If Valverde rode Le Tour as a free soul...

[Hyman]

Could he match Sagans 2016 performance?

 

[Red Rick]

Win green? No
Win 3 stages, probably not. It's either high mountains or flat and little inbetween where Valverde can win dem sprints.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Not to take anything away from Valverde's wins here in Catalunya, but there's really a big difference in competition level and how motivated the riders are compared to the Tour. Maybe he could win 1 or 2 stages, but as RR points out, the stages also needs the right layout - they have to be too difficult for Sagan and yet, they shouldn't be too difficult aswell, since Valverde is also not too great on the big multi-marathon-mountain-stages in high altitude.

 

[DFA123]

Re:

Not to take anything away from Valverde's wins here in Catalunya, but there's really a big difference in competition level and how motivated the riders are compared to the Tour. Maybe he could win 1 or 2 stages, but as RR points out, the stages also needs the right layout - they have to be too difficult for Sagan and yet, they shouldn't be too difficult aswell, since Valverde is also not too great on the big multi-marathon-mountain-stages in high altitude.

I think Valverde could win multi-mountain stages pretty easily if he targetted them in the Tour. Same as Nibali has done in the past when out of GC contention. He can nearly stay with the very best while competing for the GC, even in the hardest stages. If he took it easier the day or so before and was fresher, he'd stay with the best and outsprint them in the last km.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Re: Re:

Not to take anything away from Valverde's wins here in Catalunya, but there's really a big difference in competition level and how motivated the riders are compared to the Tour. Maybe he could win 1 or 2 stages, but as RR points out, the stages also needs the right layout - they have to be too difficult for Sagan and yet, they shouldn't be too difficult aswell, since Valverde is also not too great on the big multi-marathon-mountain-stages in high altitude.

I think Valverde could win multi-mountain stages pretty easily if he targetted them in the Tour. Same as Nibali has done in the past when out of GC contention. He can nearly stay with the very best while competing for the GC, even in the hardest stages. If he took it easier the day or so before and was fresher, he'd stay with the best and outsprint them in the last km.

Granted he is not going for GC, then I agree. He could possibly also win the KOM jersey.

 

[Valv.Piti]

I don't see any really problematic stages for Valverde this Tour. Maybe Izoard late in the race. But overall its easy and he could find himself contend for stages in the Vosges, but especially the Jura and the Pyrenees which suit him well.

Quintana is riding Il Giro and Valverde is climbing like when he won on Courchevel in 2005 apparently. That makes for an intriguing situation where Movistar possibly is going to Tour de France without a clear cut leader which would free Valverde to ride his own chances. It all depends on so much tho, its impossible to predict, but if its hot weather and sunny and Froome suddenly gets sick...

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

I don't see any really problematic stages for Valverde this Tour. Maybe Izoard late in the race. But overall its easy and he could find himself contend for stages in the Vosges, but especially the Jura and the Pyrenees which suit him well.

Quintana is riding Il Giro and Valverde is climbing like when he won on Courchevel in 2005 apparently. That makes for an intriguing situation where Movistar possibly is going to Tour de France without a clear cut leader which would free Valverde to ride his own chances. It all depends on so much tho, its impossible to predict, but if its hot weather and sunny and Froome suddenly gets sick...

I agree. Looking at Valverde's shape right now it would be stupid if Movistar would only ride for Quintana. A double attempt is always risky so Quintanas shape could be below his average, Contador is also a bit of an unknown since he hasn't finished le tour in top shape since 2010, Nibali isn't riding, so Froome is the only one of the big four who is almost certain to be better than Valverde. And as you said, everything can happen to Froome as well. He could lose 10 minutes on a cross wind stage, crash out or just have a bad shape. This is cycling, you never know whats gonna happen.

Anyway he surely has a good chance to win the first Jura and the 2nd pyrenees stage if these stages won't go to a break (to be honest though, I think they are very likely to go to a break)

 

[hfer07]

1-) if he's riding the tour to get stages - then he has to lose 2 hours the very 1st week so he would ride freely to get in breakaways...
2-) If he's riding for the Polka dot jersey - same as above.
3-) If he's riding for the Green jersey- then he needs the same time lost plus a couple helpers to contest sprints. don't see that happening when the main goal of Movistar has, is and will be the overall GC.
4-) If he's riding for the overall GC - is only as a backup because Quintana either crashed, lost huge time on the flats due to a split, felt too tired after Il Giro, or he abandons due to illness...... don't see Movistar fully backing Valverde either despite his fantastic form.

 

[Pennino]

He just needs to ally - together with Quintana - with Contador. They just have to ride their asses off and then maybe nice things could happen for one of them. Otherwise the bots have an easy ride into Paris.

 

[StryderHells]

Do we really need this thread when we already have a 164 page thread dedicated to the poodle haired one? Surely this conversation has a home already made for it