Which Rider made you LOL the most this season?

[horsinabout]

Froome is a hero to all muppets.

....................

 

[Alphabet]

I can't pick between Froome on Ax-3 Domaines and Ventoux.

Porte on Ax-3 deserves a shout, as well.

 

[The Hitch]

Only person to beat Sky "the super dopers" procycling at their own game, twice, walked a massively difficult Giro making everyone else look like a chump and almost doubles up with a second GT at the Vuelta, only getting beaten because a fresh doper is quicker than a tired doper. Yet hardly gets a mention in here from people who claim they just want to discuss doping performances, not attack certain riders. That was funny. He'll close the show with a standing ovation if he wins the world's.

The question is "who made you lol the most. this season"

Key words there, the most.

So on the one hand you have Nibali, who i myself have made enemies arguing is dirty, and therefore always get a little annoyed at the accusations that he gets a free ride.

But you have Nibali, who is the same age as Froome, who for what is still the majority of his career was, quite literally, 10 times the rider of Chris Froome.

And he is now, performing quite a bit below Froome. I mean they have met 2 times in gts, both time Froome was a domestique and beat Nibali. In the 2012 Tour Froome lost a minute and a half on a puncture, spent large sections on the front and was not allowed to put any time into Nibali on the mountain stages unless Wiggins put time in as well, still in the end comfortably crushed Nibali for 2nd place.


To illustrate the comparison we have Nibali

0___________ ----------------___________100

Froome

0___------------------------------------___ 100

Now you may say performance is more important than improvement.
Well Nibali's ascent up Tre Cime did not match Di Lucas and riccos. His performance up Angliru while better than his previous attempt was still only about 15th or something all time. Same with Pena Cabarga.

Froome meanwhile put hisself right up there in the all time lists of 2 major Tour de France climbs. Just behind Armstrong both times rather than 2 minutes down on Heras like Nibali.

Froome also while performing noticibly better than Nibali in the mountains performed significantly better than Nibali in the tts. 5th fastest tt in Tour history was it, the one in Mont San Michelle .Something like that considering Tony Martins was the 3rd fastest and Froome was 15 seconds down.

Then he won of course the other one, and won a tt Romandie, 2nd in Criterium etc.

Nibali finished top 5 in 2 tts that suited him in gt's. yes he won one but it was the mountain tt where they rode road bikes.

And finally Nibali unlike Froome, did not manage to hold peak for 6 straight months or whatever it was, which for the second year running proves to be perhaps the most amazing part of Sky's TDF winner's performance for the season.

So really its apples and oranges. Is Nibali suspicious yes. But that is not the question. And I don't see how you can possibly chide anyone for choosing Froome as the bigger lol of the season over Nibali. In absolutely every comparison we have he beats Nibali quite easy.

He simply was the bigger lol of the season, over Nibali anyway, by quite some margin. There is no 2 ways about it. And thats why Froome is getting mentioned in this thread and not Nibali.

_______________________
I wanted to finish the post here but I noticed you said it was a massively difficult Giro, which leads me to question whether you are serious about anything you post. It was almost certainly the least race days and kilometers a GT has had in quite a while.

And as far as mountains go I count that it had 8, including one they finished half way up and one they started half way up.

I don't know how many mountains the 2004 giro had but if it was more than 8, then we might have to go back to the April Vuelta's to find a gt with less climbing.

It doesn't matter so much to the wider point - is Nibali as suspicious as Froome, but, by recent standards this was the easiest Giro by far, and only "massively difficult" if one goes by the mantra that all stage races are by definition massively difficult.

 

[darwin553]

The question is "who made you lol the most. this season"

Key words there, the most.

If Porte is there, Nibali should be there too.

 

[hrotha]

Adding to what Hitch said:
https://twitter.com/ammattipyoraily/status/379580236934832128

 

[Miburo]

If Porte is there, Nibali should be there too.

Yea right, Contador's amazing dom from 2 years ago becoming a future GT winner

Yeah nibali is as bad as him lol

 

[The Hitch]

If Porte is there, Nibali should be there too.

I didn't make the poll, but if in 2008 you asked cycling fans to give 5 names for potential winners of the Giro in 5 years time, about 95% of them would have offered Nibali up.

If even last year however before the Tour you asked the same people to list 20 potential winners of Paris Nice for 2013, Richie Porte wouldnt have gotten named by more than 10% maybe. Even if you went back in time and gave them a startlist for the race.

So, I know that those of you totally blinded by nationalistic fanboyism feel a little wounded when your riders get named in the clinic here, but don't let that impede on reality. Nibali has been one of the favourites going into the Giro for 4 years, only being taken off the favourites list in 2012 when he announced a month before he wasnt doing it. Him finally winning the Giro was not a real lol to anyone.

His performance on the mountain tt did make me lol a bit, ill admit, and i mentioned it here, but nowhere near as much as Porte blowing the 2 young prodigy's of their generation, out of the water in Paris Nice.

And if that wasn't enough, well I refuse to believe there was a single person in this world not falling off their chair when on Ax 3 Domianx, Porte dropped back to Quintana was it, to do a marking role, looked around puzzled for a few seconds, shocked at how slow everyone else was climbing, then said- **** this, and flew off into the distance. It may not have been the most suspicious performance ever, but on a lol factor, coupled with his teammate doing his own race against the epo records further up the road, it had a lol factor of 10 out of 10.


Nothing Nibali has ever done can hold a candle to that.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Puffy cheeks was just a sad story about a mediocre rider getting pushed too hard by the clowns at Vini Fantini. Nothing to laugh about.

Froome tries too much to be a clown on the bike to be funny.

Then we have granddad on drugs: Nothing funny about it.

Its Porte for me. His ride on Col d'Eze prompting Kelly to say "is this right?" after the first split time. Good fun. Then Ritchie's performance on the Alpe where he managed to spoonfeed Froome, giving nasty spectators the angry looks while riding all the know dopers off his wheel. Hilarious.

 

[Desperate Moments]

Horner. He gets bonus points for his victory speech.

 

[bigloco]

I don't think I've seen a bike race since Schleck dropped his chain and Contador subsequently dropped him. I haven't been serious about watching any racing since the aftermath of Landis in the 2006 tour and his "whiskey fueled" charge up the Joux-Plane.

I was once a fan, but disgust with the sport has left me indifferent.

(Edit: Per my posting history, I apparently watched some races last year, but I'll freely admit, I had blocked them out of my memory. The rest of the post stands)
So why does today find me posting here?

I mistakenly clicked the cycling tab while searching for football scores.

And my jaw dropped. Then I laughed. Really, really laughed.


"Horner makes History with Vuelta Win"

I literally stared at that headline for about 30 seconds as it was inconceivable to me.

And then I instantly came here to the clinic.

So Horner gets my vote and I think his win is marvelous. Armstrong had his hubris, Landis had his insanity, but Horner? Horner takes audacity to a new level. He's almost Longoesque!

I'd probably come back to the sport if they got rid of the drugs. And by getting rid of the drugs, I mean just stop testing for them. Who cares. Have some tests to make sure Hematocrit isn't at 70 and T/E ratios aren't 20:1...whatever values ensure that riders aren't keeling over half-way up Ventoux.

Ignorance really is blissful.

I'll crawl back under my rock.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

I don't think I've seen a bike race since Schleck dropped his chain and Contador subsequently dropped him. I haven't been serious about watching any racing since the aftermath of Landis in the 2006 tour and his "whiskey fueled" charge up the Joux-Plane.

I was once a fan, but disgust with the sport has left me indifferent.

(Edit: Per my posting history, I apparently watched some races last year, but I'll freely admit, I had blocked them out of my memory. The rest of the post stands)
So why does today find me posting here?

I mistakenly clicked the cycling tab while searching for football scores.

And my jaw dropped. Then I laughed. Really, really laughed.


"Horner makes History with Vuelta Win"

I literally stared at that headline for about 30 seconds as it was inconceivable to me.

And then I instantly came here to the clinic.

So Horner gets my vote and I think his win is marvelous. Armstrong had his hubris, Landis had his insanity, but Horner? Horner takes audacity to a new level. He's almost Longoesque!

I'd probably come back to the sport if they got rid of the drugs. And by getting rid of the drugs, I mean just stop testing for them. Who cares. Have some tests to make sure Hematocrit isn't at 70 and T/E ratios aren't 20:1...whatever values ensure that riders aren't keeling over half-way up Ventoux.

Ignorance really is blissful.

I'll crawl back under my rock.

Thanks for dropping by.


Meanwhile, in an email signature -

Stupidity is listening to others without finding out for yourself. Ignorance is doing what others do with out walking your own path. Intelligence is something NASA is still searching for in space

 

[thehog]

I can't pick between Froome on Ax-3 Domaines and Ventoux.

Porte on Ax-3 deserves a shout, as well.

Plenty of LOLa this year courtesy of Team Sky.

Porte Paris-Nice was comical. He also clearly slowed down in the ITT to make his time more believable.

Porte and Froome on Ax-3 was a joke. I couldn't stop laughing. I watched that stage again and as Porte was pacing Froome up the climb I watched the other riders. They are all on the edge and can barely keep up. They are hanging on for dear life. When Froome finally went I thought that's the end of Porte. Suddenly he decided to attack the field! That was so blatant.

The biggest LOL for me was Brailsford. When he said that clean performances will outstrip the doped ones I couldn't stop laughing.

Brailsford takes the cake for LOLs. Problem is many eat up his words as virtue.

 

[classicomano]

I was gonna say Horner but looking at the season as a whole I must say it was the dodgy old 30 something spaniards who peaked the entire season. Especially from the Tour and onwards. Tour > Vuelta > WC > Lombardia. Without skipping a beat.

Ridiculous.

 

[Benotti69]

I was gonna say Horner but looking at the season as a whole I must say it was the dodgy old 30 something spaniards who peaked the entire season. Especially from the Tour and onwards. Tour > Vuelta > WC > Lombardia. Without skipping a beat.

Ridiculous.

What is the time between these races?

TdF ends July 21st.
Vuelta starts Aug 24th.

A gap of 1 month. Enough to recuperate and not let the form drop off.

Vuelta ends Sep 21st
WC race Sep 29th.... if you are in top form and weeks light training.

Lombardia Oct 6th.... Another week on light training.

Not that i doubt that JROD, Piti or Costa are clean, far from it.

All seems doable. So many believe that riders can only perform 1,2 or 3 times a year due to the Armstrong years.

Look at Greg LeMonds '85 season. 2nd Vuelta Ciclista al País Vasco, 4th ParisRoubaix 3rd Giro, 2nd Tdf, 2nd WC and a Coors classic win to boot. A full season of form.

But i doubt there are any clean cyclists at the podium end of the peloton or elsewhere

 

[bianchigirl]

Haven't seen anything like Froome on AX3 since Riis & his infamous display on the hautacam - and since it seems that climb is in TdF 2014 I'm looking for Froome/Porte to go the full monty on it.

Plenty to laugh at this season - you had to, to keep from crying

 

[bianchigirl]

Sorry, obviously meant Porte - his track stand was hilarious/awful

 

[IndianCyclist]

"Horner makes History with Vuelta Win"

I literally stared at that headline for about 30 seconds as it was inconceivable to me.

And then I instantly came here to the clinic.

So Horner gets my vote and I think his win is marvelous. Armstrong had his hubris, Landis had his insanity, but Horner? Horner takes audacity to a new level. He's almost Longoesque!

He takes my vote as well. LA would be turning in his grave when he heard that.
In addition to that, the great escape from dope testers while making sure that the blame fell on the dope testers.

 

[del1962]

Mine would be Lance's performance on Oprah, but I guess he is not a rider though, other than that Luigi's reaction to Tyler's accusations.

 

[D-Queued]

Mine would be Lance's performance on Oprah, but I guess he is not a rider though, other than that Luigi's reaction to Tyler's accusations.

While his performance was hilarious, it also pi$$ed me off. Like, ooooh, what a conundrum Was it one big lie, or just a bunch of small ones?

As a flawed character, he is beyond Shakespearean.

Dave.

 

[IndianCyclist]

While his performance was hilarious, it also pi$$ed me off. Like, ooooh, what a conundrum Was it one big lie, or just a bunch of small ones?

As a flawed character, he is beyond Shakespearean.

Dave.

a study worthy of Freud & Jung

 

[hrotha]

While his performance was hilarious, it also pi$$ed me off. Like, ooooh, what a conundrum Was it one big lie, or just a bunch of small ones?

As a flawed character, he is beyond Shakespearean.

Dave.

Yeah, it made me apoplectic.

 

[mewmewmew13]

Froome
Tour