Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

[Samu Cuenca]

I'm not sure, Visma literally destroyed Pogačar 2 years running including winning by over 7 minutes!! The fact Vingegaard is performing at his current level is unbelievable considering he was so injured.

But if UAE have finally caught up with/surpassed them doping wise, then it could become hard for Visma to regain the lead.

 

[Rackham]

Why is this Vayer guy hated on?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1812510648720294082

View: https://x.com/festinaboy/status/1812510648720294082

He's a hypocrite.

He's got a hate-boner for non-French teams & their riders (including Alaph) who he says are all dopers. I have no real issue with that tbh.

But then he pretends French riders in French teams are totally clean. I do have a problem with that because the real truth is probably a lot nastier, i.e. French teams are still run by dinosaurs who haven't 'evolved' with the sport the way Gianetti & Jumbo have.

Laurent Roux (sad story) will forever be the epitome of French cycling for me, i.e. a guy who admitted he'd taken drugs before the Alpe d'Huez 2001 stage & had "some stuff in his pockets"... but was blown away by the professional American without even a glance. It's an iconic image from the L.A. era.

23 years later nothing has changed. Poor Lenny Martinez needs to either change teams & get with the program, or he'll end up like Gaudu.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Yep. Gianetti and Tik Tok boy, the perfect machine.

Do you see the bald fraud?

 

[ashhutch1997]

He's a hypocrite.

He's got a hate-boner for non-French teams & their riders (including Alaph) who he says are all dopers. I have no real issue with that tbh.

But then he pretends French riders in French teams are totally clean. I do have a problem with that because the real truth is probably a lot nastier, i.e. French teams are still run by dinosaurs who haven't 'evolved' with the sport the way Gianetti & Jumbo have.

Laurent Roux (sad story) will forever be the epitome of French cycling for me, i.e. a guy who admitted he'd taken drugs before the Alpe d'Huez 2001 stage & had "some stuff in his pockets"... but was blown away by the professional American without even a glance. It's an iconic image from the L.A. era.

23 years later nothing has changed. Poor Lenny Martinez needs to either change teams & get with the program, or he'll end up like Gaudu.

Lance Armstrong called them 'slow teams'.

 

[NFTtiddies]

What a world we live in. I think this was the first stage where Pog looked somewhat skinny for the first time. He's finally developed those noodle arms all cyclists dream about.

Also if you still haven't had enough of spectacles for they day, make sure to turn in and watch a boy who just turned 17!!! destroy a whole country's hopes and dreams yet again.

 

[Nick2413]

Obviously marketing and business interests play a huge role in who’s “allowed” to dope, for that reason alone I’m surprised Vingegaard was able to beat him the last 2 years, but I doubt the UCI/stakeholders are able to influence everything, and they will want enough mutants to keep it from being a one man show.

 

[ashhutch1997]

But if UAE have finally caught up with/surpassed them doping wise, then it could become hard for Visma to regain the lead.

I'm not sure, the rest of the team have been pretty inconsistent IMO. Jumbo last year won all three grand Tours plus got a 123 in the Vuelta. WVA in the 2022 TDF was one of the most mutant performances I've ever seen.
Eitherway, next years episode of lab wars should be entertaining!

 

[Rackham]

Lance Armstrong called them 'slow teams'.

I think he called them Choads as well.

Aka a chump combined with a toad.

Intellectual stuff, as always.

 

[ashhutch1997]

I think he called them Choads as well.

Aka a chump combined with a toad.

Intellectual stuff, as always.

I'm pretty sure a 'choad' in English means something else lol.

 

[lenric]

Bernal has said he's back at his pre crash level. That says even more.

yeah, it says his days as a GT winner are long gone

 

[noob]

I'm pretty sure a 'choad' in English means something else lol.

Urban Dictionary: choad

Usually penis, penis wider than it is long, or the area between the penis and anus. Taken from colloquial Spanish.

www.urbandictionary.com

 

[lenric]

There is a difference, though. The majority of these guys are specialized GC riders whose clear force is climbing. Pogacar not only climbs better than the best climbers, but he can also sprint with some of the best sprinters, he can time trial better than the best time trialists, and he will beat the van der Poels, Van Aerts, and Pedersens on the cobbles to top it all off.

Credibility is a spectrum, in my opinion. When pure climbers start contesting the times set by Pantani and Armstrong it's not completely out of the realm of credibility to chalk it up to the huge steps taken in terms of especially training and fueling. But when one guy is so clearly the very best at genuinely everything, the alarm bells have to go off big time.

Pogacar is basically climbing like Pantani, while still having the acceleration of Sagan and the peak watts of Cancellara. That is just incredible - as in not at all credible.

times 2

 

[noob]

I think he called them Choads as well.

Aka a chump combined with a toad.

Intellectual stuff, as always.

I'm a bit surprised about his iq when listening to his podcast. He sounds a bit dumb. Hincapie next to Brunyel in brain capacity. I would guess.

 

[ashhutch1997]

Urban Dictionary: choad

Usually penis, penis wider than it is long, or the area between the penis and anus. Taken from colloquial Spanish.

www.urbandictionary.com

Thank you for the clarification 😂

 

[noob]

Thank you for the clarification 😂

I had no idea I just had to dig it up since there was hints about what it was and if it came from Lance wouldn't be intellectual

 

[ashhutch1997]

I'm a bit surprised about his iq when listening to his podcast. He sounds a bit dumb. Hincapie next to Brunyel in brain capacity. I would guess.

I think LA likes to act dumb on his podcast, but in his day he was miles ahead of everyone in terms of training, preparation and nutrition ect, regardless of doping, he was ahead of his time.

 

[noob]

Whatever they're on please share with patients

https://twitter.com/x/status/1812195060974256300

View: https://x.com/neurostingl/status/1812195060974256300

 

[AttaqueDeRolland]

By the way, in terms of the Pogi versus Vingegaard discussion, I don't think their overall levels are remotely comparable. One is a highly specialized GC guy, cut from the same cloth as the GC winners of the past many, many years. He climbs supremely well, and his time trial is for the most part very good, with last year's Combloux-time trial as a notable exception where he wasn't just very good but out of this world good. That's mostly Nibali, Contador, Froome territory, it's not something that we haven't seen before.

Pogacar, on the other hand, wins in every thinkable terrain, on any thinkable parcours, and he does so attacking from 50-80 kilometers out, and when he crosses the line he looks like he just came home from a Sunday ride. This guy is Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault territory, which in my opinion, is a far worse sign for the credibility of this sport than another "run-off-the-mill" GC specialist. Because Pogi is essentially replicating feats from a long-gone time when cycling was not a borderline scientific field with marginal gains.

If you want some statistics for reference, Vingegaard is currently having a career-best season in terms of win percentage. He has six race victories (in other words, not counting GC wins) in 30 race days putting him at a 20 percent win rate. This will certainly drop. Again, this, a 20 percent win rate, is Vingegaard's best season ever. Pogacar's career (!!!) win rate is better than this at 21 percent. 65 race victories in 314 race days. This season, he is peaking out at 33 percent with 15 race victories in 46 race days.

I know that Vingegaard's incredible climbing performances raise a lot of eyebrows, but at least he can be said to be a highly specialized rider. Imagine, on the other hand, if Contador had been matching Hushovd in classics sprints, dropping Cancellara on the cobbles, and then climbing better than Schleck. That's what Pogacar is, that's what Pogacar does. It's simply not believable.

 

[Climbing]

We had like what? 10 years of almost believable cycling, almost.
It was obvious it couldn't last...
By the end of 2019/start of 2020 it was clear that powerful new stuff (or old who knows) was out.
Now we're shattering the 90s EPO and 60 HTC days, it's just a comedic relief, but I must admit it, it's kinda fun

 

[noob]

I think LA likes to act dumb on his podcast, but in his day he was miles ahead of everyone in terms of training, preparation and nutrition ect, regardless of doping, he was ahead of his time.

Don't make him sound like he's not aspd Maybe I gotta listen to old Lance to see if there's a brain.

 

[ashhutch1997]

We had like what? 10 years of almost believable cycling, almost.
It was obvious it couldn't last...
By the end of 2019/start of 2020 it was clear that powerful new stuff (or old who knows) was out.
Now we're shattering the 90s EPO and 60 HTC days, it's just a comedic relief, but I must admit it, it's kinda fun

I wouldn't call the Sky years of turning donkeys into race horses 'believable'. But then again anything compared these current monsters is believable at this point!

 

[Salvarani]

We in the GOAT era

 

[Shakes]

Well, it's a team managed by Gianetti. He unfortunately had riders go wild in the past in various incarnations of this team. He must have learned from that and Pogacar is a generational talent. So nothing to see here. Just watch in awe.

 

[Ripper]

We in the GOAT era

The GOAT at doping era?

wtaf

 

[Invicituz]

So, how does tailwinds, better diets, better bikes, marginal gains etc, explain this level of unprecedented performance, with the times of the kings of EPO and blood doping being obliterated:

New Top 100 Plateau de Beille: The takeover

1. 2024: 39:50 Tadej Pogacar 23.95 km/h 2. 2024: 40:58 Jonas Vingegaard 23.29 km/h 3. 2024: 42:41 Remco Evenepoel 22.35 km/h 4. 1998...

www.climbing-records.com