Teams & Riders Nairo Quintana discussion thread

[Red Rick]

My question is whether Nairo will ride the Vuelta in support of Valverde as Alejandro did (quite selflessly) last year.

I'm not sure what that would help. Valverde should get great support anyway, and Quintana in his third GT of the year would probably not be that great compared to a good Marc Soler or someone like that. Don't think it's worth the strain on Quintana.

 

[sir fly]

My question is whether Nairo will ride the Vuelta in support of Valverde as Alejandro did (quite selflessly) last year.

I'm not sure what that would help. Valverde should get great support anyway, and Quintana in his third GT of the year would probably not be that great compared to a good Marc Soler or someone like that. Don't think it's worth the strain on Quintana.

No way Quintana can hold at the top in Vuelta.
But if he wins the Tour, he should show up in Vuelta.
To greet the fans if nothing more.

 

[Jspear]

My question is whether Nairo will ride the Vuelta in support of Valverde as Alejandro did (quite selflessly) last year.

I think there was a small part of him that wanted to see if he could top 10 in the vuelta.

 

[portugal11]

My question is whether Nairo will ride the Vuelta in support of Valverde as Alejandro did (quite selflessly) last year.

I think there was a small part of him that wanted to see if he could top 10 in the vuelta.

He is more than able to do that even with 2 gt's in his legs... it is very easy to make top10 in la vuelta.
Froome collapsed in the third week of vuelta 2012 and still was able to finish inside the top5

 

[Jspear]

My question is whether Nairo will ride the Vuelta in support of Valverde as Alejandro did (quite selflessly) last year.

I think there was a small part of him that wanted to see if he could top 10 in the vuelta.

He is more than able to do that even with 2 gt's in his legs... it is very easy to make top10 in la vuelta.
Froome collapsed in the third week of vuelta 2012 and still was able to finish inside the top5

I think you're underestimating the Vuelta.

 

[Escarabajo]

No matter what the outcome is at the Tour, I don't think Quintana rides the Vuelta.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Re:

No matter what the outcome is at the Tour, I don't think Quintana rides the Vuelta.

The exception being if Quintana doesn't ride the Tour.

 

[Poursuivant]

So with the 2018 TDF starting a week later than usual in 2018 because of the World Cup, could next year be a good time to try the double?

 

[Iker_Baqueiro]

Re:

Quintana isn't overrated. He just isn't the mythical climber like was contador or pantani in their best years and some fans (nairo's fanboys) like to put him in the same league of pantani and contador and he isn't even close to their climbing ability. That's the true.

+1000

And he couldn't even beat a guy who stopped for a ***!!

 

[dacooley]

Re:

Quintana isn't overrated. He just isn't the mythical climber like was contador or pantani in their best years and some fans (nairo's fanboys) like to put him in the same league of pantani and contador and he isn't even close to their climbing ability. That's the true.

that's quite harsh. pantani and contador didn't always manage to meet fans' expectations either. no need to conflate mythical and orginary with likeable and unlikable.

 

[sir fly]

Re: Re:

Quintana isn't overrated. He just isn't the mythical climber like was contador or pantani in their best years and some fans (nairo's fanboys) like to put him in the same league of pantani and contador and he isn't even close to their climbing ability. That's the true.

that's quite harsh. pantani and contador didn't always manage to meet fans' expectations either. no need to conflate mythical and orginary with likeable and unlikable.

Pantani was in the league of his own like Contador never was.
Quintana still has enough time to reach their levels. Pantani's little harder, off course.
And don't forget Froome's role and try to imagine Pantani in this era. These are all the elements influencing an assessment.

 

[hrotha]

Quintana will only reach Pantani's level if he changes the way he races completely and unexpectedly. After all, it's not Pantani's palmares that makes him a legend - plenty of riders have him beat on that front.

 

[bob.a.feet]

There's no doubt that Quintanta is a great climber but people exaggerate his climbing because that's all he has. In reality Froome climbs just as well for the most part but you can't really create hype for races by saying they both climb as good but Froome has a better TT.

 

[Blanco]

Re: Re:

Quintana isn't overrated. He just isn't the mythical climber like was contador or pantani in their best years and some fans (nairo's fanboys) like to put him in the same league of pantani and contador and he isn't even close to their climbing ability. That's the true.

that's quite harsh. pantani and contador didn't always manage to meet fans' expectations either. no need to conflate mythical and orginary with likeable and unlikable.

Pantani was in the league of his own like Contador never was.
Quintana still has enough time to reach their levels. Pantani's little harder, off course.
And don't forget Froome's role and try to imagine Pantani in this era. These are all the elements influencing an assessment.

Well Contador 2008-2011 was certainly in a league of his own in terms of climbing, I would say very close to Pantani. He just didn't need to go all-out back then, like Pantani did, because he was always in control and wasn't losing time anywhere, unlike Pantani. We saw his kamikaze attacks later in his career, when he was relatively weaker climber then in his prime. But they nonetheless were stuff of legends.

 

[Rollthedice]

Something extraordinary needs to happen for Quintana to win a GT, confusion over a red flag, Contador attacking from the start of a stage while Froome is caught with his pants off though Dumoulin literally taking his pants off didn't help or ASO going completely mad and taking out all TT from a GT. He is a great climber but he can't put minutes on every MTF in a field that is very strong lately. It's simple really, as for Pantani, different times, different substances.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

Something extraordinary needs to happen for Quintana to win a GT, confusion over a red flag, Contador attacking from the start of a stage while Froome is caught with his pants off though Dumoulin literally taking his pants off didn't help or ASO going completely mad and taking out all TT from a GT. He is a great climber but he can't put minutes on every MTF in a field that is very strong lately. It's simple really, as for Pantani, different times, different substances.

When you are AS consistent as Quintana you are bound to win GT's because you ride 2 GTs each year at a podium-level. Altho they are very different rider, its very comparable to Nibali who you also can argue has won 3 of his 4 GTs under extraordinary circumstances.

 

[tristecsinamigos]

Without the red flag incident, Nairo still would've won that Giro by ≈ 2 minutes.

Formigal stage was a normal stage, there wasn't any "incident". Froome was weak for a moment and Quintana/Contador took their chances.

And Nairo is not such a bad TTist.

 

[deValtos]

Formigal stage was a normal stage, there wasn't any "incident". Froome was weak for a moment and Quintana/Contador took their chances.

I think Froome is actually more inconsistent than people realize but usually when he's bad in the TDF it's covered up by his team so it's hard to notice. That rarely happens to Nairo, his level seems to maintain well throughout a GT and this works in his favour when you have 4 hard mountain stages in a row for example.

The issue is when Froome has a good day he and his team absolutely exploit it to the fullest and even though Nairo is more consistent I don't think he can keep up with a good day Froome.

Froome probably benefits more from a strong team more than any other rider because of this.

 

[Katabatic]

Nairo is not a 'bad' TT compared to the average peloton rider.

He has a 'bad' TT compared to the average GC contender. Froome, Porte, Contador, Nibali, Dumoulin all have better TTs, with Froome and Dumoulin having MUCH better TTs.

He's not overrated insofar as the fact that he's always good in the mountains. He's consistently a top 5 climber on just about every climb, which is extremely valuable in GC terms. But it's also true that his absolute top level has rarely been good enough to simply obliterate the rest of the field in a way that Pantani, Contador, or Froome have done at their very peak.

 

[portugal11]

Re:

Nairo is not a 'bad' TT compared to the average peloton rider.

He has a 'bad' TT compared to the average GC contender. Froome, Porte, Contador, Nibali, Dumoulin all have better TTs, with Froome and Dumoulin having MUCH better TTs.

He's not overrated insofar as the fact that he's always good in the mountains. He's consistently a top 5 climber on just about every climb, which is extremely valuable in GC terms. But it's also true that his absolute top level has rarely been good enough to simply obliterate the rest of the field in a way that Pantani, Contador, or Froome have done at their very peak.

"The average peloton rider" doesn't go full gas in time trials, except prologues. They (domestiques) conserve energy to help their leaders in the following stages. Quintana is a bad time trialist but he can't do more because he has 55 kilos... he should be a better climber to win tours because his 55 kilos help him uphill compared to heavier gt riders like froome, dumoulin, or even contador, valverde, nibali.

 

[tristecsinamigos]

Re:

He has a 'bad' TT compared to the average GC contender. Froome, Porte, Contador, Nibali, Dumoulin all have better TTs, with Froome and Dumoulin having MUCH better TTs.

out of these riders only Froome and now Dumoulin have rivalized with Nairo. He has always been a step or two above the others, in the GTs he has rode.

 

[sir fly]

Re: Re:

Quintana isn't overrated. He just isn't the mythical climber like was contador or pantani in their best years and some fans (nairo's fanboys) like to put him in the same league of pantani and contador and he isn't even close to their climbing ability. That's the true.

that's quite harsh. pantani and contador didn't always manage to meet fans' expectations either. no need to conflate mythical and orginary with likeable and unlikable.

Pantani was in the league of his own like Contador never was.
Quintana still has enough time to reach their levels. Pantani's little harder, off course.
And don't forget Froome's role and try to imagine Pantani in this era. These are all the elements influencing an assessment.

Well Contador 2008-2011 was certainly in a league of his own in terms of climbing, I would say very close to Pantani. He just didn't need to go all-out back then, like Pantani did, because he was always in control and wasn't losing time anywhere, unlike Pantani. We saw his kamikaze attacks later in his career, when he was relatively weaker climber then in his prime. But they nonetheless were stuff of legends.

Yes, you're right.
Contador had some Pantani-like performances, but never turned the Tour upside down from far out, and it's not like he didn't need or try to. His form level certainly wasn't like it's been while he was winning from the front running positions, but even from the front he didn't dominate the mountains like Pantani did. There were always riders able to, at least, limit the damage Contador was making.

When a pure climber (57 kilos) wins a Tour with 115 kilometres of time trials, that's an own class.

 

[portugal11]

Re: Re:

Quintana isn't overrated. He just isn't the mythical climber like was contador or pantani in their best years and some fans (nairo's fanboys) like to put him in the same league of pantani and contador and he isn't even close to their climbing ability. That's the true.

that's quite harsh. pantani and contador didn't always manage to meet fans' expectations either. no need to conflate mythical and orginary with likeable and unlikable.

Pantani was in the league of his own like Contador never was.
Quintana still has enough time to reach their levels. Pantani's little harder, off course.
And don't forget Froome's role and try to imagine Pantani in this era. These are all the elements influencing an assessment.

Well Contador 2008-2011 was certainly in a league of his own in terms of climbing, I would say very close to Pantani. He just didn't need to go all-out back then, like Pantani did, because he was always in control and wasn't losing time anywhere, unlike Pantani. We saw his kamikaze attacks later in his career, when he was relatively weaker climber then in his prime. But they nonetheless were stuff of legends.

Yes, you're right.
Contador had some Pantani-like performances, but never turned the Tour upside down from far out, and it's not like he didn't need or try to. His form level certainly wasn't like it's been while he was winning from the front running positions, but even from the front he didn't dominate the mountains like Pantani did. There were always riders able to, at least, limit the damage Contador was making.

When a pure climber (57 kilos) wins a Tour with 115 kilometres of time trials, that's an own class.

Against "the betancur of the nineties"

 

[dacooley]

Re: Re:

Quintana isn't overrated. He just isn't the mythical climber like was contador or pantani in their best years and some fans (nairo's fanboys) like to put him in the same league of pantani and contador and he isn't even close to their climbing ability. That's the true.

that's quite harsh. pantani and contador didn't always manage to meet fans' expectations either. no need to conflate mythical and orginary with likeable and unlikable.

Pantani was in the league of his own like Contador never was.
Quintana still has enough time to reach their levels. Pantani's little harder, off course.
And don't forget Froome's role and try to imagine Pantani in this era. These are all the elements influencing an assessment.

Pantani's les deux alpes 1998 stage was really stratosphetic, still it's not a reason for me to draw the line between god of climbing Pantani, semi-God Contador and just a very good climber Quintana. The real issue is we are living in the hype era and a significant part of most emotionally invested fans are bound in honor to tell 'hey, a favorite will easily destroy the entire field in the mountains' before any big event. notwithstanding, if it doesn't happen, they are instantly willing to blast him by calling massively overrated, that's what I strongly disagree with. yes, Quintana couldn't win the Giro, but there was nothing shameful in losing the race to the brilliantly gifted all-rounder from Netherlands. Pantani and Contador wouldn't necessarily have beaten Dimoulin too,though, we are prone to not questioning this kind of things. it's wrong and unfair to riders like Quintana imo

 

[portugal11]

Re: Re:

Quintana isn't overrated. He just isn't the mythical climber like was contador or pantani in their best years and some fans (nairo's fanboys) like to put him in the same league of pantani and contador and he isn't even close to their climbing ability. That's the true.

that's quite harsh. pantani and contador didn't always manage to meet fans' expectations either. no need to conflate mythical and orginary with likeable and unlikable.

Pantani was in the league of his own like Contador never was.
Quintana still has enough time to reach their levels. Pantani's little harder, off course.
And don't forget Froome's role and try to imagine Pantani in this era. These are all the elements influencing an assessment.

Pantani's les deux alpes 1998 stage was really stratosphetic, still it's not a reason for me to draw the line between god of climbing Pantani, semi-God Contador and just a very good climber Quintana. The real issue is we are living in the hype era and a significant part of most emotionally invested fans are bound in honor to tell 'hey, a favorite will easily destroy the entire field in the mountains' before any big event. notwithstanding, if it doesn't happen, they are instantly willing to blast him by calling massively overrated, that's what I strongly disagree with. yes, Quintana couldn't win the Giro, but there was nothing shameful in losing the race to the brilliantly gifted all-rounder from Netherlands. Pantani and Contador wouldn't necessarily have beaten Dimoulin too,though, we are prone to not questioning this kind of things. it's wrong and unfair to riders like Quintana imo

A pre ban contador would have smashed this giro. He would lose 2 minutes in the time trials (worst case scenario).