Michielveedeebee said:
Dennis might ride the Vuelta though... And with Jelle as a mountain domestique you really don't need anyone else imo... He's a better climber than Szmyd and Niemiec.
Jelle was great at the Tour, but let's not go overboard. He's done that once, and we were all surprised at his mountain ability as we'd only ever seen him on short hills before. Szmyd's been sticking the GC contenders out of the back door for years - let's see Jelle do it a few more times before we anoint him. Remember, for three weeks in 2009, Bradley Wiggins was one of the best climbers in the world, while Cadel Evans and Denis Menchov were chumps coming in with autobuses. A lot of bluster came about involving the expectations of Wiggins' abilities as a GC rider, and it's taken him two years to get to grips with that.
Jelle has the potential to be one of the great mountain domestiques, but I'd like to see him do it a few more times before I'm prepared to accept that it was definitely because he's awesome and definitely not because of not being a threat and conservative racing behind.
Also, remember that often we don't actually necessarily see what Szmyd as a climber is capable of because his other aspects of his game are lacking so as to make him a domestique. I'm sure Szmyd could have gone up Finestre faster, but Nibali was struggling to Szmyd had to ride his pace. When he has been given the freedom he's come in amongst the best on some pretty serious mountains (Dauphiné '08, '09 and '10). And even further back, check out this list of names behind him:
http://cqranking.com/men/asp/gen/race.asp?raceid=5656
Niemiec, on the other hand, we have seen riding for himself, dropping the likes of Basso and Vino. But, like Szmyd, this has primarily been in warmup races.