• 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 Mark Cavendish Discussion Thread

Page 31 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
TechnicalDescent said:
A lot of people claim to have 'seen' things, I have my doubts. I trust Kelly's judgment over the hearsay of comrades here.

Sorry, you're right.

Mark Cavendish is the only star rider to have ever performed pretty much standard domestique duties when asked.

Here's some more hearsay for you:

boonen.jpg
 
May 13, 2012
262
0
0
Visit site
Libertine Seguros said:
Sorry, you're right.

Mark Cavendish is the only star rider to have ever performed pretty much standard domestique duties when asked.

Here's some more hearsay for you:

boonen.jpg

Nice straw man. Who said Cav was the only world champion to ever carry water bottles? Most would not, according to Kelly, and we have to fact in it's at the end of the Giro whilst he's holding the points jersey, on a terrible mountain stage, the day before an incredibly important sprint finish. Definitely unusual.
 
Twitter is not a way of communicating with people. Its publicity not human connection. We really should stop using it as evidence of how someone actually feels. Riding up to the stage winner and patting him on the back and riding on hold so much more value than a pre-mediated tweet hours later. Think about it.
 
Jan 14, 2011
504
0
0
Visit site
Please compare post race quotations

Cav after stage 18: " If I hadn't been knocked over by Roberto Ferrari at the end of stage three...." implying that was the real reason he got his @ss whopped.

Ivan Basso after loosing time today. ""Hesjedal has shown he is the strongest," Basso echoed. "When someone is the strongest, we only have to congratulate him."

Obvious who has class and who does not.
 
TechnicalDescent said:
Nice straw man. Who said Cav was the only world champion to ever carry water bottles? Most would not, according to Kelly, and we have to fact in it's at the end of the Giro whilst he's holding the points jersey, on a terrible mountain stage, the day before an incredibly important sprint finish. Definitely unusual.

I said I'd seen other World Champions do botillero duty, you said you wouldn't believe hearsay and preferred to believe Kelly.

So I proved it wasn't hearsay, and that Paolo Bettini did indeed suck up his pride and carry bottles for the team.

What Cavendish did was not out of the ordinary. More attention is drawn to it when a guy in a race jersey or the rainbow stripes does it, but everybody, big or small, is asked to do the menial tasks for their team at some point. Maybe you can be surprised that Sky asked him to do it WHEN they asked him to do it, but that he didn't isn't something extraordinary or praise-worthy in any way other than that he isn't enough of a prima donna to throw a hissy fit about being asked to do his job.
 
Dec 27, 2010
6,674
1
0
Visit site
TechnicalDescent said:
A lot of people claim to have 'seen' things, I have my doubts. I trust Kelly's judgment over the hearsay of comrades here.

Please do, I won't waste any more time trying to convince you.
 
Apr 12, 2010
646
0
0
Visit site
rickshaw said:
Cav after stage 18: " If I hadn't been knocked over by Roberto Ferrari at the end of stage three...." implying that was the real reason he got his @ss whopped.

As has been mentioned numerous times earlier today on this forum this quote refers to the extra points he would have gained toward the red jersey on stage 3 had he not been poleaxed. Therefore not being dependent on J-rod finishing 5th or lower tomorrow in order to win.
 
May 13, 2012
262
0
0
Visit site
Boardslide said:
As has been mentioned numerous times earlier today on this forum this quote refers to the extra points he would have gained toward the red jersey on stage 3 had he not been poleaxed. Therefore not being dependent on J-rod finishing 5th or lower tomorrow in order to win.

Plus Roberto Ferrari did not knock over Ivan Basso.
 
May 13, 2012
262
0
0
Visit site
Libertine Seguros said:
I said I'd seen other World Champions do botillero duty, you said you wouldn't believe hearsay and preferred to believe Kelly.

So I proved it wasn't hearsay, and that Paolo Bettini did indeed suck up his pride and carry bottles for the team.

What Cavendish did was not out of the ordinary. More attention is drawn to it when a guy in a race jersey or the rainbow stripes does it, but everybody, big or small, is asked to do the menial tasks for their team at some point. Maybe you can be surprised that Sky asked him to do it WHEN they asked him to do it, but that he didn't isn't something extraordinary or praise-worthy in any way other than that he isn't enough of a prima donna to throw a hissy fit about being asked to do his job.

I disagree. It's unusual to see the most protected rider of the team, who holds a jersey and has a big stage the next day, doing water carrying duties at the end of the Giro. Kelly remains correct. We should praise Cav for this.
 
will10 said:
So you decided to ignore my (and others') post and just rewrite what you'd already posted?

Again, it is not an unusual practice for sprinters to help out their respective GC guys on mountain stages. The fact that he has the points jersey is moot - see Petacchi last year doing masses of tempo riding in that very jersey for Scarponi. Your world champion point is also moot - he is far from the only world champion to ride in aid of others wearing that jersey.

Fetching bottles every now and then does not excuse his arrogant attitude the rest of the time.

Agreed. Fetching bottles is not a selfless act. It means you get to ride slow/tempo on the stage. Luxury!
 
May 13, 2012
262
0
0
Visit site
Libertine Seguros said:
Er... you do realise that doing so in Lombardia would mean that THE DEFENDING CHAMPION is wearing the rainbow stripes and carrying the bottles for his team in a ?

So not "the day before a targeted stage" but "in the middle of a targeted one-day race"?

UCI world tour teams have to ride the monuments. Given he was obliged to do it, and clearly not going for the win, shows you how different a situation it is.

I don't know why we can't just come together and praise Cav for staying on in the Giro when all the non-Italian sprinters have gone home, and for getting his hands dirty. He's a great example to others.
 
TechnicalDescent said:
UCI world tour teams have to ride the monuments. Given he was obliged to do it, and clearly not going for the win, shows you how different a situation it is.

I don't know why we can't just come together and praise Cav for staying on in the Giro when all the non-Italian sprinters have gone home, and for getting his hands dirty. He's a great example to others.

So many things that he does that are a great example of how not to behave. It's like one of those really naughty kids at school, that when they actually do what they're told for fifteen minutes expect to be lavished with praise and gold stars.

Bettini didn't have to ride Lombardia. But he was the World Champion and the defending winner.

It's great that he's stayed on, but then Tyler Farrar stayed on in 2010 until missing the time cut meant he was docked 25 points, and he realised he couldn't keep the jersey. If he could have kept the jersey he'd have stayed in the race. Cavendish can keep the jersey, so he's stayed in the race. It's disrespectful to the race to retire when wearing it for one thing.

It's good that he's stayed on, and it's good that he doesn't consider himself above doing the occasional bit of domestique work when asked. But it isn't something special or worthy of particular praise other than to say "look, he's not all bad".

Something like the way he won into Aubenas in 2009 or the way he's acted for Jonny Bellis in the last couple of years? THAT's doing something praiseworthy. Not quitting a race and collecting a bottle or two is hardly on the same scale.
 
Aug 16, 2011
160
0
0
Visit site
thehog said:
Twitter is not a way of communicating with people. Its publicity not human connection. We really should stop using it as evidence of how someone actually feels. Riding up to the stage winner and patting him on the back and riding on hold so much more value than a pre-mediated tweet hours later. Think about it.

+1 For the first time ever, I agree with the Hog. And the pre meditated tweet was probably drafted by his PR Image guru
 
Oct 30, 2011
2,639
0
0
Visit site
TechnicalDescent said:
UCI world tour teams have to ride the monuments. Given he was obliged to do it, and clearly not going for the win, shows you how different a situation it is.

I don't know why we can't just come together and praise Cav for staying on in the Giro when all the non-Italian sprinters have gone home, and for getting his hands dirty. He's a great example to others.

UCI WorldTour teams also have squads of up to 30 riders, so didn't have to send Bettini.

Haha, getting a collective message from the CN forum would be like trying to herd goats. Cavendish is not an example of how people should behave. He has flaws - clearly he has a short fuse. A lot of his behaviour is sort of "on-the-line". It is possible to view it in different ways depending on what you think of him. For example, there can often be a fine line between rudeness and frank honesty.

He is, really, just a great sprinter, and that's more or less it.
 
Apr 12, 2010
646
0
0
Visit site
Normandy said:
+1 For the first time ever, I agree with the Hog. And the pre meditated tweet was probably drafted by his PR Image guru

Do you lot never think that the riders speak to each other whilst waiting in the area where they clean up after the race before going on the podium. This would be where he would congratulate him before the press conference where he praised him to the press. The tweet was just a way of explaining what had happened to his fans or twitter followers instead of having to wait for the press to publish. His tweets are his & not a PR excerise as this one is similar to those he sent to Goss & Renshaw in Turkey. Also he never tweets straight after a race as he has the podium & press conference to do before traveling to their hotel, then massage & meal.
 
rickshaw said:
Cav after stage 18: " If I hadn't been knocked over by Roberto Ferrari at the end of stage three...." implying that was the real reason he got his @ss whopped.

Ivan Basso after loosing time today. ""Hesjedal has shown he is the strongest," Basso echoed. "When someone is the strongest, we only have to congratulate him."

Obvious who has class and who does not.

In his defense and since you only quoted a snippet of the entire statement that was made, that was in reference to his hold on the points jersey and how if not for that crash he believes he'd have a more commanding lead in the points competition. That wasn't in reference to the crash effecting his performances in the stages that followed.
 

TRENDING THREADS