Proper hard men.

rick_chasey
rick_chasey Posts: 75,661
edited September 2015 in Pro race
Stop giggling at the back.

Since we have a thread for pure climbers, why not one for the hard men?

I'll start off.

As far as I'm concerned, Boonen and Cancellara, as today has demonstrated, are by far and away the best hard men of their generation.
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Comments

  • afx237vi
    afx237vi Posts: 12,630
    O'Grady. His name even sounds hard. Like granite.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,661
    afx237vi wrote:
    O'Grady. His name even sounds hard. Like granite.

    Haha.

    Hasn't won enough hard races for me.

    A single (unusually run) Paris-Roubaix isn't enough!
    _
  • frenchfighter
    frenchfighter Posts: 30,642
    edited April 2010
    Haha, nice! These 'hard men' are often categorised as Flahutes.

    http://brown-snout.com/oldwebsite/flahute.html

    For those on facebook, there is a group dedicated to them:
    Flahute: The Official Hardass Cyclist Group
    It is worth checking out for the photography alone.

    Here is another link to some serious Flahute photos:
    http://www.sport24.com/cyclisme/diapora ... is-roubaix
    Contador is the Greatest
  • frenchfighter
    frenchfighter Posts: 30,642
    http://www.cyclingrevealed.com/april05/cover.html
    Contador is the Greatest
  • afx237vi
    afx237vi Posts: 12,630
    Rick Chasey wrote:
    afx237vi wrote:
    O'Grady. His name even sounds hard. Like granite.

    Haha.

    Hasn't won enough hard races for me.

    A single (unusually run) Paris-Roubaix isn't enough!

    Come on man, 2007 Tour de France, 8 broken ribs, punctured lung, broken collarbone, broken shoulderblade, he says:

    "It's going to take a while to come back. I hope to be able to get back on the bike in August but I can't see me getting good enough form for the later season races. I was looking forward to riding the Worlds and it is a hard one and I even contemplated riding the Vuelta (Espana) as preparation."

    http://cyclingresults.wordpress.com/200 ... -man-down/

    http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/road/200 ... /jul18news

    That's pretty hard.
  • warrior4life
    warrior4life Posts: 925
    Jens voigt...........
    Hincapie (probably not a popular choice)
    djamolidine abdoujaparov
    bernard hinault
    barry (the cannibal) muzzin
  • LittleLance
    LittleLance Posts: 89
    Sean Yates always struck me as a tough bloke

    (...not literally struck me btw)
  • LangerDan
    LangerDan Posts: 6,132
    Rick Chasey wrote:

    As far as I'm concerned, Boonen and Cancellara, as today has demonstrated, are by far and away the best hard men of their generation.

    I think thats the problem. Chinny is one of the strongest riders ever but hardest? Don't think so. "Strong" is in the legs, "hard" is in the head. You know deep down that if comes to a scrap behind the bike sheds, Chinny would get duffed-up by a Tchmil, Hinault or Kelly and have his lunch money taken.

    Maybe its a consequence of better weather, better training or whatever, but I couldn't help but feel that there far too many riders present with 50km to go who wouldn't have been around in a properly "hard" race.
    'This week I 'ave been mostly been climbing like Basso - Shirley Basso.'
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,661
    I guess what I mean is people who are good on the hard flemish style courses, rather than actually' tough', if you see what I mean.

    i.e. the opposite of pure climbers.
    _
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,661
    LangerDan wrote:
    Rick Chasey wrote:

    As far as I'm concerned, Boonen and Cancellara, as today has demonstrated, are by far and away the best hard men of their generation.

    I think thats the problem. Chinny is one of the strongest riders ever but hardest? Don't think so. "Strong" is in the legs, "hard" is in the head. You know deep down that if comes to a scrap behind the bike sheds, Chinny would get duffed-up by a Tchmil, Hinault or Kelly and have his lunch money taken.

    Maybe its a consequence of better weather, better training or whatever, but I couldn't help but feel that there far too many riders present with 50km to go who wouldn't have been around in a properly "hard" race.

    Have to say, I would probably disagree here.

    Naturally the style of racing has changed, so it appears to be less 'hard' as such - more shorter harder efforts rather than the stupidly long efforts.

    Similarly, you only remember the epic races from the past, rather than the standard ones.


    All I remember is Boonen age 22 or something very young in the 2002 Paris-Roubaix, where we was working for Hincape, and he, aside from a doped Museeuw, just did not get tired, even when Hincape was falling over from fatigue.

    He even said at the finish: "If only Hincape could have stayed on, we'd have caught Museeuw".


    Speaking of Museeuw - definite hard man. Was very happy to do it the hard way, sans juice or otherwise.
    _
  • luckao
    luckao Posts: 632
    Hoogerland! True grit. Shame about the lack of victories.
  • afx237vi
    afx237vi Posts: 12,630
    Luckao wrote:
    Hoogerland! True grit. Shame about the lack of victories.

    And brain.
  • copper585
    copper585 Posts: 141
    Sean Kelly
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    afx237vi wrote:

    And brain.

    +1

    I don't want to appear down on JH, but no one else makes me shake my head at futile efforts like him.
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • lfcquin
    lfcquin Posts: 470
    COPPER585 wrote:
    Sean Kelly

    +1
  • luckao
    luckao Posts: 632
    iainf72 wrote:
    I don't want to appear down on JH, but no one else makes me shake my head at futile efforts like him.

    True, although it was his futile efforts that garnered a lot of exposure for Vacansoleil.
  • Neil McC
    Neil McC Posts: 625
    COPPER585 wrote:
    Sean Kelly
  • andyp
    andyp Posts: 10,547
    Hinault, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, 1980, 80 km solo break in a snowstorm, an effort which has left him with a problem with the fingers in one hand ever since. Nails.

    liege_Bast_liege1980a.jpg
  • mididoctors
    mididoctors Posts: 18,908
    andyp wrote:
    Hinault, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, 1980, 80 km solo break in a snowstorm, an effort which has left him with a problem with the fingers in one hand ever since. Nails.

    liege_Bast_liege1980a.jpg

    that was ridiculous
    "If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,253
    For the real hard men, you have to go back to the early years of the 20th century.

    For example: Honore Bartelemy (c+p) from Wiki:
    In 1920, says the Yellow Jersey Guide to the Tour de France, he crashed on the stage to Aix-en-Provence and only slowly got back on his bike, dazed and bloody. He could not bend his back and had to turn his handlebars upside down to be able to continue. As his dizziness lessened, he realised that what he thought was concussion was blindness. A flint had gone into an eye.

    Despite that, he finished not only that day but the Tour, coming eighth despite half-blindness, a broken shoulder and a dislocated wrist. He was carried in triumph at the finish. Nor did he stop racing when he was fitted with a glass eye. Dusty roads made it uncomfortable and he often took it out. The socket would then become infected and he would plug it with cotton.

    "It makes no difference to my sight but it's more comfortable," he said. The glass eye often fell out and in 1924 he had to get down on his knees on the finish line to see where it had gone. He grumbled that he spent more on replacement eyes than he earned in prizes.
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • eskimo Joe
    eskimo Joe Posts: 764
    Robert Millar said something like " when you are feeling miserable out training in the pissing rain , just think Sean Kelly has already been out 2 hours more than you with no gloves"
    Suburban studs yodel better than anyone else
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    What about Hampsten on the Gavia in 88?

    andy.jpg
  • Fastlad
    Fastlad Posts: 908
    eskimo Joe wrote:
    Robert Millar said something like " when you are feeling miserable out training in the pissing rain , just think Sean Kelly has already been out 2 hours more than you with no gloves"

    Kelly was a proper hard rider. I saw him race in Glasgow in the kellogs and he fell off on a corner, he bounced off the deck and back onto the bike and rode nearly a lap to catch the rest of the field!! Irish.....a tough breed :twisted:
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,661
    De Vlaeminck was, according to every person who ever saw him ride, was the only guy who had souplesse on cobbles.
    _
  • Garry H
    Garry H Posts: 6,639
    Rick Chasey wrote:
    De Vlaeminck was, according to every person who ever saw him ride, was the only guy who had souplesse on cobbles.

    What about Moser?
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,661
    Garry H wrote:
    Rick Chasey wrote:
    De Vlaeminck was, according to every person who ever saw him ride, was the only guy who had souplesse on cobbles.

    What about Moser?

    That was less souplesse and more more steering with his nose on the stem wasn't it?
    _
  • dennisn
    dennisn Posts: 10,601
    Fastlad wrote:
    eskimo Joe wrote:
    Robert Millar said something like " when you are feeling miserable out training in the pissing rain , just think Sean Kelly has already been out 2 hours more than you with no gloves"

    Kelly was a proper hard rider. I saw him race in Glasgow in the kellogs and he fell off on a corner, he bounced off the deck and back onto the bike and rode nearly a lap to catch the rest of the field!! Irish.....a tough breed :twisted:

    Gotta agree with Kelly as #1 hard case.
  • tailwindhome
    tailwindhome Posts: 19,434
    Joe Barr

    Ex pro came out of retirement to win the inaugural Race Around Ireland ultracycling event (1350 miles in 4 days 12 hours) beating the World Champion Fabio Biasiolo.

    Did the last 300 miles (including St Patricks Hill) with a broken bone in his foot after his team car ran over it.

    Maybe not the sort of rider the OP was thinking of but he impressed me.

    Joe Barr's Race Around Ireland

    ETA another Irishman too
    “New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!
  • greasedscotsman
    greasedscotsman Posts: 6,962
    What about that guy who cracked his collarbone in the 2003 TdF? Finished 4th. What was his name, Tyler Hamilton! That's the fella. Oh right, maybe not...
  • Garry H
    Garry H Posts: 6,639
    Rick Chasey wrote:
    Garry H wrote:
    Rick Chasey wrote:
    De Vlaeminck was, according to every person who ever saw him ride, was the only guy who had souplesse on cobbles.

    What about Moser?

    That was less souplesse and more more steering with his nose on the stem wasn't it?

    Great posture, wouldn't like to be his nuts though :shock:

    Itwas also said though that he floated over the cobbles.

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