What's Wrong with Van Garderen?

[gustienordic]

Not in form due to early season & TOC peak. Otherwise nothing wrong i believe. Too young as of now, will improve later on. But Top 10 realistic goal for him. Can podium under specific circumstances. Stage racer and therefore will always get dropped in the high mountains by explosive climbers.

Best stage racers: Contador. Froome. Nibali. Rodriguez. Each one of these guys is an explosive climber

GT winners = Explosive climbers (minus Wiggo)
Small Stage Races = Usually explosive climbers, some tempo climbers

 

[Christian]

Not taking it personal and not blowing a gasket at all, it's just annoying the manner in which people on this forum talk about TJVG at times.

I definitely agree... and I don't understand where all the dislike for Tejay is coming from? He seems like a very nice guy to me, a good rider, good results, no clinic issues... (that I know of?)

Maybe it is from Phil and Paul as gustienordic suggested, I wouldn't know because I don't watch them

 

[movingtarget]

Great ride today by TJVG. Very gutsy. H seems to have picked up in the last few days. Without the mechanical he probably would have won. Sums up BMC's Tour pretty well. Evans way back today.

 

[Afrank]

So close to getting the win today. Big chapeau to him for a great ride. He will be back, and will be back stronger. Of this I am 100% sure.

 

[IndianCyclist]

Great ride today by TJVG. Very gutsy. H seems to have picked up in the last few days. Without the mechanical he probably would have won. Sums up BMC's Tour pretty well. Evans way back today.

Without his effort in the TT he would have been better.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

So close to getting the win today. Big chapeau to him for a great ride. He will be back, and will be back stronger. Of this I am 100% sure.

yep, great ride today.

Maybe not the last one for this tour.

 

[Warhawk]

Feel bad for him for the way the last few days have gone. Was in a break, made a bunch of attacks near the end but couldn't quite pull away and fell behind in the last couple kms. Then had the best time in the TT for a while before the GC guys pushed him down to 10th. Then led for most of the day today, dropped both Riblon and Moser a couple of times, caught up to them after having a mechanical problem, just to get caught by Riblon with about 2km to go. Nobody's been as aggressive as him the last week or so, but he's come up just short each time.

 

[jordan5000]

A decent ride today, but I have to say I'm not all that impressed. Sure, he placed well, but he was also given an 8 minute lead before Froome and co. came after him and there wouldn't too many good climbers in the break. Very disappointing ride by TVG, he should've been able to finish it.

 

[movingtarget]

A decent ride today, but I have to say I'm not all that impressed. Sure, he placed well, but he was also given an 8 minute lead before Froome and co. came after him and there wouldn't too many good climbers in the break. Very disappointing ride by TVG, he should've been able to finish it.

Are you serious ? He was working in the break and had a mechanical on the descent. He was unlucky. He rode a fantastic race today.

 

[Christian]

Ah, he would have deserved it today, what a crazy ride with the technical incident in the descend, and then how he came back. Congratulations to Tejay, really strong climbing and just riding alltogether.

In the end I must admit I was cheering for Riblon because he made an amazing comeback and the French commentators were going crazy! Was really fun to listen to them, and they finally got their victory. I think they would not have survived if the grande nation hadn't gotten a victory at the 100th Tour.

However I wonder whether he maybe made a tactical error by attacking Riblon so early on... already on the first passage of l'Alpe Riblon caught him back in the end, so he should have known that that was a possibility again. Plus if he had stayed with Riblon they could have worked together and he could have saved energy to then maybe attack him later on. But who knows, great ride anyways and congratulations to both!

 

[DirtyWorks]

However I wonder whether he maybe made a tactical error by attacking Riblon so early on... already on the first passage of l'Alpe Riblon caught him back in the end, so he should have known that that was a possibility again. Plus if he had stayed with Riblon they could have worked together and he could have saved energy to then maybe attack him later on. But who knows, great ride anyways and congratulations to both!

Agreed. 10 characters.

 

[User Guide]

Ah, he would have deserved it today, what a crazy ride with the technical incident in the descend, and then how he came back. Congratulations to Tejay, really strong climbing and just riding alltogether.

In the end I must admit I was cheering for Riblon because he made an amazing comeback and the French commentators were going crazy! Was really fun to listen to them, and they finally got their victory. I think they would not have survived if the grande nation hadn't gotten a victory at the 100th Tour.

However I wonder whether he maybe made a tactical error by attacking Riblon so early on... already on the first passage of l'Alpe Riblon caught him back in the end, so he should have known that that was a possibility again. Plus if he had stayed with Riblon they could have worked together and he could have saved energy to then maybe attack him later on. But who knows, great ride anyways and congratulations to both!

A|ye as he had chased pretty hard in the valley would of made sense too leave it a while,but props for his efforts.

 

[TheEnoculator]

Chapeau to Tejay today. He was close to the biggest win of his career. Still happy for Riblon though.

 

[theyoungest]

Very good ride by Tejay. Although you could say that he should have learned from the first time up the Alpe. The same thing happened to him again.

 

[TheBean]

Wnning would have been awesome, but he did a lot to show he's a great cyclist and got a lot of airtime for his sponsors.

What a great stage!

The winner crashed off the road into the weeds earlier in the stage and second place had to stop for a bike change.

I would have bet it would have boiled down to a Froome vs. Quintana duel after attacks by veryone else had fizzled.

Tejay and the Frenchman made it stick. A classic for all times, IMO. Double l'Alpe lived up to the hype.

Thanks for giving us Americans reason to cheer, Tejay.

 

[Moviefan1203]

Amazing ride today. I'm thinking he was sick in the Pyrenees. It doesn't make sense he was so weak then and so strong now.