2025 European Championships ***SPOILERS***

[phreak]

The other thing about Big Mig was that he only dominated stage races and at that point we only got about an hour a day of the Tour anyway. We didn't get to see him smother Paris-Nice or the Giro, so we could appreciate his greatness without having to watch it for hours on end 😜

It was noticeable that he did "okay" in Liege and some of the hilly classics, but only up until his first Tour win. He generally skipped them from that moment on, despite stage 7 in 1995 clearly showing he could still ride incredibly in that kind of race.

 

[mididoctors]

I always thought Indurain was a bit unfairly maligned. Yes, he smashed everyone in the time trials, but I recall he rode everyone off his wheel on a hilly stage to Liege once, did likewise to Hautacam and La Plagne. He perhaps doesn't get the credit for those rides as he didn't actually win the stage on any of them, but he did show himself on non-TT stages.

The liege attack showed how much conservative racing tactics had perhaps hidden his true class. The 1995 tour was good

 

[mididoctors]

When have we had a dominant rider lose that dominance for 2 years then regain it ?

 

[No Ta Doctor]

I watched the tour this year and it was pretty hard to find a stage where nothing much was happening though out the stage ..."active racing" has never been so prevalent

Oh for sure, but the Tour has always had the sideshows of jerseys and stages, and despite the GC looking sewn up fairly early Visma kept pushing to see if they could force a crack. I can remember a few years back when the Giro-preferrers used to say that one of the things they liked about the Giro was how chaotic it was, how there would be all out attacking every day from the flag, no this formulaic "form a break, catch a break, contest the stage" thing that the Tour did. Well that's what the Tour has looked like for a while now as well, but twice as hard

 

[mididoctors]

After Jonas winning that TT people were saying pog could not win a tour again

 

[Dan Lotus]

I think it has already been mentioned, but given how dominant he is, I do wonder if he will get bored at the lack of challenge, and retire early.

Hopefully in the next 1-2 years there will be some actual proper competition for him (Either known suspects or young guns), which would not only be better for the viewer, but may encourage him to keep going for longer.

 

[Pross]

Isn't about unpredictability? I grew up (in cycling terms) in the Pantani era, and it was exciting because he'd normally ship big time in the TTs and be on catch up in the mountains. By the time of the 99 Giro and he was winning literally every MTF, it wasn't quite as exciting.

When you kinda know the outcome before the race has started, it ceases to be exciting.

The main difference I can see with Pog is that he is the favourite in most races he does. However, there hasn't been that many periods I canb recall where there hasn't been a dominant rider in the GTs and another one in the Classics. People were bored when Canc or Boonen went off on 30km solo victories. At the other end of the scale we have the ones where the riders are criticised for not trying to go until the final km or so, then there are the races won by the likes of Rog, Valverde, Costa, Gerrans etc. where the winner would wheelsuck until the final 200m. I think what people want is Pog tactics by someone who isn't as good. Cycling is full of rose tinted glasses of an era when racing was better but I'm not sure that's happened in the best part of 40 years that I've been watching.

 

[phreak]

The liege attack showed how much conservative racing tactics had perhaps hidden his true class. The 1995 tour was good

Even in the '94 Giro, while he was attacked relentlessly by Berzin and Pantani, it was Indurain who led the chase over the Mortirolo. His climbing was really under-rated.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

After Jonas winning that TT people were saying pog could not win a tour again

People do say some silly things though.

When have we had a dominant rider lose that dominance for 2 years then regain it ?

Well it was pretty much only the Tour he lost dominance in - if you mean '22 and '23
In that period he rode his first Flanders and came fourth, then won it the next year and is now the favourite when he shows up to it.
He won Lombardia twice, rode LBL once and crashed out (impacting his TdF performance that year). He also won Strade Bianche, La Fleche Wallonne and Amstel and both the one week stage races he rode (Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico)

But really, his complete dominance only starts in '24

 

[Dogtrousers]

I think what people want is Pog tactics by someone who isn't as good.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there.

I'm a huge fan of Alaphilippe btw

 

[mididoctors]

I think you've hit the nail on the head there.

I'm a huge fan of Alaphilippe btw

Lol

 

[mididoctors]

People do say some silly things though.

They were not lone voices

 

[mjr]

I said the same thing to my wife. I think, in fairness, you have to be pretty invested in it to find it interesting. It's not something you can just sit down and watch - unless there are helicopters and a château, and dancing cheeses etc.

That's why good commentators, presenters, TV directors and host broadcasters are so good.

Instead the UK now has TNT and maybe one of one of those for the grand tours and a few other races, plus France TV as host broadcaster for the Tour. The Euros in the UK? None.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Some years ago I read a piece claiming that statistically Don Bradman was the Greatest Greatest Of All Time. The G-GOAT. I think it was this one:
https://significancemagazine.com/did-don-bradman-s-cricketing-genius-make-him-a-statistical-outlier/

He compared Bradman's dominance with the level of dominance of some other notables like Jack Niklaus, Roger Federer, Dan Carter ...

Unfortunately he didn't include cycling so Merckx didn't get a look in.

Bradman came out well ahead, but I'm suspicious of the author's method. It involves finding a single representative stat (in the case of cricket - batting average, golf - major wins, rugby - points per game ) and seeing how far from the overall average for the sport each star was. So it's massively dependent on your choice of stat.

There is also extra arbitrary skulduggery that he engaged in. He compares Bradman's average against the average of the population of batsmen who had scored over 2,000 (international) runs. He doesn't explain how he jiggled the stats for other sports.

He then figures out how many standard deviations the star's stat is from the mean of the stat for the chosen population. (Z score)

I'm not sure what stat you'd use for cycling. Total wins of GTs and Monuments maybe. And what population would you compare with? Riders with at least one win maybe? Would you just count GTs as a single entity or broken into stages? I don't know. Meh.

Tl;Dr I read an article that I thought was a bit rubbish. It didn't mention cycling.

All in all a bit of a pointless post.

Edit: I think I've figured out a way to prove conclusively, using mathematics, that Cav was better than Bradman. It will take me a while though. ....

 

[yello]

Tl;Dr I read an article that I thought was a bit rubbish. It didn't mention cycling.

I've found a lot of articles don't. Especially the ones I read. But then I don't read articles on cycling. Is that where I could say ipso facto? I don't read articles on Latin either.