Lack of leaders in GTs?

[johnnycash]

Is it just me or do most of the big teams this year lack a clear, gifted leader who can attack at will?

Sky has a leader who, at best, is fractionally better than his lieutenant. Like 1% better.

BMC have a leader who is visibly past his best.

RSNT have so many pseudo leaders that no-one seems to want to the job.

Liquigas rode for Basso in the Giro, and he had nothing.

Menchov, well.

Is the lack of obvious leaders a sign of the times, always been like this, or a matter for the clinic?

 

[Angliru]

Is it just me or do most of the big teams this year lack a clear, gifted leader who can attack at will?

I'm not sure what leadership qualities or being a gc leader of a team has to do with the ability to attack at will. Many riders that are gc contenders follow wheels, hope for the best and rest their chances for overall success on their tt performance. Rarely if ever do they attack. Evans won last year's Tour with this gameplan and Wiggins appears on his way to the same result with a very similar strategy.

 

[ingsve]

It's not the 90s anymore...

 

[Clemson Cycling]

We are seeing the results of cleaning the sport up. The same thing has happened in baseball over the past few years and it has really brought the sport back to earth.

Cadel did attack a bit last year and won a stage that was not a ITT and beat a much better field.

 

[Apollonius]

This year is unique - we have the Olympics factoring in and a few big name riders not taking part for various reasons and a few big name riders well out of form.
People are reading far too much in to this year without considering the above.

 

[SafeBet]

I fail to see which big name underperformed in the two GTs ridden so far because of the Olympics.

This year is unique because Conti is banned and Schleck is injured. Most of the other legit GT leaders were there and allegedly peaking at the right time. Many crashed. That's pretty much it.

 

[orangerider]

Doesn't seem all that bad to me. Of all of them in the tour now, only Menchov has been a massive failure that can't be blamed on accidents, illness, too many race miles already ridden, or bad luck - just miserable performance.

 

[JibberJim]

I fail to see which big name underperformed in the two GTs ridden so far because of the Olympics.

Cavendish... You may argue he's not a GC rider yet though...

But the real problem with your question is the assumption that GC Leader = Attacker, when it's just an approach. The problem this year is that the Sky team is dominant and has all TT'ers in its line up (and Froome who we don't really know how good an attacker he is, all we know is he's better than Wiggins but that wouldn't be hard)

 

[Swabian Lass]

Cavendish... You may argue he's not a GC rider yet though...

Cavendish is never going to be a GC rider. But I do think he's using this year to ride into form for the Olympics and it's made the Green Jersey contest much more interesting.

No Contador, the Schlecks injured/not in form/sulking/got headaches/can't be bothered (whichever it is today), and a parcours that suits time triallers. I don't think that we were ever going to see huge numbers of attacks this year. I have hopes we might see some action before the end, though.

 

[the asian]

This is a bit of a transition period. The older guys Evans, Menchov, Basso, Samu, Kloden, Leipheimer, Scarponi, are towards the end of their careers and perhaps with exception of Samu, the others are past their best.
The younger guys like Pinot, Quintana, Rolland, TJVG, Krujiswijk, need some more time to develop in to Grand Tour contenders.
Out of the middle aged guys only Alberto, Andy and to a certain extent Nibali, are top tier GC contenders. The guys like Gesnik, VDB, Anton, Kreuziger, have failed to live up to expectations, some times due to injury. This age group has a dearth of quality GC contenders, and it may be partly due to the dominance of Alberto.
This year was supposed to be the breakthrough year for them, but crashes have robbed us the chance to see whether they are really up for it.

 

[the asian]

Is it just me or do most of the big teams this year lack a clear, gifted leader who can attack at will?

Sky has a leader who, at best, is fractionally better than his lieutenant. Like 1% better.

BMC have a leader who is visibly past his best.

RSNT have so many pseudo leaders that no-one seems to want to the job.

Liquigas rode for Basso in the Giro, and he had nothing.

Menchov, well.

Is the lack of obvious leaders a sign of the times, always been like this, or a matter for the clinic?

Clinic discussions certainly come in to play on the inability to attack at will.

 

[greenedge]

Many riders that are gc contenders follow wheels, hope for the best and rest their chances for overall success on their tt performance. Rarely if ever do they attack. Evans won last year's Tour with this gameplan and Wiggins appears on his way to the same result with a very similar strategy.

Last years TDF was at least way more exciting than this years.

 

[ManInFull]

Is it just me or do most of the big teams this year lack a clear, gifted leader who can attack at will?

Sky has a leader who, at best, is fractionally better than his lieutenant. Like 1% better.

BMC have a leader who is visibly past his best.

RSNT have so many pseudo leaders that no-one seems to want to the job.

Liquigas rode for Basso in the Giro, and he had nothing.

Menchov, well.

Is the lack of obvious leaders a sign of the times, always been like this, or a matter for the clinic?

Wiggins has proven that he's the strongest rider in the Tour. Maybe Froome could take some time from him in the mountains--if they were not on the same team. But, since they are on the same time, Wiggins can simply sit on wheels and wait until Saturday.

The other GC contenders simply aren't strong enough to attack, build, and then sustain a meaningful gap. We've seen Evan's attacks--he opens a 20 second gap that Team Sky leisurely closes.

And, of course, the parcours aren't helping anyone attack--mountain stages with long, flat sections before the finish make an uphill attack futile.

 

[Angliru]

Last years TDF was at least way more exciting than this years.

I agree completely. The only excitement (for me) has been Sagan, Pinot's win and performance, and LLS's stage win. Sky has controlled and strangled virtually all the excitement out of this year's Tour with major help from the parcours. Of course, as has been often mentioned, the absence of Contador, Andy Schleck, an on form Frank Schleck, Samu's less than ideal prep and early departure, and Menchov showing he's at the end of the road, has left the door wide open for Sky/Wiggins to glide into Paris in yellow.

Edit: Of course Vincenzo Nibali should have been included on my list on who and what brought excitement to this year's Tour. He's done his best to animate and disrupt the Sky procession. JVdB has put in his efforts too so he deserves a mention and Evans' "suicide" long distance attack was ambitious if not more damaging to him than to Wiggins/Sky but at least he tried.

 

[Caruut]

I do think there are too many top talents on too few teams. If the GC contenders were spread out a bit more, there would be more guys who had a chance of winning, and so more riders prepared to take a chance and attack.

The idea that racing with few attacks is a clean-riding thing is a myth - compare the 80s to the 90s. The 80s was cleaner and more attacking.

 

[Angliru]

I do think there are too many top talents on too few teams. If the GC contenders were spread out a bit more, there would be more guys who had a chance of winning, and so more riders prepared to take a chance and attack.

The idea that racing with few attacks is a clean-riding thing is a myth - compare the 80s to the 90s. The 80s was cleaner and more attacking.

Another problem is that many of the contenders aren't willing to take the risk of blowing up should their attack fail and they're reeled in. They are content to maintain what they have and hope that whoever is ahead of them in the standings will make a major tactical error or be involved in some incident that causes them to lose time .