limerickman said:yeah, I've read that he is a fanatic for the bike.
I read that he's also a very single minded character.
I heard somewhere that during the late 1990's that he wanted to be the team leader at Telekom when Jan Ullrich was winning the GT's.
By all accounts Erik wanted the team to back him instead of Jan Ullrich.
Goodefroot rated Zabel very highly.
His famous comment "if JU had the motivation of EZ, he would be as good as Merckx".
I take Goodefroots point (even if it is slightly over the top - as no one in my opinion is even close to Merckx).
That's pretty much what I was told about Zabel and the fact that he was not well like within the team.
Eddie was incomparable, but that was a different time.