Nairo can't roll and is massively over rated, discuss..

pinno

No tA Doctor wrote:

Pinno wrote:

For the other posters (particularly the holier than thou brigade), who seem to be taking some sort of pleasure out of the apparent demise of a man* who has lit up previous tours is plain sh1t really.

*..and that goes for Cav too.

Sorry, but I regard Contador as part of the dark recent past of cycling and the sooner he's gone the better. He doesn't get a let-off from me for being an entertaining rider that has "lit up tours" (are you sure that's not "been lit up on tours"), but then neither do Rasmussen, Ricco, Pantani or a host of others.

Well, you're making an assumption that all current cyclists are clean then?

Or is it just blind faith in a sport you love?
Let's scrub all records prior to 2012.

mfin

No tA Doctor wrote:

Pinno wrote:

For the other posters (particularly the holier than thou brigade), who seem to be taking some sort of pleasure out of the apparent demise of a man* who has lit up previous tours is plain sh1t really.

*..and that goes for Cav too.

Sorry, but I regard Contador as part of the dark recent past of cycling and the sooner he's gone the better. He doesn't get a let-off from me for being an entertaining rider that has "lit up tours" (are you sure that's not "been lit up on tours"), but then neither do Rasmussen, Ricco, Pantani or a host of others.

+1

Well said, the guy's earlier career was a joke. The clen bust was way less than he deserved. When he retires it will be great day and it will be fantastic to see the end of him and his utterly tainted worthless career.

No_Ta_Doctor

Pinno wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Pinno wrote:

For the other posters (particularly the holier than thou brigade), who seem to be taking some sort of pleasure out of the apparent demise of a man* who has lit up previous tours is plain sh1t really.

*..and that goes for Cav too.

Sorry, but I regard Contador as part of the dark recent past of cycling and the sooner he's gone the better. He doesn't get a let-off from me for being an entertaining rider that has "lit up tours" (are you sure that's not "been lit up on tours"), but then neither do Rasmussen, Ricco, Pantani or a host of others.

Well, you're making an assumption that all current cyclists are clean then?

Or is it just blind faith in a sport you love?
Let's scrub all records prior to 2012.

No assumptions and no blind faith. I will, however, give the benefit of the doubt, especially to the younger generation. Contador got caught though.
I'm also of the opinion that EPO was a seismic shift in doping, and that mucking around with amphetamines and the like didn't really compare.

dennisn

No tA Doctor wrote:

Pinno wrote:

For the other posters (particularly the holier than thou brigade), who seem to be taking some sort of pleasure out of the apparent demise of a man* who has lit up previous tours is plain sh1t really.

*..and that goes for Cav too.

Sorry, but I regard Contador as part of the dark recent past of cycling and the sooner he's gone the better. He doesn't get a let-off from me for being an entertaining rider that has "lit up tours" (are you sure that's not "been lit up on tours"), but then neither do Rasmussen, Ricco, Pantani or a host of others.

If they are all dirty and you consider them trash, at best, why would you bother following pro cycling? Doesn't seem like something a rational person would do.

No_Ta_Doctor

dennisn wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Pinno wrote:

For the other posters (particularly the holier than thou brigade), who seem to be taking some sort of pleasure out of the apparent demise of a man* who has lit up previous tours is plain sh1t really.

*..and that goes for Cav too.

Sorry, but I regard Contador as part of the dark recent past of cycling and the sooner he's gone the better. He doesn't get a let-off from me for being an entertaining rider that has "lit up tours" (are you sure that's not "been lit up on tours"), but then neither do Rasmussen, Ricco, Pantani or a host of others.

If they are all dirty and you consider them trash, at best, why would you bother following pro cycling? Doesn't seem like something a rational person would do.

Yes, that would be strange and irrational. Thankfully it bears no resemblance at all to my actual view.

For the record, I did indeed stop watching and following cycling between 1998 and around 2010, precisiely because they were all dirty as hell.

mcstumpy

TheBigBean wrote:

Richmond Racer 2 wrote:

Get out, Bean


As for Bert, he will never go 2nd man. We knows this.

In case it wasn't obvious, I think that Cavendish should not become a lead out man and that Contador should not become a domestique. Not yet anyway.

He is what he is - the 3rd best GT rider in the current pro peloton

joelsim

McStumpy wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

Richmond Racer 2 wrote:

Get out, Bean


As for Bert, he will never go 2nd man. We knows this.

In case it wasn't obvious, I think that Cavendish should not become a lead out man and that Contador should not become a domestique. Not yet anyway.

He is what he is - the 3rd best GT rider in the current pro peloton

I think you're being generous with 3rd best.

DeVlaeminck

Are you sure you aren't letting a dislike of Contador cloud your judgement on his ability. He's won several grand tours in recent years but up the page you have him on a par with Pinot. I don't think many would say he was on a par with Froome or Quintana now but behind those two I can't see anyone better other than perhaps Nibali.

There are always riders promising to come through and be the next grand tour contender but 9 times out of 10 they don't - they have to prove it before being elevated into the company of multiple grand tour winners.

Richmond Racer 2

What DeVlaeminck sez


EDIT: Bert won 2 GTs on the bounce as recently as Vuelta '14 & Giro 15. When Yates x 2, Bardet, Chaves et al manage their first GT win, they enter the league of proven GT winners rather than contenders. Simple as. Until then, we are talking about their potential.

joelsim

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Are you sure you aren't letting a dislike of Contador cloud your judgement on his ability. He's won several grand tours in recent years but up the page you have him on a par with Pinot. I don't think many would say he was on a par with Froome or Quintana now but behind those two I can't see anyone better other than perhaps Nibali.

There are always riders promising to come through and be the next grand tour contender but 9 times out of 10 they don't - they have to prove it before being elevated into the company of multiple grand tour winners.

I don't have a dislike of Contador, but I'd not put money on him in any mountain stage any more. I think Bardet, the Yates brothers, Chaves, Nibali, Landa are all as good as him these days.

pinno

There's no doubt Contador is on the slide but certain protagonists take some delight in seeing that unfold.

As far as the detractors are concerned (particularly No tA Doctor) where do these people draw the line between clean and dirty? Shall we go back to Tom Simpson? After all, the contemporary choice of PED then was instrumental in his death and therefore, we cannot take it lightly. The choice between amphetamines and EPO as a yardstick for a grudgingly accepted form of PED as opposed to a higher, more sophisticated and unacceptable form in the shape of EPO, is a very spurious subjective call.

No_Ta_Doctor

DeVlaeminck certainly has a good point. In the last 5 years there have been just 9 GT winners. Three of them (Wiggins, Horner and Cobo) are no longer in the peloton. 3 of them have multiple GTs (Froome, Contador, Nibali). One will certainly never win a GT again (Heysedal). Of the other two, one can't roll (apparently) and is the subject of this thread and the other is a young pretender.

There are good young riders that I like that have lots of potential, and some of them may have better form/results in any particular GT than some on the list. But none of them have proven they can do it consistently yet, and none of them have gone the whole way and broken into the elite GT winners club, let alone its back-room for multiple winners.

No_Ta_Doctor

Pinno wrote:

There's no doubt Contador is on the slide but certain protagonists take some delight in seeing that unfold.

As far as the detractors are concerned (particularly No tA Doctor) where do these people draw the line between clean and dirty? Shall we go back to Tom Simpson? After all, the contemporary choice of PED then was instrumental in his death and therefore, we cannot take it lightly. The choice between amphetamines and EPO as a yardstick for a grudgingly accepted form of PED as opposed to a higher, more sophisticated and unacceptable form in the shape of EPO, is a very spurious subjective call.

I disagree.

EPO was a game-changer. There is a spectrum of doping, and EPO/transfusions are at the far end of it.
Pre-EPO doping had far less effect on race outcomes, it was cheating, it was dirty, but nothing like as bad as EPO.
It was part of cycling's shady side, but that shade became pitch-black darkness in the 90s. Bringing cycling back into the light doesn't require a revisionist approach to pre-EPO doping, just the recognition that what was almost-acceptable pre-EPO will no longer be tolerated now. It's a cultural shift in attitude, but there's little point in projecting today's values back thirty, forty years or more.

bobmcstuff

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Are you sure you aren't letting a dislike of Contador cloud your judgement on his ability. He's won several grand tours in recent years but up the page you have him on a par with Pinot. I don't think many would say he was on a par with Froome or Quintana now but behind those two I can't see anyone better other than perhaps Nibali.

There are always riders promising to come through and be the next grand tour contender but 9 times out of 10 they don't - they have to prove it before being elevated into the company of multiple grand tour winners.

Yeah he seems on a par with Nibali at the moment. Could win a GT still but only in certain circumstances.

He may be filthy but he's still good to watch so meh. Same as Nibali and Valverde and a whole load of others, but hopefully less as time goes on.

pinno

...and as time goes on, we suffer a deeply flawed moral relativism.

Tom Simpson died on the slopes of Mont Ventoux. Everyone was at it, so it's okay; it was a level playing field. Then along comes some PED's of a higher order from EPO to HGH which for performance purposes requires a medical practitioner to fully exploit rather than a soigneur chucking a 'cocktail' at the user. Then the Festina affair blew open the lid temporarily at the dawn of the LA years. 10 years later, the lid got prized open once again. It was a level playing field. The difference being that those with the right cash and contacts could fully exploit the PED's better than random, uncharted use.

I suspect that both Valverde and Contador since the ban have been scrutinised every step of the way in a manner far more rigorous both by the media and by the UCI than many other 'clean' riders. During that time, I suspect many other riders have slipped through the net and many others will. So there are those who are getting past the testing (probably by micro dosing), some sit on glorious moral high ground (riddled with hindsight) by saying he's a cheat and he isn't etc etc. If we believe in the integrity of the current system, you have to accept the validity of any winners as they are racing under the same testing and same parameters (Haematocrit for example) as everyone else.

No_Ta_Doctor

I'm not sure what's going on in your argument, Pinno, but if it's directed vaguely at me I'd like to point out that it seems to consist of a collection of straw-men.
I've never claimed the playing field was level, I've never claimed any rider was clean (how could we know?). I've never claimed any ability to spot dopers and cheats independently of factual evidence (positive tests, visits to doping doctors etc.), so all calls are "riddled with hindsight" by their very nature. I've never made any statement on the validity or otherwise of results.

I have called Contador a cheat, because we know he was, he got busted for it.

Every sport has cheating, and every sport has nuances of cheating. Every sport has cheating that is part of the unwritten rules of the game, the stuff you do and hope to get away with. And in every sport the boundaries between acceptable cheating and unacceptable cheating changes with time. If you doubt that attitudes to doping have changed, then consider that in the late eighties the penalty for a positive test in the Tour was a few minutes in the GC.

dish_dash

bobmcstuff wrote:

He may be filthy but he's still good to watch so meh. Same as Nibali and Valverde and a whole load of others, but hopefully less as time goes on.

Oi oi... don't think you can class Nibs and Valverde in the same filthy category. I know he rides for Astana (who people love to hate) but that only filth you can throw at Nibs.

Mad_Malx

Back to Nairo, vuelta so far has shown thread proposition is wrong.

May well be overtaken, but he is top tier. After his 2014 giro win the vuelta double was very possible before he over cooked the tt descent.

joelsim

Mad_Malx wrote:

Back to Nairo, vuelta so far has shown thread proposition is wrong.

May well be overtaken, but he is top tier. After his 2014 giro win the vuelta double was very possible before he over cooked the tt descent.

I agree. He's the closest there is to Froome.

bobmcstuff

dish_dash wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

He may be filthy but he's still good to watch so meh. Same as Nibali and Valverde and a whole load of others, but hopefully less as time goes on.

Oi oi... don't think you can class Nibs and Valverde in the same filthy category. I know he rides for Astana (who people love to hate) but that only filth you can throw at Nibs.

OK maybe not Nibali, but Piti? Come on...

Dorset_Boy

Biggest problems with Contador are he is still in denial about his cheating, and deliberately appealing his ban to come out and finish fastest in a Giro. Then getting away with a 6 month ban.....
At least others have served their bans properly and accepted their guilt.

dennisn

Dorset Boy wrote:

Biggest problems with Contador are he is still in denial about his cheating, and deliberately appealing his ban to come out and finish fastest in a Giro. Then getting away with a 6 month ban.....
At least others have served their bans properly and accepted their guilt.

And you really expect cheaters not to be in denial and to serve their bans properly? What fantasy world do you live in?

bobmcstuff

dennisn wrote:

Dorset Boy wrote:

Biggest problems with Contador are he is still in denial about his cheating, and deliberately appealing his ban to come out and finish fastest in a Giro. Then getting away with a 6 month ban.....
At least others have served their bans properly and accepted their guilt.

And you really expect cheaters not to be in denial and to serve their bans properly? What fantasy world do you live in?

Plenty of them have.

Of course, whether you believe they are actually clean now is another matter

pinno

Is this thread now dead?

salsiccia1

Should be. Superb performance from him today.

No_Ta_Doctor

dennisn wrote:

Dorset Boy wrote:

Biggest problems with Contador are he is still in denial about his cheating, and deliberately appealing his ban to come out and finish fastest in a Giro. Then getting away with a 6 month ban.....
At least others have served their bans properly and accepted their guilt.

And you really expect cheaters not to be in denial and to serve their bans properly? What fantasy world do you live in?

What we expect them to do and what we'd like them to do aren't the same, Dennis. Same goes for some posters....

pinno

Movistar isolated Froome, Brambilla lit the touch paper, Contador attacked... Great stage. No MTF tomorrow but still the potential for splits.

dennisn

No tA Doctor wrote:

dennisn wrote:

Dorset Boy wrote:

Biggest problems with Contador are he is still in denial about his cheating, and deliberately appealing his ban to come out and finish fastest in a Giro. Then getting away with a 6 month ban.....
At least others have served their bans properly and accepted their guilt.

And you really expect cheaters not to be in denial and to serve their bans properly? What fantasy world do you live in?

What we expect them to do and what we'd like them to do aren't the same, Dennis. Same goes for some posters....

What good would it do if they confess and serve their bans(like you want)? You and all the other haters will still be haters. And why would they care what you think? They are going to do what's best for them, not you.

itboffin

what kind of brain fart tactics were sky playing today?
why the hell was Froome so far back from the GC contenders?

but then again go Bertie

Richmond Racer 2

itboffin wrote:

what kind of brain fart tactics were sky playing today?
why the hell was Froome so far back from the GC contenders?

but then again go Bertie

Big Bean has summarised it all on the stage 15 thread...