Zabel second

In article , "trg"
wrote:

Actually, Voelkler wasn't doing more than his fair share of work. His
greatest talent is to make it appear like he does more work he does. He's a
very clever rider ("malin" in French). I am constantly reminded of the way
he won the French nationals a few years back. It looks like he's giving it
all he's got , but he's really holding back. Did you see how he was often
last in the climb, struggling, but always managed to make it back? And then
on on lap where he was behind Cano and Cano got dropped, he bridged the gap
with ease.

On French Eurosport there was in fact a discussion of this prompted by a
viewer's question. And Jacky Durand and the other expert (Bernadeau?)
basically said that he works less than the others, but makes it look like he
works more, including in the World's.

So if he was just a bit stronger, he'd be dangerous. He has shown moments of
having pretty fair tactical smarts. Add that to good acting skills and he could be
someone to watch for. I'm not all that certain he'll ever get that much stronger,
though.

--
tanx,
Howard

Never take a tenant with a monkey.

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?

Howard Kveck wrote:
In article ,
RonSonic wrote:


On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 19:33:07 GMT, Keith wrote:


On Sun, 24 Sep 2006 08:27:13 -0700, "Robert Chung"
wrote:


Who'd'a thunk?

yeah, poor guy, the excellent Swiss commentator Bertrand Dubout (I
skip France2/3 and Eurosport to watch cycling on TSR now, these guys
crack me up) was howling, "Zabel, le Malheureux" in his microphone !

Kinda makes you wonder how Zabel could spoil a chance like that
though, Bettini certainly deserved to win after breaking loose twice,
but Zabel should be able to beat him in a sprint, same goes for
Valverde of course.

Everybody underestimates Bettini as a sprinter. The guy has a tremendous
acceleration. The only way you're going to beat him is by being a great
sprinter yourself and timing it out perfectly so that he can't come around
on you.


That's true, but I'd add that he's a very strong sprinter at the end of a very
long day. Being strong at the end of a moderately long race in the middle of a GT is
one thing, but having punch at the end of 265 or more km is another thing altogether.

The interesting thing for me is that he could win a race like LBL, but
when he goes for similar stages in GTs, he always comes up short. It
may have something to do with the kind of riders he's up against, but
then again, he has won mountainous classics over Tour contenders.

Sonarrat schreef:

Howard Kveck wrote:
In article ,
RonSonic wrote:


On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 19:33:07 GMT, Keith wrote:


On Sun, 24 Sep 2006 08:27:13 -0700, "Robert Chung"
wrote:


Who'd'a thunk?

yeah, poor guy, the excellent Swiss commentator Bertrand Dubout (I
skip France2/3 and Eurosport to watch cycling on TSR now, these guys
crack me up) was howling, "Zabel, le Malheureux" in his microphone !

Kinda makes you wonder how Zabel could spoil a chance like that
though, Bettini certainly deserved to win after breaking loose twice,
but Zabel should be able to beat him in a sprint, same goes for
Valverde of course.

Everybody underestimates Bettini as a sprinter. The guy has a tremendous
acceleration. The only way you're going to beat him is by being a great
sprinter yourself and timing it out perfectly so that he can't come around
on you.


That's true, but I'd add that he's a very strong sprinter at the end of a very
long day. Being strong at the end of a moderately long race in the middle of a GT is
one thing, but having punch at the end of 265 or more km is another thing altogether.

The interesting thing for me is that he could win a race like LBL, but
when he goes for similar stages in GTs, he always comes up short. It
may have something to do with the kind of riders he's up against, but
then again, he has won mountainous classics over Tour contenders.

It's a question of timing. After the spring classics he lacks
freshness to overpower Giro and Tour contenders on classic-like stages.
The Vuelta on the other hand is his preparation for the Worlds, Zurich
and Lombardy.

Sonarrat wrote:

The interesting thing for me is that he could win a race like LBL, but
when he goes for similar stages in GTs, he always comes up short.

he doesn't win all the time, no one does.

but he is a "big race" rider who can come up with the win even when
he's the most favoured and marked (olympics, LBL, worlds).

wrote in message
s.com...

Sonarrat wrote:

The interesting thing for me is that he could win a race like LBL, but
when he goes for similar stages in GTs, he always comes up short.

he doesn't win all the time, no one does.

but he is a "big race" rider who can come up with the win even when
he's the most favoured and marked (olympics, LBL, worlds).

Moreover, a 2-4 km power climb in the Ardenne is substantially different
than a 60 minute, 15 km climb in the Dolomites. Riders talk about it in
interviews often; the extra hour of racing in a classic makes a huge
difference in who can win. Sastre, Leipheimer, Landis, Kloden, Basso and
that ilk are great climbers but are never going to be a realistic threat in
the final run in to the finish of a classic.

Using LBL and Lombardia as the 'mountainous classic' examples we see that:

LBL - prior to Vinokourov's victory in 05 and Valverde this year, you need
to go back to Hinault in 1980 for a GT guy to win it. This assumes we don't
count the two dopers (Hamilton 2003; Berzin 1994) or Sean Kelly (1984 and
1989) who won in Spain but was he really a true threat to actually win the
TdF or Giro?

Lombardia also only has widely scattered GT men. Cunego in 2004, Rumsas in
2000 (he was clean wasn't he?), Jalabert (1997), Rominger (1992) and finally
Hinault in 1984.
-Mike

Keith wrote:

Kinda makes you wonder how Zabel could spoil a chance like that
though, Bettini certainly deserved to win after breaking loose twice,
but Zabel should be able to beat him in a sprint, same goes for
Valverde of course.

I have a good picture of Bettini chilling at the back of the pack on the
first hill of the fourth lap (1 meg) and a short video of the final
sprint from the 300 meter line, where Bettini is still in fourth
position (33.5 megs). I'll send them to the first person who can host
them. I was about 10 meters from the Bettini fan club when they heard
the news. I think his mom almost kissed me.

Kyle Legate wrote:
I was about 10 meters from the Bettini fan club when they heard
the news. I think his mom almost kissed me.

Have you been there long enough to pass the Gringioni test
of foreign language fluency?

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...d95c7dae74017b

Bob Schwartz

In article , Sonarrat wrote:

The interesting thing for me is that he could win a race like LBL, but
when he goes for similar stages in GTs, he always comes up short. It
may have something to do with the kind of riders he's up against, but
then again, he has won mountainous classics over Tour contenders.

Kenny and Amit both gave good reasons for this, but I'll add that there really
aren't many stages in a GT that actually compare to a classic. The length and the
typs of climbs are different (usually). Mike Owens also gave a good reason why your
choice for the Belgian team, Wim van Huffel, wasn't a realistic choice. He's good at
the sustained climbs seen in a GT, but those guys rarely can make up enough ground
on guys who're good at repeatedly doing the short, sharp climbs that are found in a
circuit race like Worlds.

--
tanx,
Howard

Never take a tenant with a monkey.

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?

Bob Schwartz wrote:
Kyle Legate wrote:

I was about 10 meters from the Bettini fan club when they heard
the news. I think his mom almost kissed me.


Have you been there long enough to pass the Gringioni test
of foreign language fluency?

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...d95c7dae74017b

Bob Schwartz

I admit, I've been cutting classes, but I do recognise a mistake in the
referenced post. Subconsciously, I must be fluent but I feel dirty
speaking German.

Howard Kveck schreef:

In article , Sonarrat wrote:

The interesting thing for me is that he could win a race like LBL, but
when he goes for similar stages in GTs, he always comes up short. It
may have something to do with the kind of riders he's up against, but
then again, he has won mountainous classics over Tour contenders.

Kenny and Amit both gave good reasons for this, but I'll add that there really
aren't many stages in a GT that actually compare to a classic. The length and the
typs of climbs are different (usually).

Agreed. What is het highest climb in a classic? The Jaizkibel? The
Jaizekibel is even a climb they do with the big gear. There is no
classics climb that compares to a 1st category Tour climb. But on the
other hand i would like to see how e.g. the Koppenberg affects GT
riders like Ullrich or Cunego. That's a climb that really cutts of a
rider's legs.

Not only the type of climbs, there are simply no stages with a 260km
distance. I truely believe in this 200km mark where classics riders
distinguish themselves from the stage riders. A GT stage has like an
average distance between 180 and 200km. Only a single flat stage can
sometimes be 240km long.

Kenny