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Teams & Riders Nairo Quintana discussion thread

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Re:

Forever The Best said:
Do you really believe Quintana attacks more than any GC rider over the last 20 years? :eek:

I don't know if that statement is exactly true, but I've yet to see a race where an in-form Quintana doesn't attack.
The "Quintana-the -wheelsucker" narrative has been one of the most baseless yet perpetuated stories in the history of this forum. Some of his vocal detractors here almost desperately try to paint him as a new Leipheimer, but in reality, if he has had the legs, he has usually attacked in the mountains and often more than once during the same race.
 
Re:

Simurgh said:
He has accepted to help Landa (and Valverde too I guess) the rest of the Tour - reached his ceiling (which was very high, perhaps even higher than Froome's) at a very young age, but hasn't looked like himself since 2015, bar the 2016 Vuelta, I guess. A sad sight to behold, but before declaring him as finished, I'd like to see how he performs in his next team (Arkea-Samsic?). After all, he did show some promise in the spring.

Does nothing the next day when in position to help
 
Re:

Escarabajo said:
I couldn't watch the stage but only the end. So Quintana was ahead with Landa and he didn't pull for Landa?
If that was the case then he is being very unprofessional. He cannot burn any bridges.


He was in the break along with Amador and Soler. After Landa attacked from the peloton Amador and Soler dropped back to pick Landa up and help him bridge to the break, which they did very well. Quintana was still in the break and did nothing at all to help Landa.
 
Re: Re:

No_Balls said:
Forever The Best said:
Do you really believe Quintana attacks more than any GC rider over the last 20 years? :eek:

Its like the more he fails the more overrated he gets.
I don't know how that makes him overrated or underrated. For me it's just a characteristic of the way he races. If anything, for a GC rider, it's often not smart racing. And even when it is, when guys say Wellens or Voeckler or Atapuma or whoever was very aggressive, they don't always mean that as a compliment.

And yeah, I do mean think he attacks more than any GC rider over the last 20 years. Obviously, in terms of who made more successful attacks, it's Froome and Contador over him, by some margin. But in terms who attacked more? Quintana over anyone since Pantani, IMHO.
hrotha said:
Oh, he attacked alright. For 50 m, looking over his shoulder and stopping almost immediately if anyone was on his wheel. It's not cognitive dissonance to dismiss that kind of thing when talking about actual offensive moves.
So when he can't get a gap, he "stops". As opposed to, what, exactly? Saving Poels from taking a longer spell on the front? Riding everyone off his wheel a la Indurain at La Plagne? When its in his interest to work with someone, like Aru or Nibali in the Giro or Contador in the Vuelta he does exactly that. When it's not, he doesn't. Maybe it would be more exiting for you if he helped your favorite rider out every once in a while by dragging him up some mountain. But that has nothing to do with how aggressive he is as a rider.
Midnightfright said:
Koronin said:
After saying yesterday he would help Landa and Valverde he didn't seem to be of any help for Landa today.
Yeah I think we have to be fair to him. He did look completely incapable of helping
Yeah, he got dropped like a minute later, if that. To be fair, maybe he could've given a little bit more had he been willing to crack completely afterwards. It's hard to tell, though.
 
Re: Re:

carton said:
hrotha said:
Oh, he attacked alright. For 50 m, looking over his shoulder and stopping almost immediately if anyone was on his wheel. It's not cognitive dissonance to dismiss that kind of thing when talking about actual offensive moves.
So when he can't get a gap, he "stops". As opposed to, what, exactly? Saving Poels from taking a longer spell on the front? Riding everyone off his wheel a la Indurain at La Plagne? When its in his interest to work with someone, like Aru or Nibali in the Giro or Contador in the Vuelta he does exactly that. When it's not, he doesn't. Maybe it would be more exiting for you if he helped your favorite rider out every once in a while by dragging him up some mountain. But that has nothing to do with how aggressive he is as a rider.
This is a blatant mischaracterization both of my post and of Quintana's behaviour. He didn't stop just if he couldn't get a gap, but if he couldn't drop absolutely everyone else, i.e. if he wasn't solo. And when I said he attacked for 50 m, that was entirely too generous on my part - usually he'd stop after like 5 seconds. That's not attacking, that's accelerating. Sometimes no one will try to follow you, but usually attacks need to be sustained for longer than a blink for them to have an effect. Quintana was never particularly willing to risk that, unless he knew he was the strongest in the race.
 
Re:

hrotha said:
Oh, he attacked alright. For 50 m, looking over his shoulder and stopping almost immediately if anyone was on his wheel. It's not cognitive dissonance to dismiss that kind of thing when talking about actual offensive moves.

To what extent those kind of "attacks" are the result of not having the legs and to what extect of his supposedly negative (passive) attitude? We don't really know, but that hasn't stopped his naysayers from attributing it fully to the latter reason and paint him as a reincarnation of Leipheimer. That was the point I was trying to make in my previous post, not justify or overplay the importance of every half-arsed attacking move he has ever made. Hence the specific reference to in-form Quintana.
 
Re: Re:

Looks like he have burned every kind of bridges in his team. Like a true douche he failed to communicate with his team yesterday and wasnt remotely intrested in riding an inch for Landa today:

”Asked about Quintana, all Landa would say was "it was a pity he couldn't help more than he did. A couple of kilometres of work for me would have been welcome."

He isnt very popular it seems for good reasons.
 
Re: Re:

hrotha said:
carton said:
hrotha said:
Oh, he attacked alright. For 50 m, looking over his shoulder and stopping almost immediately if anyone was on his wheel. It's not cognitive dissonance to dismiss that kind of thing when talking about actual offensive moves.
So when he can't get a gap, he "stops". As opposed to, what, exactly? Saving Poels from taking a longer spell on the front? Riding everyone off his wheel a la Indurain at La Plagne? When its in his interest to work with someone, like Aru or Nibali in the Giro or Contador in the Vuelta he does exactly that. When it's not, he doesn't. Maybe it would be more exiting for you if he helped your favorite rider out every once in a while by dragging him up some mountain. But that has nothing to do with how aggressive he is as a rider.
This is a blatant mischaracterization both of my post and of Quintana's behaviour. He didn't stop just if he couldn't get a gap, but if he couldn't drop absolutely everyone else, i.e. if he wasn't solo. And when I said he attacked for 50 m, that was entirely too generous on my part - usually he'd stop after like 5 seconds. That's not attacking, that's accelerating. Sometimes no one will try to follow you, but usually attacks need to be sustained for longer than a blink for them to have an effect. Quintana was never particularly willing to risk that, unless he knew he was the strongest in the race.
LOL. That's absurdist hyperbole and has no basis in anything even approaching reality. Any rider attacks, and when he can't get a gap, tries to get help, attacks again if and when he can. That's how bike racing goes. Quintana gets caught quickly more than others precisely because he is willing to attack even when he isn't the strongest.
 
Re: Re:

No_Balls said:
Looks like he have burned every kind of bridges in his team. Like a true douche he failed to communicate with his team yesterday and wasnt remotely intrested in riding an inch for Landa today:

”Asked about Quintana, all Landa would say was "it was a pity he couldn't help more than he did. A couple of kilometres of work for me would have been welcome."

He isnt very popular it seems for good reasons.
Auch. My reaction exactly. Why was he exactly pulling in the valley? Just sit on wheels, drop on the climb and help Landa for a few kilometres when Soler and Amador dropped.
 
I've said it before, NQ has very little 'red zone' attacking ability. He can ride a hard tempo all day long, but a few accelerations and his matches are burned. I think Lemond has also noted how NQ needs to spend perhaps a bit less time at altitude if he wants to win le Tour. He has very little punch and when he does accelerate, he can only handle so much and so many accelerations before he starts to shut down. Part of that is no doubt down to physiology, but part of it is training.
 
Ripper said:
I've said it before, NQ has very little 'red zone' attacking ability. He can ride a hard tempo all day long, but a few accelerations and his matches are burned. I think Lemond has also noted how NQ needs to spend perhaps a bit less time at altitude if he wants to win le Tour. He has very little punch and when he does accelerate, he can only handle so much and so many accelerations before he starts to shut down. Part of that is no doubt down to physiology, but part of it is training.

That's been my read on him for awhile now. He never seems willing to go deep for a win or to drop someone. Content to stay with the pack and I guess out last him.
 
Re: Re:

No_Balls said:
Looks like he have burned every kind of bridges in his team. Like a true douche he failed to communicate with his team yesterday and wasnt remotely intrested in riding an inch for Landa today:

”Asked about Quintana, all Landa would say was "it was a pity he couldn't help more than he did. A couple of kilometres of work for me would have been welcome."

He isnt very popular it seems for good reasons.


Tonight's dinner would have been an interesting one.
 
Re: Re:

Koronin said:
No_Balls said:
Looks like he have burned every kind of bridges in his team. Like a true douche he failed to communicate with his team yesterday and wasnt remotely intrested in riding an inch for Landa today:

”Asked about Quintana, all Landa would say was "it was a pity he couldn't help more than he did. A couple of kilometres of work for me would have been welcome."

He isnt very popular it seems for good reasons.


Tonight's dinner would have been an interesting one.

Slightly off topic but Quintana has looked the weakest of the trio. Alejandro really impressed me today