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Tejay Van Garderen Discussion Thread

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Re:

dacooley said:
posters whose agenda is down to 'my rider will win hands down, a guy I dislike will miserably fail or not finish'... I heartily rofl at that kind of things. really curious what's the average age of people posting this? perhaps about 15.


Tejay is a good gc rider and if he comes to his best, that's probably the 4th best favorite alongside with bardet. lots of people prefer not to look up to him, but i honestly don't see better riders able to fight for top-5 at least. hard to believe nibali and valverde will manage to get serious gc cards after the giro. lrp is always an enigma given his collapses. the only rider left is pinot but i personally see zero progression from him since 2012 climbing-wise.
2014 Port de Bales is Pinot's best climbing performance to date.
 
Re: Re:

18-Valve. (pithy) said:
dacooley said:
posters whose agenda is down to 'my rider will win hands down, a guy I dislike will miserably fail or not finish'... I heartily rofl at that kind of things. really curious what's the average age of people posting this? perhaps about 15.


Tejay is a good gc rider and if he comes to his best, that's probably the 4th best favorite alongside with bardet. lots of people prefer not to look up to him, but i honestly don't see better riders able to fight for top-5 at least. hard to believe nibali and valverde will manage to get serious gc cards after the giro. lrp is always an enigma given his collapses. the only rider left is pinot but i personally see zero progression from him since 2012 climbing-wise.
2014 Port de Bales is Pinot's best climbing performance to date.

Romandie 2015 and Solden 2015 were good performances too !
 
Re: Re:

manolo57 said:
18-Valve. (pithy) said:
dacooley said:
posters whose agenda is down to 'my rider will win hands down, a guy I dislike will miserably fail or not finish'... I heartily rofl at that kind of things. really curious what's the average age of people posting this? perhaps about 15.


Tejay is a good gc rider and if he comes to his best, that's probably the 4th best favorite alongside with bardet. lots of people prefer not to look up to him, but i honestly don't see better riders able to fight for top-5 at least. hard to believe nibali and valverde will manage to get serious gc cards after the giro. lrp is always an enigma given his collapses. the only rider left is pinot but i personally see zero progression from him since 2012 climbing-wise.
2014 Port de Bales is Pinot's best climbing performance to date.

Romandie 2015 and Solden 2015 were good performances too !
yeah, they were at least more impressive as concerning the result than just putting pressure on Nibali on bales.
 
I enjoyed reading the kind words about Tibopino :) . And I agree with the general assessment wrt TJVG. Having said that, if they ride aggressively, BMC has two excellent GC guys and can wreak havoc. Who's going to chase after TJVG or Porte week 1 or 2? If all the Big-3 are close to each other, they may not be willing to burn themselves and their team. Someone will podium that is not a Big-3 rider, even if all three make it to Paris. The same could be sais about Astana, although Aru and Nibali are severe threats. Don't let them Chiappucci you, or you may never catch up...
 
Jun 30, 2014
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Re:

SeriousSam said:
He seems prone to having bad days
Tejay on a bad day usually looses 2-3 min, Richie Porte 20min, for me Aru, Pinot and Tejay will fight for a top 5 spot behind the 3 favourties and if one of them has a bad Tour one of those 3 will take the final podium spot.
 
Tejay should aim for a top 5. That would be a good result, anything less would be a slight disappointment.
Although his form is very inconsistent, more so than Richie's.

Tejay last year made a fuss about not being in the Top 4 of Nibbles, Froome, Contador and Quintana.
He is no where near that level if everyone is on top form, also the fact that he didn't go to the dauphine which is a better preparation race signals that he doesn't have the mentality to be able to win imo.

This week he spoke about Sky having to take the race up, but Tejay is never going to outclimb all of Froome, Quintana and Contador. So it surely should be up too BMC to animate the race, yet I imagine they will race defensively and for a Top 5 like usual. It shows such a tactical inept-ability.

For me Tejay has more chance of a Top 5, but they signed Richie as he has a much bigger chance of winning the race/ being on the podium

Porte's seen what it takes at Sky and on his day he can beat anyone in a summit finish.

I hope i'm wrong but Tejay needs to improve and change a lot or he is never going to reach his goal of a podium or win.
 
May 30, 2015
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yaco said:
I still expect both riders to ride their own race and see what happens.

Agreed. Porte's absolute peak is still better than TJ is capable of. Plus it's not like they'll be required to help each other that much. The strategy for BMC has always been to sit back and let SKY/Movistar/Astana set pace and just hope to be up there with the best when the Mountains climb their steepest.

The way Sky pushes GC's nowadays teammates are 'break glass in case of emergency' type option. So I can't see TJ really needing him unless he drops (in which case Porte's not far enough back that it would be worthwhile to make him slave TJ to the top) or if he has a mechanical (this is where Porte might be obliged to come off his bike but he can always look over the wrong shoulder and pretend he didn't hear TJ's request for help :D ). So nothing should change for BMC.

As for Porte himself I've always considered him mentally weak. So a set back like this is generally something that would break him. I was impressed by him coming out and talking to the media pretty much right after the race though. A lot of riders would have retreated to the bus and issued a statement through PR channels. Perhaps he's tougher than I give him credit for.
 

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