Teams & Riders Vincenzo Nibali discussion thread

[Dekker_Tifosi]

And the ones most in front are most likely to fall away. I mean I just can't see Thomas staying faultless for 3 weeks.
Van Garderen.. well no.
Dumoulin will have heavy legs in week 3 as well.

So most of his opponents are pretty close or behind him

 

[Bot. Sky_Bot]

Re:

The shark is drowning

I'm not a fan of either of them. But to be honest if sb drowns that would be Dumo.

 

[Rollthedice]

Re: Re:

The shark is drowning

Shark is drowning? LOL :lol: absolutely hilarious, he is just 11 seconds down on Froome and we are yet to see how Tom Dumoulin's legs back up from the Giro in week three mountains. The Shark is also the guy who won the 2016 Giro from nowhere you can never count him out. I think you are counting your chickens way too early.

He won the Giro because Kruijswijk fell, yeah. Not really because of a monstrous comeback (chaves was only 1 min in front). Not as good as Froome's comeback obviously :razz:

Fun to see such passionate fans here. I'm just saying, he didn't look happy today

To be more precise, 1:43 to Chaves, 1:20 to Valverde and Jungels was closer to him than he was to Krashweak but it's all done and dusted. Sure he wasn't happy today but he still swims.

 

[hazaran]

The shark is swimming alright, in one of these infinite pools - and instead of a mirror, there is a picture of the Thomas Geraint riding ahead :lol:

 

[RedheadDane]

Re: Re:

The shark is drowning

that's why he has a dolphin on the team to help him out

That was a bit fishy.





I'll show myself out. And I know neither sharks nor dolphins are actually fish!
The fish is on another team.

 

[Rollthedice]

Re:

And the ones most in front are most likely to fall away. I mean I just can't see Thomas staying faultless for 3 weeks.
Van Garderen.. well no.
Dumoulin will have heavy legs in week 3 as well.

So most of his opponents are pretty close or behind him

Dumoulin might surprise a few, me thinks.

 

[skippo12]

Cobbles are a big chance to gain time on the pure climbers (Quintana, Landa, Porte, Zakarin, Bardet...). His biggest adantage this year are the downhill finishes. I think he will gain more time on these stages than he potentially loses on mountain finishes. Among the biggest contenders only Bardet, Fuglsang and Dumoulin (maybe Valverde, Froome) are on a similar level downhill. I expect Porte and Zakarin to lose minutes on those stages.

 

[tobydawq]

Re: Re:

The shark is drowning

that's why he has a dolphin on the team to help him out

That was a bit fishy.





I'll show myself out. And I know neither sharks nor dolphins are actually fish!
The fish is on another team.

Sharks are fish. Orcas aren't.

 

[SafeBet]

Even with Haussler and Colbrelli at their best they would have lost 50+ seconds.

Their TTT was fine. He sits very close to most contenders and a healthy minute in front of Quintana. Any of his fan would have signed for this before the Tour started.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

The shark was not quite happy at the end speaking in the heat of the moment. They didn't went strong enough but it could've been worse as in the end only four left had to try to salvage what was left to be saved. They lost earlier than expected Haussler and Koren and then Delphino and Sonny were dropped on the hill.

Anyway, it is what it is, he looks good, next stage.

What did he say?

 

[Rollthedice]

Re: Re:

The shark was not quite happy at the end speaking in the heat of the moment. They didn't went strong enough but it could've been worse as in the end only four left had to try to salvage what was left to be saved. They lost earlier than expected Haussler and Koren and then Delphino and Sonny were dropped on the hill.

Anyway, it is what it is, he looks good, next stage.

What did he say?

“We didn’t go super strong, we were only four [riders] in the final kilometres,” Nibali said. “We tried to do the best we could. We are not great specialists in time trials,” he continued.

“Maybe it could have gone worse for us, but we tried to save the time that we could save.”

“For sure, Koren and Haussler could have done much more, and I don’t want to say anything bad about it, but we were in six early on… and then four…

“When you are in four, it can dangerous because you have a mechanical or a flat, it all becomes so much more complicated and you have to wait for the fourth man. These team time trials are hard to read, especially today, because in some points where we going 80kph, so it wasn’t easy to manage a rhythm that was so high.”

“We said early on that a one-minute lose would be the worst case,” sports director Paolo Slongo said. “We are there in the range that we thought we would be in. We are satisfied.

“It wasn’t an off day, but we just limited the losses and that was limited for those riders.”

Read more at https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/tour-de-france/gone-worse-vincenzo-nibali-lives-fight-another-day-tour-team-time-trial-385960#YImRLiecPCzX8Lq5.99

 

[skippo12]

Probably thinking that Visconti and Mohoric would have been better than Koren, Haussler and Colbrelli. Both are in great shape.

 

[whittashau]

Probably thinking that Visconti and Mohoric would have been better than Koren, Haussler and Colbrelli. Both are in great shape.

I think Haussler and Cobrelli were chosen for their talents on the cobbles

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

Even with Haussler and Colbrelli at their best they would have lost 50+ seconds.

Their TTT was fine. He sits very close to most contenders and a healthy minute in front of Quintana. Any of his fan would have signed for this before the Tour started.

Exactly, and possibly even more importantly he seems to be in great shape. Ofc a TTT doesn't tell you that much but riding the climb at the front while dropping two of your teammates is, despite being bad in a TTT, an indicator for good shape.
Anyway, I really think the Roubaix stage is the possibly most important day for him. If he wants to be in yellow in Paris he should better be in front of Froome and Porte at the start of the 2nd week. Otherwise it's still possible but I think very difficult.

 

[skippo12]

Re: Re:

Even with Haussler and Colbrelli at their best they would have lost 50+ seconds.

Their TTT was fine. He sits very close to most contenders and a healthy minute in front of Quintana. Any of his fan would have signed for this before the Tour started.

Exactly, and possibly even more importantly he seems to be in great shape. Ofc a TTT doesn't tell you that much but riding the climb at the front while dropping two of your teammates is, despite being bad in a TTT, an indicator for good shape.
Anyway, I really think the Roubaix stage is the possibly most important day for him. If he wants to be in yellow in Paris he should better be in front of Froome and Porte at the start of the 2nd week. Otherwise it's still possible but I think very difficult.

I don`t think Porte has any chance even if he is the best climber. 3 downhill finishes will be enough for Nibali (and others) to gain at least 1-2 minutes on him.

 

[Robert5091]

Nibs is saving the voodoo for Sunday

 

[Red Rick]

Froome and Dumoulin are 90% of the relevant competition here.

 

[Carols]

Re: Re:

The shark was not quite happy at the end speaking in the heat of the moment. They didn't went strong enough but it could've been worse as in the end only four left had to try to salvage what was left to be saved. They lost earlier than expected Haussler and Koren and then Delphino and Sonny were dropped on the hill.

Anyway, it is what it is, he looks good, next stage.

I hope he wasn't to tough on them, they are in service for a Long tour yet! He killed them off going to hard......

Lol, you cannot go slowly over that last hill. If they did, they would be in for a much bigger loss.

LOL they were long gone before the final hill!

 

[cantpedal]

Re: Re:

The shark is drowning

that's why he has a dolphin on the team to help him out

But Orcas eat Sharks - great White Sharks
tried to add link you'll have to google it

 

[jmdirt]

I think that he expected a bit more from the "hard men", but he's in an OK position. As someone else pointed out, he could take advantage of the downhill finishes.

 

[Summoned]

If Nibali is disappointed in the performance in the TTT, then I think he may have had unrealistic expectations. Given the team he had, I think losing less than 1:30 is quite acceptable. But this raises the question of how he had envisioned his strategy for the rest of the Tour playing out. Is the concern the time he lost over expectations, or the number of GC contenders who are in front of him now? If he genuinely expected not to be a minute behind Froome and Porte at this point, I am thinking he had a poorly planned vision for success in the Tour. Yes, he is not a minute behind Froome and Porte now, but are the riders he is a minute behind that much more significant threats to him moving up the classification?

 

[Koronin]

Re:

If Nibali is disappointed in the performance in the TTT, then I think he may have had unrealistic expectations. Given the team he had, I think losing less than 1:30 is quite acceptable. But this raises the question of how he had envisioned his strategy for the rest of the Tour playing out. Is the concern the time he lost over expectations, or the number of GC contenders who are in front of him now? If he genuinely expected not to be a minute behind Froome and Porte at this point, I am thinking he had a poorly planned vision for success in the Tour. Yes, he is not a minute behind Froome and Porte now, but are the riders he is a minute behind that much more significant threats to him moving up the classification?

I'm also surprised by his reaction. What exactly did he expect? I think most of us expected him to loose around a minute and half maybe a bit more and be in the same situation as Bardet and AG2R. So in truth he's not in that bad of shape. A very different reaction to that of 2 of Movistar's leaders who are more than happy with where they currently are.

 

[dacooley]

Re: Re:

Even with Haussler and Colbrelli at their best they would have lost 50+ seconds.

Their TTT was fine. He sits very close to most contenders and a healthy minute in front of Quintana. Any of his fan would have signed for this before the Tour started.

Exactly, and possibly even more importantly he seems to be in great shape. Ofc a TTT doesn't tell you that much but riding the climb at the front while dropping two of your teammates is, despite being bad in a TTT, an indicator for good shape.
Anyway, I really think the Roubaix stage is the possibly most important day for him. If he wants to be in yellow in Paris he should better be in front of Froome and Porte at the start of the 2nd week. Otherwise it's still possible but I think very difficult.

I don`t think Porte has any chance even if he is the best climber. 3 downhill finishes will be enough for Nibali (and others) to gain at least 1-2 minutes on him.

Yes, as downhills is a terrain which always entails significant gaps. I don't really remember any downhill finish where porte didn't bleed 1' at the very least...

 

[skippo12]

Re: Re:

Even with Haussler and Colbrelli at their best they would have lost 50+ seconds.

Their TTT was fine. He sits very close to most contenders and a healthy minute in front of Quintana. Any of his fan would have signed for this before the Tour started.

Exactly, and possibly even more importantly he seems to be in great shape. Ofc a TTT doesn't tell you that much but riding the climb at the front while dropping two of your teammates is, despite being bad in a TTT, an indicator for good shape.
Anyway, I really think the Roubaix stage is the possibly most important day for him. If he wants to be in yellow in Paris he should better be in front of Froome and Porte at the start of the 2nd week. Otherwise it's still possible but I think very difficult.

I don`t think Porte has any chance even if he is the best climber. 3 downhill finishes will be enough for Nibali (and others) to gain at least 1-2 minutes on him.

Yes, as downhills is a terrain which always entails significant gaps. I don't really remember any downhill finish where porte didn't bleed 1' at the very least...

Well....most of the time he has a crash before he can lose any time but that would take him out of contention as well.
Last years Dauphine would be a good example for Porte losing a race downhill. I think Porte and Zakarin are on a similar level...Nibali gained 34s on Zakarin on a single descent in 2017s Giro. This year there will be more riders willing to take risk (Bardet, Valverde, Dumoulin)...not looking good for Porte.

 

[dacooley]

Re: Re:

Even with Haussler and Colbrelli at their best they would have lost 50+ seconds.

Their TTT was fine. He sits very close to most contenders and a healthy minute in front of Quintana. Any of his fan would have signed for this before the Tour started.

Exactly, and possibly even more importantly he seems to be in great shape. Ofc a TTT doesn't tell you that much but riding the climb at the front while dropping two of your teammates is, despite being bad in a TTT, an indicator for good shape.
Anyway, I really think the Roubaix stage is the possibly most important day for him. If he wants to be in yellow in Paris he should better be in front of Froome and Porte at the start of the 2nd week. Otherwise it's still possible but I think very difficult.

I don`t think Porte has any chance even if he is the best climber. 3 downhill finishes will be enough for Nibali (and others) to gain at least 1-2 minutes on him.

Yes, as downhills is a terrain which always entails significant gaps. I don't really remember any downhill finish where porte didn't bleed 1' at the very least...

Well....most of the time he has a crash before he can lose any time but that would take him out of contention as well.
Last years Dauphine would be a good example for Porte losing a race downhill. I think Porte and Zakarin are on a similar level...Nibali gained 34s on Zakarin on a single descent in 2017s Giro. This year there will be more riders willing to take risk (Bardet, Valverde, Dumoulin)...not looking good for Porte.

Descent can easily finish off anyone's race. Yes, Porte made a fatal mistake last year but all in all I didn't notice him being an attrocious descender or something. He's a very mediocre, probably a bit worse than average descender, but there's nothing criminal like Zakarin or Pinot / Wiggins 2013. not to mention about the fact that gaining time on descents is far less guaranteed than doing the same uphill or TT's.

Cobbled stage is a day X for Nibs because most likely he will be lacking pure watts against 1-2-3 guys on mountain top finishes, IMO.