Pierre Rolland discussion

[hfer07]

the reason I started this thread is because I'm impressed with his riding style, panache & nonetheless, his promising future. It's time the world pays attention to this young man & what he represents for France as the "real hope" to conquer once again their own race title.

 

[Parrulo]

rolland is awesome, has panache and is aggressive!!!

 

[cineteq]

What a rider!!!! Perhaps a future Giro winner?

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

I like him, but he doesn't impress me like he did last year. Also, his ITT?

 

[profff]

i wait for rolland in the third week because he is supposed to have a great recover.
last year in the tour he was very strong on the third week.
i like him very much. when he turned pro he run a very interesting liege so in france there were many expectations on him... too much pressure , he almost lost his way and he had a couple of so and so years.
then, in 2011 tour he finally showed his class and this years again he is proving that in a tour with less itt and more mtf he can compete for the win

though, imho, i think that thibaul pinot is the best french hope for the tour.
in his first tour he is improving every day, showing courage, panache and great recover, at 22.
i was thinking he was too early for him to be in the tour this year , since he has never ridden a GT before. i was considering the vuelta as a good start for him, especially because he is not very good positioning himself in the peloton and it looks he does not like the bagarre on the flats, always beig in the last part of the peloton.
he proved that i was very wrong.
he is performing very well in his first tour.
differently from what happened a t the beginning to rolland, it looks like he is not suffering the pressure from french media and pubblic: they are waiting somebody able to win the tour since so many years...

 

[jens_attacks]

one of the most awesome styles on a bike plus panache....a true champion


thibault also left me speechless this tour,incredible...what a rennaissance!

 

[SafeBet]

Both him and Pinot have amazing style.
I hope they choose to ride the Giro next year instead of going for a top5 placement in the Tour. They can win it.

 

[patrick767]

I'm just glad he finally did something since he's on my increasingly poor velogames fantasy tour team. Gotta give him credit... he was great today.

I have Gesink on my team too...

 

[c&cfan]

he reminds me of the good old andy schlock.. that one that would ride his guts out in a flat olympic race, the one that won LBL with a great attack..

the one that hasn't won a single stage race.

 

[webvan]

Agreed, his ability to push some huge gears on the climbs is pretty unique and amazing to look at, Luc Leblanc could do that too.

 

[the asian]

If he focuses on the Giro he has a good chance of winning it. He will also have a reasonable chance of winning the tour in the future on a course with less TT Km, such as last years' edition.
Has he done a reasonably good ITT when he really needed? He'll have to have a better TT than A Schleck anyway, to be a future Tour winner.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

The colnago family likes him and so i should like him as well.

 

[webvan]

Hehe...can't remember seeing a stage winner hoisting his bike like that...except when they hang it up for good in the retirement ceremony ;-)

Was he maybe thanking the bike for surviving his crash in the descent undamaged?

 

[Michele]

I honestly didnt think that he would confirm his last year's performance but on the other hand Im glad he did.

 

[burning]

How can you seriously not like or admire him?

 

[Parrulo]

i admit i hated him after the alpe stage, but after seeing him in LBL and romandie he became one of my fav riders.

i think he can win a GT without many tt k's, mostly the giro with it's epic mountain stages where rolland seems to excel

 

[webvan]

Would now like to see what he can do when staying with the favorites in the last climb, Pinot really did well in that setup today. Maybe next week...

 

[Parrot23]

Can anyone update us on what he has done since last year's Alpe d'Huez stage in the Tour, i.e., race results since then. Thanks.

 

[auscyclefan94]

He is a very good climber but I am not sure if he is a potential Tour winner. I think he could win the Giro.

 

[Parrot23]

Thanks for that.

Does it mean that since then, and before the current Tour, he has won one stage in one race?

(That said, 12th in Liege-Bastogne-Liege looks good.)

 

[Parrulo]

Thanks for that.

Does it mean that since then, and before the current Tour, he has won one stage in one race?

(That said, 12th in Liege-Bastogne-Liege looks good.)

that is an unfair judgment of his performances, for exemple that 12th on lbl is phenomenal as he was in the break all day, the break was caught at the bottum of the roche aux faucons and he was still one of the strongest on the group of favorites after that.

in the romandie the parcours were absolute crap but he still attacked a lot, ofc it's impossible to get away from a peloton on a false flat with 10k to the line.

 

[CobbleStoner]

Hehe...can't remember seeing a stage winner hoisting his bike like that...except when they hang it up for good in the retirement ceremony ;-)

Was he maybe thanking the bike for surviving his crash in the descent undamaged?

here is my teammate winning a cyclocross race last year (with a tiny bit of photoshopping behind)

and how can Rolland be so strong on the climbs and then descend so horribly? you have to climb a lot of mountains to become a good climber, every mountain you go up you have to come back down, how does he do it? how can he be that bad

 

[42x16ss]

Ask Frank Schleck, Denis Menchov or Ivan Basso....

 

[leftover pie]

i'm a fan!

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

and how can Rolland be so strong on the climbs and then descend so horribly? you have to climb a lot of mountains to become a good climber, every mountain you go up you have to come back down, how does he do it? how can he be that bad

He's not a horrible descender at all.