You deliberately bring up individual stages. Anglru was a very good performance on the most challenging climb in the Vuelta but that was 1 stage.
Sestrieres one can argue that the real opposition that day were Menchov who was a pale shadow of himself in that Giro and Kreuziger who was dropped a million miles before the top of Finestre and miraculously got back. Maybe Nibali on a bad day can also be included. However Sestrieres is a perfect example of my issues with Rodriguez. He can attack apparently from far out on the climb and he can make an attack last til the end. Yet those attacks are frustratingly rare. Attacking in the last km is a safer bet and with his acceleration more likely to succeed however I personally feel that this way of riding is not attractive.
Pena Cabarga and Xorret del Cati are not hills and I never said so. At least as far as I remember. However these are climbs less than 20 minutes long not Finestre, Stelvio, Galibier, Plateau de Beille, Zoncolan etc etc etc. They are really different.
As for the time gained in the mountains he wasn't in the top-5 of climbers in the 2010 Tour, wasn't really better than Nibali in the 2010 Vuelta (on real time he was worse) and was invisible until the last week in the Giro but there he can be forgiven.
This time around there are no excuses. He is strong, didn't have to peak twice before, the competition is a struggling a bit so I hope he can ride in the more entertaining fashion instead of waiting for the red kite as I believe he has that in him.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram