In this years TDF, who has your vote as the hardest? Not in a fight or bar brawl – purely on the bike. The bloke with the biggest capacity to suffer.

1. Jens
2. Cadel
3. Fabian

The default answer is of course 1), but Cadel riding with a fractured elbow means i'm going to vote for him.

Jens definitely
If Boonen was racing he'd be up there

Jens's efforts yesterday were mammoth

Jens, gotta be! Kudos to him yesterday, just being able to hang onto Schleck and Contador is something else, let alone do a turn on the front!

Hushovd always seems to be much higher in the GC than a sprinter should be, that takes some doing.

Hansen? He rode out the stage when he was pretty bust up….

Hard to tell with Evans – he never looks comfortable. He has either a really uncomfortable style or just the ability to did deeper. Last year when was riding after his big fall was just incredible.

Cancellara? Pretty boy. (a stunningly fast one though :))

some good examples of 'proper' hard men here;

http://www.bigringriding.com/

some nsfw language but images are ok;

I find it hard to deviate from 1, but since winning the rainbow jersey, I think Evans has transformed himself away from being such a defensive rider – think of his efforts on the Zoncolan during the Giro, or his riding with a fractured elbow yesterday.

Chapeau you Aussie whinger..! 😉

Sammy Sanchez looked pretty hard yesterday, he was in a world of pain by the end!

out of the 3 Jens, but the bloke who did a huge turn on the front for Astana on sunday gets a mention too

Daniel Navarro, he's been awesome actually, massive turns on the front, on consecutive stages whilst shelling everyone out the back, that must be quite a depressing thing to do day after day, he's clearly no slouch!

Hushovd is a clever rider, much less pure bravado than Cav, like getting into breakaways like yesterday to pick up points, I think he's a more worthy winner of the green jersey than Cav I must admit!

Text I sent to mate yesterday:
'I love jens v, he's immense'

I agree with rocketdog, that astana domestique did a right old turn on sunday and then some more again yesterday. I caught his name yesterday but it escapes me at the moment.

Re Evans: do hard men cry?? 😉

EDIT: damn my slow typing! Thats the one, njee

Hardmen do cry yeah.
Bigringriding is a brilliant site.

Navarro was one who slipped my mind. A right work horse.

Some good entries for the gurning championships on that site waswas
I don't get this obsession with pain though

I think Tyler Farrar has been riding with a broken elbow for a few days now

That big ring site is brilliant.

The FIRENZO MAGNI story on the second page is unbelievable.

Have you seen that vid of lance binning it ? Hard man for getting back up from that. But Jens as always has balls of steel.

Which lance crash? The one where Jan Ullrich waited for him. Lance got up, rode on and promptly pulled his feet out his pedals coming close to smashing his jewels but still rode everyone into the ground?

From the bigring site (author's caps, not mine)

JENS’ BIG RING IS 56. HIS REAR CASSETTE IS 11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-12.

JENS NO LONGER HAS A SHADOW BECAUSE HE DROPPED IT REPEATEDLY UNTIL IT CLIMBED INTO THE SAXO BANK TEAM CAR CLAIMING A STOMACH AILMENT AND RETIRED.

And Jens doesn't get road rash. The road gets Jens rash.

+ everyone mentioned above but esp to evans at this year's giro – hard as a bucket of nails. no mention of stuart o'grady or did i miss it?

i heard simon gerrans had fallen off the other day, got carted off to hospital with a suspected broken cheek. wasn't so no matter, gets on bike with a fat face and a black eye then subsequently falls off 7k into the avoriaz stage, breaks his arm but finishes anyway

and i found this
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/gallery/2010/jul/07/tour-de-france-crashes
lloyd mondory's (l) cheek – that has just got to hurt!

Default answer is Jens. If there were more like him, we'd all be speaking Deutsch right now.

+1 for Navarro.

Schleck's attacking of Contador yesterday (and Sunday for that matter) took some doing.

And of course Chavanal and Pineau. Just because they're French doesn't mean we should ignore them.

There's a whole bunch of them that are hard enough that they'd keep riding until the point of physical impossibility. Jens is certainly amongst that lot, as probably are Evans, O'Grady and plenty of others whose names don't spring to mind.

Impossible to separate once it comes to that really.

Jens once had a heart attack on the Tourmalet. Jens counterattacked repeatedly until he kicked its ass.

You are what you eat. Jens Voigt eats spring steel for breakfast, fire for lunch, and a mixture of titanium and carbon fiber for dinner. For between-meal snacks he eats men's souls, and downs it with a tall cool glass of The Milk of Human Suffering.

Jens Voigt rides so fast during attacks, that he could circle the globe, hold his own wheel, and ride in his own draft. At least as long as he didn't try to drop himself.

Some of those Guardian crash photos are pretty brutal!

Jens.

This sums it up quite nicely!

A true hard man uses his wheels other ways…!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GxqlaRSDJY