Originally Posted by
Racer Ex
The winner's list from L-B-L begs to differ, as does the finisher's list from Amstel. Front to back throw Lombardia in there and look at what Rodriguez did. Not a bad GT season either.
Races like Flanders and Roubaix have become so specialized, I can't think of a GC guy that I'd pick as a strong favorite if they showed up there.
LBL is more of a non-classics classic, simply because you have to climb well to win it. It's enough of a climber's race that the favorites include those that are not complete riders but just climbers.
Lombardia is more along the lines of a classic, as is Flanders,
PR, etc. Those are races that legit Grand Tour contenders could contest and even win, although that's back in the days of slightly less specialization. It's hard to classify true GT contenders because taking bags of blood out will take a rider out of form for a good week or two, and to get the 2-3 bags they've talked about for a GT you need a couple months to pull out blood. This knocks the guys out of some significant portion of the spring season, which may be why they were missing those events.
I actually think of Rodriguez as an old school racer, ditto Nibali. From what I can see they can actually race.
With true talent totally obscured I have no idea who would be a true GT type rider today that could contest a
PR or a Flanders. I look at a Lemond or Hinault as the last of the non-EPO/boosted riders that won a GT. They could leverage their enormous FTP / VO2Max to be competitive in a wide range of events. They had the power to handle a
PR. They could win a Lombardia. They could be in the mix in other Classics. I don't see that talent now, clearly superior compared to the others. In 1985 it was just them. In 1986 again, with Roche slotting up behind. 1989 started getting weird, with unusual guys making inroads. By 1990 it got a bit skewed, with guys like Indurain (version 2, as compared to the Indurain of previous years), Bugno, and Chiappuci getting into the mix.
There's a lot of changes other than the racers. The UCI points system suddenly made lower places significant, especially when there was a "general rule" that one UCI point was worth $1000 in salary. If you didn't get some points you may not get paid as much. Etc etc. A long discussion.
I finished my initial hijack response just before leaving for the team meeting. Now I'm typing a response just after Junior projectiled his day's intake. Now I need to clean up and go to bed.