The Rohan Dennis thread

[Red Rick]

We can joke about the 'process' that his GT dream is, but I gotta give it to him. Best flat TT'er in the world right now. Rode 4 ITTs in GTs this year, won 3, and only lost the prologue of the Giro by 2s.

Looks like a real threat for the Worlds

 

[Cance > TheRest]

I love the title.

Dennis has been a real threat for the worlds in a few years, though. He was also almost a guaranteed silver medal in Rio Olympics if his TT handlebar hadn't broken off.

But yeah. We could be entering a new era with Dennis in the leading role like Cancellara and Tony Martin in their heydays (if the guy decides to not make a full blown Wiggo transformation, that is)

 

[Cookster15]

Thanks for the thread. Yes after today I think you might be right. Dennis TT form is perfectly timed. He should be absolutely flying at the Worlds.

 

[Laplaz]

Yeah great ride today. Would be nice if he would find a second speciality. He tried GC in Giro but cracked hard in the 3rd week.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

I love the title.

Dennis has been a real threat for the worlds in a few years, though. He was also almost a guaranteed silver medal in Rio Olympics if his TT handlebar hadn't broken off.

But yeah. We could be entering a new era with Dennis in the leading role like Cancellara and Tony Martin in their heydays (if the guy decides to not make a full blown Wiggo transformation, that is)

You are forgetting that Wiggo actually got significantly better in time trials after the transformation, so Bradley Dennis would be extremely scary. He would have putten 2 minutes into the opposition today!

 

[hrotha]

I mean, probably better not to count on once-in-a-century transformations like Wiggins's being replicable.

 

[May0maniac]

Re:

Yeah great ride today. Would be nice if he would find a second speciality. He tried GC in Giro but cracked hard in the 3rd week.

He was still respectable until then, his best chance for a Giro top 10 was probably last year.
He could probably also be pretty good in shorter stage races that feature an ITT, he already has a top 10 in Romandie when the longer ITT was a MTT and a 2nd place in Tirreno-Adriatico last year, not to mention 2nd places on gc in smaller races like ToB and Cali (twice) and a top 10 in the 2013 Dauphine that featured a longer ITT when he was still young, that's not that bad.
Copeland has said that he won't go for gc in a gt until after the Olympics, but he can still do pretty well in short stage races that feature an ITT while being a dominant TT specialist at the same time.

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

I mean, probably better not to count on once-in-a-century transformations like Wiggins's being replicable.

His ride in the Giro was about as expected. The third week was too much for him.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Re: Re:

I love the title.

Dennis has been a real threat for the worlds in a few years, though. He was also almost a guaranteed silver medal in Rio Olympics if his TT handlebar hadn't broken off.

But yeah. We could be entering a new era with Dennis in the leading role like Cancellara and Tony Martin in their heydays (if the guy decides to not make a full blown Wiggo transformation, that is)

You are forgetting that Wiggo actually got significantly better in time trials after the transformation, so Bradley Dennis would be extremely scary. He would have putten 2 minutes into the opposition today!

Yeah, that's right. Wiggins-transformation is probably a bad example as I guess Wiggins is the exception to the rule.

 

[IndianCyclist]

There are only 2 super timetrialist left Him and Dumoulin. Gold & silver looks to decided between those 2

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

There are only 2 super timetrialist left Him and Dumoulin. Gold & silver looks to decided between those 2

Really Dennis should be in better form considering Dumoulin has had to recover from a Giro/Tour double.

Not sure who the route favours. Plenty of flat but that is one solid climb in a 50+km ITT.

I also think this ITT is too long and too hard to not have an effect on the road race.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

The problem for Dennis is, that he never seems to do exceptionally well in TT's longer than 35/40km. (see also, his world hour record attempt). And the second problem is that the worlds course is really hilly, with even a 5km climb inside. It's not only the climb, the whole final 22km is up and down.

If Dumoulin is even close to his best, he'd beat Dennis on that kind of course.

Second problem, yes he wins a lot of big ITT because its his main focus. But he does benefit from Dumoulins higher focus on GC and lesser weight in many of those. The loss in the Giro prologue is actually very telling how close a rested Dumoulin would actually be, even in flat itt's

 

[Red Rick]

Giro prologue was super technical.

And I definitely think Dennis has stepped up compared to a few years ago.

Dumoulin in top shape would crush it, but I also remember that Dumoulin had a lot of trouble peaking for the Worlds ITT in 2016, when he finished neither the Giro or Tour

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

That's because he peaked for Giro (but gave up with saddle sore), rode Tour (won 2 stages and gave up after fall) and peaked for olympics (shortly after Tour). He couldn't get a 4th peak. Perfectly normal. Only really sucked in Doha, in the others worlds itt he did below par he still did better than Dennis (richmond i think?)

 

[GuyIncognito]

Re:

We could be entering a new era with Dennis in the leading role like Cancellara and Tony Martin in their heydays (if the guy decides to not make a full blown Wiggo transformation, that is)

Chances are against it.

If his time trialing peak lasts to the same age as Cancellara's and Martin's did (28-29 being the last peak year, big downturn starting the season they turn 30), then next season will be his last at this level.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Re: Re:

We could be entering a new era with Dennis in the leading role like Cancellara and Tony Martin in their heydays (if the guy decides to not make a full blown Wiggo transformation, that is)

Chances are against it.

If his time trialing peak lasts to the same age as Cancellara's and Martin's did (28-29 being the last peak year, big downturn starting the season they turn 30), then next season will be his last at this level.

In Cancellara's case, I also think his "decline" started because he changed his priorities to the classics when Martin came along and started beating him in 2011. I don't think it's a given that riders experience a decline in their time trial abilities when they hit 28-29 years. Wiggins was at his best when he was 31-34 years old

 

[Sestriere]

Going by his social media he has mostly been dealing with beer in the last few days (deservedly so, I might add). With Bjerg's Hour Record Attempt coming up today I was nevertheless wondering why he didn't go for another try right off the World Championships. His form is excellent and he is probably on the peak of his time trialling ability. He has been training to excell at 1-hour-efforts over the past months and these are also the last weeks where he could have benefited from the BMC-wondermachine. Did he say something about this matter recently? Or is it not a worthy goal now that he is a world champion possibly looking at GC success in the future?

 

[Red Rick]

High up on GC in Suisse now. Obviously the way they climbed the MTF today was very kind to him, but maybe he can force Bernal to attack earlier tomorrow.

 

[jmdirt]

Rohan Dennis

He climbed pretty well today. I hope that he develops in steps: he's already taken the initial steps, now one week stage race GC, then GTs GC. Ride the TdF with VN and learn, but have ZERO GC expectations.

That being said, I would rather see him develop as a TT smasher/classics guy/stage hunter (maybe the most realistic).

 

[HelloDolly]

He is not a man for the high mountains and I fear trying to be may take away from other things

But he can win Suisse and other stage races because of his TT which will gain him a load of time on Saturday

 

[search]

well, they'll enter exactly those high mountains tomorrow - and even more so, on Sunday... I would be very surprised if he finishes anywhere close to the overall podium, to be honest, basically no matter the length of the time trial

 

[Cookster15]

I agree with those above. We know more by Saturday. A good ride by him today but at this time I suspect Dennis will fade in the high mountains.

 

[movingtarget]

Still the Tour of Switzerland is nowhere near as mountainous as it used to be. Cancellara even won one year. Dennis will drop time of course, how much will depend on how hard it's raced.

 

[Leinster]

Re:

Still the Tour of Switzerland is nowhere near as mountainous as it used to be. Cancellara even won one year. Dennis will drop time of course, how much will depend on how hard it's raced.

Kelly won it twice. DeVlaeminck won it in 75. Just because Switzerland is known for mountains doesn’t mean the race always has to be.

 

[Escarabajo]

Sunday looks mountainous enough to me. 3 peaks above 2000 m. If Dennis keep up with the climbers he will be going extremely well.