2016 'PRO' cycling discussion.

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wingguy
Posts: 4318
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 11:43 pm

by wingguy

Sacke wrote:Maybe Nibali has a killer instinct that is necessary to fight through the pain at the end of a GT, and the resilience (and pride) to do everything to prove critics wrong.


More likely his body is just stronger than Chaves' at the end of three weeks.

Chaves is 26 and (including this) has finished 4 GTs in his career. Nibali is 31 and has won 4 and finished 14. It's not strange that he's got better legs at the end of the race than Chaves, IMO.

boots2000
Posts: 1393
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:28 pm

by boots2000

I can't say that I am excited by this.
Astana and Nibali = Armstrong/Postal.

by Weenie


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wingguy
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by wingguy

So what does that make Kruijswijk, who would have beaten him by 4 minutes?

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tymon_tm
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Joined: Tue Sep 05, 2006 4:35 pm

by tymon_tm

lol Nibbles appears least - i dont know - robotic, juiced, whatever from all the recent GT winners. he has form swings like a normal human. he has mood swings like a normal human. theres not a hint of a mindless programmed gladiator - neither in his riding nore his behavior. he didnt dominate the race, he won it. just look how close it was, could've gone completely different way if it wasnt for Kruswijks and Zakarins crashes. and Astana wasnt even close to last years dominance. yes they still might be juiced but at least it doesnt show. USPS or SKY, these were the pharm fests, completely different breed of cycling from what went on during this Giro
kkibbler wrote: WW remembers.

maquisard
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Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 8:51 pm
Location: France

by maquisard

Indeed, Nibali today was around 5.5-5.6 W/Kg on the Lombarde. He was simply the strongest in what has been a war or attrition.

Contrast this to some of the 6 W/Kg+ Froome summit finishes in recent tours. I would still always be much more suspicious of Froome than anyone else.

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Fixie82
Posts: 348
Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2013 3:45 am

by Fixie82

wingguy wrote: That's nonsense. You absolutely, 100%, cannot tell who's doping because of their personalities. Especially not their media personalities. The nicest guy in the world could just be a great actor doped to the gills and the biggest anti-social dickhead could be clean as a whistle. It means nothing.


Nicest guy example = Hincapie

Anti-social dickhead example = Cadel

Actually Cadel does seem a nice guy but he did get the nickname Cuddles for a reason

Haydn
Posts: 252
Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2015 10:08 am
Location: UK

by Haydn

bikewithnoname wrote:
Haydn wrote:Yes Scarponi deserves credit in this race


Sticks in my craw a bit to congratulate someone that's on both Ferrari and Fuentes' mailing list to be honest.



Fair enough, I don't know whether he is cheating or not but I was just impressed watching him & his team over the whole race.

KWalker
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Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:30 pm
Location: Bay Area

by KWalker

boots2000 wrote:I can't say that I am excited by this.
Astana and Nibali = Armstrong/Postal.

They ride absolutely nothing alike as a team.
Don't take me too seriously. The only person that doesn't hate Froome.
Gramz
Failed Custom Bike

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LeDuke
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Joined: Sun Oct 07, 2012 2:39 am
Location: Front Range, CO

by LeDuke

KWalker wrote:
boots2000 wrote:I can't say that I am excited by this.
Astana and Nibali = Armstrong/Postal.

They ride absolutely nothing alike as a team.

Did we watch the same Giro last year?

There were occasions when they had 5 guys in the GC riders' group of 12-15.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

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Kjetil
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by Kjetil

Kjetil wrote:Shark's going to eat them both.
I was wrong. Shark ate them all.

Great race, the Giro. Only three week tour that is really rewarding to watch, I think.
Regarding the general Astana suspicions, here is a snippet of something I heard trough the grapevine: Sky has been considering Nibali and found him fine, but Aru too hot to handle.
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Gylne Gutuer, the UCI 1.2 bike race I invented.

wingguy
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by wingguy

That doesn't make any sense. Sky have no place for Nibali, and Nibali has no use for Sky. Lose-lose situation

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Tinea Pedis
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by Tinea Pedis

Remember when Nibali was chastised, earlier in his career, for being too impetuous. Not timing his attacks and needed to become more clinical if he was to be a Grand Tour threat. Not to say he wasn't before yesterday, but what I watched was a seasoned racer put his younger competitor ruthlessly to the sword.

Only to see him be labelled as a doper (admittedly more so on other social mediums than on here).

There was not a shred of evidence you could point to this Giro to say 'there, look, that's not normal!'. And in spite of Astana's past, their tactics in the last week were first class. Especially yesterday, with Kangert up the road for the coup de grâce.

Who knows what happens in the future, but for now it was a class recovery from a very accomplished and intelligent racer.


As for Chaves, what a classy fellow he is. No excuses. Sublime humility. World sports need more guys like him.

https://www.facebook.com/SBSCyclingCent ... 884253427/

even if he didn't ride for Orica I'd say I've found my new GC rider to root for.

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Kjetil
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by Kjetil

It makes perfect sense for Sky to be on top of the rider market, and they do go pretty deep into backgrounds and profiles. trying to avoid cases like JTL, actually.

Exactly, Tinea.
Bianchi-Campagnolo
The Specialissima
Gylne Gutuer, the UCI 1.2 bike race I invented.

maquisard
Posts: 3767
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 8:51 pm
Location: France

by maquisard

They didn't look too closely at Henao and he is now in the process of receiving a bio-passport sanction...

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ave
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Joined: Sun Dec 28, 2008 10:15 pm
Location: Hungary

by ave

I saw no miracle yesterday.
I mean Valverde and especially Uran was just 13 seconds behind Nibali.
It wasn't that Nibali was that super, more like Chaves wasn't.

Anyhow, it was an amazing day, and an amazing Giro. Superb!

by Weenie


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