The Dutch fall from Tour grace.
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A Dutch friend sent me this a while ago - I gather that's a summer's day?
I ride an alu or ti frame so don't have that problem (and I'm quite fat and I don't get off the bike).
Head Hands Heart Lungs Legs0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:Rabobank obviously can find the talent.
They're imbedded in Dutch cycling all the way down to the grassroots.
I don't think that part is the problem.
It's when things start getting serious that things go wayward. They obviously have the talent, and they're always the next best thing with great numbers, and then they disappear after a promising say, 3rd on a stage of 8th overall.
But what is the problem? When the push comes to shove at the business end I'm convinced it's the team structure and strategy that's to blame.
I don't think it's the:pottssteve wrote:[..] great social cohesion and an advanced and generous welfare state. Dutch systems [...] are complicated and sometimes slow and frustrating, but there is an emphasis on fairness and getting it right. [...] This is not the sort of atmosphere in which to breed riders who are used to fighting for everything they can get.0 -
pottssteve wrote:A Dutch friend sent me this a while ago - I gather that's a summer's day?
I ride an alu or ti frame so don't have that problem (and I'm quite fat and I don't get off the bike).
I only get to do some nice weather riding on our summer holidays in Zeeland nowadays. But if the weather here in the UK is anything to go by, it could well be the case next week!0 -
Turfle wrote:Geert Leinders has been the most prominent Dutchman.
To be fair to Rabo they have been very unlucky with crashes/injuries. ten Dam has ridden well for them though.
Actually, nearly all of those you could expect to see in the mountains have been struck down: Gesink, Mollema, Kruijswijk, Westra, Ruijgh, Poels.
Geert Leinders is Belgian...0 -
Wonderful moments which at the time I took on face value... I was only a boy :roll:hommelbier wrote:A reminder of "the good old days" when Steven Rooks and Gert-Jan Theunisse were in their prime.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTHhWf6BSEM
Does this help?
Maybe the Dutch need to follow the ethos of something a cycling coach told me recently....Be good at what you are good at, the rest will follow...
This is based on me living in the fens and moaning I can't climb well. I now concentrate on getting better at riding in the terrain I have access to and amazingly its working when I go up hill.0 -
Rick Chasey wrote:What happened to the Dutch in the Tour?
They used to punch way above their weight. Always someone around to be a Tour contender, usually someone around to win on the Alp.
Used to have teams who dominated all but the toughest stages. Won strings of team time trials. They bossed the peloton almost at will.
The last time they won a stage was 2005, over 150 stages ago.
Nowadays they're best known for the fans, not their riders.
This tour has been a unmittigated diaster.
Rabobank went in with their usual perenial 'Tour future hopeful', though this time three of them. Gesink, Mollema, and Kruiswijk. Again, they can't stay upright, and hiding behind their wounds they've all underperformed and left the Tour, bar Kruiswijk. For a nation that is so flat, and wind so prominant, it beggars belief that Dutch riders in the world tour seem the worst at riding the bunch, the wind, the road furniture, bar perhaps the other team in orange.
Even worse, they have the second biggest budget after sky.
Vaconsoleil, once the smaller pro-continental team who just by being in breaks was good enough has also woefully underperformed. Westra, the most talented, is already out, and Jonny, for all his value on the screen with a microphone shoved in his face can't race his way out of his barbed wire attribution, though that's hardly his fault.
Other Dutch riders at other teams are just as bad. Weening, a fellow Frisian, can't even get in a bloody breakaway, and his brother, who is following him around with a bunch of mates and lots of beer, seems more and more miserable every time the cameras see him.
What's so strange about it, is the Dutch still really care about the Tour. It's a part of their summer. Their radio 1 is turned into radio Tour de France, the Tour is all over NOS 1, showing all the coverage, it has a half hour highlight section on 3, and has two discussion shows about it, including the popular avondetape. They turn up there in their droves.
As a half Brit, half Dutchie, the contrast couldn't be bigger in this year's Tour. As much as a long for and commend the Dutch passion for the Tour, regardless of performance (something I understandably don't see in the UK, though I don't expect to and don't hold it against them), I'm really begining to notice their lack of presence in the peloton, and it is an element I'm beginning to really miss.
It's testament to their support and the Dutch history that the French Directors still show us the Dutch 'favourites' (since, let's be honest, they never actually are favourites) when they are inevitably either dropped or splayed out on the floor.
And don't even get me started on Dutch team tactics.
*sigh*
So this post was from 2012.
Now look at them.
Dumolin: Giro winner, Olympic medallist, multiple stage GT winner – only 26 yrs old
Kruiswijk: Almost Giro Winner – turned 30
Mollema: Regular GT top 10er and Tour stage winner; turned 30.
Groenewegen Sprint winner on the Champs Elysee and not even 25 yet.
Terpstra: winner of Roubaix; regular podium places on the big cobbled races
van Emden: regular force in TTs, including Giro TT win
And there’s more behind that as well. That's just off the top of my head.
Phwoooooar.0 -
Poels, Classic winner at potential GT contender if / when he gets a chance.0
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Just need a Belgian GT winner now...0
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Rick Chasey wrote:Pross wrote:Poels, Classic winner at potential GT contender if / when he gets a chance.
Yes! What an omission. One of the strongest riders in 2016 Tour and winner of LBL.
Holy moly!
have Sky released details of his recovery - I know he was fighting to be fit for the tour and just could not get there but have heard no more. Presume he will be raring to go for Vuelta - Number 2 if Froome is too tired from TdF?0 -
Then there's Wilco too though I feel he might be more like many of the previous generation, showing early promise at the 2014 Giro but perhaps not living up to it since. Still only 26 though.0
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Pross wrote:Then there's Wilco too though I feel he might be more like many of the previous generation, showing early promise at the 2014 Giro but perhaps not living up to it since. Still only 26 though.
My man " two tone air horn0 -
imatfaal wrote:Rick Chasey wrote:Pross wrote:Poels, Classic winner at potential GT contender if / when he gets a chance.
Yes! What an omission. One of the strongest riders in 2016 Tour and winner of LBL.
Holy moly!
have Sky released details of his recovery - I know he was fighting to be fit for the tour and just could not get there but have heard no more. Presume he will be raring to go for Vuelta - Number 2 if Froome is too tired from TdF?
Riding Tour of Poland, building towards the Vuelta0 -
And not forgetting twitter/strava king, post TdF crit winner and BBQ expert ten Dam...
Live slow, ride fastHalf man, Half bike0 -
Ridgerider wrote:And not forgetting twitter/strava king, post TdF crit winner and BBQ expert ten Dam...
Live slow, ride fast
Most useless BBQ tips ever.Warning No formatter is installed for the format0
