c'mon Johan, tell us how you really feel

"Bob Schwartz" wrote in message
...
Jonathan v.d. Sluis wrote:
"Bob Schwartz" wrote in message
...

Jonathan v.d. Sluis wrote:

"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in message
m...


Bruyneel via
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?...ct05/oct28news

"When I think back on all that, it's been the same scenario for them
for years. A French rider hasn't won the Tour in 20 years. Why?
Simple, they haven't been good enough.


Good enough at what however, he chooses not to reveal.

You have no evidence for what you are implying here.


That's right. I have no evidence. Not even sure what I was implying, but
your sensitive ass seems to know very well.

Well, since you've chosen not to reveal exactly what you meant,

You didn't ask, but here goes:

Bruyneel doesn't even begin to explain why French cyclists haven't won the
tour for 20 years. Saying 'they are not good enough' is like saying that a
car drives because it moves. He's just being spiteful. I don't see why there
should be a reason that makes people born in France ride slower, but if
Johan Bruyneel can come up with a credible theory, he should present it. But
he doesn't. He just prefers to jump on the 'The French are assholes'
bandwagon and score easy points with some retarded people, the same idiots
who like to blame a nation for the fact that EPO was traced in their
favorite athlete's pee.

I had to rely on my sensitive ass. And in this case, I think
my ass is pretty accurate.

Although it appears to be less sensitive than yours.

Good enough at what however, he chooses not to reveal.

Yeah, I was really going berserk there.


Bob Schwartz

Wrong Jonathan - France for all it's size relative to other European
countries isn't that big a place and the athletic talent pool is
necessarily limited.

And being football crazy it pays the average athletically inclined
Frenchman to follow a career path in Football and not Cycling.

That is the real basis of France's poor showings.

The thing that struck me about France was that I didn't see ONE SINGLE
recreational cyclist on a high quality bicycle the entire two weeks
proceeding the Tour de France entry into Paris. I was driving around
secondary and trinary roads all the way to Nice and back and around
Dijon - all good cycling territory - and NO cyclists.

I didn't see real recreational cyclists until the day before the Paris
leg. The bicycle shops I found in Paris were small and without a stock
of bicycles that you'd expect in any shop in the USA.

In Switzerland I saw thousands of cyclists riding around Lake Geneva in
a couple of hours. Belgians and Dutch I spoke to told me that it was
similar in Holland and Belgium.

But in France - NOTHING. Talented athletes are rare in any case and
when you don't even have the skill base to chose from it's pretty hard
to find a winner in a sport as hard as cycling.

"Tom Kunich" wrote in message
ups.com...
Wrong Jonathan - France for all it's size relative to other European
countries isn't that big a place and the athletic talent pool is
necessarily limited.

And being football crazy it pays the average athletically inclined
Frenchman to follow a career path in Football and not Cycling.

That is the real basis of France's poor showings.

That's an intelligent remark, Tom, and I did not read it from Johan
Bruyneel.


The thing that struck me about France was that I didn't see ONE SINGLE
recreational cyclist on a high quality bicycle the entire two weeks
proceeding the Tour de France entry into Paris. I was driving around
secondary and trinary roads all the way to Nice and back and around
Dijon - all good cycling territory - and NO cyclists.

They must have been exhausted from riding all around the country when I was
there.


I didn't see real recreational cyclists until the day before the Paris
leg. The bicycle shops I found in Paris were small and without a stock
of bicycles that you'd expect in any shop in the USA.

In Switzerland I saw thousands of cyclists riding around Lake Geneva in
a couple of hours. Belgians and Dutch I spoke to told me that it was
similar in Holland and Belgium.

Still neither country has been able to produce a GC rider that has been able
to give an equal performance to the best French GC riders in the last
decade...


But in France - NOTHING. Talented athletes are rare in any case and
when you don't even have the skill base to chose from it's pretty hard
to find a winner in a sport as hard as cycling.

Again, if Bruyneel had said something like that, he would have had a point
at least worthy of debate. But he was just showing what a pitiful kind of
man he really is.

"Tom Kunich" wrote in message
ups.com...
Wrong Jonathan - France for all it's size relative to other European
countries isn't that big a place and the athletic talent pool is
necessarily limited.

And being football crazy it pays the average athletically inclined
Frenchman to follow a career path in Football and not Cycling.

That is the real basis of France's poor showings.

The thing that struck me about France was that I didn't see ONE SINGLE
recreational cyclist on a high quality bicycle the entire two weeks
proceeding the Tour de France entry into Paris. I was driving around
secondary and trinary roads all the way to Nice and back and around
Dijon - all good cycling territory - and NO cyclists.

I didn't see real recreational cyclists until the day before the Paris
leg. The bicycle shops I found in Paris were small and without a stock
of bicycles that you'd expect in any shop in the USA.

In Switzerland I saw thousands of cyclists riding around Lake Geneva in
a couple of hours. Belgians and Dutch I spoke to told me that it was
similar in Holland and Belgium.

But in France - NOTHING.


I've rode several times in France and I have always met French cylists
everywhere. And by the way, how is het possible that thousands of cyclists
are riding around Lake Geneva without passing through France?

Benjo

Tom Kunich wrote:
Wrong Jonathan - France for all it's size relative to other European
countries isn't that big a place and the athletic talent pool is
necessarily limited.

And being football crazy it pays the average athletically inclined
Frenchman to follow a career path in Football and not Cycling.


So how does that account for 2 different winners in a sport that is a
red-headed stepchild in the USA?

I don't think he meant "all the way around" Lake Geneva, more like "in
the vicinity of".

B. Lafferty wrote:
If you've read Daniel Coyle's book, you know that Armstrong had an exclusive
contract with Ferrari that prevented Ferrari from working with any other
rider who was a threat to win the Tour.

That was the other part of Sigmund's message. Stop reading all
those damn books and give him a call.

Bob Schwartz

Why are you reading books that tell you stuff you already know?

"Jonathan v.d. Sluis" wrote in message
l...
"Tom Kunich" wrote in message
ups.com...
Wrong Jonathan - France for all it's size relative to other European
countries isn't that big a place and the athletic talent pool is
necessarily limited.

And being football crazy it pays the average athletically inclined
Frenchman to follow a career path in Football and not Cycling.

That is the real basis of France's poor showings.

That's an intelligent remark, Tom, and I did not read it from Johan
Bruyneel.

And yet you did. He reported the truth - that there aren't any French racing
cyclists that are up to the competition and that's the simple truth.

The thing that struck me about France was that I didn't see ONE SINGLE
recreational cyclist on a high quality bicycle the entire two weeks
proceeding the Tour de France entry into Paris. I was driving around
secondary and trinary roads all the way to Nice and back and around
Dijon - all good cycling territory - and NO cyclists.

They must have been exhausted from riding all around the country when I
was there.

Well then explain this - I have a fellow engineering friend who took a leave
of absense and rode around France for four months back in the 2001 summer.
When we were discussing his and my trip I asked about the dirth of cyclists
there. He said that they were so rare that while riding through Carcasonne
he passed another cyclist heading the other way and they were so surprised
that both stopped in the middle of the street and stared at one another.

At the final stage I was talking to a rather nice Frenchman who turned out
to prefer to say he was from Britanny. He said that in that area there were
still cyclists but that, indeed, in the rest of France there were very few.

Perhaps while riding there you saw some cyclists but I'd warrant it was
nothing like Holland or Switzerland.

But in France - NOTHING. Talented athletes are rare in any case and
when you don't even have the skill base to chose from it's pretty hard
to find a winner in a sport as hard as cycling.

Again, if Bruyneel had said something like that, he would have had a point
at least worthy of debate. But he was just showing what a pitiful kind of
man he really is.

Johan is obviously a man of few words and expects a hand in front of the
face to be visable to anyone with eyesight.

"benjo maso" wrote in message
...

I've rode several times in France and I have always met French cylists
everywhere. And by the way, how is het possible that thousands of cyclists
are riding around Lake Geneva without passing through France?

I was in Lausanne. Americans use the term "around" to mean the same as
"about". You have to much English in your English.

"Carl Sundquist" wrote in message
ups.com...

Tom Kunich wrote:
Wrong Jonathan - France for all it's size relative to other European
countries isn't that big a place and the athletic talent pool is
necessarily limited.

And being football crazy it pays the average athletically inclined
Frenchman to follow a career path in Football and not Cycling.

So how does that account for 2 different winners in a sport that is a
red-headed stepchild in the USA?

I suppose if you think about it, it would be plain. Europeans have won a
great deal more of the Tours than Americans. And Europe on the whole has a
much greater group of cyclists to chose from than the USA.

Think about this - the list of great European cyclists is almost endless and
yet you can only write perhaps a half dozen Americans:

1. Lance Armstrong
2. Greg LeMond
3. Andy Hampsten
4. Bobby Jullich
5. Davis Phinney
6. Tyler Hamilton

That's not especially good in a country of 240 million people.