Teams & Riders Vincenzo Nibali discussion thread

[Lo squalo di messina]

Nibali must go to the tour and finish second. That your reasoning to be the second best gt rider if i read this correctly.
:lol: Apart from the fact that this is dumb and ridiculous you do realise who came second in the tour this year right? Its uran... u know the same uran who can never beat an in form nibali.
Implying nibali chooses his goals with the competition in mind is even worse. He chooses the parcours that fits him the most ,like you know every other pro rider.
There will never be an asterisk next to his giro 2016 victory because kruijswijck couldnt stay on his bike, the only thing that will happen is that nobody will ever remember kruijswijck. Any idea the enormous pressure nibali always faces in italy ,because that played a role too. Luckily scarponi got him to calm down.

Oooof...
We'll argue about this, but only when you're ready to; which you clearly arent right now.
I'll just say one thing. Learn how to respond like rollthedice. On the forum as well as in life.
Cheers..

No sorry i have read enough bs of sky fans to not respond any more. Nibali 's palmares is there and wont ever go away no asterisks no nothing and you should learn how to deal with it..
As far as my life goes you can get off your high horse i can assure you i m just doing just fine for myself.
You couldn t even respond to my criticism and choose to play a whole other game.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

The only win Nibbles needs is LBL. And that damn WC.
Everything else, who cares.

Miracle Milan Sanremo maybe?

 

[Netserk]

Impossibru! without Le Manie.

 

[silvergrenade]

Re: Re:

In Italy we say wins are not counted but weighted, and I think Vincenzo Nibali has an edge on Froome here, talking about single wins and not GT where clearly Froome comes first. I would like a Chris win like Tre Cime '13 or Lombardia '15, something really into modern epic cycling, more than following the trains and attack last 2 km. Just a wish

Firstly, great post.
I agree that Nibali has proven to be more versatile. He is a truly entertaining rider. Granted that.
You say wins are weighed.
Whenever I think of Nibali, it almost always feel like he's lucked out a lot of wins. Case in point being his last 2 GT wins. Both times it felt more like him not winning but the competition crashing/ not participating.
Credit where credits due though. He's been very smart and shrewd that way. He knows what he can win. Targets that. But more importantly, knows what he cannot win. :razz:
Here somebody said that he's the second best GT rider right now. I dont believe that. He has to come to the Tour and finish atleast second. A guy coming 3rd in the Giro just cannot be. A guy losing the Vuelta to a Tour fatigued colleague cannot be. He cant beat the best guys when the road goes uphill and with the recent TT mile shortage it'll be difficult for Nibali to do well at the Tour.

PS: Knives off gentlemen. Im ready to be proven wrong. But by Nibali.

You are one of the more reasonable Froome fans so I will take my time to respond. It has been said hundreds of times that crashes or other top riders not participating are part of the game and it is 100% true. It's the same risk/reward for any rider maybe some are more lucky than others but that's about it. I will give you just two situations involving our dear riders, Froome winning last year Tour against second or if you want third tier GT riders after the strongest competitor crashed out (Porte) and Nibali loosing arguably the greatest win of his career by falling with 11.5 Km to go while in front at the Olympic RR. I'd say he's the third GT rider right now after Froome and Dumo. Most probably he'll be at the Tour next year so we'll see what will happen since Froome also fits your description "he cant beat the best guys when the road goes uphill and with the recent TT mile shortage it'll be difficult".

Even if he'd have won the ORR, do you really believe it would've been his greatest wins?
I'll take his Tour win or his second Giro win or even his first Monument victory over it.
How can he be third? Tom, Froome, Quintana are above him anyday. A case could also be made for some of the other guys. But he's 4th at best.
Yup. I'd like to see his at the Tour. But as I said, he's smart. He'll choose the Giro.
Froome doesn't fit that description. We both know it.

 

[Rollthedice]

He'll do the Tour alright, no worries. Quintana finished 9 seconds in front at the Giro, that's really nothing over 3609 km. Think of it as a photo finish in a sprint stage and after that he fell off a cliff while Nibs was going stronger in Vuelta and Lombardia where he dropped Nairo like a stone. So overall 2017, Nibali > Quintana. Tell me who did Froome beat uphill in the Tour, at some point he was dropped by his own gregario. In Vuelta he was stronger but only managed to drop relevant riders on muritos.

 

[Parker]

Re: Re:

That's the only ever time Nibali has won a race that either Froome or Contador also finished (excluding individual stages)
Head-to-heads on races (overall GC or one day) that they have won where the other also finished.

Nibali v Froome 1-5
Nibali v Contador 1-4
Contador v Froome 2-8 (helped by the fact they were rarely in the same race prior to 2012)

That's not to do Nibali down. He's clearly had a great career and seems far from finished.

 

[dfromdub]

Re: Re:

Head-to-heads on races (overall GC or one day) that they have won where the other also finished.

I understand what you mean but I am not sure I agree with the logic.
You are saying that if a rival crashes and retires you are supposed to count that one out but if a rival crashes loses a lot of time but still manages to finish the GT then that one count as a "real" victory.

 

[Parker]

Re: Re:

Head-to-heads on races (overall GC or one day) that they have won where the other also finished.

I understand what you mean but I am not sure I agree with the logic.
You are saying that if a rival crashes and retires you are supposed to count that one out but if a rival crashes loses a lot of time but still manages to finish the GT then that one count as a "real" victory.

It's more to do with the CQ Ranking head-to-head facility not recognising DNFs (or stripped results in Contador's case). I'm not going through their careers race by race.

 

[Red Rick]

H2H is the most garbage metric in basically any sport I know

 

[hazaran]

Head2Head is the basis of the Elo rating system. If we could do Elo in cycling, Nibali beating Froome would yield a heck of a lot of points given the vastly higher ranking of the latter.

 

[Red Rick]

While I have no doubts there are some merits to ELO rankings, they overcompensate really, really hard.

ELO rankings have Novak Djokovic as the #1 tennis player in the world for example

 

[El Pistolero]

Re: Re:

That's the only ever time Nibali has won a race that either Froome or Contador also finished (excluding individual stages)
Head-to-heads on races (overall GC or one day) that they have won where the other also finished.

Nibali v Froome 1-5
Nibali v Contador 1-4
Contador v Froome 2-8 (helped by the fact they were rarely in the same race prior to 2012)

That's not to do Nibali down. He's clearly had a great career and seems far from finished.

Contador was more than 2 minutes down on Nibali before he crashed out in the Tour of 2014 and Froome would have lost even more time in that cobbled stage if he didn't crash out (he was riding like crap that year).

Facts are facts, Nibali destroyed everyone in the Tour of 2014, in a fashion not seen since Armstrong.

And Nibali wasn't targetting GC in the Tour of 2016, so counting that is disingenuous.

Also, why doesn't Froome ride Lombardia? Why couldn't he follow Nibali in the Olympics 2016 (ignoring Nibali's crash in the finale)? Why does he always abandon LBL or the WC RR when he rides it? Not because he crashed or was ill, but because he's crap at one-day races.

 

[Bardamu]

Froome has proven himself a better GT rider than Nibali over the last years (although I also think Nibali would have won the Tour in 2014 anyway), but Nibali is overall just a cooler rider. He wants to do both GT's as one-day races and unlike Valverde he has to attack from far out to win one-day races which makes him such an attractive rider.

 

[Forever The Best]

Re: Re:

The way he just destroyed Quintana, Uran, Pozzovivo and Pinot in the mountains was amazing to watch. Sure, Pinot got gapped on the descent, but he lost most of his time on the San Fermo.

This was the most spectacular climbing performance of the year. He'd have dropped anyone from 2017 with that form.

Plenty better and solid performances. Nibali generally wins when the best competition doesn't participate/crash. Fact.

Aah...TA 2013.
Boy, did Nibz get lucky there. :razz:

He dropped Froome on a muro and increased the advantage on the descent, the final muro and kept the advantage all the way to the line.

 

[Red Rick]

Oh man that stage. That terrain should have some more big one day races.

 

[Forever The Best]

Re:

Oh man that stage. That terrain should have some more big one day races.

Indeed. It was a very good design.

Though an extra 30 km at the start an then finishing before the last loop (finishing at km 179-but we have extra 30 kms at the start so the stage still becomes 210 kms) would have been much better.

 

[dfromdub]

That stage also had horrible weather conditions that played a big factor and made the race spectacular.
If I remember correctly in the post race interview Contador said that the road was so wet and slippery in one of the Muro sections that it was hard for him to even climb let alone trying to chase Nibali.

 

[silvergrenade]

Re:

He'll do the Tour alright, no worries. Quintana finished 9 seconds in front at the Giro, that's really nothing over 3609 km. Think of it as a photo finish in a sprint stage and after that he fell off a cliff while Nibs was going stronger in Vuelta and Lombardia where he dropped Nairo like a stone. So overall 2017, Nibali > Quintana. Tell me who did Froome beat uphill in the Tour, at some point he was dropped by his own gregario. In Vuelta he was stronger but only managed to drop relevant riders on muritos.

You specifically said GT riding. History, as well as this years performance, shows he's behind Quintana in terms of that. So not top-3.

Froome did create differences when he needed to. By dropping relevant riders as you say he created such massive differences he didnt need to attack anymore. He proved he was the strongest uphill. Soemthing even Nibali attested to in his interviews throughout the Vuelta.
I'd not say he was stronger at the Vuelta. The competition was much weaker at the Vuelta than the Tour and once he grabs the jersey, he's very very tough to beat. :razz:

 

[silvergrenade]

Re:

That stage also had horrible weather conditions that played a big factor and made the race spectacular.
If I remember correctly in the post race interview Contador said that the road was so wet and slippery in one of the Muro sections that it was hard for him to even climb let alone trying to chase Nibali.

I think most of the people who've written about this have chosen to neglect the conditions of the stage. A lot of riders abandoned I think(40+?).
Contador and Froome both had shown in the 2 mountain stages prior to this intermediate stage that they were the strongest in the mountains.
Dropping Froome on a murito and Nibali doing it. When has that ever happened?

 

[franic]

Re: Re:

That's the only ever time Nibali has won a race that either Froome or Contador also finished (excluding individual stages)
Head-to-heads on races (overall GC or one day) that they have won where the other also finished.

Nibali v Froome 1-5
Nibali v Contador 1-4
Contador v Froome 2-8 (helped by the fact they were rarely in the same race prior to 2012)

That's not to do Nibali down. He's clearly had a great career and seems far from finished.

Contador was more than 2 minutes down on Nibali before he crashed out in the Tour of 2014 and Froome would have lost even more time in that cobbled stage if he didn't crash out (he was riding like crap that year).

Facts are facts, Nibali destroyed everyone in the Tour of 2014, in a fashion not seen since Armstrong.

And Nibali wasn't targetting GC in the Tour of 2016, so counting that is disingenuous.

Also, why doesn't Froome ride Lombardia? Why couldn't he follow Nibali in the Olympics 2016 (ignoring Nibali's crash in the finale)? Why does he always abandon LBL or the WC RR when he rides it? Not because he crashed or was ill, but because he's crap at one-day races.

Froome's vinctories come from Sky. Whenever he doesn't have SKy (e.g. Olympics or WC) or when Sky loses its advantage (1-day classics) Froome becomes the poor rider he used to be. Then there are other reasons why Froome is so successful in GT and less in 1-day races.

No one trains like him. No one rides like him. This jersey's his. He lives for that jersey. It's his life. No one's taking it away from him. This *** jersey's his.

He's not happy if he's not doing some physical suffering, like going out on a bike ride or running. First, it's good for you. No. 2, it sort of clears his mind on a daily basis. And it's a job. His job is to suffer. He makes the suffering in training hard so that the races are not full of suffering.

This is his body, and he can do whatever he wants to it. He can push it. Study it. Tweak it. Listen to it. Everybody wants to know what he's on. What is he on? He's on his bike busting his ass six hours a day. What are you on?

 

[bambino]

Re: Re:

That's the only ever time Nibali has won a race that either Froome or Contador also finished (excluding individual stages)
Head-to-heads on races (overall GC or one day) that they have won where the other also finished.

Nibali v Froome 1-5
Nibali v Contador 1-4
Contador v Froome 2-8 (helped by the fact they were rarely in the same race prior to 2012)

That's not to do Nibali down. He's clearly had a great career and seems far from finished.

Contador was more than 2 minutes down on Nibali before he crashed out in the Tour of 2014 and Froome would have lost even more time in that cobbled stage if he didn't crash out (he was riding like crap that year).

Facts are facts, Nibali destroyed everyone in the Tour of 2014, in a fashion not seen since Armstrong.

And Nibali wasn't targetting GC in the Tour of 2016, so counting that is disingenuous.

Also, why doesn't Froome ride Lombardia? Why couldn't he follow Nibali in the Olympics 2016 (ignoring Nibali's crash in the finale)? Why does he always abandon LBL or the WC RR when he rides it? Not because he crashed or was ill, but because he's crap at one-day races.

Froome's vinctories come from Sky. Whenever he doesn't have SKy (e.g. Olympics or WC) or when Sky loses its advantage (1-day classics) Froome becomes the poor rider he used to be. Then there are other reasons why Froome is so successful in GT and less in 1-day races.

No one trains like him. No one rides like him. This jersey's his. He lives for that jersey. It's his life. No one's taking it away from him. This **** jersey's his.

He's not happy if he's not doing some physical suffering, like going out on a bike ride or running. First, it's good for you. No. 2, it sort of clears his mind on a daily basis. And it's a job. His job is to suffer. He makes the suffering in training hard so that the races are not full of suffering.

This is his body, and he can do whatever he wants to it. He can push it. Study it. Tweak it. Listen to it. Everybody wants to know what he's on. What is he on? He's on his bike busting his *** six hours a day. What are you on?

I don't think there are any arguments here guys. Froome is better GT rider, but essentially 2 trick pony, TT and calculated climbing using train.

Nibali on the other hand is much more versatile with ability to win almost in every terrain/GT/one day race with the exception of ITT and flat sprint.

Essentially two completely different rider types who also have different mechanism to win races. Everyone is free to pick as FAN the style you like more and whatever one chooses is not wrong.

My pick is Nibali, but I do respect Dawg's achievements highly as well.

 

[SafeBet]

The biggest regret of Nibali's carer should be his crash during the ORR. I do believe it would have been better to not risk during the descent and then attack Henao-Majka on the flat. He's a much better rouler than both and he's smart enough to choose the right moment to attack. Both would've been kind of happy with a medal anyway.

 

[del1962]

Re: Re:

]

I don't think there are any arguments here guys. Froome is better GT rider, but essentially 2 trick pony, TT and calculated climbing using train.

Nibali on the other hand is much more versatile with ability to win almost in every terrain/GT/one day race with the exception of ITT and flat sprint.

Essentially two completely different rider types who also have different mechanism to win races. Everyone is free to pick as FAN the style you like more and whatever one chooses is not wrong.

My pick is Nibali, but I do respect Dawg's achievements highly as well.

You must have missed the 2016 tour, or even most of his Vuelta performances prior to this year

 

[bambino]

Re: Re:

]

I don't think there are any arguments here guys. Froome is better GT rider, but essentially 2 trick pony, TT and calculated climbing using train.

Nibali on the other hand is much more versatile with ability to win almost in every terrain/GT/one day race with the exception of ITT and flat sprint.

Essentially two completely different rider types who also have different mechanism to win races. Everyone is free to pick as FAN the style you like more and whatever one chooses is not wrong.

My pick is Nibali, but I do respect Dawg's achievements highly as well.

You must have missed the 2016 tour, or even most of his Vuelta performances prior to this year

I was talking about their ways and style of winning. One stage in whole career (Tour 2016) attacking (from the train) before summit and maintaining the lead with good descent does not constitute extreme versatily.

And Vueltas before this year only proves my point, he didn't win because of weaker train. Nibs has more GT podiums than Dagw, so those Vueltas wont make him better GT rider. The wins with train and TT's does.

 

[Climbing]

Re:

The biggest regret of Nibali's carer should be his crash during the ORR. I do believe it would have been better to not risk during the descent and then attack Henao-Majka on the flat. He's a much better rouler than both and he's smart enough to choose the right moment to attack. Both would've been kind of happy with a medal anyway.

Indeed, it was a once in a lifetime chance with such an hard course and excellent form.
But he can still outsprint everybody in Tokyo flat! :lol:

Edit:
Plus ok, Olympics are quite important, but there’s so many more races with long tradition to win.