i don’t have anything to add except that this post made me laugh. which is good :-)

what was z’s useless escapade yesterday, btw? didn’t read the deets on the race, just the results.

Perhaps it was intentional that his solo move simply blew himself up and did nothing to help his team which then could have played into GH’s favor. DZ is a smart guy and a good friend.

Yes, DZ has had less than a stellar year, but “most” over-rated professional, I don’t know. He certainly was stellar Saturday. And I don’t think he’s necessarily over-rated, it’s just that he is very popular. But hey, it’s your rant. I’ll get back with my pick, this might take some time.

Just not sure which one yet ;)

not sure Dave Z’s romp was useless. Everyone was looking for Garmin to control the race, so in turn, they sent Dave Z up the road solo so they could at least take the first half of the race off and rest. If someone else went up the road from another team, then Garmin would have spent the whole race chasing. I think it was very sound strategy, they just didn’t have the team. in fact, I never understood how people ranked their team so high. Sure they had numbers, but they had no closers. They had a team full of domestiques. Not going to win many races without someone that proves they can win a road race.

As for overrated cyclists: Frank Schleck.

His big-time reputation does not reflect accurately with his big-time wins. I know he’s a huge favorite around these parts, and I know he has won some impressive races (Amstel Gold, 2 stages of the TdF), but I think the novelty of the “Schleck brothers” contributes to him being over rated and heaped unwarranted praise.

Frank Schleck is good at climbing and good at one day hilly races. However, he is not great at these things, which makes him a really nice rider, but definitely overrated.

asshat couldn’t achieve anything without doping, he got away with it a few times and still was a big enough dumbass to do it again. Massive fool.

as a team is way over-rated quite frankly. Just my opinion.

Btw R Mc, did you race in Wichita Falls over the weekend?

    I can only conclude that Linus Gerdeman is incredibly way over rated. I can say that with great confidence because I spent 14 points on him for my VDS team and I doubt he’s scored that many points where I spent 6 points on David Zabriskie and at least he’s scoring a few points.

And taking into consideration injuries to the likes of Ballan, Armstrong, Freire, etc you’d have to pick in order:

Stuart O’Grady- Cost: 6 points and has earned exactly 0 points so far. He had 22 takers at 6 points
Gustav Larsson- Cost 12 points, earned 27 for 2.25 PPS He had 4 takers at 12 points
Giovanni Viscounti: Cost 10 points, earned 52 for 5.20 PPS. he had 5 takers
Linus Gerdemann: Cost 14 points and earned 120 for 8.57 PPS. He had 18 takers at 14 points
Enrico Gasparotto: Cost 8 points, earned 75 for 9.38 PPS. He had 21 takers.

So those guys above were the only riders who weren’t injured or suspended who had a less than 10 PPS. So you could say that they were the most overrated riders thru the VDS lense. However the number of players who picked these guys must be noted so that Larsson and Viscounti at any rate were not valued as 12 and 10 point riders by the people who play VDS. The other three though…

Other cheaper riders (4 pointers) who have yet to score a point this year and are unjured and so qualify for overrated are:

4 pointers: Dessel, Lopez garcia, Pozzovivo, Baliani (no one picked him though), Steegmans, Cesar Velasco, Anton, and Kiryienka. Again several of these can still win some at the Vuelta. But clearly Steegmans who was picked by 48 players (10 most popular pick of riders worth 4 points or more) was overrated.