I know, I know. It's the thousands list which is going to be made but! (...) this one is definitely a good one for the  long, cold, freezy and dark winter coming(and let's be honest.. It only put away the Roma-Lazio thread so note mucho dealos.) . It's also a tad early but now there are still people around. It's a long and dark winter but keep the spirit high. Just over a month and than the TDU starts!!! Hooray.... I think. Well if that is what it take to let me dislike football again I'm fine with it. (Can you believe a Dutch team was knocked out in the 90+6 minute! By a header! From the opponent's keeper! Neither did I.. I almost cried... That was a lie.. To make it more dramatic.. And so more perfect.. So you would liked it...) But on the thread thing.

Nominate away. Nominate funny, informative, crazy, out-of-the-box, worthy, Off-topic, On-topic, Lance, non-lance.. Whatever you want. If there is animo for it we do a poll..  Ooh.. The thread has to be in 2009! For the nominations of 2008 click here for questions click here and for some moral support click here. Of course I will start with my personal favorite!

 

Gavia's report of the Solvang Time Trial! Because c'mon.. Anyone who can come up with this

is reaching the perfect/utterly Briljant!..  Serious Gav! 

Well.. I spoke eeh write way to long. Off to a start.

All credit to Gavia and totally stolen from wielerflits.nl

There are teamjerseys leaking out for the year 2010. How do they look like and is it a improvement and.... are the white shorts finally banned? 

Wielerflits visitors have already found some jerseys. I will post them here and you can finish hte job.. Hopefully (:

Team NetApp:

via cdn.media.cyclingnews.com

Sky??? I doubt it..

via www.cyclingweekly.co.uk

And because I like the track jersey much bieno: Sky Team Hoy???

via www.cyclingweekly.co.uk

Team Radio Shack: Or maybe not.. (This one would also be very cool)

via www.plaatjesupload.nl

A very small team Bob's bicycle shop.. (Would they exists on CQranking?!)

via bobsbicycles.com

There are a little less than I thought.. Maybe all waiting for their presentation of 2010? They can;t be that lobg away with the new cycling season just 1,5 month away 

Disclaimer, hey I like them!: I used opinions from posters to make a sort of case. No offence intended. And I was a little suggestive. I hope you don't mind..

I was looking through my old posts. Why? Because I wanted to know how bad my English was and I found 2 interesting posts who are deserving an evaluation. This post is going to be about Astana, GT's, expectations and opinions.  

Post found here

The post was about ranking the strength of teams in the year 2009. I ranked the teams teams based on their strength to see how they were going to perform and how strong they would be in sections of the year. After some puzzling this was the results:

	Spring	3-luik	Suisse/Dauphine	Grand Tours	WC and Lombardia	Total
Astana	3	0	10	8	3	24
Caisse	1	9	8	7	7	32
Liquigas	4	2	7	9	3	25
CSC	8	8	4	9	8	37
Quick-Step	10	0	4	4	0	18
Rabobank	7	7	5	7	8	34
Silence-Lotto	9	5	8	6	6	34
Katusja	6	5	3	5	5	24
Lampre	8	8	0	5	10	31
Team Colombia	6	7	7	8	0	28

1. SaxoBank 37
2. Silence-Lotto/Rabobank 34
3. Caisse D'Epargne 32
4. Lampre 31
5. Team Colombia 28
6. Liquigas 25
7. Astana/Katusja 24
8. Quick-Step 18

How far of was I? To the moon.. and back he said. Some points, not yet the real deal

1.  Yeah you see it right.. Freaking Silence-Lotto was second in the list! The last 5 races of the seasons not included they were Silence..
2.  Lampre.. Who is that Gaspa guy again? He fooled me.. And Cunego is a little overvalued no? Yeah.. 
3.  Team Colombia.. Uuh.. If we look back they should have 10 at least in all those categories.. But I didn't see it coming.. Well that's life. 
4. The others seem solid in place. Or did I miss anything?

Well.. Now getting to the real point of the post. Their was a discussion about the Astana GT ranking. I ranked Liqui with a 10, you are not a Basso fan are you?! Was it so obvious?, but put them down to 9. Astana stayed at 8.. The question is.. How did they do this season?  
Expactations:

Honestly

I expect they’ll win all three. Can’t say I’m hoping for it, but I’d be more surprised if they didn’t win than if they did. -jsallee00

 

All three for sure

How much of each podium is all I’m wondering. - Sminer:

 

Well this is a forward projection for 2009

obviously so the ranking is based partly on what you expect to happen. If Basso rides the Giro/Vuelta – he’s not riding the Tour where Conador will be trying to hit his peak for the year -double, I think he’s capable of winning both. If that’s the way one thinks why shouldn’t Liquigas rank ahead of Astana? It’s all speculation and semi-educated guesswork of course but that’s fun. That’s why we play VDS. - Rothko

Me? As the numbers suggested not so keen at Astana's chances in the Giro and Vuelta.

Numbers:

Giro:

Leipheimer 6th, The Old men 12th

Tour:

Won TTT, Contador won 2 stages, Overall: Contador 1st, The Old men 3rd, Kloden 6th

Vuelta:

Navarro 13th, Zubeldia 14th

Evaluation:

They were superior in the Tour. No doubt about that. Winning the Tour with 4:30 and a half team who also ended on the third place is one of the most superior Tourwins I have seen. The other GT's, Giro to begin:

We have seen a lot of Astana's.. Who were surrounding The Old men. We also saw The King of California who struggled. A day for the loooooonnngggg TT he was in pole position for the win. After that he had to climb and it went downhill, obvious one of the reasons why everybody passed him... uphill... Disappointing for Levi. The Old Men did what everybody expected with a solid 12th place.

La Vuelta.. With only Zubeldia powered up a solid top 5 place was max. He failed in his missiion to ride top 10 without seeing him. Navarro, who knew!?, became 14th...

Verdict:

Up to you.. Has Astana saved their whole season in the TdF? (and their subpar perfomances in La Vuelta and Le Giro) Was it good enough? Were the expectations too high?! Etc, etc? 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Still interested? (I was planning to avoid this part because it now looks I want to make my point...... and wanted to focus on the Astana question)

The Liquigas/Astana case.

This is going to be a close call.. Who has the best performances in the 3 GT's? Liquigas or Astana? (Well maybe Saxo or Rabo but that's again an other case)

Expactations:

High on my side. Serious. I thought they would won 2 GT with Basso, have a competetor in the jersey competitions in 2 GT's and have still a lot of talent left in the Tour with Kreuzi and Nibali.. They were going to be Da Bomb in the year 2009.

Numbers:

Liquigas

Giro d'Italia

Pellizotti: Stage 17 and 2d overall, Ok this may be not OK...

Basso 4th overall, See Pellizotti

Tour de France: Overall: Nibali 7th, Kreuziger 9th

Vuelta a Espana: Overall: Basso 4th

Evaluation:

Basso was not as good as expected. Still he was 2 times 4th in a GT which isn't bad. Also with a podium spot for Pellizotti in the Giro and 2 top 10 in the Tour this was a very strong GT team. Too bad Benna-ouch wasn't there to relief their pain for stage wins.

Verdict:

Up to you. Were they better than Astana?

De Fauw has commited suicide. De Fauw rode in Grenoble just  2 days ago, where he become seventh with Marc Hester, and was mulitple Belgian National Champion.  

2 years ago he was involved in a heavy chrash with Isaac Galvez. Isaac Galvez died of his injuries and this brought de Fauw in a deep depression. He struggled with this depression for a long time.

He was just 28.

via www.dewielersite.net

I hope you found your rest.

Found a guestbook on his site.