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Cult Classics

Jul 19, 2011
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Andy99 said:
Exactly. And to think that as far as any UCI ranking is concerned, none of the podium gain any kind of points whatsoever from today.

Pi$$ up in a brewery springs to mind.
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There was a video interview with David Millar at the Tour of Beijing on this website. He'd just finished 2nd. To paraphrase:

Interviewer: And you'll get 80 points for finishing 2nd - that's the same as you'd get for Paris-Nice.

Millar: Oh. Yeah, great. Lots of points.... *smirks at camera*

Millar then said something about the Tienanmen Square massacre and rode off...




Edit: here is the video - you can hear his sarcasm all the way through it, hilarious! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN7vUtAse8I

"ZERO ambition" :D
 
Andy99

Andy99

Jul 30, 2009
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Dekker_Tifosi said:
Still Quebec the last 2 years were awesome races. Quebec and Montreal are one of the only successes of new races
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I'll not disagree there.

The rest are fighting way above their weights though.
 
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Kvinto

Oct 28, 2010
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Btw, Sven Vandousselaere rode great in the breakaway today, imo the strongest guy among early escapees. Topsport Vlaanderen do a great job in developing young riders (De Gendt, Vanmarcke, Vandewalle...) without hype...
 
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greenedge

Mar 27, 2011
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Hugo Koblet said:
But most of all I hope that Vanmarcke puts on a good show today.
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Good pick.

Overall congrats to Vanmarcke. To drop riders like Hayman/ Devenyns and get out of a bad tactical situation was great by showing initiative. He also dropped Thor/ Breschel who if not dropped could still have won the sprint. And the sprint was amazing to beat Boonen like that.

Nice work by Boonen, Flecha and Haussler who would have won if he was in the lead group/ a sprint i think based on the fact he was leader for Garmin/ Boonen beaten by a non sprinter.
 
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theyoungest

Jan 11, 2010
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Kvinto said:
Btw, Sven Vandousselaere rode great in the breakaway today, imo the strongest guy among early escapees. Topsport Vlaanderen do a great job in developing young riders (De Gendt, Vanmarcke, Vandewalle...) without hype...
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Last year they had a pretty poor season though. Only 1 (one!) win.

But it's definitely great for Belgian cycling to have a team like that, where young talents get to start in almost every classic.
 
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Cult Classics

Jul 19, 2011
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greenedge said:
Good pick.

Overall congrats to Vanmarcke. To drop riders like Hayman/ Devenyns and get out of a bad tactical situation was great by showing initiative. He also dropped Thor/ Breschel who if not dropped could still have won the sprint. And the sprint was amazing to beat Boonen like that.

Nice work by Boonen, Flecha and Haussler who would have won if he was in the lead group/ a sprint i think based on the fact he was leader for Garmin/ Boonen beaten by a non sprinter.
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Haussler? He was nowhere, I wouldn't really call it nice work. Searching his name on the cyclingnews live feed, he was mentioned at the start, announcing it was his birthday, and next mentioned when he came 4th. Brilliant. Winning a bunch sprint by the time the race is well over doesn't count for much in my book. And the top riders would agree, I think - if Gilbert is in such a situation he nearly always eases off in the final km and just rolls home. 4th might as well be 44th in such a scenario. It's like the time Haussler came 2nd in Flanders. Looks good on paper, but when you see he basically just nipped off the front of the bunch once Devolder was already home and dry, it's not so impressive anymore - I personally don't value that 2nd place as highly as I would Chavanel's at last year's Flanders, for example. 4th at the finish in a 4-man escape group is better than sitting in the bunch all day and coming 2nd a minute behind the winner.
 
El Pistolero

El Pistolero

Jul 16, 2010
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Cult Classics said:
Haussler? He was nowhere, I wouldn't really call it nice work. Searching his name on the cyclingnews live feed, he was mentioned at the start, announcing it was his birthday, and next mentioned when he came 4th. Brilliant. Winning a bunch sprint by the time the race is well over doesn't count for much in my book. And the top riders would agree, I think - if Gilbert is in such a situation he nearly always eases off in the final km and just rolls home. 4th might as well be 44th in such a scenario. It's like the time Haussler came 2nd in Flanders. Looks good on paper, but when you see he basically just nipped off the front of the bunch once Devolder was already home and dry, it's not so impressive anymore - I personally don't value that 2nd place as highly as I would Chavanel's at last year's Flanders, for example. 4th at the finish in a 4-man escape group is better than sitting in the bunch all day and coming 2nd a minute behind the winner.
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If you can get on the podium in the Ronde, you'll do your best to make it. Even Gilbert.
 
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Kvinto

Oct 28, 2010
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theyoungest said:
Last year they had a pretty poor season though. Only 1 (one!) win.

But it's definitely great for Belgian cycling to have a team like that, where young talents get to start in almost every classic.
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Yeah, it was a poor season for them. But they develop their domestic talents, so the result - 'a matured rider' is more important that dozens of wins in second (third) -tier races. For instance Boeckmans. He had terrible 2011 in TSV, now he left for Vacansoleil and is doing well so far. I think he's a good bet for tomorrow's top-5...
 
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theyoungest

Jan 11, 2010
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Kvinto said:
Yeah, it was a poor season for them. But they develop their domestic talents, so the result - 'a matured rider' is more important that dozens of wins in second (third) -tier races. For instance Boeckmans. He had terrible 2011 in TSV, now he left for Vacansoleil and is doing well so far. I think he's a good bet for tomorrow's top-5...
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Yeah, but a pro continental team with just one win, that's bad. I mean, Skil-Shimano has been sort of a development team for a long time as well, with Langeveld, Tjallingii, Martens moving on to Protour teams... but imagine if they got just one win in a season, we'd just say they sucked, regardless of their aims.
 
will10

will10

Dec 27, 2010
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Cult Classics said:
Haussler? He was nowhere, I wouldn't really call it nice work. Searching his name on the cyclingnews live feed, he was mentioned at the start, announcing it was his birthday, and next mentioned when he came 4th. Brilliant. Winning a bunch sprint by the time the race is well over doesn't count for much in my book. And the top riders would agree, I think - if Gilbert is in such a situation he nearly always eases off in the final km and just rolls home. 4th might as well be 44th in such a scenario. It's like the time Haussler came 2nd in Flanders. Looks good on paper, but when you see he basically just nipped off the front of the bunch once Devolder was already home and dry, it's not so impressive anymore - I personally don't value that 2nd place as highly as I would Chavanel's at last year's Flanders, for example. 4th at the finish in a 4-man escape group is better than sitting in the bunch all day and coming 2nd a minute behind the winner.
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Hmmm. What exactly were you expecting Haussler to do today once Vanmarcke was away in what looked like it might be the winning move? Perhaps chase it down? Or try to bridge solo?
 
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Kvinto

Oct 28, 2010
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theyoungest said:
Yeah, but a pro continental team with just one win, that's bad. I mean, Skil-Shimano has been sort of a development team for a long time as well, with Langeveld, Tjallingii, Martens moving on to Protour teams... but imagine if they got just one win in a season, we'd just say they sucked, regardless of their aims.
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True, but in the end this 'TSV sucks' turns into 'Belgian cycling doesn't suck'. They have a young team every year, it's not an excuse of course, but if they could keep their best riders, they would be in the pro tour now.
 
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Cult Classics

Jul 19, 2011
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El Pistolero said:
If you can get on the podium in the Ronde, you'll do your best to make it. Even Gilbert.
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That's fine, just don't expect me to call it a great ride. Though I guess you're right, 2nd in the Ronde is at least something, but 4th in the Omloop?

I keep my own scores on one day races. I give a rider 1pt if they get on the podium in the monuments or the worlds, but everything else is win only (or not even graded). 5pts for a monument win, 1-3pts for a win in other races depending on how important I think they are to the riders (e.g. Amstel is 3, Omloop is 2, Hamburg is 1). Quite interesting - the difference in points between guys like Boonen or Gilbert across their careers and riders like Flecha or Joaquin Rodriguez (often close but no cigar) is immense.
 
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Cult Classics

Jul 19, 2011
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will10 said:
Hmmm. What exactly were you expecting Haussler to do today once Vanmarcke was away in what looked like it might be the winning move? Perhaps chase it down? Or try to bridge solo?
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Nothing to stop him from getting in that break in the first place. Several other teams managed to get more than one rider in. I guess my point is I think he's very overrated as a classics rider... I think if he wasn't an Anglophone or in an English-speaking team he wouldn't get nearly this much fuss made over him.
 
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Gloin22

Apr 10, 2011
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What is with this Anglophone Bullsiht ? He isn't overrated, nobody in this forum hypes him to win sh*t, he's good but not overrated, and the only person that called him overrated is sir - yourself ;)
 
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Kvinto

Oct 28, 2010
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blaxland said:
Another epic fail for Greenedge,56th place for WT???Well done Sep,good to see the young guns showing up their hero's..
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Langeveld wasn't ready but they still tried to work for him. I wonder what happened to Cooke, he seemed to be in good shape. Tomorrow they'll ride for Kruopis, maybe it works out better...
 
roundabout

roundabout

Jun 7, 2010
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Cult Classics said:
Nothing to stop him from getting in that break in the first place. Several other teams managed to get more than one rider in. I guess my point is I think he's very overrated as a classics rider... I think if he wasn't an Anglophone or in an English-speaking team he wouldn't get nearly this much fuss made over him.
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My first taste of the Haussler hype came in German so I think of him as a German. :)
 
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Cult Classics

Jul 19, 2011
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roundabout said:
My first taste of the Haussler hype came in German so I think of him as a German. :)
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I used to hate listening to the German cycling commentators. From what I remember it was 95% getting mad about doping and wondering whether they should turn their microphones off right now and the rest of the time pronouncing Graeme Brown's name as "Gray-me" :D

Going back to Haussler, I think someone with as strong a finish as he has should have done better. I know he's been injured a fair bit but iirc he's only once been in contention at the finish line of a decent one day race, which was Milan-San Remo. You can't blame him for losing to Cavendish there (though it was a great effort by Haussler as I recall) but someone with that good a finish should be getting more results and the results suggest that he nearly always misses that decisive mood. Can't always explain that away by having team mates up the road.
 
will10

will10

Dec 27, 2010
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Cult Classics said:
Nothing to stop him from getting in that break in the first place. Several other teams managed to get more than one rider in. I guess my point is I think he's very overrated as a classics rider... I think if he wasn't an Anglophone or in an English-speaking team he wouldn't get nearly this much fuss made over him.
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Yeah, except for the fact that Boom crashed in front of him.

How someone who's finished 2nd in San Remo, Flanders and Het Volk can be overrated as a classics rider is beyond me.
 
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