The most over-rated cyclists...

Well it depends on who is rating the cyclists but I have to agree that Hincapie and Cunego have been kind-of underperformers based on their ambitions. Hincapie has yet to deliver a classics win which he has chased for more than a decade now and Cunego hasn't shown anything in the GTs after his Giro win. You can't say that Cunego has failed though. He is a great all-rounder but he has just targeted the wrong races. He clearly doesn't do well in the GTs so why concentrate on them?

Want an underachiever?
Tommy D.

I dont understand why anyone picks Cunego for GTs based on his form in the last few years. As far as Millar goes, assuming we can take Schumacher out of last year's tour then Millar only came second by a split second in the first TT and came fourth in the final TT. Seems fair enough to have him as a favourite.🙂 Since his comeback he has won a stage of the Vuelta and the prologue to the Paris-Nice.

It is interesting how Cunego is talked about so much. I've only been following for the past 5 or 6 years and I really haven't seen him do anything real exciting. They mention him a lot even in this year's Giro. He's probably clean. Big George is a great teammate-that's what he's good at.

Tom Danielson isn't any good when he doesn't have Rick Crawford spinning his blood.

Hincrappie sucks.

The clothing line is hideous, the US media hyped that chump for years.

No_Positives said:

4. George Hincapie - Not a climber, can' t TT, has a modest sprint. What the hell is he then? I guess good enough to have his own clothing line.
3. Carlos Sastre - He won the Tour against the weakest field in history. Big deal.
2. David Millar - Name one thing this guy has won while not on the juice. Yet every TT his name is brought up as a favorite.
1. Damiano Cunego - He sucks. Pure and simple. I don't like his tree-trunk-legs-on-small-body-physique either.

Others?

Naturally I don't agree with several of the views expressed.

Any rider who wins a Giro and a couple of Giri di Lombardia, could not be classed as over rated.
Cunego's won these races.

Sastre?
The mans record in GT's is phenomenal. Consistent top 10 GT finisher.

Millar - when was Millar ever rated?????????????

azdroptop said:

It is interesting how Cunego is talked about so much. I've only been following for the past 5 or 6 years and I really haven't seen him do anything real exciting. They mention him a lot even in this year's Giro. He's probably clean. Big George is a great teammate-that's what he's good at.

He has been the one the Italian media have been pumping up for years. It isn't right, but it is almost funny, because he continues to drop further out of contention on grand tours. Of course he may be the cleanest of all the riders for all I know, but I am preconditioned to not like him because of the favoritism shown. Just the other day they rated some of the big riders at the giro.
I don't have the numbers exactly but it went something like this:
Menchov 9
DiLuca 9
Armstrong 7.5
Scarponi 7.5
Sastre 6.5
Basso 6.5
Garzelli 6.5
Cunego 4.0

What struck me is they left out Pellizotti! and that they included Cunego at all.

limerickman said:

Naturally I don't agree with several of the views expressed.

Any rider who wins a Giro and a couple of Giri di Lombardia, could not be classed as over rated.
Cunego's won these races.

Sastre?
The mans record in GT's is phenomenal. Consistent top 10 GT finisher.

Millar - when was Millar ever rated?????????????

eeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Barry Muzzin.

ilpirata said:

He has been the one the Italian media have been pumping up for years.

That's precisely why he is on the list. It's not that he isn't better than a lot of other riders.

limerickman said:

Millar - when was Millar ever rated?????????????

You must not watch the TdF on Versus. He is picked to win ever TT it seems. I believe Versus even had a special car follow Millar during the first TT last year to do some in-depth reporting or something. I thought Robbie Ventura was in love at the finish by the giddy nature in which he was questioning Millar. You would have never known Schumacher won the stage by watching the TV.

a clean tommy d wins this contest by a mile.

Lets see Millar won a stage of the 2006 Vuelta, was British road and TT champion in 2007 (not that there's much competition). Came second in the Tour of California last year. He's a decent TTist, helps Garmin with their TTTing. But yes, since his comeback from his suspension he really hasn't made much of an impact. Before he got caught he had won the worlds, and 3 TdF stages, plus 3 Vuelta stages so he wasn't a totally useless rider.

Hincapie, consistent contender in the spring classics. Has won Gent Wevelgem. He's more of a victim of the hype idiot Americans try to push on him than anything else. Solid rider, dependable domestique.

Cunego is a good rider. He's won Lombardia 3 times, that's pretty much enough said. Doesn't look like he'll win the Giro again, ever, he should really the Grand Tours and stick to the classics.

Sastre is a great rider. Not on the same level as say, Contador but a consistent performer none the less. Always rides at least two Grand Tours these past few years and does well in both.

Tommy D is definitely overhyped. But he has had two top 10's in the Vuelta plus a stage win there and he's had pretty bad luck when it comes to having long term illnesses so don't write him off. Just don't expect him to be the next Lance like all the Americans do.

Eldrack said:

Lets see Millar won a stage of the 2006 Vuelta, was British road and TT champion in 2007 (not that there's much competition). Came second in the Tour of California last year. He's a decent TTist, helps Garmin with their TTTing. But yes, since his comeback from his suspension he really hasn't made much of an impact. Before he got caught he had won the worlds, and 3 TdF stages, plus 3 Vuelta stages so he wasn't a totally useless rider.

Hincapie, consistent contender in the spring classics. Has won Gent Wevelgem. He's more of a victim of the hype idiot Americans try to push on him than anything else. Solid rider, dependable domestique.

Cunego is a good rider. He's won Lombardia 3 times, that's pretty much enough said. Doesn't look like he'll win the Giro again, ever, he should really the Grand Tours and stick to the classics.

Sastre is a great rider. Not on the same level as say, Contador but a consistent performer none the less. Always rides at least two Grand Tours these past few years and does well in both.

Tommy D is definitely overhyped. But he has had two top 10's in the Vuelta plus a stage win there and he's had pretty bad luck when it comes to having long term illnesses so don't write him off. Just don't expect him to be the next Lance like all the Americans do.

wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

In my opinion, I see Valverde as overrated. He is actually similiar to Cunego in terms of an excellent 1 day rider, but he is a little bit more solid as a stage race rider.

Before everyone talks about Cunego's Giro win, lets examine that win. The 2004 Top 10 was one of the weakest Top 10 I have ever seen. Remember, that Bradley McGee Finished in the Top 10 of that Giro. A Prologue specialist finished Top 10... The only real competition he had was no competition because it was Simoni who was his teammate. The day he went back into pink with the 70 km escape around stage 15 (I dont remember the stage number), nobody chased him because they knew as soon as they got close, Gilberto was going take off.

1. Damieno Cunego
2. Serguei Gonchar- Only time ever competed for podium was in the Giro. He was consistent, but that was due to his TT skills.
3. Gilberto Simoni- His teammate, so was forced to play defensive
4. Dario Cioni- This to my memory was his highest finish in a Grant Tour, and I believe his only time in the Top 5.
5. Yaroslav Popovych- Has 1 podium finish in a Grand Tour which was the previous year Giro. I believe this was his last Top 10 finish in a Grand Tour.
6. Stefano Garzelli- Only winner of the a Grand Tour before and after in this Top 10 that was not on Cunego's team.
7. Wladimir Belli- Similiar to Gonchar in terms of a consistent Top 10. Maybe one podium finish in a Grand Tour, not including the Giro the one he was kicked out while in 3rd.
8. Bradley McGee- By far his best finish in a Grand Tour (Well maybe he had close to this type of finish in a Vuelta). This was the performance of the year to me, he completely rode out of his body to stay in this position.
9. Tadej Valijavec- Again a consistent 8th-12th place finisher, nothing more, nothing less.
10. Juan Manual Garate- Memory serves me correct, no podiums, and i dont think he has ever finished in a Top 5.

IN fact the only other Grand Tour podium finishers that even finished this race was a 40 year old Pavel Tonkov, Eddy Mazzoleni, and Marzio Bruseghin. This was an unusual Giro in terms of the smaller number of climbing stages (this was the Giro Petacchi won 9 stages). ONly 3 Mountaintop Finishes, and the only one that was more then 6 percent gradient as a finish was Bormio 2000.

Cunego was on great form with the right course at the time right time. THe man earned his victory, but the expectation thrown upon him was beyond his capabilities. The reason for the hype was this giro was 3 months after the death of Pantani, so the tifiosi was wanting to find the next Marco, and Cunego was the guy who received that spotlight. HE still is young, so if starts to put his focus on stage wins instead of overall, and go for the Classics, he can turn out to be 1 of the greatest Classics riders, but he has missed out on multiple Ardennes Classics because he was aiming his form at the Giro instead of 3 weeks earlier.

Capt.Injury said:

Cunego was on great form with the right course at the time right time. THe man earned his victory, but the expectation thrown upon him was beyond his capabilities. The reason for the hype was this giro was 3 months after the death of Pantani, so the tifiosi was wanting to find the next Marco, and Cunego was the guy who received that spotlight. HE still is young, so if starts to put his focus on stage wins instead of overall, and go for the Classics, he can turn out to be 1 of the greatest Classics riders, but he has missed out on multiple Ardennes Classics because he was aiming his form at the Giro instead of 3 weeks earlier.

Agreed. He has still managed to put out a decent major climbing stage peformance from time to time since 2004 - 2006 alpe d'huez and 2007 zoncolan come to mind - but he should stick to classics.

as to millar, the guys at versus/Outdoor network have always had a giant hard on for him. if you watch the 2002 WCP Tour dvd's, they make metnion of how millar is doing after almost every stage just for getting a top 10 in a flat stage. even when he's `2hrs back in GC they make special mention of hm as his dropping of the back on a climb. hes decent but get over him.

most overrated????? Pippo Pozatto.

Jean Francois Bernard.

swampy1970 said:

Jean Francois Bernard.

Great call, I remember the hype around Jeff during the late 80's. Touted as the next great French hope after Hinault but fizzled and never lived up to expectations. Turned out to a fine (super) domestique for Big Mig though.

No_Positives said:

4. George Hincapie - Not a climber, can' t TT, has a modest sprint. What the hell is he then? I guess good enough to have his own clothing line.

I agree with Eldrack on Capie - he's a good domestique, road captain, team leader type guy.

I think Big George is a good guy and people want him to do well, but he just isn't elite.