Leipheimer

Funny you mention this I was thinking the same thing along with Landis and DaveZ.... it appears that Americans think if you are a US rider and not riding for DC then you're un-american.... they cheer Hincapie/Armstrong and TommyD but Landis gets no love and along with LL..... seems strange to me.... DaveZ won the Tour prologue last year and got nothing ! He won a TT at the Giro and got nothing..... tough love from the US fans....

wicklow200 said:

Browsing various cycling message boards, I noticed one or two comments recently hoping LL would NOT do well in the DL or Tour, would lose lots of time in the mountains etc

Is it just a coincidence or has he done something to deserve this other than just looking like a foetus?

Is he known as a wheel sucker, a friend of Dr Ferrari or what?

Thanks

Leiphemier has been the most consistent US GT rider of the new century, in my book.
Invariably he finished in the Top 10 and Top 20 and has performed consistently well when he was his various teams.

In respect of DC being an American team : they've an American sponsor, but the majority of it's riders under the Motorola, USPS and DC guise were/are European.

limerickman said:

Leiphemier has been the most consistent US GT rider of the new century, in my book.
Invariably he finished in the Top 10 and Top 20 and has performed consistently well when he was his various teams.

In respect of DC being an American team : they've an American sponsor, but the majority of it's riders under the Motorola, USPS and DC guise were/are European.

The counter of that would be CSC ,an American sponsored European team.
The world has gone mad!
Of course you can argue that CSC is multi-nationaland headquartered in the US.

whiteboytrash said:

Funny you mention this I was thinking the same thing along with Landis and DaveZ.... it appears that Americans think if you are a US rider and not riding for DC then you're un-american.... they cheer Hincapie/Armstrong and TommyD but Landis gets no love and along with LL..... seems strange to me.... DaveZ won the Tour prologue last year and got nothing ! He won a TT at the Giro and got nothing..... tough love from the US fans....

Before feeding us your usual anti American bigotry, why don't you find out who these people are who supposedly don't like Levi. I'm American and I'm a fan of Levi and Landis and Zabriski. I like seeing any of them win as much as a Disco. I also like watching the riders from many other places. As usual your perception is tainted by your anti American obsessions.

wicklow200 said:

Browsing various cycling message boards, I noticed one or two comments recently hoping LL would NOT do well in the DL or Tour, would lose lots of time in the mountains etc

Is it just a coincidence or has he done something to deserve this other than just looking like a foetus?
Thanks

So who are these people that dislike Levi. Where are they from? Who do they support? Did you ask any of them what they have against Levi?

I started out loving Lance and US postal then DC, but that's all I knew. I only started riding just over 4 years ago and in the US you got Lance. Now that I've spent time here, various over cycling sites and on Cycling.tv/, I appreciate riders from everywhere and could care less if they are American or not. Dave Z won the TT today and I was happy for him because it was a stellar effort, not because he's an American.

wicklow200 said:

Browsing various cycling message boards, I noticed one or two comments recently hoping LL would NOT do well in the DL or Tour, would lose lots of time in the mountains etc

Is it just a coincidence or has he done something to deserve this other than just looking like a foetus?

Is he known as a wheel sucker, a friend of Dr Ferrari or what?

Thanks

I can't believe people would hope that he doesn't do well... that seems crazy. LL is such a quiet guy that it is hard to feel one way or another for him. Maybe they hate animals (LL and his wife do some animal rescue stuff).

I dunno. LL just gets no press coverage. How many times has LL appeared on the cover of ProCycling or CycleSport? Hell, it seems easier to get info on Jason McCarthy than LL.

whiteboytrash said:

Funny you mention this I was thinking the same thing along with Landis and DaveZ.... it appears that Americans think if you are a US rider and not riding for DC then you're un-american.... they cheer Hincapie/Armstrong and TommyD but Landis gets no love and along with LL..... seems strange to me.... DaveZ won the Tour prologue last year and got nothing ! He won a TT at the Giro and got nothing..... tough love from the US fans....

The attention that Hincapie and TomD gets in comparision to Landis,Levi, DaveZ has to do with the obsession of Discovery by WBT and others on here. We need a new poll..... What is the biggest and most important thing in cycling during the 2006 season ...

Jan's gut???? Or Discovery's situation?

As far as DaveZ getting more press, I think the fact he is a specialist in a very boring aspect of the racing world has something to do with it. He is never considered a contender for the overall and really does not alter the outcome of a race. Even when he wins, the race is not altered for the contenders.
TonD is seen as a rider with some potential. And Landis gets plenty of press.

......but Leipheimer ought to receive more coverage......and that is WBT's point I think.
Leipheimer is consistently performing in the GT's for example.

Consider even Bobby Julich's 2005 season.
In relative terms I thought he should have gotten more coverage for his great season than he actually did get.

limerickman said:

......but Leipheimer ought to receive more coverage......and that is WBT's point I think.
Leipheimer is consistently performing in the GT's for example.

Consider even Bobby Julich's 2005 season.
In relative terms I thought he should have gotten more coverage for his great season than he actually did get.

I think that there is a good reason for Levi's coverage. He is always consistent in the TTs and the climbs, but you almost never see him blow open a TT stage or a climbing stage. He puts in good, but not spectacular, performances every day. Then at the end of the race he is usually well placed. Media people want to focus on the spectacular, not the consistent.

But concerning hostility to Levi, that is another matter. I would like to know who these people are and why they feel that way before jumping to any conclusions.

I'm an American and also a fan of Leipheimer, I have no beef with Americans riding for European squads.

limerickman said:

......but Leipheimer ought to receive more coverage......and that is WBT's point I think.
Leipheimer is consistently performing in the GT's for example.

Consider even Bobby Julich's 2005 season.
In relative terms I thought he should have gotten more coverage for his great season than he actually did get.

You're right but... i interviewed Leipheimer during the Gerolsteiner team presentation and he is a really nice guy. The problem for the media (& his sponsor!) is: LL just want to ride his bike and doesn't like all the fuzz around it... To make it clear: he is easy to interview, i had no problems with it: if you have to write a story about Levi for a cycling magazine or website about races and bikes no problem but if you're from a mainstream newspaper in a country where Cycling is a minority sport - which are most countries on this planet - than you have a problem.... (By the way i could talk for hours with LL about technical bike stuff)

People will always have their favorite teams and riders and to a certain extent nationality will play a role in that. Riders clearly come from certain nations, but to say that any team in the peloton is from a particular nationality is a bit dubious. Look at any team and they field riders from many different nationalities. To say that it is un-American to ride for some team other than DC is then a bit ignorant. Besides that if there is only one team which can be considred American then that would limit the number of American leaders in the peloton at any one time to just one.

I look at where cycling was back in the Lemond days and where it was just five years ago compared to where it is now and things are looking pretty amazing. Before we have had essentially only one contender in the peloton. Now for the past several years we have had 3 Americans leading 3 different teams at the TDF in the same year. Nothing un-American about that.

I have never read anything negative about Levi. In fact Lance boosted him a lot last year and said he was riding the strongest of any of the Girona crowd, which was true with his results in Dauphine and TdF last year.

On the Courchevel climb last year, I think Lance may have even slowed up and let him and Basso reconnect although I am not sure.

Levi is great. Landis seems to be trying the PR thing more like Armstrong but I think is the more talented rider-compared with Levi.
Dave Z has a huge fan base particularly with I've noticed guys who actually race. He could be a huge star.

And yes, Danielson has the whole PR thing behind him which I think may actually be hurting him, compared to if he were with a small team and rode less conspicuously and then did well it would be better. Instead he rides for the IBM/General Motors whatever of cycling. And everyone keeps expecting the next Lance. There are a LOT of folks with huge engines and high VO2 and great watts who never do [censored] in big races. Ask Brad Wiggins.

Armstrong thrived on the show and the PR, not so many other riders do, to Lance that was at least half the fun. Most of the other guys are a bit nerdy.

I think people do like leipheimer, he doesnt get as much attention from the media because he doesnt want it! you never hear him promise this and that ' im going to win the tour blah blah blah' hes just a good professional who gets on with his job.

bobke said:

And yes, Danielson has the whole PR thing behind him

I dislike TD. He's presumptuous and tries (not necessarily successfully) to characterize for the media what his own performance were like and why. He always seemed to be sucking up to LA way too much.

musette said:

I dislike TD. He's presumptuous and tries (not necessarily successfully) to characterize for the media what his own performance were like and why. He always seemed to be sucking up to LA way too much.

Getting to close for comfort to your man, eh? 😄

saluki said:

I think that there is a good reason for Levi's coverage. He is always consistent in the TTs and the climbs, but you almost never see him blow open a TT stage or a climbing stage. He puts in good, but not spectacular, performances every day. Then at the end of the race he is usually well placed. Media people want to focus on the spectacular, not the consistent.

But concerning hostility to Levi, that is another matter. I would like to know who these people are and why they feel that way before jumping to any conclusions.

if you look at how he lost his fifth place finish on the last day of the tour last year, it would make you think that Levi doesn't have the [censored] that the media wants to see. But a month or so later when i read the Velonews article about how he won the Tour of Germany, they made it seem like he wiped the floor with Jan in his home country.

Bottom Line: I think the American media is really fickle and always looking something to be talked up. when a guy is quiet but strong, there isn't too much to talk about. Thats why loudmouths like Tommy D get a lot of media, without actually having the results to back it up.

I read through this a little bemused.

America is flush with talent right now, especially in respect of GC and also ITT.

But Americans require a winner, and, just at the moment, there isn't anyone who can do that. Not in a grand tour.

I think Landis is the best of a very talented group; but even he lacks that little extra to push him up with the likes of Jan and Ivan. My intuition tells me that Zabriskie is the man for the future, a grand tour winner. Of course, I will be lacerated for this suggestion. But I do believe he is the best TT rider on the planet, and his climbing is already good, and can become much better.

I'm just not convinced that the rest of the American hopefuls -- Landis, Leipheimer, Danielson -- can improve.