• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

Teams & Riders Vincenzo Nibali discussion thread

Page 642 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
I honestly have Kruijswijk as worse at everything than Nibali, though he has put out some surprising ITTs a few times. But the main thing about Kruijswijk is he's such a liability going down there is no way Nibali can't destroy him in that alone.
Kruijswijk is one of the worst descenders among the GC contenders imo, and I'm not saying this solely based on 2016 Agnello. He was awful on Grosse Schiedegg at Tour de Suisse 2011 ( I may be wrong about this though ) and I also remember him almost crashing into Majka on the descent of Pian del Falco at 2016 Giro.

( Also an interesting note about 2016 Giro is that whenever one of Nibali, Valverde and Chavez made a little dig on a descent, that trio ( Nibali-Valverde-Chavez ) formed up and dropped the rest before sitting down. And on the descent of Agnello, Kruijswijk crashed trying to follow Nibali and Chavez. )
 
There is no dominant team but I was really suprised by Treks performance. Every single member of the team is a solid climber. They still had 6-7 riders in a group of 50-60. Did most of the work in the lead up to the final climb and burned some guys but still had Antonio and Brambilla in the main group when Yates lost contact. When Brambilla was dropped the group was reduced to 10-12 riders and it was Nibali himself who attacked.
If Ciccone is able to at least somewhat recover over the next few stages he probably has the best supporting cast among the remaining contenders. That´s certainly not what I expected prior to the race.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pantani_lives
Actually think Nibali was on the limit today.
I honestly have Kruijswijk as worse at everything than Nibali, though he has put out some surprising ITTs a few times. But the main thing about Kruijswijk is he's such a liability going down there is no way Nibali can't destroy him in that alone.
Yeah, I feel like Kruijswijk would have to be significantly better than Nibali to win it and after today I just don't see that happening. You never know though. We all are just assuming Nibali will only become better from here on but realistically we don't know that with certainty. The days where I expect Nibali to easily win a gt are simply over.
 
There is no dominant team but I was really suprised by Treks performance. Every single member of the team is a solid climber. They still had 6-7 riders in a group of 50-60. Did most of the work in the lead up to the final climb and burned some guys but still had Antonio and Brambilla in the main group when Yates lost contact. When Brambilla was dropped the group was reduced to 10-12 riders and it was Nibali himself who attacked.
If Ciccone is able to at least somewhat recover over the next few stages he probably has the best supporting cast among the remaining contenders. That´s certainly not what I expected prior to the race.
Yeah Ciccone will be key in the third week.
Considering he had no racing days in well over a month before the Giro, I'm not surprised he is a bit rusty at the moment. I think he'll come good.
 
Actually think Nibali was on the limit today.

Yeah, I feel like Kruijswijk would have to be significantly better than Nibali to win it and after today I just don't see that happening. You never know though. We all are just assuming Nibali will only become better from here on but realistically we don't know that with certainty. The days where I expect Nibali to easily win a gt are simply over.
During the short bursts I think they're all on the limit. Like he and Bird could have put more time into some other guys if they worked together, but maybe not really solo or something, so that's when you get surges like these.

There's no easy GT wins, no, but Nibali has the intangibles, and the rest of the contenders are so lacking in those intangibles that I am optimistic. Kruijswijk is an overrated climber IMO, because he doesn't really have the big positive outliers and his best days are only like 3rd best, except for one Giro with a questionable field where Nibs was outdoing God for mysterious ways.

It's not gonna be easy, but we also have one single reference in almost 3 years, where he got 2nd and could've won. And I do think Val Thorens last year was a world class performance.
 
but Nibali has the intangibles, and the rest of the contenders are so lacking in those intangibles that I am optimistic.

This for me is always the big big one, and especially in this edition.

You could put Vincenzo 2 minutes down going into the last week and climbing worse than everyone, and I'd still feel that he can find a way to make it work. It might be on a descent, it might be early, it might just be finding great legs but he's always been capable of making things happen.

If you put Fuglsang or Majka a minute down at the same point I feel like they're far more likely to just ride to plan and possibly settle for a podium if it was there rather than risk it for a win.
 

TRENDING THREADS