Christian Vande Velde ... does he actually race?!
frenchfighter
Posts: 30,642
It occured to me that I have only seen this fellow in a single race. Has anyone else seen him in more and does anyone know his racing schedule for the rest of the year?
As far as it seems, he will race nothing Jan-June apart from Paris-Nice (where his mate Contador deliberately gifts him the Stage 4 win - Contador admits to doing so in a recent interview), then rock up to the Tour de France then fade back into obscurity.
Not the knid of rider that pleases the Tifosi...not someone who has been racing and attacking all season long regardless of wins, entertaining the fans like Cadel for instance.
And if you understandably forgot who he is then he is the number one rider for Garmin-Slipstream, a supposed potential winner of the Tour and this is what he looks like (it took me about 4hours to find a photo of him given his lack of appearences).
As far as it seems, he will race nothing Jan-June apart from Paris-Nice (where his mate Contador deliberately gifts him the Stage 4 win - Contador admits to doing so in a recent interview), then rock up to the Tour de France then fade back into obscurity.
Not the knid of rider that pleases the Tifosi...not someone who has been racing and attacking all season long regardless of wins, entertaining the fans like Cadel for instance.
And if you understandably forgot who he is then he is the number one rider for Garmin-Slipstream, a supposed potential winner of the Tour and this is what he looks like (it took me about 4hours to find a photo of him given his lack of appearences).
Contador is the Greatest
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Tour of California
Paris-Nice
Vuelta a Castilla y Leon, and
Vuelta al Pais Vasco
28 race days so far, which is actually better than average for most grand tour riders:
Cadel Evans, 24
Alberto Contador, 24
Carlos Sastre, 21
Samuel Sanchez, 21
Levi Leipheimer, 14
Alejandro Valverde, 13
(Pulled from http://www.cqranking.com )
I agree that he's not the most flamboyant rider, but he's hardly some layabout slacker.
And for 2009 Contador has 10 times more points than him.
Sastre is another rider that we can forget about - Contador has 31 times as many points as him!
Contador's efficiency for 2009 is crazy too at 38.83 vs CVV's 3.32 vs Satre's 1.43
Great link by the way.
he's also been busy with new baby boy
see here: http://twitter.com/ChristianVDV
Lets wait and see what happens when we're all done in Italy, France and Spain before we start talking about who has had a good season or not.
If all riders were like CVV and Sastre then there would be no point watching pro races from one end of the seaon to another as the races would be incredibly boring. I follow it all season so want to be entertained all season not just when the Giro and TdF land.
entertaining the fans like Cadel for instance.......I need to think hard about this one, because I'm struggling to find Cadel in the entertaining memories box, unless of course you include the comedy routines he does after races when he puts on that Mickey Mouse voice, thats a classic.
It speaks for itself doesn't it.
You can see the video of him today here if you missed it: http://www.sporza.be/cm/sporza.be/wielr ... r/1.517461
"Christian's a very good friend of mine and apart from that he is a very focused rider who can do a good major Tour. He's ultra-motivated. In fact, he could start an entire war, just by himself."
And Contador on Cadel:
"A tough guy. He very rarely makes a mistake or cracks and he is very hard to drop."
And Contador on attacking (this is the kind of rider that entertains the fans):
[Talking about the Saint Etienne stage in Paris-Nice] "I gained more fans than I would have had I won Paris-Nice outright."
"There are races when I have to attack, go for it in each climb, and that's something the fans like. I like being a rider who attacks more, I prefer it when there is a lot going on because it makes it more intersting."
As for Andy Schleck, do you watch pro cycling? That guy and his brother attack like crazy. Oh and Frank has 350 CQ for 2009 and Andy has 493.
As for winning, if someone doesn't it doesn't mean that they didn't make the race enjoyable to watch. I much prefer a rider who attacked all day and didn't win because he was caught with 10m to go by a rider who sheltered in the bunch all day. How you cannot see this point is also beyond me.
My point is simple, I want to be entertained and I am afraid CVV doesn't come close to doing that.
There was a thread on this very forum, approx 3 weeks ago about Andy Schleck. The subject.....why has he done nothing so far this season.
A few weeks down the line and things look different.
I will reiterate this to you again. If you apply your logic on Vandevelde this season to Andy Schleck, just two weeks ago, then you would have said he ain't much of a rider.
Applying this logic to Andy - he has not raced less races thatn CVV and he is a very exciting rider. Maybe if you had read my post properly you would have seen that I value an exciting rider much more than a win.
who attacked on super besse and had to be pulled in by the whole caisse d'epargne team?
who survived a whole stage of constant attacking by team columbia at the tour of missouri by pulling each rider back in by himself?
who managed to beat evans at prato nevoso and match him easily on all the summit finishes at the tour?
and you're forgetting he was racing flat out since january last year trying to impress aso to get a place at the tour
The point is Andy had done nothing this season until 2 weeks ago, up until that point he was incredibly boring
All well and good but you obviously didn't read what I wrote. I was talking about this year not last and about the fact that one big performance at the Tour is not what I value. The stats on CQ tell their own story.
I disagree entirely. Whatever his preparation entailed, sastre dropping the peloton, and then menchov on the Alpe last year was one of the most compelling pieces of cycling I have seen (don't laugh iain, beauty is in the eye of the beholder)
Plus, as I get older and more cynical I'm less inclined to go gooey over guys dancing off the front of the race on a climb. Is it possible that VdV's slow build up and lack of showmanship early in teh season is somehing to do with the regieme he rides under, ie no needles and all that?
@gietvangent
So for you one event in a bluemoon makes you like a rider - that is perfectly understandable. For me however, this is the main sport I follow all season so I don't just want to enjoy a few weeks in June (or in Sastre's case one afternoon). However if a rider performs and entertains all season as well as taking the G-Ts then that person will be respected and liked by me. So Contador.
On that Sastre ride (I assume you meant Sastre on the Alpe), don't neglect the Schleck brothers superb work covering attacks, which was a major factor in his win. Don't forget also that Frank could easily have done what Sastre did and the reason he didn't was because Sastre said at the beginning of the climb that he was going. Had Frank gone instead we could easily have seen him in the yellow jersey on the Champs Elsyee (before you mention his TT performance, know that he deliberately slowed down to give Sastre something to chase). That Sastre went off was not appreciated by the team either when he was leaving them at the end of the year.
It is also interesting that you enjoyed a moment when a rider attacked his team mate who was wearing the yellow jersey - not so in my book, but demonstrates Sastre's character.
Menchov's attack (on stage 15, not the Alpe) was good and I wished he hadn't crashed.
Strava is not Zen.
I don't understand why people slag off Sastre for being a boring rider who only got lucky. He has 3 TDF stage wins each of which he won on his own and by taking the initiative. In 2008, he did a lot more than just put in one attack: he took almost exactly his winning margin from Evans on Prato Nevoso. So he beat his main rival in 2/3 summit finishes and level with him in the other.
Hardly a one-hit wonder.
As for CVV well he's pretty dull and I expect to be a bit of a one hit wonder, the new Bobby Julich prehaps.
But seriously the most boring rider in the bunch is Cadel yawn, appart from when he has his diva strops, what a tw*t.
Cadel attacks more than people give him credit for and more than Sastre. The thing is that he isn't a pure climber so if you don't see him attacking all the time it is because he can't take the speed up. See the comment I posted earlier about what Contador had to say on Evans.
Cadel's attacks are very few and far between, you seem to confuse attacking with following wheels
He's not trying to win those races, he's trying to train for the TDF. He and Vaughters have both said that; he's only trying to peak once this year: for the TDF.
Unfortunately not everyone can have the ability of AC, it is very harsh to compare all other riders to him.
Carlos Sastre - along with his team mates; probabaly one of the best bits of professional cycling I have ever seen.
I'd sooner watch traffic lights change colour than suffer Cadel Evans!