Bardet and Pinot PHOTO / LIONEL BONAVENTURE
That is my question. Both want to be considered great cyclists, not great French cyclists. It is a cruel and heavy burden to be an excellent French cyclist. When are you going to win the Tour de France? Bernard Hinaults don’t come around very often, maybe never again. Hinault was the French Merckx; winning was everything. If he was not a cyclist he should have been a professional fighter. Fignon was called the professor because he was from Paris and wore glasses, not because he was an intellectual. He managed to win some Tours and not be a badger. He was not out happily slugging protesters. If Hinault had lost to Lemond by eight seconds…one, it wouldn’t have happened. Hinault would have burst his own heart to finish nine seconds faster. Two, if he had lost by eight seconds, he would have slugged Lemond so damn hard it would have put him back in the hospital.
I hope the French are happy they have any prospective Tour winners. The Americans have none. Most countries do not because it takes a special genetic freak in a sport of genetic freaks to be one. The English had to sweep their post-colonial, high altitude Kenyan supply system to come up with one. Of this French pair I have a bias toward Romain Bardet partially because he rides for AG2R and on Keepers Tour 2012 we met directeur Vincent Lavenu. VL seemed a good sort and for inexplicable, Rule ignoring reasons, I sort of like their kit, but I digress.
Thibaut Pinot and Romain Bardet: both 24 years old, both stage winners in the 2015 Tour, both prodigious climbers, both saddled with the “next French hope” mantle.
Judging from this edition’s Alpe d’Huez stage, Pinot actually may be be the stronger climber. If you can ride everyone off your wheel on Alpe d’Huez, you are a badass. For climbing style points, Romain wins. He is solid and smooth to Pinot’s lack of. Going downhill, if you try to pedal through a corner and catch your inside pedal (and crash) doing so, points off. Bardet descends like Philippe Gilbert, that is to say, avec grande vitesse et les grand testicules.
Being the best climber or best descender does not make a grand tour winner. A grand tour winner does not have to be the best at anything, just very capable at everything. And not sucking at anything, like descending or time trialing and not having a jour sans.
Can either of these guys time trial? If Pinot can he should, by all rights, be one podium step closer in Paris than Andy Schleck* ever got. There is a large leap between a top ten Tour finish and a podium finish. It might be a larger leap from the third podium step to the top. Pinot and Bardet are in this mix.
Neither of these guys seem like punch throwing firebrands like Hinault, which may be good. Then who can better handle the pressure of being the next Fignon?
*I can still make fun of Andy Schleck even though he retired, yes?
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Like fine wine, perhaps they need to age a little?
I think I'll go with Pinot but it's a tough call. I was very impressed by the way that Pinot kept his cool after the big crash on stage 3 and he lost a lot of time, I thought he was going to get all huffy and whiny. He didn't. He kept the heid and rode hard for the rest of the race. Chapeau.
@wiscot
Err you did watch stage 4 or is there a typo above?
Pinot and Pinot Noir, both!
They are both capable, but will never do it with a French team, I've never seen either name linked to a team with the budget it seems you need to win a GT.
And surely Tony Gallopin is the most exciting French rider.... if only a tour lasted 2weeks
AG2R... sort of like their kit? Hmmmm. Brown shorts? And the other cat in white shorts? All very suspect.
It's the two Lotto teams that have it right. At least on the bottom half. But dang, the yellow and black Jumbo jerseys w/lotto balls on top of the perfect celeste bikes just doesn't get it. I swear that the new Specialissima is certainly in the top five of good looking modern C bikes.
Cheers for the weekend
Three points:
1. Lest we forget, GB first won the Tour with Bradley Wiggins who is as British as they come, despite being in Belgium and having an Aussie dad.
2. Andy Shleck is down in history as having won the 2010 Tour de France, so it would be hard for Pinot to be one step higher on the podium in Paris.
3. As @Teocalli has pointed out, Pinot was less than sanguine when things went wrong. I think Bardet handles crises far better from what we've seen so far of them both.
Other than that, great article! I'd go with Bardet as the "Great Hope" myself, although think Gallopin has more to offer than his eventual Tour collapse showed...
Can we call this a Burgundy (Pinot) vs. Bordeaux (Bardet) debate and prate on about wine instead of bourbon and whisky? I’ll add my tasting notes after the second bottle…
Well thankfully Sports Illustrated will have neither on the cover (owing to their allegiance to sports with higher profit margins and true ignorance of out sport) which would not subject them to the curse on performance which would then follow. Perhaps no more severe than being the "Next Big French Hope" which is likely the worst curse, poor bastards.
@chuckp
Absolutely, a few more years and they will either have cracked completely or Rule V'd their way toward the top...or not.