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Peter Sagan: Tour contender?

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Mar 31, 2010
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willbick said:
quick question.how the hell does sagan climb so well? im not trying to insinuate anything but he must be the best sprinter/climber ever?! it seems the only thing he cant do is massive mountains and he's not too awful at those! i guess yr just gonna say 'talent' but it does seem incredible how a guy can beat cav and greipel in a sprint one day and then climb with the best on another

how about jalabert and kelly

and sagan is a rare talent born maybe once every 20 or 30 years.
 
May 28, 2012
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Red Rick said:
Does anyone remember Chieti last year, the guy is an anaerobic monster

That was the first time I really considered him the real deal for the classics. Tough finale, where even Gilbert couldn't follow in 2011, and a distance close to 250kms. He was dominating there, just playing around with all top riders of that Tirreno.

Honestly I wouldn't mind if he didn't try to win a GT though, he needs to leave those to the real climbers.
 
Sagan will never contend a GT. He doesn't have the aerobic capacity. Him climbing 27% 400m walls has nothing to do with GT talent. The same discussion was up after Gilbert conquered Huy in 2011. And the physiological answer is there.
Yes Sagan has supreme unaerobic capacity, explosiveness, 1day endurance.
He does not have the aerobic capacity to dance with the big guns on repetitive 20km climbs day several days in a row.

Perhaps things could change a little on a proper armstrong program, who knows.

I guess that what I've said has already been put forward previously in the thread but I got annoyed and couldnt be bothered to read through.
 
May 28, 2012
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jaylew said:
The mountain bikers that turn pro on the road usually come from the cross country discipline. Lots of good climbers came from mtb (Evans, Rasmussen, Hesjedal, Danielson, etc...

Sagan on the other hand has never ridden XC as a pro. He trains on MTB in the winter, but doesn't do racing, and he's got more bike handling than all those riders combined.
 
Mar 31, 2010
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Pentacycle said:
Sagan on the other hand has never ridden XC as a pro. He trains on MTB in the winter, but doesn't do racing, and he's got more bike handling than all those riders combined.

not as a pro, but he was world champion juniors, which is the same discpline. he comes from mtb just as much as evans comes
 
Mar 31, 2010
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Fearless Greg Lemond said:
Do any Colombians race MTB? Just curious!

yes, paez is good exmaple, he finished 2nd world championship marathon in 2006, overall in latin america mtb is a big sport, especially in costa rica, where they have great mtb riders, andrey amador for instance was an mtb(and road) pro rider in costa rica before going to europe
 
maltiv said:
Valverde was ridiculously fast when he was younger. Just like Sagan he was almost unbeatable on a hilly finish. He even won flat bunch sprints, although not in the same company in which Sagan has won flat sprints.

El Bala was fast but he was beating an old angel edo on a slightly uphill sprint on the vuelta a aragon, just an example i remember watching on TV, not the 2 best sprinters of that time.

he was also 15 kilos lighter then sagan is :eek:

anyway sagan is a brilliant rider in all aspects, but he simply isn't a GT rider.
 
Apr 20, 2012
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Ryo Hazuki said:
yes, paez is good exmaple, he finished 2nd world championship marathon in 2006, overall in latin america mtb is a big sport, especially in costa rica, where they have great mtb riders, andrey amador for instance was an mtb(and road) pro rider in costa rica before going to europe
Merci, I am going to look into that. Colombians should be good at that discipline, besides the descending of course :(

Nice point of view, no BS'ing here.
 
Mar 31, 2010
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Fearless Greg Lemond said:
Merci, I am going to look into that. Colombians should be good at that discipline, besides the descending of course :(

Nice point of view, no BS'ing here.

colombians aren't bad descenders, most of the climbers from boyaca are, but I could name tons of colombians in europe in recent years that were excellent descenders like cardenas, botero, pena, marlon perez, uran, henao, quintana (from boyaca even!), duque, ardila, betancurt, serpa. basically the vast majority of all the colombians in the past 10 years in europe as you can see.
 
The barrier has long since been broken between classics riders and Tour champions, much to the detriment of this sport.

Never again will there be a Milano San Remo winner, or even a Liege Bastone Liege one, that also wins the Tour. That stopped when a certain commercial interest took over.
 
Jul 15, 2010
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rhubroma said:
The barrier has long since been broken between classics riders and Tour champions, much to the detriment of this sport.

Never again will there be a Milano San Remo winner, or even a Liege Bastone Liege one, that also wins the Tour. That stopped when a certain commercial interest took over.

Andy Schleck has won LBL.
Frank has won Amstel.
Valverde has won Amstel.
Cunego has won Amstel.


I don't think it has really ever been that common for GC riders to win classics. Hinault winning Paris Roubaix is a pretty odd fluke.
 
Aug 4, 2010
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Greatness of this rider is unbelievable,but GTs?...Why change training and waste classics and sprint talent?!;)

Edit...anyway yesterdays performace was amazing,I hope he will win MSR,cos he totally deserves it!
 
hahaha winning the WC title on sister´s bike...:D don´t remember his sister having a Specialized S-works Epic in steel version :D

Z4bN.png
 
katkotom said:
hahaha winning the WC title on sister´s bike...:D don´t remember his sister having a Specialized S-works Epic in steel version :D

Z4bN.png

ok, sorry, my bad, I just read it somewhere that he win the wch on his sisters bike and then on cycling news that he won some race on his sister's bike that I considered it confirmed. Actually, according to link below, he really did win one race on his sister's bike, but it was actually only national cup.

http://inrng.com/2012/07/the-elusive-peter-sagan/
 
yes thats true, he did win a minor race on some borrowed bike and media keep reminding of that as it was the pinnacle of his junior career...:) he used to race on this Simplon before he got that Specialized Epic...

Z4oZ.jpeg
 
Mar 31, 2010
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rhubroma said:
The barrier has long since been broken between classics riders and Tour champions, much to the detriment of this sport.

Never again will there be a Milano San Remo winner, or even a Liege Bastone Liege one, that also wins the Tour. That stopped when a certain commercial interest took over.

da-fuq.jpg
 

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