Teams & Riders The Big 6

[VayaVayaVaya]

Contador crashed heavily twice IIRC and started 1'30 back as a result. He was bad in the Pyrenees, but really it's one bad day on the hardest stage in the last 20 years in the Tour de France that cost him the win. If he's on a good day he's there with Schleck and he probably wins the next day with just waiting for AdH and not doing any crazy attacks.

Imo people underrate how strong Contador was on the AdH stage in 2011. Record Telegraphe off of basically no setup, then almost completely solo Galibier, get caught, and still drop most of the other contenders on AdH despite pacing it terribly, starting AdH on like a 39'00 pace before exploding completely.

In 2015 he had to push to the max to win the Giro in which he crashed heavily, disolocated his shoulder and nearly quit all the while being attacked by Astana every frigging day. Then he had the negative IQ idea to race Route du Sud as a prep race for the Tour, before again crashes in the Tour.

Dumoulin and Froome getting podium in both in 2018 is literally all you need to know. It's easily possible, especially if Vingegaard doesn't show up in top shape.

I think the biggest issue is that the odds of a mishap go up tremendously. It’s already fairly decent odds of a crash, mechanical, split, etc mucking up one GT, then you add in a second. I agree that history shows that having sufficient form is possible in the absence of an extremely strong peer who is laser focused on one, though.

I dunno but maybe UAE will win all 3 Tours this year ?

I do think this is the best chance Roglic will ever have again to win the tour but he has to be lucky and stay on his bike

It will be close between him and Pog if there are no mishaps ...will it divide the nation of Solvenia I wonder ? Will families be torn apart ?

The Vuelta will be Ayuso, del Toro , Yates & McNulty beating up on Evenepol..with Kuss and maybe Landa along for the ride

I think Vingegaard will crush everyone in the Vuelta after either a subpar or absent Tour.

 

[Red Rick]

I think the biggest issue is that the odds of a mishap go up tremendously. It’s already fairly decent odds of a crash, mechanical, split, etc mucking up one GT, then you add in a second. I agree that history shows that having sufficient form is possible in the absence of an extremely strong peer who is laser focused on one, though.

I think Vingegaard will crush everyone in the Vuelta after either a subpar or absent Tour.

Nah I disagree. The big reason it hasn't happened vs Pantani is that the guys that could do it wouldn't try it at the right time for reasons.

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

Nah I disagree. The big reason it hasn't happened vs Pantani is that the guys that could do it wouldn't try it at the right time for reasons.

Didn’t you just lay out a bunch of reasons that back up my assertion though? Contador was ok to win one race with a mishap, but compounding mishaps did him in. To win 2 competitive GTs in one season, you need to largely avoid mishap for 40 race days. That seems elusive for anyone not named Armstrong. Even Froome nearly lost the Giro in 2018 due to a crash. But maybe 2009 Contador before his luck turned could have done the triple.

 

[proffate]

Didn’t you just lay out a bunch of reasons that back up my assertion though? Contador was ok to win one race with a mishap, but compounding mishaps did him in. To win 2 competitive GTs in one season, you need to largely avoid mishap for 40 race days. That seems elusive for anyone not named Armstrong. Even Froome nearly lost the Giro in 2018 due to a crash. But maybe 2009 Contador before his luck turned could have done the triple.

I mean Pog has managed 5 consecutive GTs without any big issues.

 

[Red Rick]

Didn’t you just lay out a bunch of reasons that back up my assertion though? Contador was ok to win one race with a mishap, but compounding mishaps did him in. To win 2 competitive GTs in one season, you need to largely avoid mishap for 40 race days. That seems elusive for anyone not named Armstrong. Even Froome nearly lost the Giro in 2018 due to a crash. But maybe 2009 Contador before his luck turned could have done the triple.

No I'm laying out that lesser riders than Pogacar came very close to a double despite picking the wrong year to try and despite some bad luck along the way

 

[Salvarani]

No I'm laying out that lesser riders than Pogacar came very close to a double despite picking the wrong year to try and despite some bad luck along the way

So your point is you wouldnt be shocked if wins the double? Cool.

Easier said than done, but he might.

This dicussion is just tedious though.

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

No I'm laying out that lesser riders than Pogacar came very close to a double despite picking the wrong year to try and despite some bad luck along the way

I don't disagree with you, but there is also a heavy element of luck. Lance was astounding in that regard. I'm not a statistician, and I merely got an A- in statistics many years ago now, so smarter, more informed people can correct me, but here is my very simplified mathematical take on this, obviously built on some assumptions.

Let's assume the chance of an event disrupting prep before a GT is 10%, which seems way too low given that Remco and Vingegaard are disrupted for the Tour, Roglic was last year for the Giro, and Pogacar was last year for the Tour.

Then let's say, again conservatively, that the odds of a quest-ending mishap in a GT is 20%. Again, starting in 2023 and ignoring non-Big 4 riders, we had Remco get Covid in the Giro, Roglic crash hard and nearly lose the Giro as a result, and that was better than average, I would say, looking back at Roglic, Froome, Dumoulin, Contador, etc.

So then you get probability that a rider has a mishap before the Giro or during the Giro or before the Tour or during the Tour = probability that a rider has a mishap before the Giro + probability that a rider has a mishap during the Giro probability that a rider has a mishap before the Tour probability that a rider has a mishap during the Tour - the probability that a rider has a mishap before the Giro, during the Giro, before the Tour, and during the Tour = 10% + 20% + 10% + 20% - (10% x 20% x 10% x 20%) = ~59% chance that a rider has a disruptive mishap, even setting aside their relative strength to the competition.

The flaws in my assessment are:

• A good rider like Pogacar might have lower chances of a mishap than someone like Roglic
• My inputs (20%, 10%) are open to debate
• There's a chance my math is completely wrong because, again, I haven't done this in years

 

[jono]

I don't disagree with you, but there is also a heavy element of luck. Lance was astounding in that regard. I'm not a statistician, and I merely got an A- in statistics many years ago now, so smarter, more informed people can correct me, but here is my very simplified mathematical take on this, obviously built on some assumptions.

Let's assume the chance of an event disrupting prep before a GT is 10%, which seems way too low given that Remco and Vingegaard are disrupted for the Tour, Roglic was last year for the Giro, and Pogacar was last year for the Tour.

Then let's say, again conservatively, that the odds of a quest-ending mishap in a GT is 20%. Again, starting in 2023 and ignoring non-Big 4 riders, we had Remco get Covid in the Giro, Roglic crash hard and nearly lose the Giro as a result, and that was better than average, I would say, looking back at Roglic, Froome, Dumoulin, Contador, etc.

So then you get probability that a rider has a mishap before the Giro or during the Giro or before the Tour or during the Tour = probability that a rider has a mishap before the Giro + probability that a rider has a mishap during the Giro probability that a rider has a mishap before the Tour probability that a rider has a mishap during the Tour - the probability that a rider has a mishap before the Giro, during the Giro, before the Tour, and during the Tour = 10% + 20% + 10% + 20% - (10% x 20% x 10% x 20%) = ~59% chance that a rider has a disruptive mishap, even setting aside their relative strength to the competition.

The flaws in my assessment are:

• A good rider like Pogacar might have lower chances of a mishap than someone like Roglic
• My inputs (20%, 10%) are open to debate
• There's a chance my math is completely wrong because, again, I haven't done this in years

Not sure that's how the math works but your result is close enough.

Given your assumptions, I think you calculate the probability of avoiding a disruptive mishap at each step as a combined probability.

.9 * .8 * .9 * .8 = ~52%

 

[AmRacer]

The currently big 2 and a half.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

I don't disagree with you, but there is also a heavy element of luck. Lance was astounding in that regard. I'm not a statistician, and I merely got an A- in statistics many years ago now, so smarter, more informed people can correct me, but here is my very simplified mathematical take on this, obviously built on some assumptions.

Let's assume the chance of an event disrupting prep before a GT is 10%, which seems way too low given that Remco and Vingegaard are disrupted for the Tour, Roglic was last year for the Giro, and Pogacar was last year for the Tour.

Then let's say, again conservatively, that the odds of a quest-ending mishap in a GT is 20%. Again, starting in 2023 and ignoring non-Big 4 riders, we had Remco get Covid in the Giro, Roglic crash hard and nearly lose the Giro as a result, and that was better than average, I would say, looking back at Roglic, Froome, Dumoulin, Contador, etc.

So then you get probability that a rider has a mishap before the Giro or during the Giro or before the Tour or during the Tour = probability that a rider has a mishap before the Giro + probability that a rider has a mishap during the Giro probability that a rider has a mishap before the Tour probability that a rider has a mishap during the Tour - the probability that a rider has a mishap before the Giro, during the Giro, before the Tour, and during the Tour = 10% + 20% + 10% + 20% - (10% x 20% x 10% x 20%) = ~59% chance that a rider has a disruptive mishap, even setting aside their relative strength to the competition.

The flaws in my assessment are:

• A good rider like Pogacar might have lower chances of a mishap than someone like Roglic
• My inputs (20%, 10%) are open to debate
• There's a chance my math is completely wrong because, again, I haven't done this in years

As @jono said the probability of avoiding mishap in this case would be 52% (so 48% of having a mishap). However, the total probability of mishap before/between Tours shouldn't be taken twice: in case of a double the time period while not riding any GT is actually smaller than in case of one GT so the probability in this case is lower (let's say 5% instead of 10%). Then

probability of avoiding a mishap for a one GT scenario is then 0.8*0.9 = 0.72 (so 28% of having a mishap)
probability of avoiding a mishap for a GT double is then 0.8*0.8*0.95 = 0.61 (so 39% of having a mishap)

If you want to be more precise you could assume some probabilities of a mishap per one week of preparation and per one week of a GT. If the second value is higher (that's your assumption) then 2 double GT scenario is always more dangerous than a one GT scenario regardless of exact assumed parameter values (more dangerous per statistical week and in total).

 

[scribers]

I think you can use actual data from races to determine how many 1. crash 2. crash abandon 3. crash abandon with long term effect. 4. DNS due to illness or training crash.

I am not doing that. I can barely figure out what I need to accomplish in any given day

 

[Netserk]

Van der Poel relegated after today. We only have a Big Duo: Pogi & Vingegaard.

 

[Froome]

Van der Poel relegated after today. We only have a Big Duo: Pogi & Vingegaard.

He still did a better classification than the others five today.

 

[AmRacer]

I think you can use actual data from races to determine how many 1. crash 2. crash abandon 3. crash abandon with long term effect. 4. DNS due to illness or training crash.

I am not doing that. I can barely figure out what I need to accomplish in any given day

Crash

 

[Eagle_Alps]

First time all of them 6 are together in the same race?
Will we see them all together in front on stage 1? Would be epic.

 

[Miha81]

First time all of them 6 are together in the same race?
Will we see them all together in front on stage 1? Would be epic.

Hopefully all in decent form and ready to race. Just the anticipation of the start of this years edition is worth waiting

 

[Peyroteo94]

Time to chance to Gigantic 1 and the Big 5

 

[Berniece]

Time to chance to Gigantic 1 and the Big 5

After 1 season? Seems very premature.

 

[peterfin]

It's alien vs predators. The predators lost the battle but in the end they will defeat the xenomorph and overcome even his acid blood.

 

[Red Rick]

Time to chance to Gigantic 1 and the Big 5

Seems very generous to keep Van Aert in

 

[Bolder]

Seems very generous to keep Van Aert in

Could replace with Mads Pedersen or Hirschi? But I still think Wout is among the very, very best when healthy.

 

[Netserk]

Could replace with Mads Pedersen or Hirschi? But I still think Wout is among the very, very best when healthy.

Philipsen is 6th, but I think a group with him, Van Aert, Pedersen etc. make more sense than grouping any of them with the top dogs.

 

[rallybanana]

Time to chance to Gigantic 1 and the Big 5

Pogi is the Special One

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Was never the big six to begin with.

Pogacar
Vingegaard - MVDP - (Remco)
Roglic - (WVA)

Remco could also be in a tier between Vingegaard/MVDP and Roglic and WVA probably on the lowest step on his own.

 

[Berniece]

Was never the big six to begin with.

Pogacar
Vingegaard - MVDP - (Remco)
Roglic - (WVA)

Remco could also be in a tier between Vingegaard/MVDP and Roglic and WVA probably on the lowest step on his own.

It's not about ranking riders within this group, the big 6 is about riders that if they are at the start and in form, they will win. And that's still the case for all 6.