Teams & Riders Tom Dumoulin discussion thread

[Rollthedice]

There is nothing to add. Riders get hunger knocks, cramps, crashes or poops and then they loose time. Part of the game.

 

[rick james]

Re:

There is nothing to add. Riders get hunger knocks, cramps, crashes or poops and then they loose time. Part of the game.

And Asthma attacks :Neutral:

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Re:

Well I'm certainly not complaining. Having the two strongest GT riders targeting the Giro (we'll see if Froome can ride it) is a breath of fresh air.

That said, it really comes as a surprise. A Dutch GT rider in his prime choosing the Giro over the Tour. Kruijswijk doesn't feel alone anymore.

Yeah, its pretty much unheard of. Imagine Contador and Schleck or Armstrong and Ullrich targetting the Giro in their prime like that (well its not the same obviously since Dumoulin doesn't have the GC-credentials, but still). Last time the two best GC-riders went to the Giro was 2006, but Ullrich was starting to shred 10 kg before TdF and Basso could have 60 racedays pre Tour and still win.

Honestly after one Giro I think it's a pretty big leap to proclaim Dumoulin one of the 2 best GC rider in the world after he won a GT heavy Giro by 40s to the rest of the podium and the rest of the top 5 at less than 2 minutes.

Even if Nibali and Quintana were not at their best and it's been a long time for both of them, it was still an impressive first GT win by Dumoulin looking at the team he had at the Giro plus the GT records of the two riders he beat. But looking at the race before the final TT and seeing how bunched the top five riders were still gives the impression that Dumoulin met Quintana and Nibali at the right time. Still that's not Dumoulin's fault. Let's face it if TTs were like they used to be in GTs in how many kms are ridden no one would be getting near Froome and Dumoulin. But of course they have also cut back on the long mountain stages which did give climbers more opportunities to claw back more time

Personally I don't like what they have done with the TT stages. If they are going to have short and long mountain stages, the TTs should be the same but they seem to be keeping the kms down in the TTs simply to make the races more of a competition. I would would be glad to see the back of TTTs altogether. Too many times a GC rider has a fall or the team performs badly and he is already out of contention. The TTT discriminates against the smaller, weaker teams. To me having a pan flat 20 km TT is a waste. Surely they can make it a bit more interesting than that and if they want a competition then that sort of course won't be helping the climbers anyway. A few more mountain TTs and technical courses would be good or courses with variable terrain. And every few years if they want to have a long TT and no TTT I don't see a problem. But it seems these days the ASO at least is thinking a lot about TV viewers and maybe they think the long TT is no longer relevant and the riders and fans don't want it.

 

[Escarabajo]

Pure climbers have never had a chance with long TT at the Tour. Exception being during the free epo era, Van impe and accidents.

 

[Netserk]

Re:

Pure climbers have never had a chance with long TT at the Tour. It took them 100 years to realize that. Exception being during the free epo era, Van impe and accidents.

Nor had pure TTers...

And when is someone a pure climber? Rasmussen? Sastre? Contador? Basso?

The truth is that the best TTers among the GC contenders have always been way better climbers than 'pure' climbers have been TTers.

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Re:

Pure climbers have never had a chance with long TT at the Tour. It took them 100 years to realize that. Exception being during the free epo era, Van impe and accidents.

Nor had pure TTers...

And when is someone a pure climber? Rasmussen? Sastre? Contador? Basso?

The truth is that the best TTers among the GC contenders have always been way better climbers than 'pure' climbers have been TTers.

The sport has changed, you have to be an all rounder now. Even Quintana is not a pure climber in the classic sense. The reason Andy Schleck and others like Bardet struggled to win a GT was simply because their mountain gains were wiped out by mediocre TTs. That plus the stages are shorter and the racing is usually more conservative than it used to be especially in the mountains. Sastre and Rasmussen were closer to being pure climbers and Sastre won the Tour with one attack and an incredibly strong team. Basso and Contador could always TT much better than the other two.

 

[bambino]

Re: Re:

Pure climbers have never had a chance with long TT at the Tour. It took them 100 years to realize that. Exception being during the free epo era, Van impe and accidents.

Nor had pure TTers...

And when is someone a pure climber? Rasmussen? Sastre? Contador? Basso?

The truth is that the best TTers among the GC contenders have always been way better climbers than 'pure' climbers have been TTers.

The sport has changed, you have to be an all rounder now. Even Quintana is not a pure climber in the classic sense. The reason Andy Schleck and others like Bardet struggled to win a GT was simply because their mountain gains were wiped out by mediocre TTs. That plus the stages are shorter and the racing is usually more conservative than it used to be especially in the mountains. Sastre and Rasmussen were closer to being pure climbers and Sastre won the Tour with one attack and an incredibly strong team. Basso and Contador could always TT much better than the other two.

Only one rider has "changed" the way of winning GT's and we all know who it is. That one rider is Top 3 climber AND TT'er. It does not mean the sport has changed. Outside Froome, the past GT winners have been climbing oriented more than TT oriented and that can be said to virtually everyone that has been in the podium pehind Froome as well. So I would not say the "sport" has changed. But yes I agree, you need to be at least decent in the TT to be able to win Grand Tour. Quintana is decent, Nibali is actually pretty good (Top 10 in GT) when he has a good day, Contador defintely good, Aru mediocre thus climbing oriented.

It is still to be seen if Major Tom really is the GT monster in making, I wouldn't make the judgement based on one Giro win regardless who was there as opponents. Aru wasn't suddenly next to Froome in the ranking of best GT riders after he won Vuelta, why would Tom achieve that automatically with one Giro win? And I'm not saying he would not be in that level, but I think we lack of bit of evidence to make that conclusion.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Re:

Pure climbers have never had a chance with long TT at the Tour. It took them 100 years to realize that. Exception being during the free epo era, Van impe and accidents.

Nor had pure TTers...

And when is someone a pure climber? Rasmussen? Sastre? Contador? Basso?

The truth is that the best TTers among the GC contenders have always been way better climbers than 'pure' climbers have been TTers.

The sport has changed, you have to be an all rounder now. Even Quintana is not a pure climber in the classic sense. The reason Andy Schleck and others like Bardet struggled to win a GT was simply because their mountain gains were wiped out by mediocre TTs. That plus the stages are shorter and the racing is usually more conservative than it used to be especially in the mountains. Sastre and Rasmussen were closer to being pure climbers and Sastre won the Tour with one attack and an incredibly strong team. Basso and Contador could always TT much better than the other two.

Only one rider has "changed" the way of winning GT's and we all know who it is. That one rider is Top 3 climber AND TT'er. It does not mean the sport has changed. Outside Froome, the past GT winners have been climbing oriented more than TT oriented and that can be said to virtually everyone that has been in the podium pehind Froome as well. So I would not say the "sport" has changed. But yes I agree, you need to be at least decent in the TT to be able to win Grand Tour. Quintana is decent, Nibali is actually pretty good (Top 10 in GT) when he has a good day, Contador defintely good, Aru mediocre thus climbing oriented.

It is still to be seen if Major Tom really is the GT monster in making, I wouldn't make the judgement based on one Giro win regardless who was there as opponents. Aru wasn't suddenly next to Froome in the ranking of best GT riders after he won Vuelta, why would Tom achieve that automatically with one Giro win? And I'm not saying he would not be in that level, but I think we lack of bit of evidence to make that conclusion.

I'm not sure if I understand this correctly but are you implying froome changed the way of winning gt's by being a good TT'er and a good climber

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Re:

Pure climbers have never had a chance with long TT at the Tour. It took them 100 years to realize that. Exception being during the free epo era, Van impe and accidents.

Nor had pure TTers...

And when is someone a pure climber? Rasmussen? Sastre? Contador? Basso?

The truth is that the best TTers among the GC contenders have always been way better climbers than 'pure' climbers have been TTers.

The sport has changed, you have to be an all rounder now. Even Quintana is not a pure climber in the classic sense. The reason Andy Schleck and others like Bardet struggled to win a GT was simply because their mountain gains were wiped out by mediocre TTs. That plus the stages are shorter and the racing is usually more conservative than it used to be especially in the mountains. Sastre and Rasmussen were closer to being pure climbers and Sastre won the Tour with one attack and an incredibly strong team. Basso and Contador could always TT much better than the other two.

Only one rider has "changed" the way of winning GT's and we all know who it is. That one rider is Top 3 climber AND TT'er. It does not mean the sport has changed. Outside Froome, the past GT winners have been climbing oriented more than TT oriented and that can be said to virtually everyone that has been in the podium pehind Froome as well. So I would not say the "sport" has changed. But yes I agree, you need to be at least decent in the TT to be able to win Grand Tour. Quintana is decent, Nibali is actually pretty good (Top 10 in GT) when he has a good day, Contador defintely good, Aru mediocre thus climbing oriented.

It is still to be seen if Major Tom really is the GT monster in making, I wouldn't make the judgement based on one Giro win regardless who was there as opponents. Aru wasn't suddenly next to Froome in the ranking of best GT riders after he won Vuelta, why would Tom achieve that automatically with one Giro win? And I'm not saying he would not be in that level, but I think we lack of bit of evidence to make that conclusion.

There are a few exceptions. Indurain and Anquetil were good climbers but monster TT riders. Ullrich the same, only two GT wins but plenty of podiums. Riders like Lemond and Roche were good at both although Roche probably leaned towards the TT as well same with Evans and definitely Wiggins and Menchov. Evans was probably overrated in the TT department as he was often up and down, it was just his consistency over three weeks that kept him in the race. Dumoulin would normally lose more time on MTFs than Evans but then he would kill the TT most times unlike Evans.

 

[bambino]

Re: Re:

Pure climbers have never had a chance with long TT at the Tour. It took them 100 years to realize that. Exception being during the free epo era, Van impe and accidents.

Nor had pure TTers...

And when is someone a pure climber? Rasmussen? Sastre? Contador? Basso?

The truth is that the best TTers among the GC contenders have always been way better climbers than 'pure' climbers have been TTers.

The sport has changed, you have to be an all rounder now. Even Quintana is not a pure climber in the classic sense. The reason Andy Schleck and others like Bardet struggled to win a GT was simply because their mountain gains were wiped out by mediocre TTs. That plus the stages are shorter and the racing is usually more conservative than it used to be especially in the mountains. Sastre and Rasmussen were closer to being pure climbers and Sastre won the Tour with one attack and an incredibly strong team. Basso and Contador could always TT much better than the other two.

Only one rider has "changed" the way of winning GT's and we all know who it is. That one rider is Top 3 climber AND TT'er. It does not mean the sport has changed. Outside Froome, the past GT winners have been climbing oriented more than TT oriented and that can be said to virtually everyone that has been in the podium pehind Froome as well. So I would not say the "sport" has changed. But yes I agree, you need to be at least decent in the TT to be able to win Grand Tour. Quintana is decent, Nibali is actually pretty good (Top 10 in GT) when he has a good day, Contador defintely good, Aru mediocre thus climbing oriented.

It is still to be seen if Major Tom really is the GT monster in making, I wouldn't make the judgement based on one Giro win regardless who was there as opponents. Aru wasn't suddenly next to Froome in the ranking of best GT riders after he won Vuelta, why would Tom achieve that automatically with one Giro win? And I'm not saying he would not be in that level, but I think we lack of bit of evidence to make that conclusion.

I'm not sure if I understand this correctly but are you implying froome changed the way of winning gt's by being a good TT'er and a good climber

No, what I tried to say is that it is not really true that sport has changed in regards of mainstream way of winning the GT's. I feel Froome is a single freak rather than a "change to sport". Other GT winners in the past decade or so have been clearly leaning towards either climbing or TT (Dumoulin included) where the climbing has been the dominant capability (except Dumoulin, Wiggins and maybe Evans).

 

[hrotha]

You have to be less of an all-rounder now than ever to win GTs.

 

[portugal11]

Re: Re:

Pure climbers have never had a chance with long TT at the Tour. It took them 100 years to realize that. Exception being during the free epo era, Van impe and accidents.

Nor had pure TTers...

And when is someone a pure climber? Rasmussen? Sastre? Contador? Basso?

The truth is that the best TTers among the GC contenders have always been way better climbers than 'pure' climbers have been TTers.

The sport has changed, you have to be an all rounder now. Even Quintana is not a pure climber in the classic sense. The reason Andy Schleck and others like Bardet struggled to win a GT was simply because their mountain gains were wiped out by mediocre TTs. That plus the stages are shorter and the racing is usually more conservative than it used to be especially in the mountains. Sastre and Rasmussen were closer to being pure climbers and Sastre won the Tour with one attack and an incredibly strong team. Basso and Contador could always TT much better than the other two.

quintana is not a pure climber
these movistar fans are so deceived

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

Pure climbers have never had a chance with long TT at the Tour. It took them 100 years to realize that. Exception being during the free epo era, Van impe and accidents.

Nor had pure TTers...

And when is someone a pure climber? Rasmussen? Sastre? Contador? Basso?

The truth is that the best TTers among the GC contenders have always been way better climbers than 'pure' climbers have been TTers.

The sport has changed, you have to be an all rounder now. Even Quintana is not a pure climber in the classic sense. The reason Andy Schleck and others like Bardet struggled to win a GT was simply because their mountain gains were wiped out by mediocre TTs. That plus the stages are shorter and the racing is usually more conservative than it used to be especially in the mountains. Sastre and Rasmussen were closer to being pure climbers and Sastre won the Tour with one attack and an incredibly strong team. Basso and Contador could always TT much better than the other two.

Only one rider has "changed" the way of winning GT's and we all know who it is. That one rider is Top 3 climber AND TT'er. It does not mean the sport has changed. Outside Froome, the past GT winners have been climbing oriented more than TT oriented and that can be said to virtually everyone that has been in the podium pehind Froome as well. So I would not say the "sport" has changed. But yes I agree, you need to be at least decent in the TT to be able to win Grand Tour. Quintana is decent, Nibali is actually pretty good (Top 10 in GT) when he has a good day, Contador defintely good, Aru mediocre thus climbing oriented.

It is still to be seen if Major Tom really is the GT monster in making, I wouldn't make the judgement based on one Giro win regardless who was there as opponents. Aru wasn't suddenly next to Froome in the ranking of best GT riders after he won Vuelta, why would Tom achieve that automatically with one Giro win? And I'm not saying he would not be in that level, but I think we lack of bit of evidence to make that conclusion.

There are a few exceptions. Indurain and Anquetil were good climbers but monster TT riders. Ullrich the same, only two GT wins but plenty of podiums. Riders like Lemond and Roche were good at both although Roche probably leaned towards the TT as well same with Evans and definitely Wiggins and Menchov. Evans was probably overrated in the TT department as he was often up and down, it was just his consistency over three weeks that kept him in the race. Dumoulin would normally lose more time on MTFs than Evans but then he would kill the TT most times unlike Evans.

Oropa is better than Evans ever rode uphill. Dumoulin's sample size is tiny so far

 

[Netserk]

I'm not sure that Oropa was better than some of the performances Evans had before the passport.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

I'm not sure that Oropa was better than some of the performances Evans had before the passport.

In absolute terms maybe. In relative terms I can think of nothing

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

I'm not sure that Oropa was better than some of the performances Evans had before the passport.

And Evans was riding against Contador at his peak. That said Dumoulin is more attack minded. Evans did better on hilltop finishes and probably should have done more in the hilly classics and he really didn't have the build for a great mountain climber. Often I think he was just hanging on in the mountains when some fans were criticizing him for not attacking. 2011 was the exception but he still didn't win a mountains stage but did win a hilltop finish over Contador. He was just fresher in the third week where he often weakened.

 

[portugal11]

will he really do the giro or it was only fake news? I can't any interview of dumoulin where he talks about doing the 2018 giro

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

will he really do the giro or it was only fake news? I can't any interview of dumoulin where he talks about doing the 2018 giro

Word is that RCS said they have an agreement with both Sunweb and Dumoulin. Dumoulin will officially announce his plans on january 4th, and has said this way in advance.

 

[Tim Booth]

Re: Re:

will he really do the giro or it was only fake news? I can't any interview of dumoulin where he talks about doing the 2018 giro

Word is that RCS said they have an agreement with both Sunweb and Dumoulin. Dumoulin will officially announce his plans on january 4th, and has said this way in advance.

tweeted today - he rides the Giro

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Sunweb confirmed today in the press that Dumoulin will defend his Giro title.

Tour participation unknown. They well decide later in the season. Primary objective is to win the Giro

 

[Red Rick]

I wonder what the hell Dumoulin would want to do in the Tour after riding the Giro. He won't be able to do ***

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

I wonder what the hell Dumoulin would want to do in the Tour after riding the Giro. He won't be able to do ****

Win the TT at least. Martin's best TT days are over. But most riders seem to prefer the Vuelta for worlds prep these days. I'm not convinced he will either do the Tour or complete it.

 

[Salvarani]

Re:

I wonder what the hell Dumoulin would want to do in the Tour after riding the Giro. He won't be able to do ****

All depends how Giro goes and how he recover from it I guess. They dont probably know themselves what they gonna do.

Is Kelderman gonna ride the Giro with Dumoulin or what the plan looking like there?

 

[yaco]

Doubt Kelderman will ride the TDF - Expect Oomen could go for a soft GC, while most pressure will be on Matthews in a route that suits his characteristics.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

Doubt Kelderman will ride the TDF - Expect Oomen could go for a soft GC, while most pressure will be on Matthews in a route that suits his characteristics.

I would do the reverse with Kelderman and Oomen. Kelderman has proven he's good enough for a Tour GC, and they don't really need to fight for the win. Sam Oomen is a good prospect, but he has not finished a GT yet, so I wouldn't send him to ride the Tour for GC. If he improves he could be a great dom for Dumoulin.

I love me some Kelderman bashing but he definitely deserves to be ahead of Oomen in the pecking order as of 2017