wiggo in the red

[swimdrag]

Hi folks wiggins in great shape but doesnt feel he can match contador or schleck if they attack on the tough sections on a climb just try and bring them back at his pace,
All you people in the know why would this be? .

 

[Parrulo]

it certainly is July in here . . . .

p.s. he can't keep up with them because he isn't a good enough climber.

simple as that. also get ready to see him get dropped like a stone by the likes of basso, VdB2, gesink, and so on.

 

[hatcher]

He doesn't have the acceleration that they do, and will blow himself up trying to follow them. Best to follow those GC men he's hoping to battle with.

 

[dlwssonic]

no chance he is not a good enough climber. schlecks, contador, vdb, gesink, evans, samu, basso are all much more stronger climbers than wiggins.

 

[bassplayer88]

I'm sure other forum members can give you a better answer than this but the basic reason is he is not a specialist climber, and hasn't been through his career.

bert and andy have always been climbers, real climbers meaning thier natural physiology has always allowed them change up their climbing rhythm often to suit attacking/counter attacking tactics. bert has worked on his TTing and he can also TT very well now also, however to date andy hasn't managed the same thing.

Twiggins on the other hand has always naturally been a TTer, through loosing weight and retaining power he can now almost climb with the best of them but has to do it in a steady TT style, ie no quick bursts, or cat and mouse tactics. Which he is openly admitting.

Does this help?

 

[Midnightfright]

He's very below the class of the people mention but in the dauphine he climber really smart within his limits and if he does that during the tour he should pretty well. I think the key and he knows this is too not let himself get in the red and then see what time he should gain in the tt.

 

[Parrulo]

He's very below the class of the people mention but in the dauphine he climber really smart within his limits and if he does that during the tour he should pretty well. I think the key and he knows this is too not let himself get in the red and then see what time he should gain in the tt.

the thing is the dauphine is only 1 week long and only had 2 proper MTF's. and by the second one wiggins was already showing signs of cracking.

i predict him to crack big time on the last 2 MTF's of the tour

 

[just some guy]

the thing is the dauphine is only 1 week long and only had 2 proper MTF's. and by the second one wiggins was already showing signs of cracking.

i predict him to crack big time on the last 2 MTF's of the tour

I´m not sure he will even get that far into it, but who knows

 

[Midnightfright]

the thing is the dauphine is only 1 week long and only had 2 proper MTF's. and by the second one wiggins was already showing signs of cracking.

i predict him to crack big time on the last 2 MTF's of the tour

I certainly don't think he will contend with the big boys I think if I can keep it down to 1 bad day he will be doing very well. What impressed me the most about his climbing during dauphine was his discipline and willingness to go at his own pace Ofcourse this will be difficult in the 3rd week of the tour but wouldnt be too shocked to see him do well (by his standards)

 

[The Hitch]

I was just thinking we need this kind of thread.

A lot of people keep putting Wiggo in the mix for a podium, even calling him favourite for that position.

I like Wiggo but the bottom line is he is nowhere near a good enough climber.
feel free to tell me he finished 4th in 09 where did i finnish
There are too many riders that can drop him in the mountains.

The consensus for the past 12 months has been that Wiggo would be finishing barely top 20 in this years Tour. I spent much of that time defending the multi time olympic champion, saying he can bring it, do better than 2010 and get a good top 10 position.

But top 3. Even if they soft pedal I dont see how he can manage that.

 

[swimdrag]

Thanks guys see what your saying but would the powers at team sky be aware of this and perhaps adjust training to suit in the build up to the tour.

 

[just some guy]

Thanks guys see what your saying but would the powers at team sky be aware of this and perhaps adjust training to suit in the build up to the tour.

Alot comes back to what you get from your parents.

ie Genetics make Wiggins what type of rider he is training can hone the rider but not change him - unless you get really really sick and I will leave it there before it becomes a clinic discussion

 

[swimdrag]

Thanks guys surely the powers at team sky would beaware of this and have introduced training to suit in their preparation for the tour.

 

[Parrulo]

Thanks guys see what your saying but would the powers at team sky be aware of this and perhaps adjust training to suit in the build up to the tour.

his training is already adjusted for the tour. he is supposed to be in top shape for week 2. the problem is like just some guy said he isn't a climber so people should not expect him to climb so well.

2009 was(like it has been explained many many times on this forum) a freak year. a long TTT and a long ITT and only 1 proper mountain stage(the won by frank schleck) only ventoux was a proper hard MTF and even so the ventoux stage due to the place where the mountain is, is a mostly flat stage before the climb. and there wiggins was dropped. not to mention all the soft pedal on that tour . . .

in 2009 all stars where aligned for wiggans imo and he did an excellent job, no1 is taking that away from him. but i don't see the tour present such weak route ever again.

 

[ingsve]

I think what Wiggins can hope for is to finish 5th-10th somewhere. That's usually where you find the best riders that are TT strong and use the tactic of taking their own pace up hte mountains to limit losses. The problem for riders like Wiggins is the lack of TT kms. 10 years ago he would have had a better shot at a podium since there was a TTT and two long ITTs but now the TTT is shorter and there is only one ITT. That means that riders like him will lose a little time to better climbers in the mountains but there is not enough ways to get that time back in the time trials. It also doesn't help that there are more mountain top finishes nowadays.

 

[happychappy]

Alot comes back to what you get from your parents.

 

[gibbells]

He might of won the dauphine but he did look to be struggling at times to stay with the other favourites in the mountains. If he is struggling from small brief little attacks in the dauphine imagine what will happen when we see more sustained and prolonged attacks from contador and schleck in the tour. Because that is what is goin to happen coz the other favourites know that with the last TT coming up they will have to put sufficient time into him in the previous days.

 

[ingsve]

He might of won the dauphine but he did look to be struggling at times to stay with the other favourites in the mountains. If he is struggling from small brief little attacks in the dauphine imagine what will happen when we see more sustained and prolonged attacks from contador and schleck in the tour. Because that is what is goin to happen coz the other favourites know that with the last TT coming up they will have to put sufficient time into him in the previous days.

Ya, that's exactly what will determine his final placing. The question is how many riders will be able to put time into him and how much time will that be. Usually there are enough riders getting so much time that a podium is out of the question but I also think that some of the riders that are better climbers will still not get enough time to compensate for losing time in both the ITT and TTT.

 

[Winterfold]

but i don't see the tour present such weak route ever again.

CN forum climbing hegemony strikes again.

You mean parcours suited to rouleurs, not a weak route.

A parcours of 20 stages all ITT would not be 'weak'... far from it.

 

[just some guy]

CN forum climbing hegemony strikes again.

You mean parcours suited to rouleurs, not a weak route.

A parcours of 20 stages all ITT would not be 'weak'... far from it.

Be boring as all f**k though.

I personally would like to see more ITT but in the 1st 8 days plus a CAT 1 finish in the 1st 10 stages make the racing much more exciting.

Andy losing 2-3 minutes would mean he must race hard etc etc

 

[Parrulo]

yes the route was weak as in poorly designed i am not against many k's of time trial and actually they are overdoing with this year's amount of time trial or the lack of it. but the 2009 route was a joke.

 

[Midnightfright]

Ya, that's exactly what will determine his final placing. The question is how many riders will be able to put time into him and how much time will that be. Usually there are enough riders getting so much time that a podium is out of the question but I also think that some of the riders that are better climbers will still not get enough time to compensate for losing time in both the ITT and TTT.

I totally agree with what your saying, I do think out of all the guys mention as a possibility for a top ten he's the best time-trialist, I think the difference in tt maybe brought closer together because of the fatigue factor where as if the TT was in the 1st week I think he could take a lot of time of a lot of the GC guys

 

[ingsve]

I totally agree with what your saying, I do think out of all the guys mention as a possibility for a top ten he's the best time-trialist, I think the difference in tt maybe brought closer together because of the fatigue factor where as if the TT was in the 1st week I think he could take a lot of time of a lot of the GC guys

Ya, that's usually the case. In the ITT this year it will matter a lot how you have survived the mountains.

This all hinges on Wiggins succeeding in being consistent which is still a question mark. I do think he will be able to though. People mentioned that he was struggling in the second MTF in Dauphine but he didn't collapse. He managed to take his own pace and stay fairly close to the ones the attacked him. I think this is what we will be in the Tour as well. We'll see him drop off when the attacks start and then we won't see him for the rest of the stage until he crosses the line and it is clear he was only a minute or two behind all along.

I think if things go well for him his ride could be similar to that of Hesjedal last year who was always quick to get dropped but who then managed to take his own pace and finish well into the top 10.

 

[richtea]

He only managed to take 45 seconds out of A Schleck on the 40km Annecy TT in 2009 after all (though he took a lot more out of him last year in the longer Bourdeaux version). It could be difficult for him at the end of three weeks to reclaim too much time.

 

[Winterfold]

Fair point Parrulo, I understand what you mean, agree the design was not great, but its the racers that make the race.

Too easy for Contador, and then he generously rode slowly to put some ungrateful sod on the podium.

This year's course is too biased at climbers IMO - of course I am not advocating 20 stages of ITT* but one more stage in the frst 10 days would make things more fair for rouleurs and make the climbers attack. I would say this even if Wiggo was Lucien van Impe.

It would be really interesting to know how hard all the 3rd place contenders who 'werent that interested in winning the Dauphine' were really trying. Wiggins who cant really climb actually put time into Evans in the mountains, noone would have predicted that before the start of the race. None of the better climbers really got into him, except Rodrigues, but he timetrials like a snail so was way down, I think maybe Wiggo's steady pace is actually pretty high and the climbers are having to accelerate when they are nearly on their limit and dont have much room to play with.

*And there is always comedy value in watching some pure grimpeurs ITT efforts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DCe4QVO0PE (and some not so pure)