airstream said:
Any such comparisons are quite conditional, you know. The guys are at too different levels of motivation, preparedness etc. during the season. Yes, the numbers are for Gesink. But the TdF 40+k TT is an absolutely special category and I won't discuss.. I just wanted to say TT's won't help Nibali to get podium or top-5. They will only distance him from that.
Gesink has to finish the race first. Lots of potential but same deal as Wiggins. It's what I have been saying for years. Until they get up and go boom and beat rivals at the big event, then it's all just banter and chit chat. Menchov, Evans and Nibali have all done this. So too Contador, Scarponi, Basso and Valverde. All these guys are GT winners, ok some by default, but they all still at least made second. Thus add in Andy Schleck.
What's the difference? We need something to make predictions and have nothing but the results of this season. At that, they were equal climbers in their only mutual battle in the 2009 Tour and since then Wiggo got stronger. Wiggins will win a lot in TT's whereas Nibali is very limited in ability to gain the time on the climbs considering his overly defensive style.
At least I mentioned the guys in the title of thread. Poms came in and hijacked it and made it about Wiggins. Fanboy love, you can't beat it. Look at my above paragraph. Yes Wiggins has theoretically gotten stronger, but he hasn't proven that in a GT. Third place and losing the Vuelta for your team mate against the weakest GT field in a considerable time doesn't imbed one with conference...unless of course you are a fanboy. Nor does it negate the fact that a week long race is vastly different to a three week GT. Plenty of decent talked up riders have won these races, Paris Nice, Tour de Suisse, the Dauphine, Tirreno Adriatico...how many then backed it up by winning a GT let alone in the same year? Not many. All these guys talking Wiggins up are comparing apples and oranges. Banking on a chrono of all things isn't enough when you are so susceptible climbing. It doesn't add up...he won't podium if he hasn't improved and I've seen no proof that his climbing has improved in the final week of a GT to sustain any time gain in a ITT. He has too many unknowns. The guys I mentioned do not. They have small gaps in their armour, Wiggins in some parts has no armour. Menchov and Evans are the best all rounders riding the Tour with the records at GT's to prove it. That was my main point. They should be considered favourites if their health is good and they appear to be in shape. Racing quickly shows whether you are or are not.
The fact that for his entire GT career Nibali has demostrated the only downhill raid (when the circumstances and the natural course of the race allowed him to do that and we all know what it was worth the day after) and some folks operate with it as a bit of a help in the fight for the podium truly makes me laugh. You rate Nibali higher than Andy and get surprised that people rate Wiggins way higher than Nibali?? LOL.
Don't get ahead of yourself. I said in a downhill section that may or may not play a part in a race. It's a theoretical chance for something to happen. Honestly, go ask any pro, who would you ride behind going downhill? Andy Schleck would be one of the last names. Franck is worse. Cancellara ain't there, Andy is hugely suspect. Other than Hushovd or Cancellara, you'd want to be following Nibali. He is that good. So keep it in context. In the chance event those stages with downhill descents to the finish are raced hard and a small group is at the front, the possibilty exists for someone to make some time. Evans did it to AC and Samu last year. Didn't get a lot of time, but got enough on Andy and Franck for it to hurt. It's the cumulative effect dude. Adding all the little gains and losses...those make the race. Thus bringing it back to Wiggins, his uphill ascents are as big of potential time losses as Andy Schleck's chrono. Yet who is being talked up as no chance and who is being spoken about as a winner? That's the lol part...Andy Schleck, whom I don't really like, is being vastly underestimated. Amazing rider if he gets his s%#& together who could win. Again, he has the record...just needs that killer mentality.
I think, the Tour contenders never ride Dauphine full blast and have a certain reserve of form in stock as they go there to prepare for the Tour rather than to win at any cost. If a rider is not Moreau or Valverde, he always prefers to sacrifice Dauphine feeling that it may prevent him from showing the best possible result in July. I don't understand why one thinks that Wiggo reached his peak too early last year. Does Wiggins need an absolute peak to win Dauphine? NO.
I agree but not with your final question. Wiggins did go full blast...the fanboys just don't see it. Where Andy Schleck makes the mistake of going **** weak at every build up race last season, I think Wiggins had the reverse. He went to hard. Threads about his super low body weight at season start. The man is super skinny. One fall and boom, broken bones. Race over. Contador and other riders however are slightly above race weight, but get down to it. It's about preparation. 2010 is evidence enought that Sky and Wiggins had no idea. Thus the lack of results. Hence the Wigans pun. They deserved it...still do to be honest.
I'll phrase it this way, if there were no Tour de France in July and the Dauphine was raced harder by everyone, Wiggins would have been smacked senseless last June. The other racers held back. He didn't. Evans was coasting dude. Seriously coasting. Winning the Dauphine or Tour de Suisse before the Tour is giant indicator these days you were taking it too seriously. Notice what happened to Valverde when he stopped trying to win stages in a GT and get the glory. Won the Vuelta. You can' have your cake and it eat especially as a pro rider...unless you are a fanboy. You ahve to pick your targets. Wiggins wins this years Dauphine I will have proof he's going to have issues at the Tour. Heck, even Contador can't do it and weirdly enough he doesn't try to. Yet the Wiggins supporters think HE CAN. GTFO please and get your heads checked. Nobody claims this for ANY other rider. But no...lets buy into the myth of the exalted one. I've heard this line before. We all have. Lance fanboys ran it. Come back down to planet earth for a second and converse with real people. Wiggins won the Dauphine because he went much, much harder than any big name rival. They all correctly, used the race as training and as a trial for their form. Wiggins and Sky, like many Poms, are not that intelligent.
Who else went full blast early last year? Horner and Leipheimer. They really went for it and oddly enough were talked about quite heavily as RadioShack leaders. I knew team leader was Kloden, simply because of the manner in which they all raced and how they've done in the past with the same or differing build ups. Guess who confirmed at Tour's end who was team leader? Bruyneel. You can't go that hard that close to the biggest GT and expect to back it up. bad luck ruined the chance for us to see how they'd all have gone together. But Bruyneel did say their aim was Kloden...again, it was obvious. Just like Wiggins faults. Granted the man did well winning the Dauphine, but to extend that praise to lauding him as a favourite let alone winner for the Tour...jokes on the fanboys. It's why I said, Evans last year was almost a guaranteed winner. His build up wasn't wasting energy. He peaked right and his record for the year was sublime. This showed coming into the final week of the Tour. Zero incidents and strongest looking rider in the race. That's timing. The one thing he'd always missed. His timing other years was always off on something...like trying to beat Valverde at the Dauphine. Focus was off target. Get it right with the talent that has been proven and you are not only a rational and logical favourite, you deliver the damn goods. Wiggins has not done this. Menchov has.
That's the most important thing in your control. Timing. If your point were valid, Wiggins could win without going full blast, why hadn't he ever won anything as big as he did until last year? You casually ignore this and by doing so ignore that something had to change for him to improve. Worse it implies he wasn't trying before...or perhaps he was. Now we have a clinic issue if you explore all the implications these ideas create. Until you back up the talk and do the deed, there is no reason with his average form in comparison to his rivals, to suspect he can or will beat them at a GT where the best are gunning for the maillot jaune. He'll beat one or two of the vast numbers of guys who can top 10, but it's really stretching reality to think he'll win because there are so many unknowns. Those guys who I mentioned, as I said, if they are IN FORM, are naturally favourites ahead of him. Everyone talking him up, and I mean seriously talking him up, you are a fanboy. You've bought into the new myth. The new marketing fad. I'd understand it if his form had been there from the start but it simply hasn't. He's proof you can turn a donkey into a thoroughbred.
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