Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana (2.1) February 3-7

[rick james]

Re:

Those short, super steep climbs don't suit Aru to well, if he's already in that kind of shape at the start of the season he could have a great season.
Before the start of the race his weight was 62.5kg, that's about 2kg over his Vuelta weight, so he probably had a great winter without too many distractions.

didn't you see his tan? he spent all winter on the beach

 

[May0maniac]

Re: Re:

Those short, super steep climbs don't suit Aru to well, if he's already in that kind of shape at the start of the season he could have a great season.
Before the start of the race his weight was 62.5kg, that's about 2kg over his Vuelta weight, so he probably had a great winter without too many distractions.

didn't you see his tan? he spent all winter on the beach

Yeah, but he's already pretty light and in decent shape, so it wasn't a huge distraction.
Poels was impressive, I like the Guy and I love the way he deals with stupid spectators (Zoncolan, Alpe d'Huez).

 

[MatParker117]

Sky have swept this race in terms of classifications.

 

[rick james]

Re:

Sky have swept this race in terms of classifications.

its a great sign for this year

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Re: Re:

Can't see Landa winning too many classics. Kwia however, well thats another story.

Landa for non Tour GT .. as I said

alright.

 

[HelloDolly]

Re:

Sky have swept this race in terms of classifications.

But GC had 3 Sky, 3 Astana and 3 Movistar and one Cofidis in the top 10 ..so not that uneven.
SKY just had the strongest rider

 

[Arredondo]

Re:

I think a GT stage win (fe) is big. But whatever. Personal preferences

I was talking about stage races. Not GTs

 

[LaFlorecita]

Could it not be a combination of issues...nothing in life and sport is simple or will you only accept a simple answer
SKY have a big budget and spend it well ...They also seem to bring the best out of some riders but not all
Its more like the spend well and train well

What is so annoying is that SKY come out at beginning of the year and win ...and then the same people on here bring up the same old lame excuses and jealous bile

If SKY are so 'corrupt' then what about all the riders who left SKY and those top riders joining ...they must be all in on it

Nothing but pathetic jealousy

Not jealousy just general annoyance that they are ruining what would otherwise be incredibly enjoyable races. No one likes dominance except fanboys of the dominant team or athlete. That goes for any sport.
But I understand it's easy to put it down to jealousy instead of addressing the real issue.

Would you be saying that if it was Contador doing what Poels done in this race?

Am starting to doubt the reading skills of Sky fanboys

 

[Vasilis]

I have a question: does Etixx's strength in depth in the Classics make those boring?

 

[gooner]

Could it not be a combination of issues...nothing in life and sport is simple or will you only accept a simple answer
SKY have a big budget and spend it well ...They also seem to bring the best out of some riders but not all
Its more like the spend well and train well

What is so annoying is that SKY come out at beginning of the year and win ...and then the same people on here bring up the same old lame excuses and jealous bile

If SKY are so 'corrupt' then what about all the riders who left SKY and those top riders joining ...they must be all in on it

Nothing but pathetic jealousy

Not jealousy just general annoyance that they are ruining what would otherwise be incredibly enjoyable races. No one likes dominance except fanboys of the dominant team or athlete. That goes for any sport.
But I understand it's easy to put it down to jealousy instead of addressing the real issue.

Unless it's Alberto.

The hurt is strong on this one. And another year of hysterical nonsense starts.

I'm sure this is just an innocent misunderstanding but didn't I just explain why I would not mind dominance from him with that very sentence?

Hence, why the jealousy point.

Sky have recruited well. It should be seen as a challenge for the other teams.

And I don't see Poels ahead of Aru in a GT when push comes to shove.

 

[Mr.White]

Other teams with similar budgets have spent poorly, for the money Tinkoff spent on Sagan they could of got three or four excellent climbing domestiques for Contador.

There aren't even that many "excellent climbing domestiques" on the market. Sky's key to success is transforming "climbing domestiques" into "world class climbers" how they manage that we do not know

They also spend money on coaches, sport scientists, support staff which many teams only pay lip service and the one's that do, don't do it as well.

Aha, as Saint David Walsh said, the other teams are basically amateurs. That explains it.

Cycling is very traditionalist when it comes to training methods, for example JV threw direct energie under the bus as Rolland was apparently training like a rider "from the 1970s".

And under the guidance of "great" JV he finished 76th in the 16km TT, 1.38 min behind the winner. Great progress! What a load of s..t!!!

 

[carton]

if they start winning multiple grand tours, and classics then they may have ruined it. however they do seem to have a freakish success rate at 1 week stage races.

This. Sky have been one of the best funded teams in the world. Their six year record is as follows:

Tour: 3/6
Giro: 0/6
Vuelta: 0/6
Monuments: 0/30
Non-Monument Cobbled Classics: 1/12
Non-Monument Ardennes Classics: 0/12

If not for the Tour and the one week stage races, that would be a dreadful record. But the Tour is all they really care about, so they have a bus load of pretty decent climbers who could might make a GT top ten (Poels, Konig, Roche, the Henaos, Kennaugh, Intxausti, Thomas, Boswell) who are instead fighting for places on the TdF bus and are only allowed to slip the leash on a few one-week stage races a year. Them's the apples.

 

[HelloDolly]

And under the guidance of "great" JV he finished 76th in the 16km TT, 1.38 min behind the winner. Great progress! What a load of s..t!!!

In fairness Rolland is no where near he needs to be if targeting the Tour..and the same for alot of other riders in this race

Its still a whole month to Paris Nice ...

 

[Alexandre B.]

He was sick (and Rolland in february... he's the Schleck type of rider, all in for two races).

 

[LaFlorecita]

if they start winning multiple grand tours, and classics then they may have ruined it. however they do seem to have a freakish success rate at 1 week stage races.

This. Sky have been one of the best funded teams in the world. Their six year record is as follows:

Tour: 3/6
Giro: 0/6
Vuelta: 0/6
Monuments: 0/30
Non-Monument Cobbled Classics: 1/12
Non-Monument Ardennes Classics: 0/12

If not for the Tour and the one week stage races, that would be a dreadful record. But the Tour is all they really care about, so they have a bus load of pretty decent climbers who could might make a GT top ten (Poels, Konig, Roche, the Henaos, Kennaugh, Intxausti, Thomas, Boswell) who are instead fighting for places on the TdF bus and are only allowed to slip the leash on a few one-week stage races a year. Them's the apples.

Why count the number of non-Monument classic wins and not the number of stage race wins?

 

[LaFlorecita]

Hence, why the jealousy point.

Sky have recruited well. It should be seen as a challenge for the other teams.

And I don't see Poels ahead of Aru in a GT when push comes to shove.

They've been recruiting well for years in that case and the challenge has been out there for a while. For some reason the other teams have never managed to catch up.

And no one said anything about GTs. It's about the present, not the future. Right now, we see Sky completely dominating 2 out of the 3 stage races they are racing.

 

[Cannibal72]

Could it not be a combination of issues...nothing in life and sport is simple or will you only accept a simple answer
SKY have a big budget and spend it well ...They also seem to bring the best out of some riders but not all
Its more like the spend well and train well

What is so annoying is that SKY come out at beginning of the year and win ...and then the same people on here bring up the same old lame excuses and jealous bile

If SKY are so 'corrupt' then what about all the riders who left SKY and those top riders joining ...they must be all in on it

Nothing but pathetic jealousy

Not jealousy just general annoyance that they are ruining what would otherwise be incredibly enjoyable races. No one likes dominance except fanboys of the dominant team or athlete. That goes for any sport.
But I understand it's easy to put it down to jealousy instead of addressing the real issue.

If Poels didn't exist, today would probably have been an Astana 1-2 of Rosa and Aru. That's Aru who won the most recent GT. So Sky are simply more successful at executing a gameplan followed by another team. That's probably why you are accused of focusing on Sky.

But he does exist and he rides for Sky. You can't just ignore that. "If Sky weren't in the race they wouldn't be winning" yes exactly.

Without really wanting to defend Sky, you might just want to reread this post and try and understand it this time.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

I have a question: does Etixx's strength in depth in the Classics make those boring?

Do they win half of the classics?

 

[LaFlorecita]

Without really wanting to defend Sky, you might just want to reread this post and try and understand it this time.

I read it many times and it just seems like a bunch of random sentences thrown together into a post. It makes zero sense to me but perhaps that's just the result of my below-average intelligence.
Anyway, this is my best shot:

If Poels didn't exist, today would probably have been an Astana 1-2 of Rosa and Aru.

Indeed, but he does exist.

That's Aru who won the most recent GT.

Indeed I am very much aware of that. As you may know I did not start following cycling at the start of this season.

So Sky are simply more successful at executing a gameplan followed by another team.

No idea what this means. "Followed by another team" what? Do you mean Astana? "More successful at executing a gameplan" it's not about tactics or anything. They are just way stronger than anyone else. It hasn't got anything to do with executing a gameplan. No idea what you are trying to suggest.

That's probably why you are accused of focusing on Sky.

What? Where? When? And how is this is any way related to anything you posted above? Again I am thoroughly confused.

 

[Mr.White]

I'm sick and tired of that "executing the gameplan", as if other teams don't have one, or Sky outsmarted them. In reality Sky is stronger than other teams by a ridiculous margin, it's insulting in some way! Freaking Poels is dropping the whole peloton by 25sec on 3km climb and he gave that same peloton +20sec in the 16km TT for which he never was specialist, and he say he trained hard over the winter, give me a break!!! So nobody at Astana,Movistar,Katusha,etc trained hard, I find that hard to believe. He's suddenly some kind of a stage race specialist and monster climber, although he never was in the past. Ridiculous!!! Cookson must go if we want some proper racing!

 

[carton]

Why count the number of non-Monument classic wins and not the number of stage race wins?

Because I'm lazy. And I wanted to go a little broader than just the monuments.

Also, I took it for granted that the ratio was high. Which is actually not quite the case. Doing the math, if you look at WT races (I know that bunches Poland with Tirreno, but you've got draw the line somewhere) then Sky's record is 12/65=18%. Not all that great. That does goes go up to 3/10 last year, but broaden it to the last 2 years (22 races) and it's 4/22=18%, so the ratio seems fairly stable. Pretty close to their GT record as well, 3/18=17%. So given the talent they have they're not really even over-performing in WT stage races.

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

I have a question: does Etixx's strength in depth in the Classics make those boring?

Yes.

Actually no, not really as they often **** up and the riders half the time don't care about what the team manager says and they just go for the win. In the business end of races its barely a team. And they're all attacking all the time, not just all working (mindlessly, some might say) for one guy.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Why count the number of non-Monument classic wins and not the number of stage race wins?

Because I'm lazy. And I wanted to go a little broader than just the monuments.

Also, I took it for granted that the ratio was high. Which is actually not quite the case. Doing the math, if you look at WT races (I know that bunches Poland with Tirreno, but you've got draw the line somewhere) then Sky's record is 12/65=18%. Not all that great. That does goes go up to 3/10 last year, but broaden it to the last 2 years (22 races) and it's 4/22=18%, so the ratio seems fairly stable. Pretty close to their GT record as well, 3/18=17%. So given the talent they have they're not really even over-performing in WT stage races.

If you compare it to the number of WT teams and high level Pro Conti teams, 18% is a lot. I realize that it is simply not possible for all teams to share the wins but at the very least you would hope the % of wins would change per year with different teams winning the biggest share. When you have the same team winning the lion's share for 4 years in a row (and 3 out of 4 TDFs) perhaps something is very wrong, either with the system or something more nefarious.

 

[beatthatrat]

Why count the number of non-Monument classic wins and not the number of stage race wins?

Because I'm lazy. And I wanted to go a little broader than just the monuments.

Also, I took it for granted that the ratio was high. Which is actually not quite the case. Doing the math, if you look at WT races (I know that bunches Poland with Tirreno, but you've got draw the line somewhere) then Sky's record is 12/65=18%. Not all that great. That does goes go up to 3/10 last year, but broaden it to the last 2 years (22 races) and it's 4/22=18%, so the ratio seems fairly stable. Pretty close to their GT record as well, 3/18=17%. So given the talent they have they're not really even over-performing in WT stage races.

If you compare it to the number of WT teams and high level Pro Conti teams, 18% is a lot. I realize that it is simply not possible for all teams to share the wins but at the very least you would hope the % of wins would change per year with different teams winning the biggest share. When you have the same team winning the lion's share for 4 years in a row (and 3 out of 4 TDFs) perhaps something is very wrong, either with the system or something more nefarious.

Nefarious?!
Among Sky's main competitors in stage racing over those years were Contador, Nibali, Valverde, Aru, Purito, Basso, Hesjedal, Cobo, Scarponi, Leipheimer, Shlecks.
Read that list and think about it.

 

[beatthatrat]

Might as well add Velits and Mosquera to that list when I think of them. And de Gendt too, for extra lols!