Vuelta a Espana Stage 2: La Nucía - Playas de Orihuela 175.5 km

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Waterloo Sunrise said:
I think people need to see him in a real sprint against top guys to make a judgement. The top 10 shows pretty conclusively that it was not a normal bunch sprint.

Guardini definately couldn't have got 3rd today, but my fundamental bias against power sprinters makes me think he'd take Kittel on a proper sprint.

Whats your problem with power sprinters? Also: whats a proper sprint?

Kittel btw. did beat Guardini twice in proper sprints. They only matched up 4 Times. 2 Wins Kittel 2 Wins Guardini.
 
Rechtschreibfehler said:
Whats your problem with power sprinters? Also: whats a proper sprint?

Kittel btw. did beat Guardini twice in proper sprints. They only matched up 4 Times. 2 Wins Kittel 2 Wins Guardini.

My problem with power sprinters is that for the last few years that's been all there is, and the only real punchy sprinter has been beating them with comical ease.

I struggle to ever see Hushovd & Boonen as sprinters - they're just big powerful guys who give it a good crack.

Unless a big guy comes along and can deliver well over 2000W (and I don't think such a rider exists), I don't see how they can beat a smaller guy delivering 1500W in a perfect aerodynamic position.
 
Jan 6, 2010
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cineteq said:
I'm basing this on his performance yesterday, thus for being rubbish.

Yesterday *his* performance was excellent - the problem was Zandio not realising he was the 5th man after an unlucky crash, and wiggins then having to wait. Thats nothing really to do with Wiggins and more to do with probable language barriers. Take out the probably around 20 secs costs by having to wait for Zandio and Sky come in in the midfield, losing hardly any time to the favourites.

As for today, when Sky came to the front 10km from the end, they shepherded him to the front, and he seemed comfortable in being there; it seems like he just misjudged his position on the hill, not expecting the gap between Anton and the rest of the riders to be enough for them to be classed as a different time, until it was too late. But there were plenty of others who did the same - Sastre, Machado, LLS, Le Mevel all presumably thought they were in the same group for the timings - and Anton and Purito weren't that far ahead of them and could have been unlucky too.

Until we see what happens in stage 4, all we can really say is Wiggins has come in with great form and fitness, but lacking some race sharpness - whether this form/fitness is enough to not lose too much time in the moutains we'll be able to say on Tuesday evening
 
Apr 9, 2011
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Waterloo Sunrise said:
My problem with power sprinters is that for the last few years that's been all there is, and the only real punchy sprinter has been beating them with comical ease.

I struggle to ever see Hushovd & Boonen as sprinters - they're just big powerful guys who give it a good crack.

Unless a big guy comes along and can deliver well over 2000W (and I don't think such a rider exists), I don't see how they can beat a smaller guy delivering 1500W in a perfect aerodynamic position.

kittel got close in Poland 1800 and something
 
cineteq said:
Eureka, that's exactly my point! Why he should've have gotten dropped today. :rolleyes:

Well, I thought you'd just be an angry supporter who'd made up a bad performances yesterday cause they didn't Top 5. My bad. You got loads of these guys around here and I'm not having a proper overview who's willing to make objective judgments and who's not.

It might as well been his team who ****ed it up because they didn't get him into position. But I don't see how he's given up on GC based on that.
Remember he used to be a trak not a road guy, and toda it was tricky to stay up front.
 
Apr 12, 2010
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Waterloo Sunrise said:
They were, the train was Tony, Cav, Degenkolb all the way, hence Cav was visible so early.

As we thought, from Cav's twitter

"MarkCavendish Mark Cavendish
Hard finish! We were riding for young Degenkolb for jersey, but we couldn't quite get organised. I could only get him to 700m#****leadoutman"
 
Boardslide said:
As we thought, from Cav's twitter

"MarkCavendish Mark Cavendish
Hard finish! We were riding for young Degenkolb for jersey, but we couldn't quite get organised. I could only get him to 700m#****leadoutman"

i love cav's honesty in his tweets. he seems to have a really nice sense of humour
 
Rechtschreibfehler said:
Remember he used to be a trak not a road guy, and toda it was tricky to stay up front.

Yes, but as well as a pursuiter he was also a Madison world champion, and so given the nature of the Madison I would expect that this would actually help rather than hinder him in terms of placing himself in a pack.