what team?

[blaxland]

Can a gc rider(say contador or valverde)win any off the three grand tours riding on any team?Example;Would contador have won this years tour de france riding for silence/lotto?Would lance have made it on the podium riding for quickstep?could valverde win the vuelta not riding for caisse?these are questions i have long thought but cant quite answer.Any thoughts?

 

[Anonymous]

Can a gc rider(say contador or valverde)win any off the three grand tours riding on any team?Example;Would contador have won this years tour de france riding for silence/lotto?Would lance have made it on the podium riding for quickstep?could valverde win the vuelta not riding for caisse?these are questions i have long thought but cant quite answer.Any thoughts?

For GC

AC? Yes
Everyone else? No

LA was not capable of making up the time in the high mountains he would have lost in the TTT. Same with Valverde and ASchleck.

AC could have, would have and ultimately didn't need to. There is no one else in the peloton this year that could do it on a marginal team.

 

[quadsRme]

I'll drink to that

 

[Anonymous]

im not sure AC would win on a team with a strict no-doping policy.. but apart from that, yes he would have won with just about any team...

valverde would have pretty much won whoever he rode for as well.. the spanish where always going to stick together...

menchov didnt really get much help from his team in the giro either come to that...

 

[usedtobefast]

menchov was a quiet giant in his giro ride. di luca was just drilling it and there is menchov, just sitting on his wheel, or beating him in a a sprint or tt. my vote for the best race this year.

 

[Anonymous]

I think the rider's you've discussed could all win a GT on any team, provided there is no team time trial of significant distance.

The fact that astana took 3 minutes on silence lotto, suggests maybe contador would have struggled to win if he swapped spots with cadel, but given his dominance in the hilly TT's and mountain finishes, and that he won by 4 minutes, i'd say, yeh, he would win on any team.

Most of the time, when it's a mountain finish, most (not all, but most) of the GC contenders are alone, so it becomes an individual race from that point anyway (this was the case in the giro/vuelta)

 

[Hugh Januss]

im not sure AC would win on a team with a strict no-doping policy.. but apart from that, yes he would have won with just about any team...

valverde would have pretty much won whoever he rode for as well.. the spanish where always going to stick together...

menchov didnt really get much help from his team in the giro either come to that...

And which team would that be?

 

[ingsve]

It comes down to how good the GC rider is. Riding for a good team will always be an advantage but if a rider is clearly the best then riding without that advantage might still be enough to win.

If we look at Sastre last year for example, he wasn't classes better than everyone else so the team help probably was a diffrence between winning and not winning.

In other GTs the winner has won with several minutes and in those cases it probably wouldn't have mattered as much if the team was not as good.

As for Contador in this years Tour then yes he would probably have won if he had ridden on Silence Lotto as well. The feeling throughour the Tour was that he never really went all out. He only did enough to win but he could probably have done alot more. The benefit to riding for Silence Lotto would have been to not have the internal struggles he had this year so that would probably have been a positive effect as well.

 

[Willow22]

It comes down to how good the GC rider is. Riding for a good team will always be an advantage but if a rider is clearly the best then riding without that advantage might still be enough to win.

If we look at Sastre last year for example, he wasn't classes better than everyone else so the team help probably was a diffrence between winning and not winning.

In other GTs the winner has won with several minutes and in those cases it probably wouldn't have mattered as much if the team was not as good.

As for Contador in this years Tour then yes he would probably have won if he had ridden on Silence Lotto as well. The feeling throughour the Tour was that he never really went all out. He only did enough to win but he could probably have done alot more. The benefit to riding for Silence Lotto would have been to not have the internal struggles he had this year so that would probably have been a positive effect as well.

+1. I really don't think Carlos would have done it without CSC last year, but Contador, in his form this year, can really take minutes out of people on the climbs, and is as good as just about anyone in TT. Someone like Cadel is good, but not streaks ahead like AC, so needs a team in my opinion.

 

[sgreene]

im not sure AC would win on a team with a strict no-doping policy.. but apart from that, yes he would have won with just about any team...

So you are basically saying that Contador was doped? Any tiny shred of evidence of that?

 

[Anonymous]

So you are basically saying that Contador was doped? Any tiny shred of evidence of that?

Yep. He smoked a bunch of riders with 'programmes'. You might want to read some of the older clinic threads. And, no, to my knowledge he's never tested dirty. Neither did Ullrich, Valverde or Basso which were involved OP and there is at least some circumstantial evidence linking AC as well.

Go look in the clinic if you are curious as we are not to talk about this stuff over here.

 

[DonTickles]

And which team would that be?

JellyBelly?

 

[pmcg76]

I think when there is a super strong individual like Contador, Lance, Indurain, they dont need a strong team. A stong team just makes it more boring like when US Postal were in their pomp or even Astana this year, the fact that everything was 100% focused on Lance was also boring, in 7 years of dominance how many other Postal riders won stages?

Having a strong team for the TTT can make a difference but not enough to win a Tour on its own.

However, Alberto Contador on the current Astana roster against Radioshack could be interesting. If they played the tactics right they could make things very complicated for AC but they would have to be willing to see somebody else other than Lance win and I cannot see that happening.

I would say the last Tour winner to win without a decent team is Greg LeMond in 89 with ADR, thye were rubbish.

 

[Hugh Januss]

JellyBelly?

We can only hope!

 

[ingsve]

Yep. He smoked a bunch of riders with 'programmes'.

Beating doped rides is not in and of itself proof of anything. That depends entirely on what level a rider would have been clean. If everyone was clean and the best rider started doping then others would need to dope as well to beat him but if it's the 50th best guy that starts doping then lots of riders would still be better and still be clean.

 

[Ripper]

Beating doped rides is not in and of itself proof of anything. That depends entirely on what level a rider would have been clean. If everyone was clean and the best rider started doping then others would need to dope as well to beat him but if it's the 50th best guy that starts doping then lots of riders would still be better and still be clean.

Folks, the only thing to be gained by discussing Contador's 'training' and how it leads to him feeling "serene" and with "good sensations", is this thread being moved to the clinic. So I would suggest any replies or rebuttals just get started as a thread in the clinic, so this one can stay on course

And no, I am not trying to be a pain in the ass. But it is very clear how replies and rebuttals on this subject line will go (please do not reply to this message )

 

[Ripper]

Back to the thread ...

This is a good question. Very few people can do well without a good team. I would argue that it is not only their results you have to look at, but also how distracted others might have been by their teammates. Example - Astana, besides having an obviously strong team, had several threats and other riders had to be very careful who they marked and how strongly they marked that person, or they might risk blowing it on the wrong person. Astana had Contador, Armstrong, and Klodi, and until later in the race, they were all up there.

FWIW, I think Contador would have been hard to beat no matter what the team. However, I am not sure if I would agree he would still have won on S-L. On that team he would have been easier to mark, he would have had to work a bit harder all race (and that would have added up big time), and may not have been so strong in the final TT. Of course we will never know (unless he stays with what looks like an anemic Astana for 2010).

Lemond in '89 is a good one, because ADR was pretty much never there from what I can remember, even on transitional stages. Nowhere! Just Grego!

 

[Angliru]

Yep. Neither did Ullrich, Valverde or Basso which were involved OP and there is at least some circumstantial evidence linking AC as well.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but to my recollection the only reference that supposedly linked Contador to Puerto were the initials "A.C." that had appeared in some of the documents. At the time I believe Antonio Colom, who was recently busted, was also a member of Liberty Seguros. So those initials could have represented Colom just as well as Contador. Of course Colom is the only one of the two to have actually been caught. Not saying that Contador is or isn't being "aided" because there is no way for me to know for sure, just that there exists a reasonable doubt about his Puerto involvement. I personally like the guy and enjoy watching him race so I'm hoping he's straight.

 

[Publicus]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but to my recollection the only reference that supposedly linked Contador to Puerto were the initials "A.C." that had appeared in some of the documents. At the time I believe Antonio Colom, who was recently busted, was also a member of Liberty Seguros. So those initials could have represented Colom just as well as Contador. Of course Colom is the only one of the two to have actually been caught. Not saying that Contador is or isn't being "aided" because there is no way for me to know for sure, just that there exists a reasonable doubt about his Puerto involvement. I personally like the guy and enjoy watching him race so I'm hoping he's straight.

That's what I recall as well.

 

[Publicus]

Back to the thread ...

This is a good question. Very few people can do well without a good team. I would argue that it is not only their results you have to look at, but also how distracted others might have been by their teammates. Example - Astana, besides having an obviously strong team, had several threats and other riders had to be very careful who they marked and how strongly they marked that person, or they might risk blowing it on the wrong person. Astana had Contador, Armstrong, and Klodi, and until later in the race, they were all up there.

FWIW, I think Contador would have been hard to beat no matter what the team. However, I am not sure if I would agree he would still have won on S-L. On that team he would have been easier to mark, he would have had to work a bit harder all race (and that would have added up big time), and may not have been so strong in the final TT. Of course we will never know (unless he stays with what looks like an anemic Astana for 2010).

Lemond in '89 is a good one, because ADR was pretty much never there from what I can remember, even on transitional stages. Nowhere! Just Grego!

I don't know if that is the case. If you think about it, AC didn't benefit from an Astana train in the manner that Lance did in past TdF's. Usually he was just following wheels until he decided to go. So it makes me think that he could have done just that. Though, on the other hand, defending the jersey would have been a heck of lot harder. At the end of the day, I guess it's like being a single parent: it can be done, but it definitely isn't ideal.

As for the last TT, he may not have done as well simply because he wouldn't have had the embarrassment and anger of being left at the hotel with no team car to fuel his ride that day.

 

[Angliru]

It seems to me after watching and rewatching the important stages of this years' Tour, that the Astana strategy was primarily geared around ensuring Armstrong got the highest placing in the gc as possible, ideally the top step of the podium. Every instance where one would think gaining time in the mountains would've been advantageous to Contador, it seemed the plan was the opposite-to ride conservatively, protecting what lead they had over their opponents, using the TTT and ITT's to place Armstrong above and beyond his opponents, hopefully ultimately including Contador.

You could look at the important events that Contador took part and see that Bruyneel only made cameo appearances: Paris-Nice, Tour of the Basque Country, the Dauphine-allowing another DS to take the responsible of running the team. The writing was on the wall for Contador early in the season, although there are those that make up some kind of bizarro reasoning in support of Bruyneel in explaining why this obvious slight occurred throughout the season.

Even in the Annecy time trial, Bruyneel chose to ride in the team car behind Armstrong and not Contador, who was the race leader at the time!
One would think that the man in charge, as Bruyneel made clear in a statement to the media that he was that man, would want to be behind the rider who is going to bring home the bacon so to speak.

 

[Hugh Januss]

It seems to me after watching and rewatching the important stages of this years' Tour, that the Astana strategy was primarily geared around ensuring Armstrong got the highest placing in the gc as possible, ideally the top step of the podium. Every instance where one would think gaining time in the mountains would've been advantageous to Contador, it seemed the plan was the opposite-to ride conservatively, protecting what lead they had over their opponents, using the TTT and ITT's to place Armstrong above and beyond his opponents, hopefully ultimately including Contador.

You could look at the important events that Contador took part and see that Bruyneel only made cameo appearances: Paris-Nice, Tour of the Basque Country, the Dauphine-allowing another DS to take the responsible of running the team. The writing was on the wall for Contador early in the season, although there are those that make up some kind of bizarro reasoning in support of Bruyneel in explaining why this obvious slight occurred throughout the season.

Even in the Annecy time trial, Bruyneel chose to ride in the team car behind Armstrong and not Contador, who was the race leader at the time!
One would think that the man in charge, as Bruyneel made clear in a statement to the media that he was that man, would want to be behind the rider who is going to bring home the bacon so to speak.

Maybe the Hog doesn't like bacon. Or maybe the big prize in his eyes was a job for 2010.

 

[Publicus]

It seems to me after watching and rewatching the important stages of this years' Tour, that the Astana strategy was primarily geared around ensuring Armstrong got the highest placing in the gc as possible, ideally the top step of the podium. Every instance where one would think gaining time in the mountains would've been advantageous to Contador, it seemed the plan was the opposite-to ride conservatively, protecting what lead they had over their opponents, using the TTT and ITT's to place Armstrong above and beyond his opponents, hopefully ultimately including Contador.

You could look at the important events that Contador took part and see that Bruyneel only made cameo appearances: Paris-Nice, Tour of the Basque Country, the Dauphine-allowing another DS to take the responsible of running the team. The writing was on the wall for Contador early in the season, although there are those that make up some kind of bizarro reasoning in support of Bruyneel in explaining why this obvious slight occurred throughout the season.

Even in the Annecy time trial, Bruyneel chose to ride in the team car behind Armstrong and not Contador, who was the race leader at the time!
One would think that the man in charge, as Bruyneel made clear in a statement to the media that he was that man, would want to be behind the rider who is going to bring home the bacon so to speak.

I think this absolutely right and something that Contador hinted at during one of his recent interviews. He said that the team tactics did nothing to harm him, but at times he wished they would have ridden more aggressively.

 

[Angliru]

Maybe the Hog doesn't like bacon. Or maybe the big prize in his eyes was a job for 2010.

No doubt. I would think from the moment of Armstrong's announcement that he was returning to the sport and likely before, he and Bruyneel had a strategy for 2010 that didn't include Contador. That strategy being starting their own team. That would explain Armstrong's complete financial independence from the Astana team. The Astana sponsors initially probably thought they had struck gold: Armstrong wearing their kit for free! If they only knew. He came in under the cloak of whatever his so-called motivations were, stole all the riders of any value with the exception of Contador, and unsuccessfully tried to ruin his reputation in the sport by implying that he was a selfish, malcontent who showed no appreciation for his teammates.

Of course the Astana sponsors helped dig their own grave with their financial issues of not paying the riders for months at a time, resulting in the teams Tour participation being in jeopardy.

Bruyneel works for Armstrong. Let there be absolutely no mistaking this fact.

 

[Anonymous]

As for Contador in this years Tour then yes he would probably have won if he had ridden on Silence Lotto as well. The feeling throughour the Tour was that he never really went all out. He only did enough to win but he could probably have done alot more. The benefit to riding for Silence Lotto would have been to not have the internal struggles he had this year so that would probably have been a positive effect as well.

I agree here. He could have done a lot more damage to the GC if he went all out on Ventoux and stage 17 when klodi got dropped. Then again, if he won by 8-9 minutes, the old "speculation" starts up again.

About S/L, i agree he would have won with them, and no doubt Jurgen van den Breakaway would not of caused internal struggles. Then again, despite what contador says, I think in the individual TTs he went all out to prove a point to armstrong and bruyneel, that he is the numero uno!! so I think the team leadership issue did spur him on and help his motivation, even if he doesn't admit this