TdF 2016 Stage 14 *Contains spoilers*

Lanterne_Rogue

No tA Doctor wrote:

I like Cav. I think he's genuine and honest. When his team has cocked up he'll say it, when he's cocked up he'll admit it (barring some cases of argy bargy in disputed sprints). I think he's genuine when he praises his teammates, and have heard him talk about how much pressure he feels to deliver when his team have worked their arses off for him.

Incidentally, and relevant to discussions of 'insincere' praise when he wins, today Cavendish criticised one of his teammates for the buildup, saying that he was inexperienced and that caused some issues in the absence of Eisel to manage things.

But of course mfin knows that because he's seen enough interviews to already know it.

mfin wrote:

Simple

Quite.

overlord2

You have to admire the general public.

Whinge when someone is media savvy and boring - Froome
Whinge when someone isn't media savy and comes over brash - Cav.

Win win.

Lanterne_Rogue

Cavendish wrote:

I knew Marcel [Kittel] would be on the front early, I assessed it with 2km to go, they had four guys and that's not enough into a headwind. In fact his team did a really good job, [Fabio] Sabatini did more than I thought he would

But, y'know, insincere.

onyourright

Describing Cavendish as “boring”, of all things, invalidates the rest of your opinion of him.

Rick Chasey wrote:

This photo can be Control-clicked and opened much larger in a new tab. Worth doing.

tonyf34

Cav pretty much says what he wants comparative to the rest of the sporting world, he doesn't care how he comes across if someone asks him a stupid question with a patently very obvious answer when he hasn't succeeded, he clearly never wants to be a media whore. Boring and insincere he most definitely isn't.
it's a natural human reaction to failure that is in most of us and being pressed for quotes/answers by people you don't know, don't have any value for (at moment in time) it's not surprising in the least that someone reacts the way he does, that makes him more honest than most, what's not to like about that?

bobmcstuff

Basically all of the above - even though I often totally disagree with Cavendish, at least when you're listening to him you feel like you're listening to his actual opinion and not that of his PR guy (which is as much as you get off most of the others).

RichN95.

I'd really like Cavendish to go into the media after cycling. I think him and Millar together (with a commentator) would be brilliant.

I see him becoming a DS though

inseine

I don't understand folk who watch sport and 'never want' to see the wins of the best guy ever at his job. It's not a personality parade.

Bo Duke

FocusZing wrote:

@simongerrans now
My new hardware... The surgery went as well as we could hope. Now it's time to put a plan in place.

That could be mt x-ray, my shoulder is exactly the same, titanium plate with 6 screws.

I feel sorry for Gerrans as I couldn't sleep on my left side for about 2-3 years after, I really hope he gets the best medical expertise out there to avoid the long and painful recovery that I went through.

Bo Duke

tonyf34 wrote:

Cav pretty much says what he wants comparative to the rest of the sporting world, he doesn't care how he comes across if someone asks him a stupid question with a patently very obvious answer when he hasn't succeeded, he clearly never wants to be a media whore. Boring and insincere he most definitely isn't.
it's a natural human reaction to failure that is in most of us and being pressed for quotes/answers by people you don't know, don't have any value for (at moment in time) it's not surprising in the least that someone reacts the way he does, that makes him more honest than most, what's not to like about that?

He's totally focused, everything else is just clutter. I've seen interviews where someone mentions a medium importance race from 5 years ago and he can remember every exact detail of the run in, road, weather and position of other riders. He's a machine, Gripel etc... don't have the same intensity.

No one seems to have mentioned that whilst Cav's on fire, the other sprinters this years have been pretty appalling. Clearly they didn't put the work in over the winter, I didn't realise Debenkov was in the race til the replays last night, where's he been hiding all race? .

above_the_cows

RichN95 wrote:

I'd really like Cavendish to go into the media after cycling. I think him and Millar together (with a commentator) would be brilliant.

I see him becoming a DS though

After that video montage of Cav and the Danish journalist's shirts complete with Cav's own invented theme tune I think he'd be great in the media.

graeme_s-2

Bo Duke wrote:

No one seems to have mentioned that whilst Cav's on fire, the other sprinters this years have been pretty appalling. Clearly they didn't put the work in over the winter, I didn't realise Debenkov was in the race til the replays last night, where's he been hiding all race? .

Assuming you're referring to John Degenkolb, it's worth keeping in mind that he was hit by a car earlier in the year, nearly lost a finger and is still riding with a plastic splint on his hand. I'm not sure it's fair to judge him on his pre-crash form just yet.

Bo Duke

Graeme_S wrote:

Bo Duke wrote:

No one seems to have mentioned that whilst Cav's on fire, the other sprinters this years have been pretty appalling. Clearly they didn't put the work in over the winter, I didn't realise Debenkov was in the race til the replays last night, where's he been hiding all race? .

Assuming you're referring to John Degenkolb, it's worth keeping in mind that he was hit by a car earlier in the year, nearly lost a finger and is still riding with a plastic splint on his hand. I'm not sure it's fair to judge him on his pre-crash form just yet.

Well..... how long did he stop training for? Realise its a nasty hand injury however realistically they can work around it.

above_the_cows

Bo Duke wrote:

Graeme_S wrote:

Bo Duke wrote:

No one seems to have mentioned that whilst Cav's on fire, the other sprinters this years have been pretty appalling. Clearly they didn't put the work in over the winter, I didn't realise Debenkov was in the race til the replays last night, where's he been hiding all race? .

Assuming you're referring to John Degenkolb, it's worth keeping in mind that he was hit by a car earlier in the year, nearly lost a finger and is still riding with a plastic splint on his hand. I'm not sure it's fair to judge him on his pre-crash form just yet.

Well..... how long did he stop training for? Realise its a nasty hand injury however realistically they can work around it.

Have you ever had serious nerve damage in your hand? Have you ever tried to ride a bicycle even up and down the road at 15kph with serious nerve damage in your hand?

DeadCalm

Bo Duke wrote:

Graeme_S wrote:

Bo Duke wrote:

No one seems to have mentioned that whilst Cav's on fire, the other sprinters this years have been pretty appalling. Clearly they didn't put the work in over the winter, I didn't realise Debenkov was in the race til the replays last night, where's he been hiding all race? .

Assuming you're referring to John Degenkolb, it's worth keeping in mind that he was hit by a car earlier in the year, nearly lost a finger and is still riding with a plastic splint on his hand. I'm not sure it's fair to judge him on his pre-crash form just yet.

Well..... how long did he stop training for? Realise its a nasty hand injury however realistically they can work around it.

He missed the first four months of the season and has had to adjust the way he changes gears which will have had an impact on his bike handling skills.

Lanterne_Rogue

Bo Duke wrote:

Graeme_S wrote:

Bo Duke wrote:

No one seems to have mentioned that whilst Cav's on fire, the other sprinters this years have been pretty appalling. Clearly they didn't put the work in over the winter, I didn't realise Debenkov was in the race til the replays last night, where's he been hiding all race? .

Assuming you're referring to John Degenkolb, it's worth keeping in mind that he was hit by a car earlier in the year, nearly lost a finger and is still riding with a plastic splint on his hand. I'm not sure it's fair to judge him on his pre-crash form just yet.

Well..... how long did he stop training for? Realise its a nasty hand injury however realistically they can work around it.

Apart from the difficulties of actually riding alluded to by ATC, even if you keep the basic fitness up via riding a turbo etc it's impossible to replicate the actual demands of racing - the endless little accelerations and things. If Cavendish is supposedly sharper for riding repeated sprint finishes on the track, how debilitating must it be to not even be able to ride safely in a bunch for a while?

I'd imagine his confidence at throwing the bike around within the chaos of a bunch sprint has also taken a bit of a knock.

mfin

Ok, I accept I am one of the few that find Cavendish and his interviews boring. (Note I mean him, not his performances nowadays, and I completely accept his abilities on the bike).

On a side note, why does he say "y'know" at the end of every other sentence?

bobmcstuff

Everyone has their dog words.

E.g., Yates and Matt White as discussed on the white jersey thread.

Lanterne_Rogue

mfin wrote:

Ok, I accept I am one of the few that find Cavendish and his interviews boring. (Note I mean him, not his performances nowadays, and I completely accept his abilities on the bike).

On a side note, why does he say "y'know" at the end of every other sentence?

Verbal tic, y'know? Look, Adam Yates is even worse, y'know?

(I think it's one of those things where you want to make sure the listener is following you - it's probably born out of years of having to talk about cycling without knowing whether your audience is completely oblivious to what you do, obsessed by the sport, or anywhere in between those two poles. Continental cyclists tend to assume that everyone knows what they're on about - unless the subtitles are cutting out all the verbal filler, of course.)

Bo Duke

underlayunderlay wrote:

Bo Duke wrote:

Graeme_S wrote:

Bo Duke wrote:

No one seems to have mentioned that whilst Cav's on fire, the other sprinters this years have been pretty appalling. Clearly they didn't put the work in over the winter, I didn't realise Debenkov was in the race til the replays last night, where's he been hiding all race? .

Assuming you're referring to John Degenkolb, it's worth keeping in mind that he was hit by a car earlier in the year, nearly lost a finger and is still riding with a plastic splint on his hand. I'm not sure it's fair to judge him on his pre-crash form just yet.

Well..... how long did he stop training for? Realise its a nasty hand injury however realistically they can work around it.

Apart from the difficulties of actually riding alluded to by ATC, even if you keep the basic fitness up via riding a turbo etc it's impossible to replicate the actual demands of racing - the endless little accelerations and things. If Cavendish is supposedly sharper for riding repeated sprint finishes on the track, how debilitating must it be to not even be able to ride safely in a bunch for a while?

I'd imagine his confidence at throwing the bike around within the chaos of a bunch sprint has also taken a bit of a knock.

Fair comment, you're right in his case. T'others though have been found wanting.

Lanterne_Rogue

Bo Duke wrote:

Fair comment, you're right in his case. T'others though have been found wanting.

Felt a bit guilty when I noticed loads of other people had said similar things, actually - hopefully it didn't come across as loads of people having a go in his defence.

As for the others, I'm not sure they're massively behind this year. Kittel always seems to be very much dependent on where his mind is and Cavendish currently has the absolute hoodoo over him - and even then Kittel's picked up one stage win. Greipel lost one sprint to Cavendish by a couple of inches. As a result both of them (and their teams) are anxious to regain lost ground, getting things wrong, going too early, and then having their pockets picked.

webboo

If Kittel had stayed with Giant he would have a perfect lead out yesterday.