Vuelta and being back from suspension I'd think he actually needed that Tour for race rhythm.
 
Last edited:
2015 maybe, but I don't really think Valverde really suffered much from riding the Tour before La Vuelta, and 2015/2016 were the only years he was better in the Giro/Tour than in the Vuelta, and in 2016 his form in Giro/Tour wasn't high enough to win La Vuelta.

As for that 2015 Vuelta, it's easy to sleep on Aru because of his recent misses, but he was pretty strong that Vuelta. And looking back I'm not sure how to rate him in that Tour. He wasn't close to Quintana or Froome and was simply the most consistent of the rest. I think his level that Tour was fairly similar to that of the 2014 Vuelta.

Lastly, in 2012 he wasn't great until the Vuelta and being back from suspension I'd think he actually needed that Tour for race rhythm.
In the 2015 Tour he had also to babysit Quintana, not only to fight for himself, that's extra energy gone and then at Vuelta he was pretty subpar, probably the second worst performance at the Vuelta (if we exclude his debut) after 2016 but in 2016 was the third GT.
 
Yeah, I agree with you.

2016 was another matter.
2016 Tour is where I look at top 10 apart from the winner and wonder what the hell was going on.

Lot of what ifs that Tour, but while Valverde could probably do a liiitle better than he did without working for Quitnana I also doubt it would make a huge difference considering he lost 2 minutes on the stage to Finhaut Emisson and didn't really have real positive outliers.

Porte and Mollema were really the 2nd and 3rd best riders in that Tour, but Porte had the usual Porte luck and Mollema took a dose as well.
 
  • Like
Reactions: yaco
Babysitting Quintana in that Tour now?

What a world to live in.
That Tour is where i started to really hate Quintana, you can't imagine how i was mad seeing him slowing down and turning his head to search Quintana on Huy instead of riding for himself, was clear since the beginning that he was second fiddle. If you say that he didn't have to work for him ok, but he didn't have the freedom to ride his own race and he had to look after him.
 
Don't really see a big argument why Roglic isn't suited to Il Lombardia. Only argument against Roglic I think is he could be on his last legs and Emilia was the last hurrah, but with such a performance it's hard to see him be on his last legs.

As for Valverde, could we say this was a comparable performance to Milan Torino last year?
 
Don't really see a big argument why Roglic isn't suited to Il Lombardia. Only argument against Roglic I think is he could be on his last legs and Emilia was the last hurrah, but with such a performance it's hard to see him be on his last legs.

As for Valverde, could we say this was a comparable performance to Milan Torino last year?
Well, you watched Lombardia last year, he couldn't handle the distance. Although he's in better form this year, no doubt, I can't see him as an outright favorite because he never showed he's got what it takes for the longest and hardest races. This doesn't mean he won't win, of course, it just means it will be lot harder for him to do what he did at Emilia.

As for Valverde, yes it was a similar performance, but the difference this time is that he's eyeing and preparing for Lombardia, and last year he was celebrating his WC win and it was more to show the jersey.

Anyway we'll see, I think Bala will be good on Saturday, don't know about Roglic.
 

TRENDING THREADS