2012 Tour de France: Stage 16: Pau → Bagnères-de-Luchon, 197 km

[goggalor]

Liquigas. Finally.

 

[Geraint Too Fast]

Something's happening!!!!!!

 

[Panda Claws]

Why not make an alliance with Lotto/BMC and start driving the pace on the Tourmalet?

 

[Apollonius]

I want Wiggins to win the tour but I hope Nibali can do something to attack and give us a race.

 

[tomorrow]

was that really liq. on the front of peloton or was it just halucination?

 

[fluffkitten]

Nice to see someone not Sky on the front.

 

[Bala Verde]

They dropped Sagan already!!!

Liquid gas slowly deflating themselves? I hope they don't run out of gas too quickly...

 

[goggalor]

Vino going well. Allez!

 

[Fergoose]

The Problem is the riders themselves may want to win, but due to the World TOur Point System they are not willing to sacrifice the points they would lose with finishing 7th or 8th instead of 3rd. That is definately the case with RSNT, because the team classification is worth a ton of points, and having 4 guys in the Top 20, they got to have a good performance here or else they will be looking at relegation. THat is why I think there needs to be a more significant gap between 3rd and 4th in the pts system to make it orth the sacrifice to the team owners/sponsors/managers.

Pardon my complete ignorance, but what is the allure of the World Tour points? Do teams get paid bonuses in terms of points and where they finish the season compared to other teams?

The points must be a massive incentive to make teams exclude top riders who are going to another team (Hushovd, Fuglsang) and to happily nullify the last two weeks of a GT. As a layman, I couldn't give the slightest care about Team points classifications.

EDIT: At last.

 

[bubblegum]

took all of 20sec to drop EBH

 

[The Joker]

They dropped Sagan already!!!

Liquid gas slowly deflating themselves? I hope they don't run out of gas too quickly...

At least EBH is dropped too - either that or he is just going for more bottles...

 

[Gloin22]

took all of 20sec to drop EBH

There's still 3 helpers for Wiggins completely unused today yet....

 

[vcampbell]

They were able to drop Morkov too

 

[Poursuivant]

Is Martin ahead of Voigt?

 

[Bala Verde]

Why not make an alliance with Lotto/BMC and start driving the pace on the Tourmalet?

I was speculating that today they might force SKY to do all the "work" in the heat, and then make the race super hard tomorrow..

or at least, that was wishful watching this stage develop....

 

[goggalor]

Voeckler now 6 points behind Kessiakoff.

 

[Panda Claws]

Pardon my complete ignorance, but what is the allure of the World Tour points? Do teams get paid bonuses in terms of points and where they finish the season compared to other teams?

The points must be a massive incentive to make teams exclude top riders who are going to another team (Hushovd, Fuglsang) and to happily nullify the last two weeks of a GT. As a layman, I couldn't give the slightest care about Team points classifications.

EDIT: At last.

Only the top 18 (or something) teams on the UCI ranking get a WorldTour license.

 

[Finn84]

Sheep says: LOL!

My favourite of the farmer greetings so far.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Basso, followed by Nibali, followed by 4 (!!) sky riders

Pointlessness

 

[Mellow Velo]

Harmon discovers Leaky on the front of the bunch.........5 minutes late.

 

[The Joker]

C'mon robobasso - drop them sky guys

 

[fluffkitten]

Still 4 Sky there, unless they get rid of Rogers and Porte soon nothing much'll happen.

 

[vcampbell]

Is Martin ahead of Voigt?

No, he was dropped by CAS, Voigt, and Vino.

 

[TomasC]

Go Basso!!!!

 

[will10]

KoM
Kessiakoff 103, Voeckler 97.