For the three other cycling fans on the board
Yesterday I ran a search of the fastest all time climbs up Mont Ventoux. The list was dominated by riders in this year's Tour, with many of them significantly beating the best times from the top riders during the doping era. 17 riders broke the one hour mark, making it the fastest collective day on that segment. Of course times have changed and the training methods, nutrition and bike technology is much improved from 20 years ago. I sure hope that what we are seeing is legit.
Tadej is just on another level. His dominance is remarkable.
On a personal note, I recently rode Colorado's legendary Triple Bypass. Amazing event...a one day suffer-fest. Best feeling ever to cross the finish line (other than big ND victories).
Link: https://www.triplebypass.org/
Replies to: For the three other cycling fans on the board
Two quotes:
1. Back in the late 1940s/early 1950s, a reporter asked the great Fausto Coppi if riders dope. Coppi responded, "Only when necessary." The reporter followed up with, "How often is that?" Coppi said, "All the time."
2. One of the two notorious "trainers/coaches" of the 1990s, Luigi Cecchini, supposedly said this when asked what it takes to be a professional cyclist in Europe: "First, you have to get really, really skinny. Second, you need a lot of rest/sleep. Third, you must dope. The last is regrettable, but nonetheless true."
I made my peace on this a while ago.
I think anyone who really trains hard has some understanding of what an undertaking it is to ride a grand tour. It's horrific. Undoped, the hematocrit levels of riders plummet. That's just in one grand tour. Many of these guys with ride the Giro and then the Tour, or ride the Tour and then the Vuelta. Each within weeks of each other. It isn't possible to do, in my humble opinion, without chemical assistance.
I still rank Eddy number one all time, but Pogacar is approaching his status.
Unfortunately, we're always going to wonder in these cases.
When Jonas Vingegaard -- one of my favorite cyclists ever -- generated that "anomaly" in the 2023 individual time trial, it was difficult not to scratch my chin. He was 98 seconds faster than 2nd place and almost 3 minutes faster than 3rd.
Hard to avoid the obvious questions when this happens out of nowhere.
Exactly!
I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers that. I always point to that day as perhaps the day that Tadej decided to up his game (whatever that means).
That result was simply otherwordly. Here you have Pogacar besting the best in the world by over a minute....and JV beat him by 1:38! Things like this just do not happen naturally.
Nonetheless, I've enjoyed following the TdF this year. Nice to see Matteo do so well and it will be interesting to see if he bolts to be the lead rider elsewhere.
Interestingly, Vingegaard's time up Ventoux two days ago was a good bit slower than his time in 2021
Weather conditions and other factors affect times, of course, but I don't think he has or probably will ever regain the form he had prior to the crash early last season. Froome was never close to the same after his terrible crash. Egan Bernal has never been the same, though he has been better this season.
I think Vingegaard is at a crossroads. He has to decide what he wants in his career. He focuses almost exclusively on the Tour. That will mean runner-up placings, at least until Pogacar is done. Mercx's greatest rival was Felice Gimondi, who won the Tour on his first try and won five grand tours overall, along with Paris-Roubaix, Milan-San Remo and Lombardy twice. He was set to be the next dominant champion after Jacques Anquetil. Then, a couple years later, along came Eddy. Gimondi tried and believe he could best him Eddy's first couple seasons as a pro. Then Gimondi accepted that Eddy was just better and resolved to still go against him and wait for the odd bad days for Eddy, and steal wins. Vingegaard can try that approach, or he can go after the Giro or Vuelta and some Classics and the World's. I would choose the latter. Late in his career, when Alberto Contador would eventually be too far behind to win the final GC in the Tour or the Vuelta, he would chase stages. He had no more interest in runner-up than 172nd place. He wanted wins only, not placings. I think that's how I would approach it if I were in that position. I hope Jonas and his team and sponsors choose that approach.
It may well go that way for him.
I think there's another decision to be made first: Is he willing to descend with (measured) recklessness again? It's WAY easier to approach those descents with abandon until you experience a major drop, let alone one that was life-threatening like Jonas' was. He doesn't need to be a psycho like Tommy Pidcock about it, but he's going to have to shake those yips to some degree if he ever wants to win the T.D.F. again. And if he decides he can't, then maybe switch up his goals and consider chasing Cavendish's record or something else worthy like that. It'd be sort of like when Smoltz opted to change to the Closer role - you can continue a fulfilling career in a different way.