GT Ranking 2017

Richmond Racer 2

Blazing Saddles wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

But Dumoulin is both better looking and more charismatic than Froome...

Is being charismatic when you say things like you hope your main competitors lose their podium spots, because they won't do what you want them too?
Or perhaps it's taking a dump in a field for the cameras? :P
Being more photogenic is definitely a winner with a certain type of fan, though...

Hey TomDum can come out with some crap sometimes, but jfc his bone structure, his cheekbones, those lips..

Sorry, where was I

In all seriousness when God was handing out charisma and looks, Fenton was not head of the queue

Richmond Racer 2

Rick Chasey wrote:

Giro was also incredibly pretty...

Seems to really have improved how it looks.

Aye, this

Give me Italia any day

rick_chasey

RichN95 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

I don't like Chris on the bike because he looks like he learned to ride last week and I don't like him off the bike because I don't feel I'm getting his authentic thoughts on anything.

I would say the latter part is largely due to a media, both traditional and social, that is constantly looking to fabricate scandal and polemics. It's the same across most major sports. Their dull public personalities are a product of a dull media.

I would say to lead that team in the way he does he would need a fair bit of charisma in private.

No doubt. But I'm not seeing him in private am I

Anyway, Lance had bags more charisma than Ullrich, but then i liked Ulle and didn't like Lance, so go figure.


Besides the point.

Giro was great.

Tour was the Tour.

Didn't watch the Vuelta but looked like fairly standard recent fare; ridiculous gradients, parched landscapes and a decent lineup with no sprinters.

RichN95.

Rick Chasey wrote:

Anyway, Lance had bags more charisma than Ullrich, but then i liked Ulle and didn't like Lance, so go figure.

Nigel Farage and Donald Trump have it by the bucket load. It's not a necessarily a good trait in itself.

blazing_saddles

RichN95 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Anyway, Lance had bags more charisma than Ullrich, but then i liked Ulle and didn't like Lance, so go figure.

Nigel Farage and Donald Trump have it by the bucket load. It's not a necessarily a good trait in itself.

Not to mention Hitler and Mussolini................oh. I just did.

And I refuse to rate flipping GTs on whether the bloke winning it is pretty or not.
Imagine the PC platoon on this site if we did that for the Giro Femminile contenders.

Right, I'm going to go off in a big huff and watch some actual racing.

Richmond Racer 2

says the man with a satellite set-up rivalling NASA

:P

takethehighroad

Bo Duke wrote:

It was great to see big Tom win the Giro, that in itself made it exciting. I can't say that Quintana has EVER made a race exciting.

You didn't watch the final week of the 2015 Tour then?

bobmcstuff

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Bo Duke wrote:

It was great to see big Tom win the Giro, that in itself made it exciting. I can't say that Quintana has EVER made a race exciting.

I'm not saying you, but a lot of fans feel this way, many of whom are very anti Sky and Froome because of the way he rides.
Dumoulin: The guy who rides tempo up big, GTclimbs, yo-yos off the back only to return to the leaders before the finish, losing negligible time, if any.
Then, takes a huge advantage in the time trials.
Sound familiar? 8)

Just to expand on this a bit more.

Before the Giro, nobody was really expecting Dumoulin to win it. How many people had him for PTP? None? And he was a 3 chainring pick from Inrng (http://inrng.com/2017/05/who-will-win-the-giro-2017/). Not sure what his odds were but I bet there were a lot of riders ahead. And if you look in the comments on Inrng, most people are saying Quintana is probably going to win (although plenty mentioned they like Dumoulin).

So Dumoulin was a bit less feted before the event, and was a clear underdog against other proven 3 week GC contenders. Nobody knew if he would repeat his previous performances and crack badly, and everyone was expecting him to lose out to Quintana on the climbs.

Surely that makes it a bit more exciting compared to Froome winning the Tour as odds on favourite, even if their riding strategies might be superficially similar.

rick_chasey

Also, Dumolin was properly losing time uphill; he lost the jersey going into the final TT.

It was about as close as it gets to the classic climbers vs TTers race.

dish_dash

RichN95 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

I don't like Chris on the bike because he looks like he learned to ride last week and I don't like him off the bike because I don't feel I'm getting his authentic thoughts on anything.

I would say the latter part is largely due to a media, both traditional and social, that is constantly looking to fabricate scandal and polemics. It's the same across most major sports. Their dull public personalities are a product of a dull media.

I would say to lead that team in the way he does he would need a fair bit of charisma in private.

But yet plenty of other riders have a more interesting public persona... not least Dumoulin. I don't think you can blame Froome's lack of public charisma on the media.

takethehighroad

I think Dumoulin won it best of all three, but does that make the Giro a better race?

His victory to Oropa was one of the best wins of the year, and I think everyone was surprised by that.

Also, it's difficult to say which was the best right now as the Vuelta is fresh in our minds and the Giro happened nearly 6 months ago

RichN95.

While many are down on the Tour it had the best stage of all of them (the one that Uran won). The first one Barguil won was very good too.