2012 Tour de France: Stage 2: Visé → Tournai (208km)

[The Sheep]

I'm going for Kittel

 

[orangerider]

Will go with Sagan. Not the best course for him against stronger powerhouses but I think he'll win through positioning. Greipel is always bad at this. Kittel too inexperienced.

 

[CobbleStoner]

Unfortunately in these days of GPS and radios the only people who are incompetent enough to consistently "miscalculate" the break are Paul and Phil.

that made me laugh

Didn't it happen in 2008 when Feillu took the Jersey? Break picked up a tailwind and coasted in iirc. Law of averages says its time bro.

the key word here is 'tailwind', look at the direction they are riding today, ain't gonna happen, your law of averages clock will tick a little longer brah, mang, bruv...

 

[Bernie's eyesore]

IF Sagan wins today then everyone else can give up on a stage win until saturday so let's hope he doesn't unless you want a very dull week.

 

[dlwssonic]

Tour sprints are finally interesting.
How many riders will be working for cav?? I can only think of eisel, EBH, knees and maybe rogers.
Where as kittel and Greipel have entire trains working for them.
It will be an interesting duel between sagan, greipel, kittel, goss, a lighter cav and maybe petacchi or farrar.

I wanna see how sagan's sprint is against the real sprint powerhouses and whether cav has lost any sprinting power.

 

[auscyclefan94]

Tour sprints are finally interesting.
How many riders will be working for cav?? I can only think of eisel, EBH, knees and maybe rogers.
Where as kittel and Greipel have entire trains working for them.
It will be an interesting duel between sagan, greipel, kittel, goss, a lighter cav and maybe petacchi or farrar.

I wanna see how sagan's sprint is against the real sprint powerhouses and whether cav has lost any sprinting power.

As interesting as they can be. They are still not that interesting.

 

[barn yard]

every year people say things like cav is fat, or has sore teeth or whatever, this year is is 'cav lost 4kg and all his power' and 'cav has no train'

i dont particularly like him but it is very very hard to look past him on a dead flat stage with no real wind

 

[auscyclefan94]

IF Sagan wins today then everyone else can give up on a stage win until saturday so let's hope he doesn't unless you want a very dull week.

He won't. He is against the top sprinters in the world, who are on top form and their teams have better leadout trains than Liquigas' leadout train. Many of the sprint finishes have no difficulties before the finish this year so I do not see Sagan featuring in the top 5 of many of the flat, sprint finishes. I think there will be a broad range of winners in the Sprints throughout the next week.

Will most likely be a cross wind all day, which should be interesting.

 

[greenedge]

Yeah but Oss went well last year and can do a last little surge to bring Sagan into position just like Hondo does for Petacchi.

 

[Arnout]

He won't. He is against the top sprinters in the world, who are on top form and their teams have better leadout trains than Liquigas' leadout train. Many of the sprint finishes have no difficulties before the finish this year so I do not see Sagan featuring in the top 5 of many of the flat, sprint finishes. I think there will be a broad range of winners in the Sprints throughout the next week.

Will most likely be a cross wind all day, which should be interesting.

Sagan doesn't need a lead-out train though, he can position himself where he wants, when he wants it (provided he has the legs). That's the benefit of all that stunt riding he did when he was a teenager.

 

[dlwssonic]

As interesting as they can be. They are still not that interesting.

There is still the tour of austria today they are gonna tackle some crazy climb.

 

[dlwssonic]

Any chance of echoleons today???

 

[barn yard]

Any chance of echoleons today???

i dont think the wind is strong enough but you never know

 

[dlwssonic]

i dont think the wind is strong enough but you never know

I hope there is some.
Could be a very exciting stage if there are echoleons.

 

[Trofinios]

Since when was Sagan the better sprinter..?

It was clear in the Giro that in terms of sprinting it went Cav then Goss then everyone else.
Now throw Kittel and Greipel into the mix and you get those 3 just behind Cav until Sagan shows something to say he can take on Cav like those 3 have done he will remain just behind them.

I reacted to the fact that some seems to think that it will be betweeen Cav, Greipel, Kittel and Goss today. If you put in Goss there you must also, in my book, put in Sagan. Judging by their sprinting performances this year Sagan seems to be at least as good as Goos. Goss has 1 sprint victory this year, Sagan several.

Now you can put forward the argument that Sagan has only won sprints against so-so competition, and based on this you can't say that he will be able to challange the likes of Cav, Greipel and Kittel. On the other hand, I believe Sagan's domination in ToC and TdS is an indication that he will probably hang with those guys, maybe not someone like Cav in a flat sprint, but at least be there challenging them. The reason I say this is that winning so many stages like Sagan has shows he is a level above the competitiors in those races, he can afford a non ideal sprint and still win - he is that good.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong, I might read too much into Sagan's sprint victories this year. I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens this week.

 

[Mellow Velo]

Who will win? Mmmmmm, tough one. I think I'll go with...........
...........Kitzbuehel Horn.
I can get the tv coverage, which starts a lot earlier and finishes before anything will have happened in this stage.

 

[gerundium]

I reacted to the fact that some seems to think that it will be betweeen Cav, Greipel, Kittel and Goss today. If you put in Goss there you must also, in my book, put in Sagan. Judging by their sprinting performances this year Sagan seems to be at least as good as Goos. Goss has 1 sprint victory this year, Sagan several.

Now you can put forward the argument that Sagan has only won sprints against so-so competition, and based on this you can't say that he will be able to challange the likes of Cav, Greipel and Kittel. On the other hand, I believe Sagan's domination in ToC and TdS is an indication that he will probably hang with those guys, maybe not someone like Cav in a flat sprint, but at least be there challenging them. The reason I say this is that winning so many stages like Sagan has shows he is a level above the competitiors in those races, he can afford a non ideal sprint and still win - he is that good.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong, I might read too much into Sagan's sprint victories this year. I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens this week.

Sagan winning reduced bunch sprints (big bear lake comes to mind -_-) =/= winnning pan flat hotly contested sprints.

Goss has shown he is second to cavendish in the Giro with everyone else pretty far behind. (Admittedly not every contender was there, but that goes for every race except the tour)

 

[blaxland]

Its the Tour so anything can happen,my prediction Mark Renshaw,Matt Goss,Peter Sagan

 

[TatryTour2013]

Cav tweet about Sagan

"How good must someone be to win their FIRST EVER Tour de France road stage?! Amazing ride by Peter Sagan! Happy with how I felt today too.". Very nice from Cav - but is he looking for excuses for Today?

 

[Hammerhed]

Stage winner?

Yesterday, during the ride to Seraing, the lads had a chance to scrap for some Green Jersey points in Erezee. Many of the sprinters including Goss, Cav, Greipel, Renshaw, and ??? took the challenge fairly seriously, using all the tools at their disposal including leadout trains and flying elbows. The result was Matt Goss first and a semi-tentative Mark Cavendish second. If that little scuffle was any kind of a preview, we could be in for a treat over the next few days, even if we might be caught napping for the first few hours of the stage. I think Goss on Monday, maybe Renshaw or Cav or Kittel or Greipel or Haedo or maybe even Sagan!!! My mind may explode here in a minute: There are at least ten legit contenders for the stage victory. Damn I love bike racing.

 

[LaFleur]

Yesterday, during the ride to Seraing, the lads had a chance to scrap for some Green Jersey points in Erezee. Many of the sprinters including Goss, Cav, Greipel, Renshaw, and ??? took the challenge fairly seriously, using all the tools at their disposal including leadout trains and flying elbows. The result was Matt Goss first and a semi-tentative Mark Cavendish second. If that little scuffle was any kind of a preview, we could be in for a treat over the next few days, even if we might be caught napping for the first few hours of the stage. I think Goss on Monday, maybe Renshaw or Cav or Kittel or Greipel or Haedo or maybe even Sagan!!! My mind may explode here in a minute: There are at least ten legit contenders for the stage victory. Damn I love bike racing.

Haedo? Really? A legit contender? I could somehow maybe accept Renshaw, but Haedo?

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Kittel will remove the smaller players today and take the win.

 

[Steady]

Matthew Goss for the win.

2.Greipel
3.Cav
4.Kittel
5.Sagan
6.Pettachi
7.Renshaw
8.Farrar
9.Haedo
10.Bozic

 

[Leadbelly]

Stage 2 profile:

Made me think of the KLF video for "What Time Is Love?"

 

[karlboss]

I reacted to the fact that some seems to think that it will be betweeen Cav, Greipel, Kittel and Goss today. If you put in Goss there you must also, in my book, put in Sagan. Judging by their sprinting performances this year Sagan seems to be at least as good as Goos. Goss has 1 sprint victory this year, Sagan several.

Now you can put forward the argument that Sagan has only won sprints against so-so competition, and based on this you can't say that he will be able to challange the likes of Cav, Greipel and Kittel. On the other hand, I believe Sagan's domination in ToC and TdS is an indication that he will probably hang with those guys, maybe not someone like Cav in a flat sprint, but at least be there challenging them. The reason I say this is that winning so many stages like Sagan has shows he is a level above the competitiors in those races, he can afford a non ideal sprint and still win - he is that good.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong, I might read too much into Sagan's sprint victories this year. I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens this week.

I only count wins not merely finishing high in the sprint, to win your nose has to be in the wind, you must do better than just taking the wheel of the winner for 2nd 3rd etc
Sagan vs Kittel sprint wins 1:7. Sagan's 1 Kittel didn't sprint.
Sagan vs Greipel 0:5
sagan vs Goss 0:3
sagan vs Cav 1:4 Sagan's 1 Cav didn't sprint.

In short when riding against any of these guys in a sprint, Sagan has never crossed the line first. However there is a first time for everything.