Best Rider ~ 2013

ddraver

Cancellara did nt get anything off of the Belgians did he?

Clearly they re all bitter about him d1cking all over Boonen who the CN article hints nearly won it!!

jimmythecuckoo

Another vote for Kittel from me.

He made the Tour de France really interesting this year.

As an emerging GC force the Belkin twins of Mollema and Dribbly were impressive.

FJS

TheBigBean wrote:

So, should we conclude that Froome is the best international rider and Cancellera is best international flandrien?

For the latter, let's vote (see new thread)

rickyrider

Richmond Racer wrote:

I'd actually go with Nibali. Really impressed me this year.

Yep - me too. Up until this season I found him hard to like. This season, he definitely stepped it up a gear, but the way in which he did it was v impressive. Tirreno and the Giro both fantastic performances. For me, the clinching moment was towards the end of Giro stage 7 when he crashed, but jumped up like a jack in the box and got his head straight back down and drilled it to the line.

Loretta Damage

Porte. Followed team orders and did his job, deserves his chance next year at the Giro.

thomthom

By that logic we got a whole lot of candidates..

ocdupalais

Perhaps there should be some sort of competition in the middle of the season (when most of the riders are most likely to have their best form) that essentially strings together a multitude of one day races of varying types, you know - so that the climbers, sprinters, climbers, etc can all get a look-in - but then crowns an overall victor: maybe based on shortest time taken to complete all the "stages"?
Who knows - perhaps over time, cycling aficionados and general public alike will come to regard this as the ultimate expression of the best cyclist of the moment?



It's Froome.
He was the best climber: he was the best against the clock ( he'd have beaten the Panzerwagon in the long TT of the Tour if the wind hadn't picked up. I'll assume that Froome weighs much less than Martin, so his power-to-weight must be astonishing..) and he had the tactical nous to shut down that Movistar/Valverde sneaky move on a stage when his team was all over the shop.

justin_c2000

NAIRO QUINTANA!!!!!......no but my favorite

the best rider this year in my opinion is JROD
but i think rui costa is the breakout rider of the year... 2 tour de france stages and the worlds!!!

rick_chasey

Froome was obviously the best rider this year.

Head & shoulders above the rest.

Macaloon

OCDuPalais wrote:

Perhaps there should be some sort of competition in the middle of the season (when most of the riders are most likely to have their best form) that essentially strings together a multitude of one day races of varying types, you know - so that the climbers, sprinters, climbers, etc can all get a look-in - but then crowns an overall victor: maybe based on shortest time taken to complete all the "stages"?
Who knows - perhaps over time, cycling aficionados and general public alike will come to regard this as the ultimate expression of the best cyclist of the moment?

It's Froome.
He was the best climber: he was the best against the clock ( he'd have beaten the Panzerwagon in the long TT of the Tour if the wind hadn't picked up. I'll assume that Froome weighs much less than Martin, so his power-to-weight must be astonishing..) and he had the tactical nous to shut down that Movistar/Valverde sneaky move on a stage when his team was all over the shop.

Strong points. Hands-down the best stage racer with an awesome Tour. But all of the other top guys competed in classics as well as stage races. If you compare Nibali 2012 - all over the Spring Classics, handled by Wiggins in Tour - with Nibali 2013 - fighting fourth in Worlds otherwise pretty dominant - there's a strong case to be made that focusing solely on the Tour is quite an advantage*. Hence Nibali edged it for me.

I don't agree that the Tour is raced as a series of one-day races. Dominant GC guys tend not to dominate hilly classics.

*To clarify: you could argue that Nibali's improvement in 2013 is due to in part to an early season GC-only focus.

gsk82

nibali shied away from the biggest race in the world, a race that was completely dominated by one rider despite his team crumbling on more than one occasion. he ruled himself out of contention to be the best gc rider when he didn't race the race the top guys all did. someone else won the tour, dauhine, and romandie, so he's the best.