Vuelta Ciclista a Castilla y León - 13th to 17th April

[Libertine Seguros]

Porte climbing last year:

Paris-Nice:
147th to Mende (+11'31")
DNF to Nice

Giro:
17th to Monte Terminillo (+1'22", 26" back on the heads of state group) - 26" behind Mollema
24th to Asolo (over Monte Grappa)(+4'46") - 2'21" behind Mollema
18th to Monte Zoncolan (+5'46") - 1'42" behind Mollema
17th to Plan de Corones (+2'17") - 40" ahead of Mollema
14th to Aprica (+5'31") - 4" behind Mollema (same group)
19th to Tonale (+1'42") - 52" behind Mollema

No other stage races he entered were properly mountainous except maybe Romandie.

I don't really see where we have a GT winning talent here. A good talent, sure, but you can't continually lose that kind of territory on every mountain and expect to win.

 

[palmerq]

Ben swift wins? That's good for him, he seems to have a bit of potential, well done, sky are having an allright season.

I see bos in 4th, I didnt watch this stage but I doubt bos will ever do anything amazing on the road.

 

[Ferminal]

Riis' preparation looks good (Porte).

I don't rate him, but there is something in me which says I shouldn't be surprised if he gets an ok result between now and the end of July.

 

[Parrulo]

i don't really believe the porte hype, there are a few guys who have way more potential as gt riders and no1 rates them.

he looks good for 1 week races( not the ones like giro de trentino tho ) and maybe hilly classics but no GT material

 

[sublimit]

I missed the race, but yes swift is quality but a shame about his itinerary, track has derailed his season but it looks like he's back with a good win.

It would of been a turkey shoot on the flat stages Grieple style for him but he gets messed about riding team 4 K pursuit track most of the time.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Don't know about a turkey shoot, think you underrate Ventoso.

 

[Frosty]

The track program might not have helped but he wasnt well in the earlier stages.

http://www.teamsky.com/article/0,27290,21008_6869634,00.html

 

[sublimit]

Ventoso is top class and having a great year but Swift is quicker when on form.

Still nice to see Chris Froome have a reasonable few days, he can ITT and climb and is starting to look good. Under pressure to to keep his Sky ride but worth persevering with I reckon and has attributes to be a good GC rider in the future hopefully.

 

[Frosty]

Ventoso is top class and having a great year but Swift is quicker when on form.

Still nice to see Chris Froome have a reasonable few days, he can ITT and climb and is starting to look good. Under pressure to to keep his Sky ride but worth persevering with I reckon and has attributes to be a good GC rider in the future hopefully.

Not sure he is good enough at climbing or TT to be a team leader/win things. Maybe a good all-round domestique, a level down from super-domestique?

 

[roundabout]

No other stage races he entered were properly mountainous except maybe Romandie.

Tour of Slovenia, but he didn't do much there

And there's no maybe about Romandie being mountainous.

http://cyclingcols.com/profiles/OvronnazS.gif

Edit: wrong side

 

[sublimit]

Not sure he is good enough at climbing or TT to be a team leader/win things. Maybe a good all-round domestique, a level down from super-domestique?

He's still quite young so maybe like a Kiryenka style rider in the future. Obviously not at that sort of level yet but something to aspire to I think.

 

[greenedge]

I'm pretty confident Mollema will be a better GT rider compared to Porte. Porte is incredibly overrated. He has a great TT, but he will lose minutes on every single MTF there is. Unless he improves his climbing skill there is no way he will ride another top10 in a GT.

They are both young. I think Porte will improve his climbing thanks to Riis. Porte is 26, mollema 25. So maybe mollema will be as he gets an induction phase into cycling riding in a good team supporting gesink and L.L.Sanchez.

 

[greenedge]

The real question here is greenedge in someway related to acf94?

Doubt it. I live in sydney and am very very young. All i do that is similar is hype aussies up whenever i see an ok result. Tell me last yr at the giro if you did not think porte was a good talent. Now he is just learning and has got second yr jitters where they sometimes do not meet expectations.

 

[theyoungest]

They are both young. I think Porte will improve his climbing thanks to Riis. Porte is 26, mollema 25. So maybe mollema will be as he gets an induction phase into cycling riding in a good team supporting gesink and L.L.Sanchez.

Mollema doesn't turn 25 for another 7 months. Porte is almost 2 years older.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Doubt it. I live in sydney and am very very young. All i do that is similar is hype aussies up whenever i see an ok result. Tell me last yr at the giro if you did not think porte was a good talent. Now he is just learning and has got second yr jitters where they sometimes do not meet expectations.

There's a difference between "good talent" (which Porte undoubtedly is) and "GT-winning talent" (which most of us believe Porte isn't).

He's good enough to climb in one-week races. He's a good ITT rider. He could compete over a week very well, but may be lost in the shuffle as an ITT-centric rider who can climb a bit because Tony Martin is around and is a special talent in that mould.

 

[The Hitch]

Doubt it. I live in sydney and am very very young. All i do that is similar is hype aussies up whenever i see an ok result. Tell me last yr at the giro if you did not think porte was a good talent. Now he is just learning and has got second yr jitters where they sometimes do not meet expectations.

Its always great to see young people get into the sport, especially from so far away as Australia, and I liked ACF even before he became a moderately sane top poster with a sense of humor and an ability to analyse things (see this thread

I had a lot of disagreements with him, and he even tried to claim i failed a few times (most humourosly here) but i always respected that he was a young fan into this thing of ours, staying up late on school nights (joke) to watch our races.

Hell i even like ACFs ultra chauvinistic girl version, Sportzchick who I would like to see find her way back onto this site for the Tour, and hopefully, not leave the second Cadel loses 5 minutes on the first mountain

But (and there always was a but coming) NO, Porte did not impress. It was clear from the start that had he not been from a country that speaks english, there would be no discussion even. I mean Ligget for example touts Porte as a TDF contender without ever having even seen him ride (he dont watch the Giro nor Romandie) but rather purely on the basis that hes an anglophone.

Porte was good but nowhere near Gc material. He got the MR but he didnt keep it past 1 mountain stage, even though he had a 2 minute gap and the next rider was David Arroyo (hardly gc material himself). He had an entire team working for him, where a more talented and younger rider -Kiserlovski who was also in the break was rather made to earn his stripes working for the leaders.

Even in what is supposed to be his strong point - the tt, he didnt impress. Ive seen far bigger and badder breakouts be it Uran 3rd in Lombardy, Schleck 2nd in Giro, Gesink 2nd in Poland, or even a 19 year old brutaly showing Roman Kreuziger that his position as Liquis big young hope was coming to an end.

If we just look at that Giro and just at riders younger than Porte ( a pretty narrow catergory) I saw more from Kiserlovski, Kruiswick, Mollema, Belleti and Goss than i did from Richie Porte. Actually, even though he crashed big in Holland and lost 13 minutes there, Rigoberto Uran showed far more gc talent there than I think Ill ever see from Porte, beating Basso on Kronplatz and pacing Malia Rosa up all the other climbs.

Also, for those ready to pounce on me in July should some new ultra epo super drug come in that only Porte has access to and he manages to scrape a top 10, note how i never say that he wont perform, just that his performances thus far have been very unimpressive.

How old are you btw.

 

[greenedge]

Ok i think Porte will prove you all wrong in a few yrs time. That's just my opinion, but he might just be that GOOD TALENT. when you wear any leader's jersey even once and hold it for 3 days you should be considered GT winning talent. Let's just say for this tour he and Chris Anker Sorensen will help contador and Porte shall do a good job. That will be part of his learning curve. Earlier you talked about tondo being better, I like him and hope he goes well at F-W. He probably is better but he is 32 yrs of age compared to Porte's 26. Last yr's giro was also his 1st GT.

 

[hrotha]

when you wear any leader's jersey even once and hold it for 3 days you should be considered GT winning talent.

I can assure you that Thomas Voeckler will never win a GT.

 

[The Hitch]

I can assure you that Thomas Voeckler will never win a GT.

Why do you think i put Rinaldo Nocentini on my cq team?

I mean he held the Tour jersey (not that giro crap) for like a week. Hell if we count rest days Rinaldo wore it for 9 days. So thats what. 3 grand tours. Since hes getting on in age a bit, maybe hell do the grand slam this year.

Earlier you talked about tondo being better, I like him and hope he goes well at F-W. He probably is better but he is 32 yrs of age compared to Porte's 26. Last yr's giro was also his 1st GT.

Tondo, that was LS who talked about him not me.

But, I can give you a list of riders younger than Richie Porte who have greater chance of winning gts than Porte.

Hell, the list is so big, I can even write you a Yakkos World type song about it (how sad is it that i still know all the words to that). See also we didnt start the fire

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Ok i think Porte will prove you all wrong in a few yrs time. That's just my opinion, but he might just be that GOOD TALENT. when you wear any leader's jersey even once and hold it for 3 days you should be considered GT winning talent. Let's just say for this tour he and Chris Anker Sorensen will help contador and Porte shall do a good job. That will be part of his learning curve. Earlier you talked about tondo being better, I like him and hope he goes well at F-W. He probably is better but he is 32 yrs of age compared to Porte's 26. Last yr's giro was also his 1st GT.

The whole 'hold a GT leaders' jersey for 3 days' thing is a fallacy, as I'm sure you'll recognise if you step back and think.

Just in the last 5 years, we've had Fabian Cancellara, Philippe Gilbert, Richie Porte, David Arroyo, Giovanni Visconti, Rinaldo Nocentini, Kim Kirchen, Stijn Devolder, and Cyril Dessel hold the GT leaders' jersey for 3 days. I can assure you that I do not see any of the above winning a GT.

There are enough people to help (Navarro, Sørenson, Hernández and so on), but if Porte does his job well he probably would be just outside the top 10; close enough that nobody can afford to let him go anywhere, but preserving enough energy in case Contador needs him.

The problem for Porte as a GT rider is that he needs a relatively TT-biased parcours, or with less challenging mountains because for all his impressing in the Giro, when you look at the pure statistics, you see he lost time on every mountain stage, and though he's improving, maybe he can match some people ahead of him but that's a worry when you factor in the advantage he was given in L'Aquila. That means that the GT he's best suited to would be the Tour (especially now that the Vuelta seems to be getting its act together regards putting together a proper parcours). And at the Tour, you end up with the strongest fields. He needs a race like the '04 Giro or '07 Vuelta if he's going to truly shine.

Plus, of course, now his greatest weapon - surprise - is gone. Look at how Wiggins floundered trying to repeat his 2009 success, because people were no longer content to let him be there expecting him to drop away. Porte's results as a neo-pro mean that his being in a select group will set alarm bells ringing (especially as he's a good TT rider) and riders will know they need to - and likely CAN - put time into him in the mountains. As a result he may find himself eliminated earlier than he would have hoped.

The old adage is, you have to be good to get up to the top 10. You have to be even better to get up there again.

(Oh and Tondó actually rode the '09 Vuelta for Andalucía-Caja Sur, but got injured in the crash in Liège, rode on for a bit then dropped out at the end of week 2).

 

[Tuarts]

I think its probably way too early to say if he's going to be a decent GT rider. He seems to be setting his racing program up like he is aiming for GT's but certainly at this stage and atm he is just a good time-trialist who can climb ok.