2021 predictions

2

Comments

  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,244
    Is it not just a budget thing?

    Jumbo seem very Dutch, ineos are very Brit, etc etc.
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,137
    edited February 2021

    Is it not just a budget thing?

    Jumbo seem very Dutch, ineos are very Brit, etc etc.


    Ineos have as many South/Central Americans as Brits these days. Eight of each
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,244
    Yeah OK sky fanboi.

    Point remains.

    French teams are provincial as they don't have the budget not to be.
  • bobmcstuff
    bobmcstuff Posts: 11,196

    Yeah OK sky fanboi.

    Point remains.

    French teams are provincial as they don't have the budget not to be.

    I thought received wisdom was that there are a lot of overpriced average French riders? The whole thing about a few halfway decent results in the Tour and you can coast in a French team for the rest of your career etc.

    To the point about Sunweb - what actually is their budget compared to the French teams?
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 13,200
    Jumbo Visma might seem very Dutch, but over a third of their riders are non Dutch speaking and the Dutch all speak English if necessary
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  • TGH has to be in with a good shout of another GT given the opportunity and a bit of fortune.
  • m.r.m.
    m.r.m. Posts: 3,312
    edited February 2021

    Yeah OK sky fanboi.

    Point remains.

    French teams are provincial as they don't have the budget not to be.

    Does Alpecin-Fenix have a bigger budget than the French teams? Seems like they did better in 2019 & 2020. Just blaming the budget seems rather simplistic.
    PTP Champion 2019, 2022 & 2023
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,244
    m.r.m. said:

    Yeah OK sky fanboi.

    Point remains.

    French teams are provincial as they don't have the budget not to be.

    Does Alpecin-Fenix have a bigger budget than the French teams? Seems like they did better in 2019 & 2020. Just blaming the budget seems rather simplistic.
    ...as opposed to blaming innate Frenchness?
  • DeadCalm
    DeadCalm Posts: 4,099

    Jumbo Visma might seem very Dutch, but over a third of their riders are non Dutch speaking and the Dutch all speak English if necessary

    Almost half of both the AG2R and FDJ squads are not French. Considerably more than half of the Cofidis squad are non-French riders. But anyway...
    Team My Man 2022:

    Antwan Tolhoek, Sam Oomen, Tom Dumoulin, Thymen Arensman, Remco Evenepoel, Benoît Cosnefroy, Tom Pidcock, Mark Cavendish, Romain Bardet
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 13,200
    DeadCalm said:

    Jumbo Visma might seem very Dutch, but over a third of their riders are non Dutch speaking and the Dutch all speak English if necessary

    Almost half of both the AG2R and FDJ squads are not French. Considerably more than half of the Cofidis squad are non-French riders. But anyway...
    5 of the non French riders on FDJ are Swiss or Canadian, though I don't know that they're all natively French speaking.
    3 of the 20 odd DSs across FDJ and AG2R aren't French.
    Cofidis have done a lot of restructuring in the last few seasons, and their results have improved drastically. Can't be arsed to see if their roster nationality has changed in that time...
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  • DeadCalm
    DeadCalm Posts: 4,099

    DeadCalm said:

    Jumbo Visma might seem very Dutch, but over a third of their riders are non Dutch speaking and the Dutch all speak English if necessary

    Almost half of both the AG2R and FDJ squads are not French. Considerably more than half of the Cofidis squad are non-French riders. But anyway...
    5 of the non French riders on FDJ are Swiss or Canadian, though I don't know that they're all natively French speaking.
    3 of the 20 odd DSs across FDJ and AG2R aren't French.
    Cofidis have done a lot of restructuring in the last few seasons, and their results have improved drastically. Can't be arsed to see if their roster nationality has changed in that time...
    I concede your point on DSs. On the riders, I think you are quibbling.

    It's a sample of one, so won't prove anything either way, but it'll be interesting to see how Bardet gets on under the supposedly innovative DSM regime. He's been training at Teide, something I guess he wouldn't have done at AG2R. As a fan of him and the team, I hope it works out.
    Team My Man 2022:

    Antwan Tolhoek, Sam Oomen, Tom Dumoulin, Thymen Arensman, Remco Evenepoel, Benoît Cosnefroy, Tom Pidcock, Mark Cavendish, Romain Bardet
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 13,200
    DeadCalm said:

    DeadCalm said:

    Jumbo Visma might seem very Dutch, but over a third of their riders are non Dutch speaking and the Dutch all speak English if necessary

    Almost half of both the AG2R and FDJ squads are not French. Considerably more than half of the Cofidis squad are non-French riders. But anyway...
    5 of the non French riders on FDJ are Swiss or Canadian, though I don't know that they're all natively French speaking.
    3 of the 20 odd DSs across FDJ and AG2R aren't French.
    Cofidis have done a lot of restructuring in the last few seasons, and their results have improved drastically. Can't be arsed to see if their roster nationality has changed in that time...
    I concede your point on DSs. On the riders, I think you are quibbling.

    It's a sample of one, so won't prove anything either way, but it'll be interesting to see how Bardet gets on under the supposedly innovative DSM regime. He's been training at Teide, something I guess he wouldn't have done at AG2R. As a fan of him and the team, I hope it works out.
    Yeah, I'd love to see Bardet get some big time success. Possibly worth noting that the most successful French rider for many years is on a Belgian team...

    My point was never "French riders are rubbish", just to be clear, but that French teams tend to be culturally French, which is harder to integrate into than international teams that use a lot of English. Part of that hypothesis comes from listening to the current crop of Danes on why they're successful nationally in the WT (most of them aren't world beaters, yet). Aside from being well trained and professional from an early age they also talk about being fluent in English and comfortable in an international environment. But it's noticeable that they're mainly on more international teams.

    Not sure whether it's also meaningful that quite a few ride on teams that have Danish DSs as well.
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  • m.r.m.
    m.r.m. Posts: 3,312
    edited February 2021

    m.r.m. said:

    Yeah OK sky fanboi.

    Point remains.

    French teams are provincial as they don't have the budget not to be.

    Does Alpecin-Fenix have a bigger budget than the French teams? Seems like they did better in 2019 & 2020. Just blaming the budget seems rather simplistic.
    ...as opposed to blaming innate Frenchness?
    Fair point. It's probably tied to the importance of the Tour and the French teams receiving invites they don't deserve when judged by wins. They aren't really doing themselves any favours; remember the Bardet interview a few years back when he was supposed to be a genuine rival to Froome/Contador etc. where he stated that he doesn't really practice time trialling, because he doesn't enjoy it? All the while when that was his main weakness that always put him out of contention at every GT.

    So, while budget helps the most, teams with lower budgets regularly do better than the French teams. That being said, Katusha has been rather lacklustre as well for example. Then again, who has actually been worse than Cofidis in the last 5 years?
    PTP Champion 2019, 2022 & 2023
  • dish_dash
    dish_dash Posts: 5,551
    I was interested to see what Quintana's race schedule was, turns out the only GT that Arkea-Samsic get to ride is the Tour due to Wild Card allocations.

    Within the context of the discussion above I thought it was interesting that their press release on Tour Alps-Maritime and Haut Var emphasised that they had riders from 5 different nationalities on the squad for those races, in addition to French they have Colombienne (Nairo Quintana, Miguel Florez), Italienne (Diego Rosa) et Belge (Amaury Capiot) et Lukasz Owsian (Pologne).

    Also seeing a shift away from French only squads at AG2R-Citroen and even Total Direct Energies (EBH, Terpstra etc). So think its fair to say that the French teams are also evolving...
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,244
    AG2R are a cobbled classic powerhouse if their roster is to go by.
  • gsk82
    gsk82 Posts: 3,439

    AG2R are a cobbled classic powerhouse if their roster is to go by.

    Who's do you thinks going to win one from that team?
    "Unfortunately these days a lot of people don’t understand the real quality of a bike" Ernesto Colnago
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,244
    edited February 2021
    gsk82 said:

    AG2R are a cobbled classic powerhouse if their roster is to go by.

    Who's do you thinks going to win one from that team?
    So they have GvA, Jungels, Naesen, Gallopin - that's a pretty good foursome going into it.
  • gsk82 said:

    AG2R are a cobbled classic powerhouse if their roster is to go by.

    Who's do you thinks going to win one from that team?
    So they have GvA, Jungels, Naesen, Gallopin - that's a pretty good foursome going into it.
    I put Benoît Cosnefroy way above Gallopin these days.
    Aurélien Paret-Peintre could also be a dark horse in lumpy ones.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,244

    gsk82 said:

    AG2R are a cobbled classic powerhouse if their roster is to go by.

    Who's do you thinks going to win one from that team?
    So they have GvA, Jungels, Naesen, Gallopin - that's a pretty good foursome going into it.
    I put Benoît Cosnefroy way above Gallopin these days.
    Aurélien Paret-Peintre could also be a dark horse in lumpy ones.
    Fair. I thought about including him but I don't remember him being a cobbled guy but more of an ardenne guy.
  • gsk82 said:

    AG2R are a cobbled classic powerhouse if their roster is to go by.

    Who's do you thinks going to win one from that team?
    So they have GvA, Jungels, Naesen, Gallopin - that's a pretty good foursome going into it.
    I put Benoît Cosnefroy way above Gallopin these days.
    Aurélien Paret-Peintre could also be a dark horse in lumpy ones.
    Fair. I thought about including him but I don't remember him being a cobbled guy but more of an ardenne guy.
    What about Gallopin, though? His record in both areas isn't exactly stellar.
    1 top 10 finish in both Lombardia and Milan San Remo.
    Mostly DNFs in the cobbled races.

    https://www.procyclingstats.com/rider/tony-gallopin/statistics/top-classic-results
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • yorkshireraw
    yorkshireraw Posts: 1,628
    edited February 2021
    DeadCalm said:

    DeadCalm said:

    Jumbo Visma might seem very Dutch, but over a third of their riders are non Dutch speaking and the Dutch all speak English if necessary

    Almost half of both the AG2R and FDJ squads are not French. Considerably more than half of the Cofidis squad are non-French riders. But anyway...
    5 of the non French riders on FDJ are Swiss or Canadian, though I don't know that they're all natively French speaking.
    3 of the 20 odd DSs across FDJ and AG2R aren't French.
    Cofidis have done a lot of restructuring in the last few seasons, and their results have improved drastically. Can't be arsed to see if their roster nationality has changed in that time...
    I concede your point on DSs. On the riders, I think you are quibbling.

    It's a sample of one, so won't prove anything either way, but it'll be interesting to see how Bardet gets on under the supposedly innovative DSM regime. He's been training at Teide, something I guess he wouldn't have done at AG2R. As a fan of him and the team, I hope it works out.
    Hopefully they will also point out that as a highly paid professional who's job is to perform in stage races, riding his TT bike every so often would help as well.

    EDIT - as m.r.m. has alluded to above...
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,244

    gsk82 said:

    AG2R are a cobbled classic powerhouse if their roster is to go by.

    Who's do you thinks going to win one from that team?
    So they have GvA, Jungels, Naesen, Gallopin - that's a pretty good foursome going into it.
    I put Benoît Cosnefroy way above Gallopin these days.
    Aurélien Paret-Peintre could also be a dark horse in lumpy ones.
    Fair. I thought about including him but I don't remember him being a cobbled guy but more of an ardenne guy.
    What about Gallopin, though? His record in both areas isn't exactly stellar.
    1 top 10 finish in both Lombardia and Milan San Remo.
    Mostly DNFs in the cobbled races.

    https://www.procyclingstats.com/rider/tony-gallopin/statistics/top-classic-results
    He's had a top 10 in E3 hasn't he?
  • gsk82
    gsk82 Posts: 3,439

    gsk82 said:

    AG2R are a cobbled classic powerhouse if their roster is to go by.

    Who's do you thinks going to win one from that team?
    So they have GvA, Jungels, Naesen, Gallopin - that's a pretty good foursome going into it.
    They've got a decent team to get some placings. But I don't see any of them winning a classic or monument.

    Jungels will probably fade away without Quick Steps blocking, GVA is passed it and Naesen isn't a winner.
    "Unfortunately these days a lot of people don’t understand the real quality of a bike" Ernesto Colnago
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 13,200

    gsk82 said:

    AG2R are a cobbled classic powerhouse if their roster is to go by.

    Who's do you thinks going to win one from that team?
    So they have GvA, Jungels, Naesen, Gallopin - that's a pretty good foursome going into it.
    I put Benoît Cosnefroy way above Gallopin these days.
    Aurélien Paret-Peintre could also be a dark horse in lumpy ones.
    Fair. I thought about including him but I don't remember him being a cobbled guy but more of an ardenne guy.
    What about Gallopin, though? His record in both areas isn't exactly stellar.
    1 top 10 finish in both Lombardia and Milan San Remo.
    Mostly DNFs in the cobbled races.

    https://www.procyclingstats.com/rider/tony-gallopin/statistics/top-classic-results
    He's had a top 10 in E3 hasn't he?
    A 6th in 2014. To go along with a couple of DNFs and a couple of outside the top 20 finishes. Not a great deal to shout about really
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  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,244
    Fair enough.

    I still think having 3 jacks is better than 1 ace in a cobbled classic.
  • Fair enough.

    I still think having 3 jacks is better than 1 ace in a cobbled classic.

    you'd take that AG2R team over WvA or MVDP?
  • andyp
    andyp Posts: 10,069
    Have none of you, bar Rick, paid any attention to Quick Step's tactics over the past five seasons? If AG2R can deploy similar tactics and open up the race and get their 'jacks' in offensive moves then they can neuter the big names behind. They've quietly assembled a really strong cobbled classics squad and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they manage to win big this spring.
  • gsk82
    gsk82 Posts: 3,439
    edited February 2021
    andyp said:

    Have none of you, bar Rick, paid any attention to Quick Step's tactics over the past five seasons? If AG2R can deploy similar tactics and open up the race and get their 'jacks' in offensive moves then they can neuter the big names behind. They've quietly assembled a really strong cobbled classics squad and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they manage to win big this spring.

    It won't work if quick step still have 6 men in the front group. Like it hasn't worked for anyone else with a group of second tier riders such as Sky or BMC.

    Not that I have anything against them. I hope they do well. I hope everyone other than quick step does well in the spring.
    "Unfortunately these days a lot of people don’t understand the real quality of a bike" Ernesto Colnago
  • ddraver
    ddraver Posts: 26,348
    Eddie Dunbar Predicts Flippo Ganna to win UAE Tour...

    (to the derision of Luke & Gee)
    We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
    - @ddraver
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,244

    Fair enough.

    I still think having 3 jacks is better than 1 ace in a cobbled classic.

    you'd take that AG2R team over WvA or MVDP?
    Jumbo vs AG2R yeah I'd take AG2R assuming they don't have injuries. MvdP's team is basically him and Dries De Bondt and Dries is good but not the one.

    It's a great combo at AG2R - Jungels can go from long and you would expect either Naesen or GvA to make the proper selection - they also know the courses so well - their expertise and their commitment to that part of the season will rub off on the rest of the team.