TommyL

+1. Thor also made the comment that he wanted a team where he fit in socially. He and Gilbert are friends and training partners, so maybe it willl be easier on those occasions that they do have to share.

Mithrandir

Yikes. That's ridiculous.

cyclezen

vaughters choice to not ride Thor in the Vuelta and let others ride who will be GC next season? right on
no other choice to be made.
Thor made his move, now gotta work around the consequences.
I'm sure there are secondary races he can do, while the vuelta's runnin, on his own dime.

...not sure what advantage one gets by jumpin ship in beginning Aug...
maybe he thought he'd not be as 'shiny' in early Sept as he is right after the TDF.

Dubbayoo

Starting to look like Thor should have stayed put. I'm pretty sure he didn't sign on to BMC for this....

Hushovd not to participate in 2012 Tour de France?

wxduff

I'm pretty sure Thor wants to focus on the classics. And if Gilbert joins the team are they BOTH going to be left out of the tour de france? I think cuddles might not get his way on this one.

Kind of Blued

Why the hell do people keep implying that it's even a possibility in this universe for Thor to win the Tour de France? Maybe they mean have the WHOLE TEAM work to get Thor stage wins or the green jersey, but when the defending champ is on your team, there's no way the whole team is going to work for a guy to get the green jersey and stage wins.

Did Thor lose 35 pounds in the last three weeks and not tell anybody? No? Ok, he's not going to win the Tour.

And why can't Thor and Gilbert ride as monster-domestiques? Are they such loose cannons that they won't do what they're told by the people that pay them?

wxduff

I'm pretty sure they would be wasted talent as a domestique. They win stages and classics. I'm sure Cancellara would do the same thing if he wasn't mr tt.

And I'm pretty sure the people who pay the bills (the sponsors) didn't call Vaughters when Thor won the mountain stage this year and ask him why he wasn't taking pulls for Tommy D. It would be different if these guys lost every time they worked from themselves, but they don't. They WIN.

sjvcycler

lol way to put people straight.

TommyL

You can't be on as good a team as BMC and expect to have everyone work for you in every race. If Thor thinks BMC is going to ride for him at all in the Tour, then he didn't take enough time to think things through.

And comparing Tom Danielson to Cadel Evans? That's just silly.

Obviously BMC will come to the Tour with a team full of guys committed to getting Evans the win. If Thor wants to be a part of that, I'm sure he will be invited. If not, well, there are many other races in which the team will be behind him.

eddiepliers 

Thor should have signed with FDJ. They could actually use him for the tour.

ultraman6970

Thor knows he wont win the TDF ever, people should know that he wont win it ever but in him BMC has a good 1 day race guy that can win almost anything, so what evans says kind'a makes sense. BMC needs somebody to win short stuff and classics, sadly evans is not that type of guy, either way i think thor would be a good addition for the team if he runs the next tdf, a domestique that actually can win stages is always a good asset, right?

Dubbayoo

I don't think anyone, even Thor, thinks he can win the Tour. The reality is he has won a stage in the Tour every single year going back almost a decade. He does warrant being a protected rider for stages he can win. To think he's going to be fine sitting at home next July and being a spectator to the biggest race on the calendar is ludicrous. I'd bet the keys to my car Thor didn't sign on to BMC knowing he wouldn't make the Tour roster.

Kind of Blued

Maybe he'll protest by starting a Norweigan "Tour de Thor" in July.

TommyL

Good points. My guess is that he will be there in July, but he will have to be working for Cadel most days. On the days he is loosed to go for stage wins, he will have to do it alone.

I agree that he wouldn't sign with BMC if he thought it meant missing the Tour, but he'd be crazy to sign and expect the team to support him much there. As good a Tour as Thor had, Cadel did win yellow. BMC's primarily objective will be to defend yellow again.

Teams like Garmin try to be a jack of all trades only because they know they are master of none. This is not the case with BMC.

FWIW, Thor is my favorite cyclist, and Garmin is my favorite team. I'm not trying to pile on, I'm just telling it like it is.