Teams & Riders Mark Cavendish Discussion Thread

[Jspear]

Re: Re:

and suddenly after this past week the chance of being a 2x world champ becomes a huge reality.

Worth noting Kittel and Greipel both had peaks in may for the Giro, whereas Cav was not in form in the spring, so he should be fresher come September too

Have either Greipel or Kittel used the Giro as an excuse for their Tour performances?

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re: Re:

and suddenly after this past week the chance of being a 2x world champ becomes a huge reality.

Worth noting Kittel and Greipel both had peaks in may for the Giro, whereas Cav was not in form in the spring, so he should be fresher come September too

Have either Greipel or Kittel used the Giro as an excuse for their Tour performances?

Kittel using the Giro as an excuse would be the same as Cav and Kristoff using Qatar as an excuse not to perform at the Tour. Maybe if kittel spent longer than a week at the Giro, it would be valid
When Cav used the Giro as an excuse in 12 and 13, he'd ridden all 3 weeks, including the 3rd week where the real mountains lie.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Re:

One of the best sprinters of all time! Chapeau Cav!

One of? He's the greatest!

Maertens and Cipo will have something to say about that. Let's wait for Cav to finish his career before claiming he's better than those two

What does waiting change? It only allows Cavendish to add more wins, it won't deduct any from him. Cavendish's palmares as a sprinter are already better than either. You can certainly make a strong case for Maertens as a better cyclist, but not as a better sprinter. There is at this point no case for Cipo for anything except best wearer of leopard print skinsuits.

 

[Miburo]

Thing is though Cipo won MSR and WC.













Oh wait...

 

[spalco]

Re: Re:

What does waiting change? It only allows Cavendish to add more wins, it won't deduct any from him. Cavendish's palmares as a sprinter are already better than either. You can certainly make a strong case for Maertens as a better cyclist, but not as a better sprinter. There is at this point no case for Cipo for anything except best wearer of leopard print skinsuits.

Especially since the Tour de France in some years actively planned their route around making things difficult for Cavendish, and for Cipo it was the other way round in the Giro.

I'm not sure there ever was an argument for Cipollini, even before Cavendish arrived, but I may be biased since I really dislike the guy.

 

[SlickMongoose]

It would be nice if Cav would start riding the Vuelta or the first week of the Giro as well, that way he'd have a good chance of catching Cipo on GT stage wins.

I doubt Cav cares much about that, though.

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re: Re:

One of the best sprinters of all time! Chapeau Cav!

One of? He's the greatest!

Maertens and Cipo will have something to say about that. Let's wait for Cav to finish his career before claiming he's better than those two

What does waiting change? It only allows Cavendish to add more wins, it won't deduct any from him. Cavendish's palmares as a sprinter are already better than either. You can certainly make a strong case for Maertens as a cyclist, but not as a sprinter. There is at this point no case for Cipo.

If Cav gets rainbow for a second time, MSR for a second time, GW or when he goes past Merckx's tour tally, that's when it's beyond doubt that Cav > Cipo. But until then, it's debatable. One criticism of Cipo's wins is that he just beat up italian sprinters, and didn't compete often with the likes of mcewen, but a lot of his wins did come in fields where he had a lot of competitors from outside Italy.

Fwiw, I also think Cav is the GOAT given that in Cipo's position, Cav would have killed off Mcewen like he did with Goss, Farrar, Haedo etc. Even Greipel has a very modest palmares in the big races considering his immense talent, and that's purely because of Cav. Between 2008-2012, nobody was allowed to be succcessful as a pure sprinter.

 

[Red Rick]

Cav in form right on time to be lead GB in the worlds as well, I just realised, thought the race may be harder than Copenhagen due to heat (dunno if they have wind that time of year)

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re:

Cav in form right on time to be lead GB in the worlds as well, I just realised, thought the race may be harder than Copenhagen due to heat (dunno if they have wind that time of year)

Heat on a flat course isn't really too much of a problem because speeds are high. It's only when you have climbs slowing you down and making you work harder that heat becomes a real real problem

 

[del1962]

Just going to say it because I can

Cav as a road sprinter is #GOAT, no arguments can be made otherwise

 

[Mr.White]

Re: Re:

One of the best sprinters of all time! Chapeau Cav!

One of? He's the greatest!

Maertens and Cipo will have something to say about that. Let's wait for Cav to finish his career before claiming he's better than those two

What does waiting change? It only allows Cavendish to add more wins, it won't deduct any from him. Cavendish's palmares as a sprinter are already better than either. You can certainly make a strong case for Maertens as a better cyclist, but not as a better sprinter.There is at this point no case for Cipo for anything except best wearer of leopard print skinsuits.

Cav is far ahead in TDF stage wins, and that's it! In very other aspect Cipo is better or equal. He won more GT stages (57 to 47), he won more one-day big races (WC, MSR, 3x GW to WC and MSR), he won much more WT level races (around 100 to 60), he won more races overall (192 to 146). So.., don't really agree on that "already better sprinter" part.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Re:

One of the best sprinters of all time! Chapeau Cav!

One of? He's the greatest!

Maertens and Cipo will have something to say about that. Let's wait for Cav to finish his career before claiming he's better than those two

What does waiting change? It only allows Cavendish to add more wins, it won't deduct any from him. Cavendish's palmares as a sprinter are already better than either. You can certainly make a strong case for Maertens as a better cyclist, but not as a better sprinter.There is at this point no case for Cipo for anything except best wearer of leopard print skinsuits.

Cav is far ahead in TDF stage wins, and that's it! In very other aspect Cipo is better or equal. He won more GT stages (57 to 47), he won more one-day big races (WC, MSR, 3x GW to WC and MSR), he won much more WT level races (around 100 to 60), he won more races overall (192 to 146). So.., don't really agree on that "already better sprinter" part.

Cavendish beat the best of the best, over and over again, in every sprinters race, in every country, with the best lead out, with equal lead outs, with worse lead outs. Cipo did not. He won a billion Giro stages, with by far the best support, and with organisers designing the race for him. His reputation, at its core, rests on that Giro record which simply doesn't compare in significance to Cavendish's Tour record. He could have won another three editions of Gent-Wevelgem and it wouldn't close the gap.

 

[TMP402]

Petacchi is also ahead of Cavendish in GT stage wins... by 1. Cipo is ahead by 10 and Merckx by 17... If I was Cavendish I'd start the Vuelta!

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re: Re:

One of the best sprinters of all time! Chapeau Cav!

One of? He's the greatest!

Maertens and Cipo will have something to say about that. Let's wait for Cav to finish his career before claiming he's better than those two

What does waiting change? It only allows Cavendish to add more wins, it won't deduct any from him. Cavendish's palmares as a sprinter are already better than either. You can certainly make a strong case for Maertens as a better cyclist, but not as a better sprinter.There is at this point no case for Cipo for anything except best wearer of leopard print skinsuits.

Cav is far ahead in TDF stage wins, and that's it! In very other aspect Cipo is better or equal. He won more GT stages (57 to 47), he won more one-day big races (WC, MSR, 3x GW to WC and MSR), he won much more WT level races (around 100 to 60), he won more races overall (192 to 146). So.., don't really agree on that "already better sprinter" part.

Giro organisers literally designed courses to suit Cipo, so his 42 wins should be taken with a pinch of salt. Meanwhile, Tour organisers did the opposite with Cav as they didn't want someone to be so dominant in already boring flat stages. Cav's 47 stage wins are far more impressive than Cipo's 57. Cav has also won the points classification at all three grand tours.

It's all well and good comparing palmares at face value, but if we're talking about the greater sprinter, like I said in a previous post, it was impossible to survive as a pure sprinter during Cav's golden era. If you wanted to be successful as a sprinter, you needed to be able to climb decently well, because you sure as hell weren't beating Cav on a pan flat parcours.

Not to mention Cipo had a far better sprint train throughout his career, whereas Cav has done perfectly fine since leaving HTC

 

[kwikki]

Cavendish is, if anything, all the more impressive now, for the lack of a strong train. He's become reminiscent of Robbie McEwen, who I rate as one of the greats, even if his stage wins aren't the highest.

 

[Kwibus]

Really nice by Cav. Very happy for him.
I dont prefer him over Greipel or Kittel, but this is ofcourse great after his last few years. Also in 2012 and 2013 he finished the Giro unlike his german rivals. In regard to respecting races I really like Cavendish.

 

[Fernandez]

Seeing Cavendish surpasing Hinault at number of victories is something difficult to swallow.

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re:

Seeing Cavendish surpasing Hinault at number of victories is something difficult to swallow.

Well sprinters are the type of riders that end up winning the most races. The trade off is that these victories tend to be of lower prestige and less important

 

[jmdirt]

Re:

Seeing Cavendish surpasing Hinault at number of victories is something difficult to swallow.

As David Coverdale sings:
An' spit it out, spit it out, spit it out
If you don't like it
Spit it out, spit it out, spit it out
If you don't like it

 

[MacBAir]

Re:

Seeing Cavendish surpasing Hinault at number of victories is something difficult to swallow.

Why? Both are totally different riders from different eras. Aren't we past the time where the number of victories defines the worth of a rider?

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news/video-clips-of-all-29-mark-cavendish-tour-de-france-stage-wins/

Pick your top three in order.

 

[Jspear]

Re:

http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news/video-clips-of-all-29-mark-cavendish-tour-de-france-stage-wins/

Pick your top three in order.

3. 2009 stage 21 - super dominate, won by a big margin
2. 2012 stage 18 - lead out by the yellow jersey, caught the break right at the end, huge turn of speed
1. 2016 stage 1 - yellow jersey, beating Kittel something he hasn't managed to do

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re:

http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news/video-clips-of-all-29-mark-cavendish-tour-de-france-stage-wins/

Pick your top three in order.

1) 2016 Stage 1 - Finally got yellow, beat Kittel against the odds when most thought he was done
2) 2011 Stage 5 - Beating top form 2011 Gilbert on a slightly uphill finish after being in a relatively bad position was a great achievement
3) 2012 Stage 18 - Had to go from 500m out to catch the break and take the win

 

[TMP402]

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but the WCs this year finally got interesting now Cavendish looks as good as Kittel. Pressure on GB to make a good enough train for him since I don't trust train-surfing as a Plan A. Between Stannard, Rowe, Thomas, Dowsett, Cummings, and perhaps even Wiggins (I can never remember the qualification rules) there's a good combination of workers and strongmen able to create or exploit echelons. The proper leading-out could be done by Blythe, McLay, Fenn, Swift, and Doull. I don't know if Fenn even counts as a sprinter anymore, but he does seem to have a speciality in moving Viviani up the bunch at about 3km to go and positioning him on the right wheel by 2km to go, so he certainly could have a use. I don't know that Blythe or McLay are ideal lead-out men, even if the former is employed in that role now. On the few occasions Sky have a team built around Viviani, Swift is the last man and seems to do well. Doull is largely an unknown quantity but again, GB doesn't have many sprinters and he did well in the Tour of Britain last year.

 

[El Pistolero]

Re:

http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news/video-clips-of-all-29-mark-cavendish-tour-de-france-stage-wins/

Pick your top three in order.

? They're all the same.