Who had the best season in the last 20 years?

[Singer01]

Re:

Evans still beat the two best GT-riders in that period, Schleck and Contador. Nibali beat Peraud and Pinot, there's no contest there for me either, despite the fact that Contador wasn't at his best.

Nibali's 2013 was better than Evans 2011, based purely on results, he was one mountain away from being in the conversation for the best season in the last 20 years.
Giro - 1
Tirreno - 1
Trentino - 1
Vuelta - 2

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

Evans still beat the two best GT-riders in that period, Schleck and Contador. Nibali beat Peraud and Pinot, there's no contest there for me either, despite the fact that Contador wasn't at his best.

I'm talking about Nibali in 2013. 2014 is nothing except for the Tour.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re: Re:

Evans still beat the two best GT-riders in that period, Schleck and Contador. Nibali beat Peraud and Pinot, there's no contest there for me either, despite the fact that Contador wasn't at his best.

I'm talking about Nibali in 2013. 2014 is nothing except for the Tour.

I thought you were talking about the Tours in isolation there, my bad.

 

[Durden93]

A flat Worlds would usually mean a bunch sprint Worlds these days. That means Worlds in which the eventual winner had sucked wheels for at least the last 100km. Such were 2002, 2005, 2012, 2016. Not talking about editions in which the eventual winner only made a real effort with 3k to go such as 2015.

When you compare that to the ITT Worlds in which every contender have to make a 50+ km solo effort, it pales in comparison. You cannot draft wheels in ITT. You cannot cheat.

That's why Fabian Cancellara is the greatest rider of the century and his 2010 season is the greatest of all.

I'm not sure why you watch cycling if the only exciting race for you is one which has action from far out. In 2016 RVV, Cance stayed in the chasing group while Kwiato and Sagan attacked. I seem to remember Cancellara sitting in the wheels in that occasion. In Strade Bianche 2016, Cance waited until Siena to make his surge. Cance is a great rider and extraordinarly entertaining, but he didn't always blow people off his wheel. You need tactics to win.

 

[Durden93]

A flat Worlds would usually mean a bunch sprint Worlds these days. That means Worlds in which the eventual winner had sucked wheels for at least the last 100km. Such were 2002, 2005, 2012, 2016. Not talking about editions in which the eventual winner only made a real effort with 3k to go such as 2015.

When you compare that to the ITT Worlds in which every contender have to make a 50+ km solo effort, it pales in comparison. You cannot draft wheels in ITT. You cannot cheat.

That's why Fabian Cancellara is the greatest rider of the century and his 2010 season is the greatest of all.

I'm not sure why you watch cycling if the only exciting race for you is one which has action from far out. In 2016 RVV, Cance stayed in the chasing group while Kwiato and Sagan attacked. I seem to remember Cancellara sitting in the wheels in that occasion. In Strade Bianche 2016, Cance waited until Siena to make his surge. Cance is a great rider and extraordinarly entertaining, but he didn't always blow people off his wheel. You need tactics to win.

 

[hrotha]

Cancellara spent much of his later career following wheels and waiting for the sprint. It's like he never recovered mentally from the Gerrans MSR thing.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

Cancellara spent much of his later career following wheels and waiting for the sprint. It's like he never recovered mentally from the Gerrans MSR thing.

Would you have recovered? I think I needed to see a shrink at least 3 times a week after that one. No wonder he crashed.

 

[El Pistolero]

Re:

Evans 11 > Contador 11, no contest.

Tour > zilch
Tirreno > ***-all
Romandie > nada

Winning the Tour against weak competition is worth zilch as well though. Could Evans have won that Giro in 2011? Nope.

Therefor Contador was better as Evans.

 

[Ruby United]

Re: Re:

Evans 11 > Contador 11, no contest.

Tour > zilch
Tirreno > ***-all
Romandie > nada

Winning the Tour against weak competition is worth zilch as well though. Could Evans have won that Giro in 2011? Nope.

Therefor Contador was better as Evans.

You are contending that a Tour with relatively weak competition is a worse result than a Giro with slightly less weak competition? :lol:

 

[burning]

Re:

Cancellara spent much of his later career following wheels and waiting for the sprint. It's like he never recovered mentally from the Gerrans MSR thing.

I think that is more related to the fact that he couldn't ride away from everyone like he did in 2010 and he changed his style after 2013, not immidiately after Gerrans.

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

Evans 11 > Contador 11, no contest.

Tour > zilch
Tirreno > ***-all
Romandie > nada

Winning the Tour against weak competition is worth zilch as well though. Could Evans have won that Giro in 2011? Nope.

Therefor Contador was better as Evans.

You are contending that a Tour with relatively weak competition is a worse result than a Giro with slightly less weak competition? :lol:

No, just that Contador was a better GT rider that year and would've beaten Evans in both the Giro and/or Tour had they done both in the same circumstances.

 

[Netserk]

The difference can be summed up in one word. Dominance. Only one of them had it.

 

[Blanco]

Re:

Evans 11 > Contador 11, no contest.

Tour > zilch
Tirreno > ***-all
Romandie > nada

But that's why results are not everything. I mean, did you watched Contador that year? Did you watched that Giro? It was poetry in motion. It was best climbing performance since Pantani's Giro 1999. It was unforgettable!

 

[hrotha]

I'm confused. Are you talking about the days he climbed with Rujano?

 

[Netserk]

Re:

I'm confused. Are you talking about the days he climbed with Rujano?

...

just wonder, how is Rujanos punch when he attacks? have never really noticed.

Do you know the asteroid belt? That used to be a planet until Rujano launched an attack there.

 

[Durden93]

Re:

I'm confused. Are you talking about the days he climbed with Rujano?

I'm not sure it's fair to say that Rujano climbed with Contador. Contador distanced Rujano on multiple occasions and won that Giro without much trouble over a fairly strong field (Nibali, Scarponi, Purito).

 

[hrotha]

Re: Re:

I'm confused. Are you talking about the days he climbed with Rujano?

...

just wonder, how is Rujanos punch when he attacks? have never really noticed.

Do you know the asteroid belt? That used to be a planet until Rujano launched an attack there.

Lol

In all seriousness, Rujano was very strong that Giro and Contador certainly dominated it with ease, but I think what Blanco wrote was a huge exaggeration. 2009 TdF Contador was clearly better, and I suspect we would be able to say the same of 2010 TdF Contador if he hadn't done such a poor last ITT.

 

[Blanco]

Re: Re:

I'm confused. Are you talking about the days he climbed with Rujano?

...

just wonder, how is Rujanos punch when he attacks? have never really noticed.

Do you know the asteroid belt? That used to be a planet until Rujano launched an attack there.

Lol

In all seriousness, Rujano was very strong that Giro and Contador certainly dominated it with ease, but I think what Blanco wrote was a huge exaggeration. 2009 TdF Contador was clearly better, and I suspect we would be able to say the same of 2010 TdF Contador if he hadn't done such a poor last ITT.

To me that Giro was his peak performance in terms of climbing. In 2009 he was maybe stronger, but he didn't showed it that much, like he did at the Giro, so we could only speculate. 2010 is out of the question.

 

[El Pistolero]

Re: Re:

I'm confused. Are you talking about the days he climbed with Rujano?

...

just wonder, how is Rujanos punch when he attacks? have never really noticed.

Do you know the asteroid belt? That used to be a planet until Rujano launched an attack there.

Lol

In all seriousness, Rujano was very strong that Giro and Contador certainly dominated it with ease, but I think what Blanco wrote was a huge exaggeration. 2009 TdF Contador was clearly better, and I suspect we would be able to say the same of 2010 TdF Contador if he hadn't done such a poor last ITT.

2009 Contador would have put this year's Froome on 20 minutes at the Tour.

 

[Tonton]

2011 Contador Giro didn't exist ...or we should have a Lance option .

Considering what was not banned, and I know it's a bit of a joke (but it is what it is - hrotha will like the platitude ), I don't see how one can arrgue against '98 Pantani. Evans '11 is nowhere near that. Contador never did that. Neither did Wiggo or Dawg. BTW: ask Nairito how big a feat that is .

Domination-wise, a case can also be made for Gilbert then Boonen, then Cance who had monster years. Gilbert gets the edge IMO, percentage of wins, and how he prevailed...Merckx-style.

 

[Netserk]

Don't you think Sagan dominated last year as well?

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Re:

Evans 11 > Contador 11, no contest.

Tour > zilch
Tirreno > ***-all
Romandie > nada

Winning the Tour against weak competition is worth zilch as well though. Could Evans have won that Giro in 2011? Nope.

Therefor Contador was better as Evans.

You are contending that a Tour with relatively weak competition is a worse result than a Giro with slightly less weak competition? :lol:

No, just that Contador was a better GT rider that year and would've beaten Evans in both the Giro and/or Tour had they done both in the same circumstances.

Based on results Evans had the better year but if you want to get into circumstances and coulda woulda shoulda anything can be interpreted differently like Voeckler finishing ahead of Contador in the 2011 Tour.......... I always thought that Contador should have backed off more in the Giro when the victory was inevitable, it might have saved his legs a bit better for the Tour. But then he had his usual Tour crashes and the knee injury was such and such. The knee could not have been that bad to finish the Tour and do the final TT he did. If it was risky to keep riding he would have pulled out. But like Contador said after the Giro, it might have looked like an easy victory but it was still a hard race in reference to the route that year. Fatigue was always going to be an issue in the Tour for him.

 

[Walkman]

Re: Re:

Evans 11 > Contador 11, no contest.

Tour > zilch
Tirreno > ***-all
Romandie > nada

But that's why results are not everything. I mean, did you watched Contador that year? Did you watched that Giro? It was poetry in motion. It was best climbing performance since Pantani's Giro 1999. It was unforgettable!

Wasn't even the best climbing of Contador, much less since Pantani.
Tour -09 was better, Tour -07 was better by a couple of riders. A number of the Armstrong years was better.

The 2011 Giro wasn't that competitive either. Nibali hadn't come through yet, Scaroni has never been top-3 outside of that GT and Rujano, what has he done other than a third place in the 2005 Giro? It was a dominant performance, but let's not pretend like it was godlike. Gadret, a man that has never before or since been top-10 in a GT, came in fourth, less than 4 minutes down.

 

[tobydawq]

Re: Re:

Evans 11 > Contador 11, no contest.

Tour > zilch
Tirreno > ***-all
Romandie > nada

But that's why results are not everything. I mean, did you watched Contador that year? Did you watched that Giro? It was poetry in motion. It was best climbing performance since Pantani's Giro 1999. It was unforgettable!

Wasn't even the best climbing of Contador, much less since Pantani.
Tour -09 was better, Tour -07 was better by a couple of riders. A number of the Armstrong years was better.

The 2011 Giro wasn't that competitive either. Nibali hadn't come through yet, Scaroni has never been top-3 outside of that GT and Rujano, what has he done other than a third place in the 2005 Giro? It was a dominant performance, but let's not pretend like it was godlike. Gadret, a man that has never before or since been top-10 in a GT, came in fourth, less than 4 minutes down.

Let's try this instead: more than 10 minutes down.

That's better.

Contador won with more than six minutes to Scarponi in a race where he ought to have held a little back in light of his double attempt. I'm not saying that he in fact did do that but in some of the latest mountain stages in the race (the one won by Kiryienka for example), he was clearly content with just sitting in. It was very, very dominant and on par with the Tour of 2009.

 

[Echoes]

I'm not sure why you watch cycling if the only exciting race for you is one which has action from far out. In 2016 RVV, Cance stayed in the chasing group while Kwiato and Sagan attacked. I seem to remember Cancellara sitting in the wheels in that occasion. In Strade Bianche 2016, Cance waited until Siena to make his surge. Cance is a great rider and extraordinarly entertaining, but he didn't always blow people off his wheel. You need tactics to win.

He was WAY past his prime.

Besides, being in a chase group or a lead group without attacking is not staying in wheels, it's also taking turns, so taking the wind. A breakaway rider is not a wheelsucker but a bunch sprinter is. You never got to see a sprinter taking part in the chase behind a breakaway, he's got domestiques/slaves to do it for him.

And I'm no longer watching cycling but for cyclocross and some classics or 1.1 races in the low countries, and if I had the chance to I'd watch some women's races. But that's it.