Vincenzo Nibali discussion thread

[Nirvana]

Re:

It's genuinely really difficult to drop people on a descent. If you don't have a gap, people will just follow your wheel - remember that stage at the Tour 2015 when Nibali kept attacking on a very technical descent, but because he didn't already have a gap he earned nothing? Now carapaz isn't a great descender but he isn't bad either, and the main reason why Nibali dropped him down the civiglio isn't because carapaz isn't a good descender, but rather because nibali knows that one better than anyone else. Same can't be said for the Mortirolo (or the san carlo, on which carapaz did a mighty job on the technical bit even if he then lost a bit of time on the false flat). Nibali attacks on the descent - cool - amador follows with ease, landa (another very good descender) follows, and Carapaz has three wheels to follow - the risk far outweighs the potential reward.

We'll see, recovery might trouble carapaz after today so he might be weak tomorrow. Stage 20 is too far away to understand where people are at form wise, but no matter how strong movistar are there is a lot of time to be gained there.

That's not true, it's Nibali limit if he can't open a gap on a descent when he has someone on his wheel and needs to be already alone to gain something else, in the history of cycling there are plenty of riders able to drop others off their wheel while descending, someone even in a couple of turns, and then gain also minutes.
Staying on the Mortirolo nine years ago there was a great showing from Arroyo that almost catched Nibali himself, Basso and Scarponi that were two minutes in front on the top, and in the process catched and dropped easily at least half a dozen of other riders including pretty good descenders like Evans and Vinokurov.

Anyway Nibali was wise not risking to crash like he has done in the past on the wet especially considering that Carapaz had Amador that is a better descender than him and probably one of the best in current peloton. This first two days of third week has gone as i was expecting, Carapaz was in control on the Mortirolo and the stage shortened and easier without Gavia was a damage for Nibali that then even suffered on an easier and shorter stage like today. Tonorrow is flat, on friday probably nothing will happen (bar very bad days) so there is only the Manghen left, if no one will try hard on Manghen the Giro is done.
Nibali would have liked the Manghen after 200 kms but he has to try something if he wants to win, otherwise the only hope for a great stage is Landa unleashing his second fiddle superpowers and abandoning Carapaz.

 

[Nirvana]

Re:

Still has the record on San Luca.

As far we know is only the best time of the ones registered on Strava and was after 220 kms and an hard race, if you put the San Luca after a 150/170 kms easy stage i'm pretty sure Nibali would be way weaker. That day he joked with Moscon that during the Vuelta did damage to him on similar climbs while pulling for Froome, on Ermita de Santa Lucia after 170 kms there were more than 30 riders in the peloton when he was dropped and 17 (excluding break) finished in front of him and is a very similar climb.

I think that after a very long hard stage Nibali would have been able to drop everyone even on a very extreme murito like Mirador de Ezaro on which after an easy and pretty short stage he's likely to finish 30th.

 

[SafeBet]

Yep, that was the same Vuelta when he lost 20 seconds to everybody on Santo Toribio while being arguably the Second strongest rider in the whole third week.

 

[Climbing]

It's not a surprise that Nibali isn't strong on these type of stages, it's only disappointing that Carapaz doesn't show any sign of fatigue or weakness, quite the opposite.

 

[Red Rick]

Nibali in the 3rd week is usually more than adequate on climbs like this. He was strong on Los Muchachos in 2017 which suits him even less. He just had a bad day.

If Carapaz doesn't break down, only a multi team effort can beat him on Saturday and that's like 1% chance, maybe.

 

[Rollthedice]

An attack on Manghen is impossible. It will be 3 and a half Bahrain riders including Nibali against some six Movistar and he also needs some men up the road, nevermind that Movi has the strongest climber at this point in the race (Landa). Plus he will have no allies, Roglic himself doesn't look too good and has no teammates whatsoever, Yates is bad and Astana will most likely try something later, Lopez added a whole new dimension to yo-yoing. Not all is lost, depends who will be in the break, how the break is formed and what happens next and then there's Passo Rolle, if not Croce D'Aune but it all depends on whether Carapaz is running out of steam or not.

 

[Climbing]

At this point I think i's mostly about Carapaz having a bad day or misfortune, more than anything.
Plus he still needs more time on Roglic,but that seems more likely to happen.

 

[Nirvana]

Re:

Nibali in the 3rd week is usually more than adequate on climbs like this. He was strong on Los Muchachos in 2017 which suits him even less. He just had a bad day.

If Carapaz doesn't break down, only a multi team effort can beat him on Saturday and that's like 1% chance, maybe.

He has a bad day everytime there are pretty easy and not long stages?

In that Vuelta we could add to Ermita de Santa Lucia and Santo Toribio also Cumbre del Sol, Oropa and Blockhaus at the Giro the same year, the Mur de Bretagne and La Pierre Saint Martin at the 2015 Tour, Aramon Formigal and Estepona at the 2013 Vuelta. The only races in which he was in a similar level everywhere were the 2016 Giro in which was bad everytime bar the last two days his glorious Giro 2013 and Tour 2014 but against lesser opposition.

 

[Climbing]

Yeah, it's pretty well known by now, though yesteday wasn't maybe super easy as some of those cases.
Tomorrow could be dangerous as well, but in theory is way too simple to make any difference.
Again, only chance is a Carapaz bad day/misfortune Saturday.

 

[Red Rick]

I think it's worse when he's in suboptimal form. Blockhaus and Oropa were another level of bad compared to today.

2015 Pyrenees I think he suffered from crashing earlier. He was actually good at the Mur despite the restart after Cherave, so he rightfully should've done absotely horrible following his own patterns. PSM was his worst mountain stage, but he managed to get dropped the day after on a super easy climb after the Tourmalet. Later still that year he was actually perfectly fine on Mende, only losing time to Froome/Quintana and Valverde and a second to Contador.

I'm obviously not denying this pattern exists, but yesterday should have been fine with a few climbs before the finish, etc.

The main annoyance for me is that Nibali's lack of explosivity makes his options for crazy attacks in GTs a lot less than Contador's. Contador would be everywhere and then just run out of gas, whereas Nibali basically doesn't kick into gear at the moment Conti would run out of gas.

 

[Blanco]

The question is what to do tomorrow? Attack or not? If he attacks, he'll very unlikely gain any time because the climb is too easy and Movistar is too strong, and he even risks a counter attack from Landa/Carapaz. But then again you never know when your opponent will have a bad day, and he's running out on opportunities.

 

[tobydawq]

Re: Re:

Still has the record on San Luca.

As far we know is only the best time of the ones registered on Strava and was after 220 kms and an hard race, if you put the San Luca after a 150/170 kms easy stage i'm pretty sure Nibali would be way weaker. That day he joked with Moscon that during the Vuelta did damage to him on similar climbs while pulling for Froome, on Ermita de Santa Lucia after 170 kms there were more than 30 riders in the peloton when he was dropped and 17 (excluding break) finished in front of him and is a very similar climb.

I think that after a very long hard stage Nibali would have been able to drop everyone even on a very extreme murito like Mirador de Ezaro on which after an easy and pretty short stage he's likely to finish 30th.

I think his third place in the prologue of the very San Luca climb proves otherwise.

 

[glassmoon]

Shark will need one hell of sticky bottle from that Bahrain Lambo to have a chance to win this Giro.
Comon Vincenzo, this is Italy, you're not gonna be penalized here. /s

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Re:

It's not a surprise that Nibali isn't strong on these type of stages, it's only disappointing that Carapaz doesn't show any sign of fatigue or weakness, quite the opposite.

I think many people, including Nibali himself and Roglic, kinda forgot that Carapaz was really strong in the 3rd week of last years Giro as well. He's not really the type to get weaker.

 

[ice&fire]

Re:

Shark will need one hell of sticky bottle from that Bahrain Lambo to have a chance to win this Giro.
Comon Vincenzo, this is Italy, you're not gonna be penalized here. /s

I've read there are tunnels in today's stage

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

It's not a surprise that Nibali isn't strong on these type of stages, it's only disappointing that Carapaz doesn't show any sign of fatigue or weakness, quite the opposite.

I think many people, including Nibali himself and Roglic, kinda forgot that Carapaz was really strong in the 3rd week of last years Giro as well. He's not really the type to get weaker.

/r/freefolk is leaking.

Nah but really they should have realised how strong Carapaz was after he beat Ewan and Ullisi in an uphill sprint and after he lost less than a minute to Nibali in the ITT.

Really don't understand why they don't have people who analyse all that stuff.

 

[Rollthedice]

Re: Re:

It's not a surprise that Nibali isn't strong on these type of stages, it's only disappointing that Carapaz doesn't show any sign of fatigue or weakness, quite the opposite.

I think many people, including Nibali himself and Roglic, kinda forgot that Carapaz was really strong in the 3rd week of last years Giro as well. He's not really the type to get weaker.

They hope he gets weaker, I'm sure they know Carapaz was in fact stronger in week 3. Unfortunately for Nibali it is the third time when he is about to lose a GT because he completely missed his evaluation on who is the real danger man, each time for various reasons.

In Vuelta 2013, mainly because he was riding against Purito and Valverde while Horner kept riding away. In the end he couldn't drop him even at the very end. Can't blame him to much here because nobody in his right mind would've thought that Horner was going to be faster than Contador on Angliru and than Froome on Pena Cabarga.

In the Giro 2017 he is riding against Quintana, blowing up on Blockhaus, miscalculating the time deficit he'll have to Dumoulin after the TTs while basically he wasn't able to drop Tom consistently in the end. Compared to Horner, Dumoulin had the ingredients to be dangerous especially with the fairly long TTs.

Both those GTs were lost for seconds.

We already know what happened until today in this Giro, remains to be seen if it will be the same story.

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

It's not a surprise that Nibali isn't strong on these type of stages, it's only disappointing that Carapaz doesn't show any sign of fatigue or weakness, quite the opposite.

I think many people, including Nibali himself and Roglic, kinda forgot that Carapaz was really strong in the 3rd week of last years Giro as well. He's not really the type to get weaker.

They hope he gets weaker, I'm sure they know Carapaz was in fact stronger in week 3. Unfortunately for Nibali it is the third time when he is about to lose a GT because he completely missed his evaluation on who is the real danger man, each time for various reasons.

In Vuelta 2013, mainly because he was riding against Purito and Valverde while Horner kept riding away. In the end he couldn't drop him even at the very end. Can't blame him to much here because nobody in his right mind would've thought that Horner was going to be faster than Contador on Angliru and than Froome on Pena Cabarga.

In the Giro 2017 he is riding against Quintana, blowing up on Blockhaus, miscalculating the time deficit he'll have to Dumoulin after the TTs while basically he wasn't able to drop Tom consistently in the end. Compared to Horner, Dumoulin had the ingredients to be dangerous especially with the fairly long TTs.

Both those GTs were lost for seconds.

We already know what happened until today in this Giro, remains to be seen if it will be the same story.

He was also there when Arroyo almost won the Giro and when Dawg first magically appeared.

But really the Nibali luck meme needs to die.

 

[Mayomaniac]

In 2017 it was mainly Movistar that made him loose, they set an infernal pace on the Oropa climb and he blew up. Of course he made a mistake on Blockhaus, but once again Movistar was riding a really hard on a monoclimb stage.

 

[Rollthedice]

Re: Re:

It's not a surprise that Nibali isn't strong on these type of stages, it's only disappointing that Carapaz doesn't show any sign of fatigue or weakness, quite the opposite.

I think many people, including Nibali himself and Roglic, kinda forgot that Carapaz was really strong in the 3rd week of last years Giro as well. He's not really the type to get weaker.

They hope he gets weaker, I'm sure they know Carapaz was in fact stronger in week 3. Unfortunately for Nibali it is the third time when he is about to lose a GT because he completely missed his evaluation on who is the real danger man, each time for various reasons.

In Vuelta 2013, mainly because he was riding against Purito and Valverde while Horner kept riding away. In the end he couldn't drop him even at the very end. Can't blame him to much here because nobody in his right mind would've thought that Horner was going to be faster than Contador on Angliru and than Froome on Pena Cabarga.

In the Giro 2017 he is riding against Quintana, blowing up on Blockhaus, miscalculating the time deficit he'll have to Dumoulin after the TTs while basically he wasn't able to drop Tom consistently in the end. Compared to Horner, Dumoulin had the ingredients to be dangerous especially with the fairly long TTs.

Both those GTs were lost for seconds.

We already know what happened until today in this Giro, remains to be seen if it will be the same story.

He was also there when Arroyo almost won the Giro and when Dawg first magically appeared.

But really the Nibali luck meme needs to die.

And, I know it isn't quite fair but 2011 Contador's name is erased from the Trofeo Senza Fine and Scarponi wins it by 46 seconds and then Froome skates away with the Vuelta 2017 while in 99% of the cases he's stripped of the title. What all these and aforementioned examples show is that it's damn hard to win a GT, some you lose and some you win. He has a truly exceptional track record in Grand Tours.

 

[Salvarani]

10 podiums (including the wins).

Won each GT, Giro twice.

Almost 9 years since he won the Vuelta.

 

[Red Rick]

I think most top riders have about 8-10 years between first and last GT podium level rides.

 

[Salvarani]

I think that is a small list...

 

[Singer01]

Re:

I think most top riders have about 8-10 years between first and last GT podium level rides.

Poulidor is remarkable in this respect, does anyone else come close? 62 was his first and 76 was his last.

edit, just checked and Coppi did one year more, but his time off for the war probably helped in this regard.

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

I think most top riders have about 8-10 years between first and last GT podium level rides.

Poulidor is remarkable in this respect, does anyone else come close? 62 was his first and 76 was his last.

edit, just checked and Coppi did one year more, but his time off for the war probably helped in this regard.

Valverde had 13 years between 2003 and 2016 though. But these are exceptions. Will be interesting how long Nibs, Froome and Quintana can keep it up