Volta a Catalunya 2013

[del1962]

The weather going to be OK for the mountain stages of this race?

 

[manafana]

I very much see this as having to change the route a bit with the recent poor luck with the weather of late.

 

[Parrulo]

Ah OK, I thought you meant Mollema himself, as he's very often referred to as TGBM in more recent threads as well. Like in this year's Tirreno for example.

But the Machado hyping in every race he starts and the original TGBM running gag are pretty much the same, though I got used to calling Mollema TGBM because of it.

On a serious note: I hope Machado finally gets a win, maybe he shouldn't aim for GC all the time, as it seems he doesn't ride well in the peolton at all. A breakaway will suit him much better, and a win here would be great for confidence.

machado has plenty of power, recovery and stamina however he sucks at everything else a cyclist should be good at, however he can't position himself, his tactics are questionable most of the time and when on a small group for some reason instead of riding in the line he rides in his own line by the side of the group. . .

that's a very bad combination of skills for some1 that wants to do well in stage races, a shame really because back on the u23 days in portugal everyone used to say he was much more talented then costa.

machado pretty much skipped his u23 years to ride for boavista on the very dodgy portuguese peloton of the time where he had no chance to contend for the volta which led the portuguese team coach to never select him for the worlds as a u23 because he wasn't used to ride with the team. . . . machado's career has been 1 bad decision on top of another

one of the best examples of how much of a bad decision it was for him to ride on the portuguese peloton instead of riding with the u23 for at least 1 year or 2 like costa did.

his last volta in 2009 at 23 years of age:

1. BLANCO RODRIGUEZ David PRT 41h11'46" 160
2. BERNABEU ARMENGOL Vicente David BSP 12" 120
3. PLAZA MOLINA Ruben LSE 44" 98
4. CABREIRA Joao Paulo Costa CCL 01'29" 88
5. MACHADO Tiago Jose Pinto MAD 01'58" 80

look at the magical 4 names that beat him

 

[jens_attacks]

machado is a magical name too sorry
it had to be said