Wannabe Bike Girl

Oh, for god’s sake.

After finishing third in the recent Tour of Spain, Evans, who rides for the Belgian Silence-Lotto team during the regular season, clearly came to this race in top condition. But few picked him as a possible favorite since he, well, never wins. The French sports daily L’Equipe gave him a measly two stars out of five, on par with the modest French rider Sylvain Chavanel, another rider that has trouble winning.

This is pulled from this article on the Bicycling.com website. I get that Cadel Evans has trouble winning major races, but to compare him to Sylvain Chavanel is laughable. I don’t know who the author is or what research he did, but Sylvain has never really been a challenger for a GT. He probably never will be, he’s more of a classics rider. He had an amazing 2008 and a decent 2009, and to be honest, he’s won at least once race or stage almost every year since he went professional. But I’m not trying to establish if Sylvain’s better than Cadel Evans, because you cannot compare them.

Cadel’s a GT racer. He’s been fourth, third and second in the Tour De France and third and fourth in the Vuelta a Espana. You cannot compare their results. Just because a rider “has trouble winning,” doesn’t mean he’s bad. Sure, L’Equipe was right to rate both Sylvain and Evans low, after all, neither of them are dominating riders. But for fuck’s sake, don’t say that they both have trouble winning. They’ve both won stages the tour, they’ve both done moderately well. It’s not like Evans hasn’t won a race in his whole life.

We won’t even get into the ‘modest’ thing either. I’m sorry, but just because a rider is French and hasn’t won the tour doesn’t mean he has trouble winning. Maybe Evans does, but don’t compare them. It doesn’t work. Apples and oranges are both fruit, but they’re nothing alike. Sylvain and Evans are both cyclists, but guess what? They’re nothing alike, either.