Question Question of the Week: Pro Cycling Dream Team

[SHaines]

Hey cycling fans!

This week we're asking you to stretch your imaginations through space and time to come up with your dream racing team. Now, anyone can just pick the latest riders with the latest tech and try to push for the win, so we're setting our sites on a different prize.

The rules:

• Your team has to include riders from 3 different decades.
• Every racer on every team has to ride the same bike (of your choosing).
• The team should consist of riders you'd love to meet and talk to about cycling, winning isn't the end game.
• You pick the course for the race.

Since the goal is to put together a cool team of riders you'd love to learn from and speak to, each team can have different numbers of riders. So, what's your dream team look like?

Modern riders on old bikes? Riders from history with the latest in road tech? Hit us with your best shot!

 

[Koronin]

Bike Pinarello from the late 90's or early 2000's.

My 3 riders from different decades (although two do overlap): Sean Kelly, Miguel Indurain, Alejandro Valverde (not my fault Kelly and Valverde have had extremely long careers for athletes). Those three riders take us from the late 70's to current with only missing 7 total years between Indurain's retirement and Valverde's rookie season. By adding Abraham Olano to my team those years are now covered.

My team:

Alejandro Valverde
Miguel Indurain
Sean Kelly
Fabian Cancellara
Abraham Olano
Alberto Contador
Imanol Erviti
Christian VandeVelde
Iñigo Elosegui

Course for the race is going to be a more typical Vuelta. Start in Southern Spain, go up the east coast of Spain, then along the northern Pyrenees into Basque country before finishing in Madrid.

 

[Pantani_lives]

Alright, I'll make a team for the Giro of last year. It would be easy to make an unbeatable team with the best riders of all time, but that isn't the object of this exercise. I'll make a team with one clear GC leader, surrounded by several good helpers and stage hunters. Our goal is to win the overall and at least five stages.

Marco Pantani
Thomas De Gendt
Eddy Planckaert
Fabian Cancellara
Jean-François Bernard
Georg Totschnig
Sylweszter Szmyd
Peter Winnen

 

[Pantani_lives]

My team:

Alejandro Valverde
Miguel Indurain
Sean Kelly
Fabian Cancellara
Abraham Olano
Alberto Contador
Imanol Erviti
Christian VandeVelde
Iñigo Elosegui

Are Indurain and Contador supposed to sacrifice themselves for Valverde?

 

[BlueRoads]

I thought about this but i just can't come up with a team. Basically my team consists of Pantani and he's sitting on a Vitus 979. Add two or three random cyclists with great style please. Not too tall. Also they should know something about cross bikes, so I can ask them for advice concerning mine.
Which route should they ride? One with small, twisting roads, up and down, in a southern country, but maybe also, because I've never seen it, Tour of Ruanda.

 

[sir fly]

Eugène Christophe
Henri Van Lerberghe
Alberic Schotte
Rik Van Looy
Roger De Vlaemnick
Paolo Bettini
Stijn Devolder
Philippe Gilbert
Andy Schleck

Liège–Bastogne–Liège on Eddy Merckx Professional.

 

[Koronin]

Are Indurain and Contador supposed to sacrifice themselves for Valverde?

LOL. I did notice I have 3 Grand Tour winners on my team. I also realized after putting my team together that I also have 5 GC riders on that team. For la Vuelta yes they are going to work for Valverde to a point, but they will have their opportunities as well. Also Contador gets the Giro for his GT and Indurain gets the Tour for his GT. Plus this team is going to be great for the TTT. Two top TTers on this team to pull plus several others who aren't bad at TTs.

 

[Finn84]

To learn about riders, I really need different types of them.

Rik van Looy
Paolo Bettini
Jacques Anquetil
Miguel Indurain
Marco Pantani
Alberto Contador
Jacky Durand
Niki Terpstra
Mark Cavendish
Mario Cipollini

The race is imaginary, starting from Lombardy with the first stage being equivalent of GdL. Then time trial from Como to Milan, followed by MSR. After some more flat stages race through the French Alps and Vosges before heading to cobbles of Paris-Roubaix followed by RVV and L-B-L. After that we return to France with a ceremonial stage to Champs-Élysées.

Racing on Pantani-era Bianchis.

 

[SHAD0W93]

Jan Ullrich
Andreas Klöden
Roman Kreuziger
Alberto Contador
Fabian Cancellara
Sean Kelly
Thor Hushovd
Edvald Bossan Hogan
Mark Cavendish

Should gain some nice results as well have interesting conversations with the other.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

José Manuel Fuente
Luís Alberto Herrera
José María Jiménez
Julio Jiménez
Vicente Trueba
Federico Bahamontes
Lucien van Impe
Jesús Loroño (he and Bahamontes can room together for the lolz)
Luís Ocaña
Fabio Parra
Sergey Sukhoruchenkov
Gino Bartali

I don't care what the race is, as long as Angelo Zomegnan is designing the course.

 

[Invicituz]

Eddy Merckx
Luis Ocaña
Lucien Van Impe
Greg Lemond
Fabian Cancellara
Sean Kelly
Alejandro Valverde
Roger De Vlaeminck
Mark Cavendish

Bike: Giant TCR Advanced SL
Race: Tour de France

 

[HelloDolly]

Sean Kelly
Moreno Moser
Greg LeMond
Lauren Faignon
Alberto Contador
Tom Boonen
Roger De Vlaeminck
Peter Sagan
Julian Alaphilippe

 

[HelloDolly]

P.S Valverde and Gilbert as subs

 

[SafeBet]

Race: Giro 2010

Marco Pantani
Jan Ullrich
Gibo Simoni
Joseba Beloki
Michele Scarponi
Fabian Cancellara
Paolo Bettini
Tim Wellens
Wout Van Aert

 

[42x16ss]

Race: 2011 Giro
Bike: Colnago C40

Team:

Lauren Jalabert
Frank Vandenbroucke
Thomas Dekker
Matt White
Michael Boogerd
Mario Cipollini
Tom Boonen
Jan Ullrich
Jack Bobridge

 

[Alexandre B.]

I'll try and make a team consisting of (ex-)pundits on French TV or radio.

Race: Tour de France

Jacques Anquetil
Steve Chainel
Jacky Durand
Laurent Fignon
Laurent Jalabert
Marc Madiot
David Moncoutié
Bernard Thévenet
Thomas Voeckler

I dumped Leblanc because of his bad relationship with Fignon, and Virenque because Voeckler is better as an actor and a pundit.

 

[calvinsteel]

My favorite team is Astana

 

[Gigs_98]

José Manuel Fuente
Lucien Van Impe
Luis Herrera
Marco Pantani
Richard Virenque
Michael Rasmussen
Alberto Contador
Andy Schleck
Mikel Landa

The race: Basically just pick any giro queen stage. Let's just say this one.
Just tell them everyone not from the team should be dropped by the time they crest the first climb and then lay back and enjoy the show.