Rider of the year 2018

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

But if a Tour win has more weight than by definition he is penalized.

No. And now you have quoted me for something I haven't said again. Stop that.

You didn't say that a GT win should be weighted more than what a rider does over the course of the season? Maybe I'm missing understanding what you said then. To me what a rider did all season should be weighted more than a GT should be. That why in 2016 I'd have given Sagan the title and in 2017 I'd have given GVA the title.

 

[Bot. Sky_Bot]

Re:

I’m not biased in favour of GTs, probably the reverse, but I don’t see how anyone who didn’t win one this year can crack the top 3 because nobody took multiple very big wins. There is no reasonable case for Valverde and no case at all for Dumoulin.

Compare for instance Thomas and Valverde: The Tour is a much bigger win than the WCRR. The Dauphine is a bigger win than Catalunya. Two Tour stages are bigger wins than two Vuelta stages. Looking at tier one (big 9) wins, Thomas is miles ahead. Looking at tier two (in this case GT stages and major one week races), Thomas only gets further ahead. You have to give frankly absurd weight to quantity of tiny wins to put Valverde even close. Not only is his season defining win less important, there just aren’t important enough secondary wins to back it up.

There is a case for any of the GT winners, but in my view the one for Froome is clearly weaker than those for Thomas or Yates. Ranking him against Thomas presents essentially the same core difficulty for his partisans as that faced by Valverde fans: his big win is closer in value to a Tour win, but ultimately it is still clearly less valuable to win a Giro. Two Giro stages are again outranked by two Tour stages. He has no other wins to weigh against the Dauphine. He’s closer to Thomas than Valverde, because a Giro is a lot better than the WCRR, but instead of giving absurd weight to little wins, you have to give absurd weight to failing to complete a Giro-Tour double. That brings us back to the Dumoulin problem: when you are ranking the best of the best, impressive failures are still ultimately failures.

There is no plainly obvious equivalent problem for Yates. He has the requisite big win to belong in the discussion in the first place. He has more tier two wins than anyone else. He also has various lesser wins. Ranking him and Thomas is essentially down to subjective weighting of the Tour and just how much more a winner of a lesser GT has to do overcome that weight. Yates did quite a lot more, enough for me to put him first, but Ive no beef with anyone who picks Thomas.

Koronin, do you know what is the difference between us, two pure fan boy&girl?
For a few hours I've been really confused if I was right.
Yes, Zinoviev Letter wrote great post, and now I'm not so sure if Froome was the best. Maybe yes, maybe no, but now I must say I was wrong proposing my system: 1UWT&2UWT wins should be taken into account at 1st step of ranking if we have so close year.

 

[tobydawq]

Re: Re:

But if a Tour win has more weight than by definition he is penalized.

No. And now you have quoted me for something I haven't said again. Stop that.

You didn't say that a GT win should be weighted more than what a rider does over the course of the season? Maybe I'm missing understanding what you said then. To me what a rider did all season should be weighted more than a GT should be. That why in 2016 I'd have given Sagan the title and in 2017 I'd have given GVA the title.

I'm saying that the Tour should be rated higher than the Giro, which in turn should be rated higher than the Vuelta, which in turn should be rated higher than the traditional WT stage races, which in turn should be ranked higher than the new WT stage races.

The most important monuments, the WCRR and the Olympics are for me close to the Giro in importance, but I don't only count victories. I also count placings and how strongly the riders have generally appeared throughout the season.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

I’m not biased in favour of GTs, probably the reverse, but I don’t see how anyone who didn’t win one this year can crack the top 3 because nobody took multiple very big wins. There is no reasonable case for Valverde and no case at all for Dumoulin.

Compare for instance Thomas and Valverde: The Tour is a much bigger win than the WCRR. The Dauphine is a bigger win than Catalunya. Two Tour stages are bigger wins than two Vuelta stages. Looking at tier one (big 9) wins, Thomas is miles ahead. Looking at tier two (in this case GT stages and major one week races), Thomas only gets further ahead. You have to give frankly absurd weight to quantity of tiny wins to put Valverde even close. Not only is his season defining win less important, there just aren’t important enough secondary wins to back it up.

There is a case for any of the GT winners, but in my view the one for Froome is clearly weaker than those for Thomas or Yates. Ranking him against Thomas presents essentially the same core difficulty for his partisans as that faced by Valverde fans: his big win is closer in value to a Tour win, but ultimately it is still clearly less valuable to win a Giro. Two Giro stages are again outranked by two Tour stages. He has no other wins to weigh against the Dauphine. He’s closer to Thomas than Valverde, because a Giro is a lot better than the WCRR, but instead of giving absurd weight to little wins, you have to give absurd weight to failing to complete a Giro-Tour double. That brings us back to the Dumoulin problem: when you are ranking the best of the best, impressive failures are still ultimately failures.

There is no plainly obvious equivalent problem for Yates. He has the requisite big win to belong in the discussion in the first place. He has more tier two wins than anyone else. He also has various lesser wins. Ranking him and Thomas is essentially down to subjective weighting of the Tour and just how much more a winner of a lesser GT has to do overcome that weight. Yates did quite a lot more, enough for me to put him first, but Ive no beef with anyone who picks Thomas.

Koronin, do you know what is the difference between us, two pure fan boy&girl?
For a few hours I've been really confused if I was right.
Yes, Zinoviev Letter wrote great post, and now I'm not so sure if Froome was the best. Maybe yes, maybe no, but now I must say I was wrong proposing my system: 1UWT&2UWT wins should be taken into account at 1st step of ranking if we have so close year.

Ok. By the way for last year I think there were really 2 riders in the mix for this award being Froome and Sagan. I'd have picked Sagan based on my feelings of a complete season and GTs not being unfairly weighted so high. HOWEVER, I can easily see people also picking Froome after winning the Tour/Vuelta double. This year, there are arguments for many riders, I just have a big issue with weighting GTs so much higher than anything else.
Hope you understand what I'm saying.


edited: 2017 Froome and GVA not Sagan.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

But if a Tour win has more weight than by definition he is penalized.

No. And now you have quoted me for something I haven't said again. Stop that.

You didn't say that a GT win should be weighted more than what a rider does over the course of the season? Maybe I'm missing understanding what you said then. To me what a rider did all season should be weighted more than a GT should be. That why in 2016 I'd have given Sagan the title and in 2017 I'd have given GVA the title.

I'm saying that the Tour should be rated higher than the Giro, which in turn should be rated higher than the Vuelta, which in turn should be rated higher than the traditional WT stage races, which in turn should be ranked higher than the new WT stage races.

The most important monuments, the WCRR and the Olympics are for me close to the Giro in importance, but I don't only count victories. I also count placings and how strongly the riders have generally appeared throughout the season.

Ah, ok. Then I did misunderstand you a bit. Your way of looking at it, then isn't penalizing Sagan/Van Avermaet and others like some systems do. Sorry.

 

[Bot. Sky_Bot]

Re: Re:

I’m not biased in favour of GTs, probably the reverse, but I don’t see how anyone who didn’t win one this year can crack the top 3 because nobody took multiple very big wins. There is no reasonable case for Valverde and no case at all for Dumoulin.

Compare for instance Thomas and Valverde: The Tour is a much bigger win than the WCRR. The Dauphine is a bigger win than Catalunya. Two Tour stages are bigger wins than two Vuelta stages. Looking at tier one (big 9) wins, Thomas is miles ahead. Looking at tier two (in this case GT stages and major one week races), Thomas only gets further ahead. You have to give frankly absurd weight to quantity of tiny wins to put Valverde even close. Not only is his season defining win less important, there just aren’t important enough secondary wins to back it up.

There is a case for any of the GT winners, but in my view the one for Froome is clearly weaker than those for Thomas or Yates. Ranking him against Thomas presents essentially the same core difficulty for his partisans as that faced by Valverde fans: his big win is closer in value to a Tour win, but ultimately it is still clearly less valuable to win a Giro. Two Giro stages are again outranked by two Tour stages. He has no other wins to weigh against the Dauphine. He’s closer to Thomas than Valverde, because a Giro is a lot better than the WCRR, but instead of giving absurd weight to little wins, you have to give absurd weight to failing to complete a Giro-Tour double. That brings us back to the Dumoulin problem: when you are ranking the best of the best, impressive failures are still ultimately failures.

There is no plainly obvious equivalent problem for Yates. He has the requisite big win to belong in the discussion in the first place. He has more tier two wins than anyone else. He also has various lesser wins. Ranking him and Thomas is essentially down to subjective weighting of the Tour and just how much more a winner of a lesser GT has to do overcome that weight. Yates did quite a lot more, enough for me to put him first, but Ive no beef with anyone who picks Thomas.

Koronin, do you know what is the difference between us, two pure fan boy&girl?
For a few hours I've been really confused if I was right.
Yes, Zinoviev Letter wrote great post, and now I'm not so sure if Froome was the best. Maybe yes, maybe no, but now I must say I was wrong proposing my system: 1UWT&2UWT wins should be taken into account at 1st step of ranking if we have so close year.

Ok. By the way for last year I think there were really 2 riders in the mix for this award being Froome and Sagan. I'd have picked Sagan based on my feelings of a complete season and GTs not being unfairly weighted so high. HOWEVER, I can easily see people also picking Froome after winning the Tour/Vuelta double. This year, there are arguments for many riders, I just have a big issue with weighting GTs so much higher than anything else.
Hope you understand what I'm saying.

Wait a second, 10 mins ago you said GVA should have had the 2017 title?

 

[bambino]

Re: Re:

I’m not biased in favour of GTs, probably the reverse, but I don’t see how anyone who didn’t win one this year can crack the top 3 because nobody took multiple very big wins. There is no reasonable case for Valverde and no case at all for Dumoulin.

Compare for instance Thomas and Valverde: The Tour is a much bigger win than the WCRR. The Dauphine is a bigger win than Catalunya. Two Tour stages are bigger wins than two Vuelta stages. Looking at tier one (big 9) wins, Thomas is miles ahead. Looking at tier two (in this case GT stages and major one week races), Thomas only gets further ahead. You have to give frankly absurd weight to quantity of tiny wins to put Valverde even close. Not only is his season defining win less important, there just aren’t important enough secondary wins to back it up.

There is a case for any of the GT winners, but in my view the one for Froome is clearly weaker than those for Thomas or Yates. Ranking him against Thomas presents essentially the same core difficulty for his partisans as that faced by Valverde fans: his big win is closer in value to a Tour win, but ultimately it is still clearly less valuable to win a Giro. Two Giro stages are again outranked by two Tour stages. He has no other wins to weigh against the Dauphine. He’s closer to Thomas than Valverde, because a Giro is a lot better than the WCRR, but instead of giving absurd weight to little wins, you have to give absurd weight to failing to complete a Giro-Tour double. That brings us back to the Dumoulin problem: when you are ranking the best of the best, impressive failures are still ultimately failures.

There is no plainly obvious equivalent problem for Yates. He has the requisite big win to belong in the discussion in the first place. He has more tier two wins than anyone else. He also has various lesser wins. Ranking him and Thomas is essentially down to subjective weighting of the Tour and just how much more a winner of a lesser GT has to do overcome that weight. Yates did quite a lot more, enough for me to put him first, but Ive no beef with anyone who picks Thomas.

Koronin, do you know what is the difference between us, two pure fan boy&girl?
For a few hours I've been really confused if I was right.
Yes, Zinoviev Letter wrote great post, and now I'm not so sure if Froome was the best. Maybe yes, maybe no, but now I must say I was wrong proposing my system: 1UWT&2UWT wins should be taken into account at 1st step of ranking if we have so close year.

Ok. By the way for last year I think there were really 2 riders in the mix for this award being Froome and Sagan. I'd have picked Sagan based on my feelings of a complete season and GTs not being unfairly weighted so high. HOWEVER, I can easily see people also picking Froome after winning the Tour/Vuelta double. This year, there are arguments for many riders, I just have a big issue with weighting GTs so much higher than anything else.
Hope you understand what I'm saying.

Twisting your own words for better eh? What you earlier said ment that George Bennet should've been in close competition last year by winning way more presticious competition Froomy ever did.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

I’m not biased in favour of GTs, probably the reverse, but I don’t see how anyone who didn’t win one this year can crack the top 3 because nobody took multiple very big wins. There is no reasonable case for Valverde and no case at all for Dumoulin.

Compare for instance Thomas and Valverde: The Tour is a much bigger win than the WCRR. The Dauphine is a bigger win than Catalunya. Two Tour stages are bigger wins than two Vuelta stages. Looking at tier one (big 9) wins, Thomas is miles ahead. Looking at tier two (in this case GT stages and major one week races), Thomas only gets further ahead. You have to give frankly absurd weight to quantity of tiny wins to put Valverde even close. Not only is his season defining win less important, there just aren’t important enough secondary wins to back it up.

There is a case for any of the GT winners, but in my view the one for Froome is clearly weaker than those for Thomas or Yates. Ranking him against Thomas presents essentially the same core difficulty for his partisans as that faced by Valverde fans: his big win is closer in value to a Tour win, but ultimately it is still clearly less valuable to win a Giro. Two Giro stages are again outranked by two Tour stages. He has no other wins to weigh against the Dauphine. He’s closer to Thomas than Valverde, because a Giro is a lot better than the WCRR, but instead of giving absurd weight to little wins, you have to give absurd weight to failing to complete a Giro-Tour double. That brings us back to the Dumoulin problem: when you are ranking the best of the best, impressive failures are still ultimately failures.

There is no plainly obvious equivalent problem for Yates. He has the requisite big win to belong in the discussion in the first place. He has more tier two wins than anyone else. He also has various lesser wins. Ranking him and Thomas is essentially down to subjective weighting of the Tour and just how much more a winner of a lesser GT has to do overcome that weight. Yates did quite a lot more, enough for me to put him first, but Ive no beef with anyone who picks Thomas.

Koronin, do you know what is the difference between us, two pure fan boy&girl?
For a few hours I've been really confused if I was right.
Yes, Zinoviev Letter wrote great post, and now I'm not so sure if Froome was the best. Maybe yes, maybe no, but now I must say I was wrong proposing my system: 1UWT&2UWT wins should be taken into account at 1st step of ranking if we have so close year.

Ok. By the way for last year I think there were really 2 riders in the mix for this award being Froome and Sagan. I'd have picked Sagan based on my feelings of a complete season and GTs not being unfairly weighted so high. HOWEVER, I can easily see people also picking Froome after winning the Tour/Vuelta double. This year, there are arguments for many riders, I just have a big issue with weighting GTs so much higher than anything else.
Hope you understand what I'm saying.

Wait a second, 10 mins ago you said GVA should have had the 2017 title?

You're right, GVA not Sagan for 2017. For some reason I keep mixing up 2016 and 2017 and which one had the better year.

 

[Bot. Sky_Bot]

Ups.
2016 was Quintana year (Vuelta+CATALUNYA+Romandie), 2017 - everybody knows.

 

[tobydawq]

Re:

Ups.
2016 was Quintana year (Vuelta+CATALUNYA+Romandie), 2017 - everybody knows.

2016 was Sagan year. As all years are, but that one was just crazy, and if you can't give him the nod for that year, then your system remains too GC biased. Because Catalunya and Romandie just can't compete with Flanders, Worlds, Gent-Wevel, green jersey, three Tour stages and a lot more.

 

[Koronin]

Re:

Ups.
2016 was Quintana year (Vuelta+CATALUNYA+Romandie), 2017 - everybody knows.

2016 was Sagan's year. He had a crazy season even for him.

 

[Jungle Cycle]

Re: Re:

Please tell me what Thomas and Froome did outside of the Giro, Tour and Dauphine? I'm sorry but I do NOT put any of those races over any of the other WT races on the calendar. To me the Tour ranks well below most of the other WT races. Heck I personally put a few continental races over the Tour just because I happen to like them better.
As Tobydawq said Valverde was dominant in the first 3 months of the season. Possibly even more dominant than Quickstep as a team were at that point in the season. No one else in the peloton can say that for any time frame.

Your prestige to Tour is your personal opinion which you are entitled. I just don't think many here agrees on that. Especially when it actually fits to your biased agenda.

I don't like Yates, Thomas nor Froome. But I still don't have a problem to admit they were the Top 3.

I do have Yates in my top 3 but Froome and Thomas aren't even close as they did nothing outside of those 3 races. Yes I do value the classics more than the GTs. To me the GTs should not hold anymore weight and esp not the Tour. To me consistency throughout the season is much much more important which is why I rank Sagan very high on my list even if he didn't have the season this year he had last year.

I kind of agree with this but besides the point you make of the whole season I rank the start list, the competition they face in big races. I mean, to me, Yates in the Giro against froome+Dumo was better than his victory at Vuelta..
Bala was awesome in the beginning of the year but outside Bianche+FW was not against lots of heavy contenders. His world was the hi light but his pursuit of that gold, the desire to keep going after, got more weight on my scale. Even Nibali had excellent performances in bigger races: MSR, was in the winning move at Flandres(!?), was going good in the Tour plus his spectacular came back at end of the season was top 5 to me .
Froome+Thomas shine 2-3 months out of the year. I agree those are very very big wins but that was it. Froome got the Tour podium because of the team(Bernal)..
This year is difficult to rank but i voted Dumo. 2 big GT podiums against the best, good Bianche, very good at L-B-L, plus silver ITT worlds and a unexpected 4th(!!) at worlds. So all year around...
but thats me

Dumoulin was 21st in SB and 15th in LBL. Hardly earth-shattering performances?

that`s why `good`and ˜very good˜ not excellent or unbelievable.. anyway those are big races witch are very difficult to get a result. The point was he was there going good in the early season but from what i`ve read for you the focus is the Tour, than the Giro, than Vuelta and the rest..
If that is the case the name of the thread should be the best GC rider of the year..

 

[Bot. Sky_Bot]

Re: Re:

Ups.
2016 was Quintana year (Vuelta+CATALUNYA+Romandie), 2017 - everybody knows.

2016 was Sagan year. As all years are, but that one was just crazy, and if you can't give him the nod for that year, then your system remains too GC biased. Because Catalunya and Romandie just can't compete with Flanders, Worlds, Gent-Wevel, green jersey, three Tour stages and a lot more.

Sagan:
TA -2nd
E3 - 2nd
Gent - 1st
RVV - 1st
California - 2stages
Tdf - 3 stages
Quebec - 1st
Eneco - 2stages
and WCRR.
So yes.

 

[tobydawq]

Re: Re:

that`s why `good`and ˜very good˜ not excellent or unbelievable.. anyway those are big races witch are very difficult to get a result. The point was he was there going good in the early season but from what i`ve read for you the focus is the Tour, than the Giro, than Vuelta and the rest..
If that is the case the name of the thread should be the best GC rider of the year..

Then you read wrong. I specifically stated that the WCRR, Flanders and Roubaix rate close to the Giro (so above the Vuelta). Additionally, I have pointed at Valverde for this year as best rider, so you must have mixed me with someone else.

I'm just saying that for a rider of Dumoulin's calibre, outside the top 10 results are not really noteworthy. Especially not in Strade where he finished more than 6 minutes behind Benoot.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

that`s why `good`and ˜very good˜ not excellent or unbelievable.. anyway those are big races witch are very difficult to get a result. The point was he was there going good in the early season but from what i`ve read for you the focus is the Tour, than the Giro, than Vuelta and the rest..
If that is the case the name of the thread should be the best GC rider of the year..

Then you read wrong. I specifically stated that the WCRR, Flanders and Roubaix rate close to the Giro (so above the Vuelta). Additionally, I have pointed at Valverde for this year as best rider, so you must have mixed me with someone else.

I'm just saying that for a rider of Dumoulin's calibre, outside the top 10 results are not really noteworthy. Especially not in Strade where he finished more than 6 minutes behind Benoot.

This. When you see a 21st place in Strade Bianche (not just six minutes behind Benoot, but also a minute behind a neo-pro from FDJ) being referenced, you know that the barrel is well and truly being scraped to fit an agenda.

 

[Eli]

2016 was most definitely Sagan's year
2017 was Froomey's with GVA second. Had He won Flanders(He was second), then it would have been really close
2018 it's between Froomey, GT and Yatesey

 

[dastott]

Re:

A GT is a 3 week race over all terrains and tests all capabilities. How that be compared to winning a 1 day race is completely illogical.

1. Tour
2. Giro
3. Vuelta
4. World Road Race and TT, Monuments
5. Dauphine, Paris-Nice, País Vasco, Tirreno, Catalunya, Romandie
6. Lesser classics and stage races.

Even winning major stages of GTs (summit finishes like Alpe or Ventoux and TTs) would be equal to a monument for many riders I would imagine.

 

[42x16ss]

Re: Re:

A GT is a 3 week race over all terrains and tests all capabilities. How that be compared to winning a 1 day race is completely illogical.

1. Tour
2. Giro
3. Vuelta
4. World Road Race and TT, Monuments
5. Dauphine, Paris-Nice, País Vasco, Tirreno, Catalunya, Romandie
6. Lesser classics and stage races.

Even winning major stages of GTs (summit finishes like Alpe or Ventoux and TTs) would be equal to a monument for many riders I would imagine.

I’d put winning on a mountain like ventoux, Zoncolan and Angliru just below a Monument and on par with a good one day win like Amstel or Flèche Wallonne

 

[tobydawq]

Re: Re:

A GT is a 3 week race over all terrains and tests all capabilities. How that be compared to winning a 1 day race is completely illogical.

1. Tour
2. Giro
3. Vuelta
4. World Road Race and TT, Monuments
5. Dauphine, Paris-Nice, País Vasco, Tirreno, Catalunya, Romandie
6. Lesser classics and stage races.

Even winning major stages of GTs (summit finishes like Alpe or Ventoux and TTs) would be equal to a monument for many riders I would imagine.

Okay, so Boonen and Cancellara were not as good riders as Hesjedal, Horner or Cobo?

The mountains' influence on GTs and their penchant for time differences would disqualify heavy riders from ever being considered the name of the year in your opinion, then?

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

A GT is a 3 week race over all terrains and tests all capabilities. How that be compared to winning a 1 day race is completely illogical.

1. Tour
2. Giro
3. Vuelta
4. World Road Race and TT, Monuments
5. Dauphine, Paris-Nice, País Vasco, Tirreno, Catalunya, Romandie
6. Lesser classics and stage races.

Even winning major stages of GTs (summit finishes like Alpe or Ventoux and TTs) would be equal to a monument for many riders I would imagine.

Depends on the rider. Riders who aren't GT specialists may value a one day race more than a GT including a stage win. Alaphilippe has said his biggest race days of the year are the Ardennes. Classics riders are going to value the monuments and other semi classics more than a GT.

Your valuation discounts Sagan's 2016 and GVA's 2017 seasons.

 

[dastott]

Well those three wins were never repeated so of course Cance and Boonen have better palmares. Look, riding up hill is a key ingredient to being a great bike rider. Ranking a victory on a mythical climb like Angliru as only the equivalent of Amstel or Flèche is a bit harsh but each to their own.

 

[GuyIncognito]

Re: Re:

A GT is a 3 week race over all terrains and tests all capabilities. How that be compared to winning a 1 day race is completely illogical.

Carlos Sastre was not very good in a TT. Was a notoriously poor descender. Often criticized by teammates for having no tactical brain and terrible positioning. Had no technique or skill on the cobbles. Was not explosive on a short climb. Couldn't sprint. Couldn't pick the right breakaway to save his life.

Hilariously one dimensional. Grand Tour winner. And he's hardly a one off.

Winning a Grand Tour is almost entirely about power/weight ratio. Every other skill helps a little but is not required.
It's not at all for allrounders. It's often won by riders who have the physical ability to do well in classics but not the mental skills.

 

[Blanco]

Re: Re:

A GT is a 3 week race over all terrains and tests all capabilities. How that be compared to winning a 1 day race is completely illogical.

1. Tour
2. Giro
3. Vuelta
4. World Road Race and TT, Monuments
5. Dauphine, Paris-Nice, País Vasco, Tirreno, Catalunya, Romandie
6. Lesser classics and stage races.

Even winning major stages of GTs (summit finishes like Alpe or Ventoux and TTs) would be equal to a monument for many riders I would imagine.

2 Monuments at least equals Tour win, and certainly tops Giro or Vuelta. WC RR and a Monument tops any GT.
And no, winning a mountain stage in GT is not even close to a Monument. It's closer to a major classic (Amstel, GW, Fleche), but I would rank them even below them.

One-day race is essence of road cycling, true racing, there's no tomorrow, no calculations, no time gains, time losses, nothing... Just racing against each other.

 

[Jungle Cycle]

Re: Re:

that`s why `good`and ˜very good˜ not excellent or unbelievable.. anyway those are big races witch are very difficult to get a result. The point was he was there going good in the early season but from what i`ve read for you the focus is the Tour, than the Giro, than Vuelta and the rest..
If that is the case the name of the thread should be the best GC rider of the year..

Then you read wrong. I specifically stated that the WCRR, Flanders and Roubaix rate close to the Giro (so above the Vuelta). Additionally, I have pointed at Valverde for this year as best rider, so you must have mixed me with someone else.

I'm just saying that for a rider of Dumoulin's calibre, outside the top 10 results are not really noteworthy. Especially not in Strade where he finished more than 6 minutes behind Benoot.

This. When you see a 21st place in Strade Bianche (not just six minutes behind Benoot, but also a minute behind a neo-pro from FDJ) being referenced, you know that the barrel is well and truly being scraped to fit an agenda.

there is no agenda, just my opinion.. where were Thomas and Froome in SB, or L-B-L, or worlds??
i understand and respect those who put more weight on the tour, giro, and so on, like a list but as the result of the poll shows not everybody has the same view and have different lists..
`toby`, i understood wrong then, probably mix with so many text here at the same time this morning..
i was just trying to say that my view is different and i value(my list) more not only the result but the showing at big races all year round..

 

[Tigerion]

Voted Yates but not sure how much is head and how much is heart
Dominated at the Giro before platting horrible in the end. But took that, learnt from that and rode a much smarter race at Veulta.

So for me part of being the best rider of 2018 was to be a better rider by the end of it so for that I gave it to Yates.