Farewell Cadel

Anonymous

Was never a huge fan, but appreciate the way he raced. I really like the short interview he did before stage 1 of the 2012 tour, when a brit camera man said to him: "everyone thinks Brad will win the tour, do you and who do you think will win?" he just replied something like: "haha, I think I will win". Simple and dealt with it very well. Summed him up to me.

ginsterdrz

Good riddance you boring cantankerous miserable waste of a BMC.

joelsim

EPC06 wrote:

Debeli wrote:

I think the pro-peloton will be a duller place without him.

I sort of preferred him as a perpetual bridesmaid than once he won the TdF.... I'm not sure why, but I like the eternal nearly-man.

He was certainly made of guts and his descending showed his MTB heritage. A very exciting rider to watch.

It surprises me a little that his connections with Ferrari, Rominger et al do not lead to more finger-pointing. I think people just like him, so they'd rather not think he juiced.

I like him too, but I do think he juiced. Or... he is way, way better than he appeared. Which I think he is not.

Nonetheless, he will be a loss to cycling and in juicing he was just keeping up with the Jenses.

Dont agree on the appeared to be juiced. Always looked to me like he was on the rivet everytime he went up a mountain and I never saw him once dance away from anyone...hence all the references to wheel sucking.

He certainly beat a lot of confirmed blood dopers regularly during the period 2002-2008. So for me the jury is out.

salsiccia1

Ginsterdrz wrote:

Good riddance you boring cantankerous miserable waste of a BMC.

Stay classy, Ginsterdz

joelsim

Macaloon wrote:

I like to imagine Cadel accumulating grievances: unfair competition, dogs abuse, and the final indignity of 'competing' with van Gardening Accident for team leadership. It should make for a fantastic memoir.

That's not an indignity, he was clearly past his best and BMC kept faith with him right up to the end. I think BMC have come out of this very well as they treated him very well.

Macaloon

Joelsim wrote:

Macaloon wrote:

I like to imagine Cadel accumulating grievances: unfair competition, dogs abuse, and the final indignity of 'competing' with van Gardening Accident for team leadership. It should make for a fantastic memoir.

That's not an indignity, he was clearly past his best and BMC kept faith with him right up to the end. I think BMC have come out of this very well as they treated him very well.

Tacky love for the defending Tour champion. Were it not for his relentless media campaign asserting his right to defend, Cadel may have been discarded a la Wiggo ( ).

Evans punctured the first time near the top. His BMC team-mate Tejay Van Garderen carried on with yellow jersey Bradley Wiggins and the Australian was stranded at the top of the climb for almost a minute.

“I wasn’t quite sure if he had another team-mate in there with him, but in hindsight, I should’ve waited for him,” Van Garderen said. “It was pretty loud and chaotic, and I mean, I could kind of gather he had a punctured, but ah…”

iainf72

Debeli wrote:

It surprises me a little that his connections with Ferrari, Rominger et al do not lead to more finger-pointing. I think people just like him, so they'd rather not think he juiced.

I like him too, but I do think he juiced. Or... he is way, way better than he appeared. Which I think he is not.

There are no frickin' connections to Ferrari. He performed a test with him when he was going to do to the road and that's it. He's never appeared on a list of customers, never come up in the multiple police investigations etc. It all seems to be based on a single article that confused Ferrari with Sassi.

FJS

I think it was Boonen who once said that if Cadel wasn't clean, nobody was.

It's a shame Evans, with his MTB background, discovered that he had a sprint and how to ride one-day races so late in his career. I've always liked his personality, in that he's always seemed a bit an independent mind, with hisTibet support and such.

RichN95.

iainf72 wrote:

There are no frickin' connections to Ferrari. He performed a test with him when he was going to do to the road and that's it. He's never appeared on a list of customers, never come up in the multiple police investigations etc. It all seems to be based on a single article that confused Ferrari with Sassi.

Wasn't it, in fact, a single article which confused Evans with Rogers?

deejay

iainf72 wrote:

There are no frickin' connections to Ferrari. He performed a test with him when he was going to do to the road and that's it. He's never appeared on a list of customers, never come up in the multiple police investigations etc. It all seems to be based on a single article that confused Ferrari with Sassi.

You are talking about Miguel Indurain because that Hat would fit him also. (oh I forgot the Bus)

olake92

Personally, I love Cadel! He's frickin' awesome! His character is hilarious sometimes (don't touch me!) yet as a recent article points out, he is an incredibly intelligent man who acts more like a diplomat than a sportsman; if I recall correctly, he speaks a number of languages fluently and has usually answered questions on the subject of doping with admirable patience. FWIW I think Paul Kimmage trusts him and in private, Evans has always decried doping. To add to this, he rode with the younger section of Mapei's super team, which Charly Wegelius highlights in his bio as being a 'clean project'. There is absolutely nothing about him that makes me think he has doped.

Having established that I'm pretty damn sure he's clean, it becomes apparent why I respect his riding so much; he could have won numerous Tours, he did actually win TDF 2011 the WC and classics and smashed epic races (like the Strade Bianche stage of the Giro). Hell, he was an MTBer who showed the wuss Schlecks how to descend and even dropped the 'amazing' Contador heading to Gap on THAT descent. He almost won the 2011 TDF TT with an amazing show of ballsyness on the descent and ripped yellow off of Schleck's back in the process.

Finally, this. Fanboy out.