The best climbers in the world?

[Galic Ho]

Where is the Horner quote? He's second best because he dropped an out of form Schleck and Vande Velde? Give me a break.

Didn't you hear? Peaking at 39 years of age is the new norm!

 

[Altitude]

Mosquera is easily top 5. Nobody likes to give him credit.

 

[ferryman]

Igor Anton is the only one to have dropped Contador on a climb since 2007(or longer).

honger knock in 2009 not counted and also not counting losing a sprint up a mtf.

Stage 8 TDF 2010? He couldn't go with first Andy and then Samu but I am willing to cede that it could be described as an extended sprint at that point in the stage

 

[Anonymous]

Where is the Horner quote? He's second best because he dropped an out of form Schleck and Vande Velde? Give me a break.

He said it fter the first "mountain" stage of the ToC. And for what its worth, Phil Liggett agrees with him.

actually he said

“ it’s pretty simple to see that in the last four years my form has been with the best in the world and with the exception of Alberto Contador I don’t think there’s anyone that can drop me.”

So the only person who can drop him on a climb is Contador. So 2nd best on that basis,.

 

[ferryman]

Are you kidding. Anglo riders are the most hated riders on this forum. People like Cav and Wiggins can get huge hate threads just by opening their mouth. We hate guys like Ligget because they say Richie Porte will beat real gt riders purely because hes english.

Italians, spaniards, Vino, are most liked.

Not English, Porte is an Aussie from Tasmania.

 

[Ryaguas]

So why the love for Spanish cyclists if you're from nord pas de calais/picardië?

Love for cycling I'd say!
Dont get me wrong... I support big time the french riders but I always take care cuz I dont want to jinx them... You already see what happens to them sometimes...
I always cheering for almost everyone who takes the victory... Ppl here on the forum has seen that I cheer big time for Alejet, Alberto, Rujano, Flecha, Gilbert, and much more... Also depends of my mood on the day...
Also since I speak spanish (my mother taught me, She is specialized in Latin American Poetry----> Ruben Dario is a poet from Nicaragua I think... My father rooted for a name like Peter or Paul but mah... I really like my name) is easy to create a bound and cheer for them... I read their interviews, comments, twitters etc...

Yeah, but most people of nord pas de calais usually are big fans of the cobbled races

Well I love the mountains!
To see the dolomites is such an awesome thing (now that We are seeing Il Giro.... or to see and ride Galibier or Tourmalet uffff...

I think Danilo Hondo takes the cake

I was thinking this!!! hahahaha

 

[Altitude]

He said it fter the first "mountain" stage of the ToC. And for what its worth, Phil Liggett agrees with him.

actually he said



So the only person who can drop him on a climb is Contador. So 2nd best on that basis,.

Unreal. Hesjedal claiming to be third best is even more insane.

 

[Anonymous]

Unreal. Hesjedal claiming to be third best is even more insane.

I have a feeling it was the Garmin twitter account that said that "ryder considers himself the 3rd best climber in the world" but dont quote me on that.

 

[rzombie1988]

I'd definitely have Contador first with either Ricco or Schleck second.

 

[El Pistolero]

Love for cycling I'd say!
Dont get me wrong... I support big time the french riders but I always take care cuz I dont want to jinx them... You already see what happens to them sometimes...
I always cheering for almost everyone who takes the victory... Ppl here on the forum has seen that I cheer big time for Alejet, Alberto, Rujano, Flecha, Gilbert, and much more... Also depends of my mood on the day...
Also since I speak spanish (my mother taught me, She is specialized in Latin American Poetry----> Ruben Dario is a poet from Nicaragua I think... My father rooted for a name like Peter or Paul but mah... I really like my name) is easy to create a bound and cheer for them... I read their interviews, comments, twitters etc...



Well I love the mountains!
To see the dolomites is such an awesome thing (now that We are seeing Il Giro.... or to see and ride Galibier or Tourmalet uffff...



I was thinking this!!! hahahaha

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubén_Darío

Yeah, he is

 

[Christian]

tbh schleck always seems to blow it at some point.

in 2008 he had a bad day and lost his winning chances early on (second week iirc)

in 2009 there was a fall on the first week that was forgiven and everybody waited for him.

in 2010 on stage 2(thats like the first motherfre@king chance he had to blow it) he was 5 minutes behind due to a fall and everybody waited for him again. and then he blew it one last time on the chain gate incident when contador rightfully attacked.

if this year no1 forgives his mistakes like they should, andy could reach the first mountain stage 5 minutes back on some1 like samu or basso (i am even going to assume that contador isn't there) and i can't see andy taking that much time on guys like them, mostly on basso

It's all about being at the right GT at the right time. DiLuca got busted the year before and the year after IIRC, but in 2007 he didn't (even though he had "the hormone levels of a child") and Andy got 2nd. Contador won cause Rasmussen got busted, Nibali will win cause Contador will get busted.

Kreuziger is another Slav with a German name, on the other hand Grischa Janorschke and Patrik Sinkewitz both have names that are clearly Germanised versions of Slavic names.

There is also Leopold König of Team NetApp. But as I'm sure you are aware there are still German speaking communities in many Eastern European countries such as the Sudetendeutsche. There are also cities such as Kaliningrad (Königsberg) or Gdansk (Danzig) with German history. Two of the most prominent examples would be Franz Kafka of Prague and Nobel-price winner Herta Müller of Romania

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Are you in essence suggesting is that if Gesink were riding this current Giro, being in your opinion better than Nibali, would he be in 3rd place on GC? I don't think he would. I have no reason to suggest he'd be higher than Menchov. That in itself is suggestive enough. It comes down to the same thing I hear from Aussies about our nations young riders. Till they do it on the road against big names, I refuse to talk them up.

So, did you expect Gadret and Rujano to finish higher up than Menchov? Rujano even starting with a 4,5 minute deficit going into the mountains up to Menchov???

What a laughable argument then. Gesink eats guys like Gadret for lunch for crying out loud

 

[The Hitch]

Not English, Porte is an Aussie from Tasmania.

I meant English speaking obviously

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubén_Darío

Yeah, he is

Yes we all know how to use wikipedia

Though between living in Spain, having a Spanish name and cheering Spanish cyclists i can be forgiven for thinking RD was Spanish.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

It's all about being at the right GT at the right time. DiLuca got busted the year before and the year after IIRC, but in 2007 he didn't (even though he had "the hormone levels of a child") and Andy got 2nd. Contador won cause Rasmussen got busted, Nibali will win cause Contador will get busted.



There is also Leopold König of Team NetApp. But as I'm sure you are aware there are still German speaking communities in many Eastern European countries such as the Sudetendeutsche. There are also cities such as Kaliningrad (Königsberg) or Gdansk (Danzig) with German history. Two of the most prominent examples would be Franz Kafka of Prague and Nobel-price winner Herta Müller of Romania

Naturally. Many a border has shifted over time. Immanuel Kant was from Königsberg, so a German philosopher in a city now in Russia, while Adam Mickiewicz, the greatest ever writer in the Polish language, spent most of his life in Wilno, now Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. For a long time through much of Central and Eastern Europe, the nobility were German or Magyar and the countryfolk Slavs. You had your German displaced communities (the Transylvanian Germans, the Wymysorys and the Volga Germans, for example) but then you also had mixed populations elsewhere, and there are Slav minorities in German countries to this day (Sorbs in the Lausitz, Croats in Bürgenland, Austria).

The nation state is a very 19th Century idea. Trying to draw up lines that are borders between populations that have been mixed for centuries is asking for trouble.

 

[rzombie1988]

It's all about being at the right GT at the right time. DiLuca got busted the year before and the year after IIRC, but in 2007 he didn't (even though he had "the hormone levels of a child") and Andy got 2nd. Contador won cause Rasmussen got busted, Nibali will win cause Contador will get busted.



There is also Leopold König of Team NetApp. But as I'm sure you are aware there are still German speaking communities in many Eastern European countries such as the Sudetendeutsche. There are also cities such as Kaliningrad (Königsberg) or Gdansk (Danzig) with German history. Two of the most prominent examples would be Franz Kafka of Prague and Nobel-price winner Herta Müller of Romania

Schleck will win the 2010 TdF too if Contador gets busted.

 

[greenedge]

Porte ended up 7th in the Giro after a long breakaway, so are you saying it's not a valid way to gain time?

Porte has potential to be a GC dude, Gilbert will stick with classics. It does not mean he will finish in the top 10 at any tour.

Riders like Cadel/ Nibali will have to be considered better than Scarponi based on this yr. Cadel 2 stage race wins scarponi one. Scarponi is becoming good in this giro not blowing up as much but still. Also Basso and Rodriguez have underperformed this yr. Rodriguez should be 15 seconds behind Contador in this Giro, it's his climbing playground. Basso tried to win some races but got smoked by Cadel. He finished 30th in some race that Cadel won and 40th in an ITT. Even Vino and Gesink did well. I think we should post this thread again after the TDF where the dudes we consider top climbers will have shown us their abillities, as well as the ones at the Giro at the moment. So for the sake of those rider's who are failing this yr let's talk about it then

Also for all the people saying all the dopers will be better, Rasmussen is in an obscure team, Di Luca is not winning anything some time soon, Ricco ?????????????? WTH and Valverde we have to wait till next yr. Valverde could win a Northen classic in my view

 

[Ferminal]

Contador
Andy
(Ricco)
Anton
Basso
Samu
Rujano
Rodriguez
(Soler)
Gesink
Scarponi
Horner
Menchov
Evans
Frank
Nibali
Klöden
JVdB
(Moncoutie)
Gadret
Kreuziger
Arroyo
Hesjedal
Vino
CAS
Duarte
Bottle
Tommy D
Wigans

Hard to tell for some like Basso and Evans as they haven't done a proper GT for 12months.

 

[rzombie1988]

Porte has potential to be a GC dude, Gilbert will stick with classics. It does not mean he will finish in the top 10 at any tour.

Riders like Cadel/ Nibali will have to be considered better than Scarponi based on this yr. Cadel 2 stage race wins scarponi one. Scarponi is becoming good in this giro not blowing up as much but still. Also Basso and Rodriguez have underperformed this yr. Rodriguez should be 15 seconds behind Contador in this Giro, it's his climbing playground. Basso tried to win some races but got smoked by Cadel. He finished 30th in some race that Cadel won and 40th in an ITT. Even Vino and Gesink did well. I think we should post this thread again after the TDF where the dudes we consider top climbers will have shown us their abillities, as well as the ones at the Giro at the moment. So for the sake of those rider's who are failing this yr let's talk about it then

Also for all the people saying all the dopers will be better, Rasmussen is in an obscure team, Di Luca is not winning anything some time soon, Ricco ?????????????? WTH and Valverde we have to wait till next yr. Valverde could win a Northen classic in my view

I'll take doped up Rasmussen over anyone. He owned Contador and for me was the true winner of the TdF 2007. Remember, the UCI pretty much outright told pro teams not to sign him, so you can't really blame him for not making a pro team. I don't think they've tried to burn any other rider as bad as him. Look at all the garbage he had to go through to get his current team going. It also doesn't help him that the president of the Danish federation doesn't like him. As for his recent results, I'd like to see how some of the current top guys would do at the smaller levels with much worse teams than they have now.

 

[rokopt]

Thanks for the informative thread.

One aspect of rating "best climbers" is weighting the relative importance of abilities in different types of climbs. Thus, differences among posters' weightings might obscure both differences and similarities in how they rate riders within each type of climb. So, would anyone be willing to indulge a new poster by listing their top few climbers within one or more specific types of climb? Here are a few possible types:

- Ardennes-style puncheur's climbs
- Short, steep stage-race finishes such as the Montée Laurent Jalabert
- Long, steady climbs such as the Tourmalet
- Super-climbs featuring both considerable length and severe gradients, such as the Zoncolan or Angliru
- Very long stages featuring many substantial mountains, such as stage 15 of this year's Giro

(These are only ideas; I'm sure others can do a better job of categorizing climbs than I.)

(A separate choice is how to weight peak performance versus mean or median performance, so if you want to get even more specific, how do you rate climbers in one or more of the above types at their peak, or at their mean performance? For example, maybe you consider Andy better than Samu at long mountain stages when both are at their peak, but Samu better when both are at their year-round average.)

Thanks in advance for any responses!

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

He said it fter the first "mountain" stage of the ToC. And for what its worth, Phil Liggett agrees with him.

actually he said

So the only person who can drop him on a climb is Contador. So 2nd best on that basis,.

He is doing the tour right? i Hope he gets owned so bad.

I have a feeling it was the Garmin twitter account that said that "ryder considers himself the 3rd best climber in the world" but dont quote me on that.

this guy also.

I just hope that in the Tour Gesink doesnt get some huge ttt advantage, then hang on in the next 3 weeks, beat a few people in the itt to get a podium which he wouldnt have got close too without the ttt, and have all the fanboys declare how good he is.

We already had to put up with that in TA

Outside of the TA and Basque this year (and I really don't know what to make of the 1st part of the season, he wasn't himself) this is not his style, and I don't wanna see the guy win like this either. Like I said at TA and Basque he hasn't been climbing great, he managed to stick with it, but struggled. He is capable of much more.

This is the problem with comparing riders. They don't always race the same events.

As for the Vuelta 09, this has been done to death, mostly because you drag it up. Gesink dropped off the pace. Till he gets that podium, it's not fair to state he has shown he can do it. He falls off his bike all the damn time. Crash here, crash there and then it's used as an excuse for why he didn't get the podium he was destined to claim. I'm yet to see him light the road up in a GT. Granted he did well in 09 at the Vuelta and was a Super Domestique at last years Tour for Menchov, Nibali by far has a better record. When he's been team leader, he's delivered pretty well.

Are you in essence suggesting is that if Gesink were riding this current Giro, being in your opinion better than Nibali, would he be in 3rd place on GC? I don't think he would. I have no reason to suggest he'd be higher than Menchov. That in itself is suggestive enough. It comes down to the same thing I hear from Aussies about our nations young riders. Till they do it on the road against big names, I refuse to talk them up.

stupid argument. This thread isn't who the best GC rider is, or who has the best palmares. Gesink failing at the vuelta 09; isn't the point, the point is until the final mountain stage, where he did indeed have a hole in his knee was climbing awesome. Outdoing guys like mosquera, evans and samu at times. The mountains where he was good, he was very good, so your point is mute. This in a more difficult field then last year I might add, where nibali with 2 years on gesink won. I am pretty sure if a fresh Gesink went to the vuelta could have beaten nibali, but a whatif situation does us nothing.

And again 6th place at basically his first tour is very good, in what was a strong field. He is on the right track no doubt.

Gesink made his name in the mountains. Paris-nice, ToC, Basque, Dauphne etc all races he was very good in the mountains in the past. The proof is there.

As for the giro, well menchov hasn't looked great, but again a whatif situation does us little.

And might I add the contradiction in your posts are unbearable;

Anton or Rujano. Majestic, cool and damn awesome when on song. In the hills, they're amazing.

wait a sec pal, aren't these guys the same as gesink, as injuries, crashes, motivation, some issue has always prevented them from acheieving what they are capable of? hmmmm your posts seem pretty incosistant ey I mean Gesink has performed in mountains also but crashed out, and you find it appropiate to belittle his climbing abilities, why not these guys?

 

[RedheadDane]

I'd say this guy gets pretty high up as well!

 

[Duartista]

Many people here seem to consider 'climber' as a synonym for 'GT rider'. But a climber has always been a specific kind of rider - i.e. those who excel in the high mountains, and have to attack to gain time against more all round talents. So, Bahamontes, Gaul, Herrera were all climbers, while I've never heard Anquetil or Hinault described as a climber. Hence, riders like Menchov, Sanchez, Nibali, Evans, Valverde who generally just try to defend themselves in the mountains cannot be called climbers, imo.

 

[Duartista]

Gesink made his name in the mountains. Paris-nice, ToC, Basque, Dauphne etc all races he was very good in the mountains in the past. The proof is there.

Gesink is without doubt a very talented climber, but I'm a little worried that he will blunt his climbing ability as he tries to become more of an all round GT rider. Genuine climbers are in short supply at the top end of the sport, so I hope this doesn't happen.

 

[Squire]

1 Albert (Contador)
2 Andrew (Schleck)
3 The Cobra (Ricco)
4 Gonzalez (Samu)
5 Ivan Grozny (Basso)
6 162cm (Rujano)
7 The undefeated (?????)
8 BMC (Evans)
9 Zapatero (??? Valverde?)
10 Fuji (Anton)
11 Purito (Rodriguez)
12 The Condor (Gesink)
13 The sicilian (Nibali)
14 Hydroxynel Starch (Mosquera)
15 Rene (????)
16 John Gadret
17 Garzelli
18 The Pope (Menchov)
19 39yo (Horner)

I thought I had picked up most of the CNForum nicknames by now (or rather Hitch nicknames), but a few of these beat me. Scarponi should be in there somewhere, same with Valverde.

 

[Parrulo]

I thought I had picked up most of the CNForum nicknames by now (or rather Hitch nicknames), but a few of these beat me. Scarponi should be in there somewhere, same with Valverde.

1 Albert (Contador)
2 Andrew (Schleck)
3 The Cobra (Ricco)
4 Gonzalez (Samu)
5 Ivan Grozny (Basso)
6 162cm (Rujano)
7 The undefeated (?????)<- valverde
8 BMC (Evans)
9 Zapatero (??? Valverde?)<- scarponi
10 Fuji (Anton)
11 Purito (Rodriguez)
12 The Condor (Gesink)
13 The sicilian (Nibali)
14 Hydroxynel Starch (Mosquera)
15 Rene (????)
16 John Gadret
17 Garzelli
18 The Pope (Menchov)
19 39yo (Horner)