• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

Team Jumbo-Visma

Page 7 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Please enlighten me.
Ok, how about you start with all the personnel changes? The loss of Ellingworth. The death of Portal. Froome and Thomas not being where they were expected to be. Did you spot any of them? Do you think any of them could be a factor? Or are you fixated solely on doping supply lines and new super-secret magic rocket fuels that Ineos don't have the skinny on?
 
Ok, how about you start with all the personnel changes? The loss of Ellingworth. The death of Portal. Froome and Thomas not being where they were expected to be. Did you spot any of them? Do you think any of them could be a factor? Or are you fixated solely on doping supply lines and new super-secret magic rocket fuels that Ineos don't have the skinny on?
I didn't even mention doping, so I don't know why you dragged that into it. Froome and Thomas had good replacements, so that's not a valid argument. I think their presence would have caused more trouble than anything else anyway.
Ellingworth and Portal are a loss of course, but you'd expect a rich team that's been dominant for 8 years to deal with it.
Sivakovs crash definitely had an impact as well. He might have been a contender.

The biggest surprise for me is their lack of consistency. There are individual disappointments, like Bernal and Carapaz, but the team also looks aimless to me from time to time, like they don't have a plan.
I'm curious about the final week. They have to change their focus and it might be liberating for them.
 
As to Ineos and having plans, they haven't really needed a plan in GTs for a long time because they've used a simple bludgeoning tactic predicated on having stronger domestiques than anyone else and the best leader, and they've had the strength to back it up. Because they haven't needed tactical flexibility that much, they haven't shown much of it. They just need to adapt. For a team with the stacked talent and the experience they have, they ought to be able to do so. The only issue will be ascertaining whether the sponsor is only interested in winning and they have to adjust to not being head and shoulders above everybody else from a budget and development perspective, what with Ineos now being rumoured to buy the Mercedes F1 team, which is a damn sight more expensive than running a dominant cycling team.

As for Jumbo and the pace if Kruijswijk was here, yesterday's pace would have been exactly the same. If they'd wanted to up the pace they'd have let Tommy D empty himself and then have Kuss take over to put more people out the back. Instead they were happy with the situation because Bernal and Quintana had been dropped, so they didn't even fire every bullet in their gun. Sepp's gotta save his legs for the rest day, after all.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SHAD0W93

Bootlicker nr. 1 already starting to defend them

Of course using the kill it all argument:
I quite like that nickname. I used to like him but I'm completely over him. Disgrace of a journalist.
 
havent commented in a long while, just popping in to say that it seems like the sky juice ( artist formerly known as USPS juice) has been passed on to another team, WvA is just a different variation of "track star turned best GT rider" ...in last 20 years we had americans, then brittish taking turns destroying the field - is it time for benelux? if evenpoel could stay on a bike who knows

whats gonna happen in 10 years? germans or maybe it will finally be russia? :D have a nice day fellas
 
I think a lot of performances/non-performances this year can be attributed to coronavirus. It's likely that some riders took advantage of less testing, but it's also likely -- maybe even certain -- that lockdowns affected some riders more than others. WvA was ridiculous yesterday but it was just as odd to see Bernal being dropped and Porte hanging in there...
If i had to put money down on is JV doping or are they not i would probably put money on doping.

Having said that, i also think they have a very professional staff & training program that works very closely with their riders. I can see where a such a quality support staf can actually be a great benefit in Corona times compared to the teams that simply let their riders do their own training
 
So, what's up with the whole 'but Sky', 'but US Postal' line of arguments? A guy who won bunch sprints is 24th on GC after working and the retort is 'but Hincapie'. Really?

Today, for example, they were 40 seconds faster on the Selle de Fromentel, 40 seconds faster on the Biche and 2:35 faster on the Grand Colombier than on the Ain stage 1 month ago. And that 2:35 improvement had the guy who won 2 bunch sprints pulling for practically 1/2 of the climb.

The Hincapie retort is based on the sprinter/classics rider cum mountain goat and based on the known fact that he doped to be on the Tour team, so "like Hincapie" yes. If Erik Zabel had done the exact same during 96 and 97 then I would have added him in too.
 
I'm always surprised by the inclusion of Banesto in this kind of conversation because the impression in Spain at the time was that his team wasn't all that good and that he had to fend for himself way more often than a rider of his caliber should.
They basically just surrounded him as long as the race wasn't really on, once it was he did most of the trainwork himself.
 
The Hincapie retort is based on the sprinter/classics rider cum mountain goat and based on the known fact that he doped to be on the Tour team, so "like Hincapie" yes. If Erik Zabel had done the exact same during 96 and 97 then I would have added him in too.

Yes, and? You are aware that back in Hincapie's best sprinting days in the Tour circa 1999 he was

1)nowhere near to winning any sprints
2)nowhere near as useful to the team in the mountains as van Aert is now
 
Banesto lined things out to a degree but not to the extent we see now. Slightly different times in that indurain generally drove it home himself in the first time trial and then just marked rivals himself in the mountains as he was that strong. He was winning by 4-5 minutes some years so the strangling of the race to defend a lead of 40-50 secs just wasn't needed. With the almost complete like of TTs these days it's harder for a strong leader to really assert himself properly so it's even more of a team game in the mountains.

Bit young to remember la vie Claire but from what I've read the idea of that team was to mix the racing up by going on the offensive wherever possible so can't imagine them using a train all that much, if at all.
 

TRENDING THREADS