• 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 Peter Sagan discussion thread.

Page 226 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Except Sagan's rear wheel getting further away. Not bad for someone who "As great as Sagan has been, he can't climb, TT or sprint as well ". In those WC he showed they he could do all of those things. If his pursuit escape in 2015 Van Avermaet (who didn't seem to be attacking the whole race while saving himself) couldn't follow him on a hill, couldn't close the pursuit/TT to the finish even with help.
No one could do that at Flanders when he attacked similarly on the hill and digging deep to stay away from the entire field. Capped off by a stellar wheelie of joy. It's worth checking out how lean Sagan was, having changed his physique to suit efforts IMO.
Roubaix was an honest mano y mano ass kicking of the entire field.
Not sure what you guys want but Peter did this for himself during his time not to be second-guessed and compared to riders yet to win anything. Sorry if this sounds "why so serious?" but everyone that casually pimps their favorite rider as the Future Great by demeaning another's actual accomplishments is ignoring the point of the sport. It's hard, you have to endure and finish...then you need to get the result. Sagan's results, like Hinault's, Lemond's and many others are actual and in the books.
What on earth are you talking about? Sagan could not get over the big cols in any position to win atop a serious mountain, even from a break, in the races that matter. He was not competitive in a TT, let alone a high stakes one, nor could he win sprints mano a mano against pure sprinters. By contrast Wout has done all these things. I'm laughing.

Why you bring Hinault or Lemond into the equasion is baffling, becouse neither Wout nor Peter has that type of engine. It's outlandish, other than for comedic effect.
 
Last edited:
  • Haha
Reactions: Oldermanish
Sagan and van Aert are completely different riders.

Sagan has the more impressive palmares.
Van Aert has done the more incredible things.
Sagan has a lot of flair and a lot of die-hard fans, many of them coming into cycling only because of him.
Van Aert rarely rides like his talent allows him, he's often considered a rather passive rider.
Sagan is a clever rider.
Van Aert has often lacked tactical insight or a least not used it.
Sagan was a one-man show most of the time, bringing his team up pretty much by himself, not asking for many high-class domestiques, winning the WC three times without much help from teammates. He has had a lot of pressure, but also often undivided commitment to him by the teams he rode for.
Van Aert is on a team full of extremely good riders. He often does domestique's work, but he also gets support from his team, the pressure is usually not on him alone.
Sagan is a very skilled and versatile rider, but he has a clear profile which suits him best.
Van Aert has strengths that are so different that they seem to exclude each other, but he brings them to light in one and the same GT.
Sagan comes from a "small" cycling country, putting that country on the map in cycling.
Van Aert comes from one of THE cycling nations.

What exactly do you want to compare?
 
Sagan and van Aert are completely different riders.

Sagan has the more impressive palmares.
Van Aert has done the more incredible things.
Sagan has a lot of flair and a lot of die-hard fans, many of them coming into cycling only because of him.
Van Aert rarely rides like his talent allows him, he's often considered a rather passive rider.
Sagan is a clever rider.
Van Aert has often lacked tactical insight or a least not used it.
Sagan was a one-man show most of the time, bringing his team up pretty much by himself, not asking for many high-class domestiques, winning the WC three times without much help from teammates. He has had a lot of pressure, but also often undivided commitment to him by the teams he rode for.
Van Aert is on a team full of extremely good riders. He often does domestique's work, but he also gets support from his team, the pressure is usually not on him alone.
Sagan is a very skilled and versatile rider, but he has a clear profile which suits him best.
Van Aert has strengths that are so different that they seem to exclude each other, but he brings them to light in one and the same GT.
Sagan comes from a "small" cycling country, putting that country on the map in cycling.
Van Aert comes from one of THE cycling nations.

What exactly do you want to compare?
You are absolutely correct. They are different riders in different eras as well. One of them has won 3 WC and is winding his career down.
The other is talented and from a cycle-mad and critical fan base. His career, hopefully will be long enough to satisfy that fan base.
It's like comparing Mikaela Shiffrin to Benny Raich. Both exceptional and in different sports, essentially. Which is greater? BOTH.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jmdirt
How are we really comparing WVA to Sagan? I fail to see where WVA was the absolute number one contender and really delivered in the cobbled classics like Ronde or PR or we still can add the Worlds. Until he wins one of them, he is not even in the league of MVP and Sagan is more far away.
In this sense, however, Sagan came up short, did not meet his potential or expectations. You meen Boonen/Cancellara.
 
What exactly do you want to compare?

Both share ambitions and are very skilled at the cobbled classics, each has been a force at Strade Bianche, are MSR contenders too, while they have come to heads sprinting at the Tour. And each competes for the green jersey. Rare is it that riders confront each other in all of these genres, other than coming from different sports, which is patently absurd. It's not Alonso vs Valverde you know. So they actually compare more than at first appears, which is why the paragone has been made.

Plus Van Aert being the Belgian Pozzato inevitably brings Wout into a face to face confrontation with Peter. That they are from different generations makes no difference. Sagan and Kelly are from different generations too, but there is much to compare them about. Although, come to think of it, Sagan never would have been able to arrive in the sprint for victory at the 89 Worlds like Kelly did, but Van Aert yes. Compared to that Grenoble course, Richmond was a joke, which only Americans, in their typically daft, provincial and patriotic way, because it was on their home soul, have the audacity to consider "legendary." It's consequently Van Aert being just so much more versitile and incalcuably stronger than Sagan in the TTs and in the mountains, which thus makes him seem like from another planet. Indeed he is.
 
Last edited:
Except Sagan's rear wheel getting further away. Not bad for someone who "As great as Sagan has been, he can't climb, TT or sprint as well ". In those WC he showed they he could do all of those things. If his pursuit escape in 2015 Van Avermaet (who didn't seem to be attacking the whole race while saving himself) couldn't follow him on a hill, couldn't close the pursuit/TT to the finish even with help.
No one could do that at Flanders when he attacked similarly on the hill and digging deep to stay away from the entire field. Capped off by a stellar wheelie of joy. It's worth checking out how lean Sagan was, having changed his physique to suit efforts IMO.
Roubaix was an honest mano y mano ass kicking of the entire field.
Not sure what you guys want but Peter did this for himself during his time not to be second-guessed and compared to riders yet to win anything. Sorry if this sounds "why so serious?" but everyone that casually pimps their favorite rider as the Future Great by demeaning another's actual accomplishments is ignoring the point of the sport. It's hard, you have to endure and finish...then you need to get the result. Sagan's results, like Hinault's, Lemond's and many others are actual and in the books.
I think I wooshed everyone - Bergen was where the TV feed went down on the last lap.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sandisfan
Both share ambitions and are very skilled at the cobbled classics, each has been a force at Strade Bianche, are MSR contenders too, while they have come to heads sprinting at the Tour. And each competes for the green jersey. Rare is it that riders confront each other in all of these genres, other than coming from different sports, which is patently absurd. It's not Alonso vs Valverde you know. So they actually compare more than at first appears, which is why the paragone has been made.

Plus Van Aert being the Belgian Pozzato inevitably brings Wout into a face to face confrontation with Peter. That they are from different generations makes no difference. Sagan and Kelly are from different generations too, but there is much to compare them about. Although, come to think of it, Sagan never would have been able to arrive in the sprint for victory at the 89 Worlds like Kelly did, but Van Aert yes. Compared to that Grenoble course, Richmond was a joke, which only Americans, in their typically daft, provincial and patriotic way, because it was on their home soul, have the audacity to consider "legendary." It's consequently Van Aert being just so much more versitile and incalcuably stronger than Sagan in the TTs and in the mountains, which thus makes him seem like from another planet. Indeed he is.
So somehow Sagan falls into disfavor as a product of your disdain for Americans? It's interesting that your fantasy also includes room for prejudices other than those directed at Slovakians......

By the way...we Americans thankyou for your recognition of our Soul. Right on, Brutha!
 
Sagan closed down attacks twice in the finale of Bergen, only letting Gaviria and Cort get away. Yet he still had enough left in the tank to outsprint Kristoff. It was a masterful balancing act of taking responsibility by using precious resources to keep the win in play while holding back enough to still win himself.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaJGAboivHk
Thanks for this; the film doesn't lie!
 
  • Like
Reactions: jmdirt
So somehow Sagan falls into disfavor as a product of your disdain for Americans? It's interesting that your fantasy also includes room for prejudices other than those directed at Slovakians......

By the way...we Americans thankyou for your recognition of our Soul. Right on, Brutha!
Mission accomplished, hook, line and sinker. I harbor no disdain for Americans, I just know what buttons to push to get them all worked up, being an ex-Pat myself.;) For nothing offends Americans more than being told their world isn't the "greatest."

That you have read my commentary as somehow prejudiced against Slovakians only displays a puerile lack of discernment, so typical of those who mistake any contrary opinion for malicious intent. If it goes against my views on this person or that subject, then it must be hateful. Talk about fantasy... Of course, the inevitable response is to deride and insult the poster. The best response to this is to give the attacker even more to get irate about, letting them wallow in their own misguided stupidity.
 
Last edited:
  • Wow
Reactions: Sandisfan
what is all the 'he didn't live up to his potential'? Maybe he did. Maybe he exceeded his potential. What are you basing his 'potential' on?
If I'm the poster you are addressing, I honestly think it was his failure to win more cobbled classics, like Boonen, like Cancellara, because they were the immediate benchmarks, and MSR. But that's not a dig (!) as many are mistaking it. Since it actually comes from admiration over his talents and what, consquently, they augured for his career. So it's not an insult, but actually a compliment. And I also thought his win at Richmond was sensational, but I wasn't going to say that after all the flack.
 
Last edited:
Mission accomplished, hook, line and sinker. I harbor no disdain for Americans, I just know what buttons to push to get them all worked up, being an ex-Pat myself.;) For nothing offends Americans more than being told their world isn't the "greatest."

That you have read my commentary as somehow prejudiced against Slovakians only displays a peurile lack of discernment, so typical of those who mistake any contrary opinion for malicious intent. If it goes against my views on this person or that subject, then it must be hateful. Talk about fantasy... Of course, the inevitable response is to deride and insult the poster. The best response to this is to give the attacker even more to get irate about, letting them wallow in their own misguided stupidity.


Love the use of words and characterizations.

By the way....it's spelled puerile; word I learned to spell when I was a child. That would be me assuming you hadn't meant to characterize me as smelling bad in some language I admittedly don't know?
 
  • Wow
Reactions: Sandisfan
If I'm the poster you are addressing, I honestly think it was his failure to win more cobbled classics, like Boonen, like Cancellara, because they were the immediate benchmarks, and MSR. But that's not a dig (!) as many are mistaking it. Since it actually comes from admiration over his talents and what, consquently, they augured for his career. So it's not an insult, but actually a compliment. And I also thought his win at Richmond was sensational, but I wasn't going to say that after all the flack.
The trouble with the “should have won more”, particularly in regard to cobbled classics, is that you could say that about most classics riders. I’m pretty sure if you asked Cancellara and Boonen, they would both say they “should have won more” RVVs or PRs because they were times they were the strongest but didn’t, for various reasons, win.
 
What on earth are you talking about? Sagan could not get over the big cols in any position to win atop a serious mountain, even from a break, in the races that matter. He was not competitive in a TT, let alone a high stakes one, nor could he win sprints mano a mano against pure sprinters. By contrast Wout has done all these things. I'm laughing.
What is your definition of a pure sprinter?
 
  • Wow
Reactions: Sandisfan
The trouble with the “should have won more”, particularly in regard to cobbled classics, is that you could say that about most classics riders. I’m pretty sure if you asked Cancellara and Boonen, they would both say they “should have won more” RVVs or PRs because they were times they were the strongest but didn’t, for various reasons, win.
Every racer has those days when they knew they could have done better. Conversely you can win a race when you feel like sh*t and are lucky enough to have no mechanical issues and everyone else goes super stupid. Few racers would say they didn't deserve to win and, considering the training they all put in it's all good.
 
The trouble with the “should have won more”, particularly in regard to cobbled classics, is that you could say that about most classics riders. I’m pretty sure if you asked Cancellara and Boonen, they would both say they “should have won more” RVVs or PRs because they were times they were the strongest but didn’t, for various reasons, win.
Ah, but Boonen and Cancellara have nothing to regret. I mean, yea, one could always win more, but in the cobbled classics, along with the greats like De Vlaeminck and Merckx, they are royalty. I once imagined Sagan would have joined their ranks, as I think many did.
 
Last edited:
Love the use of words and characterizations.

By the way....it's spelled puerile; word I learned to spell when I was a child. That would be me assuming you hadn't meant to characterize me as smelling bad in some language I admittedly don't know?
Thanks for the spelling lesson, and it's spelling bad not smelling bad, if I have understood you correctly. It happens to the best of us, I know. I've got no idea, however, what you are on about with languages? At any rate, Sagan was great so you had nothing to pick a bone with me about in the first place.

PS. I've corrected the spelling mistake, go read it again.
 
Last edited:

TRENDING THREADS