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2012 Tour de France: Stage 5: Rouen → Saint-Quentin (196.5km)

Page 16 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Froome19 said:
He already has more than a few bunch sprints under his sprint this season already;) I assume though you are talking about at the Tour against proper opposition because he has showed when Greipel, Cav and Kittel arent there that he can win, even in GTs such as last year's Vuelta.

From the sprints he did at ATOC they were all perfect and his positioning was immense, yet here he has been disappointing, probably due to the much higher intensity which the sprints are races at, right now he is probably below the above 3 and above most others maybe just below Goss as well bue on par with Ale Jet etc.

The other question is whether he will improve even more in his sprint due to his amazing development at such a young age already and as development sometimes is a bit earlier for eastern europeans.

You have my meaning perfectly, good post.
 
There must have been stuff going on between Farrar and Veelers before the crash incident that you don't see on the video which would probably better explain Farrar going off on one. After all why would Farrar be in a barging match with Veelers trying to knock him off the Argos-Shimano "train" when there are clearly better places to be ?

Also this probably wouldn't have happened if Hunter had been able to lead him out - presumably suffering after his own crash yesterday
 
Aug 18, 2009
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Rechtschreibfehler said:
To be honest, I've always thought that Goss reputation in mass sprints has only been hype not backed by a lot at all. The guy didn't win a lot in his carreer and if I do remember correctly he never even came close doing so against top sprint competition. Where the Idea comes from that he's super fast, I have no clue. Of course he won Milan-San Remo but besides this, there hasn't been a great vitory I can think of. And looking up his 2010 and 2011 seasons on CQ didn't help me knowing this either. Or did I overlook something?

1st MSR, 2nd WC in 2011, and he didn't ride any GTs for himself. 2010 was primarily a dom for Cav or Greipel, but still got a Giro stage from a strong Farrar. I think he's one of the fastest, but also his endurance is very good and he's good in uphill sprints (GP Plouay).

I think looking at him in the Tour this year that the HTC pecking order is confirmed, and I'd put him at maybe 4th top sprinter after Cav, Greipel, Kittel. It seems his support at GE < Lotto and Sky, that's maybe a factor.
 
Aug 9, 2011
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LaFleur said:
I'll just translate the whole blog while I'm at it:

Today you could make a copy paste from yesterday's blog. The stage was about the same length, only 20km shorter - 198km. No wind and it was easy. Like a restday. In the end you had to be in front to avoid any falls. Thanks to the team I managed it like I needed to. 3,2km there was a crash, I luckily avoided it. Then we had to really go hard to get the group with the other mountain guys because the crash was 200m from the 3km line. By the rules, the riders who crash before the 3km line, don't get the same time as the winner, but since the crash was near to it, they still gave it. Nothing else to really talk about, we managed to avoid the rain. Right now we're driving to the hotel with in the bus and it's pouring. Lucky us!

Couple of facts about Farrar, who organized the crash yesterday and today. Last year he caused the crash, where Wiggins broke his collarbone. I usually try to avoid those definite-crashers like him. After the race Tyler looked for Veelers and yelled in the parking lot, but you can clearly see from the video, who is the one to blame for.

Today I got lucky, I've been lucky for 6 days already. I only need to get away with tomorrow, the last day of the first week and it's gets more exciting for me after that. Wish me lucky for tomorrow so all the s*** would go past me. With meters or millimeters, I don't care. The main thing is that they would go past me.

Wow, thanks. I love it that Taaramae is so outspoken. I always use Google Translate to understand what he is saying, but this time it was too hard to understand. Two months ago he promised to write his blog in English, but he's still writing it in Estonian :(
 
Jul 4, 2011
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taiwan said:
I wonder what's up with Farrar this year, anyway.

First off, He's not as good as many think he is. The expectations are high for whatever reason, and he doesn't deliver. When the pressure to deliver grows, and becomes to much, you start to force things, or do things that aren't normal to you. I think he's feeling the pressure. He causes an accident, then get's ****ed at Veelers and tries to storm the bus.
 
Galic Ho said:
I'm not the only one who has stated as much, I've just done it more often to counter the hyped up talk of a Sky train. Especially after the weak Dauphine.

Rogers is a decent rider. Good chrono, decent climber. But thats in week long races. Same with Porte. In GT's and they have done a few, they have been lacklustre. Seriously banking on history mysteriously not following the patterns it has, let alone in a 3 week GT where the racing is harder and recovery plays a big part in your fatigue levels day in day out, is asking for too much. History says on Froome will be there. If Richie Porte wasn't there for Alberto Contador, what makes anyone here think it will be different for Bradley Wiggins? Only fanboy non-sense does.

Think about it this way. Which teams in the past two years have had big climbers and strong domestiques in the Grand Tours? Only a few. Wiggins wasn't one of those strong climbers. Nor were his domestiques...case can be made for Froome though. Actually nobody on there team has actually measured up against the big names climbing. Sure AC and Andy Schleck aren't here, but there are some strong climbers. Even stronger domestiques.

Take Liquigas. They brought Szymd and Basso to help Nibali. RSNT has Maxime Monfort, Chris Horner, Zubeldia on top of Franck Schleck and Andreas Kloden. Rabobank has Mollema, Kruisjwik and Gesink. Movistar have Kirienka, Costa, Cobo and finally Valverde. Garmin have multiple top 10 GC finishers, the winner of the Giro and also what I think is a very in form Dan Martin. Oh and Lotto have Vanendert and van den Broecke. Evans has TJVG and a throng of guys who HAVE not put a foot wrong so far and will help him. All of them have more promise and pedigree than Sky. I also didn't mention Samu and Euskatel nor Europcar and their man Rolland. Also the Russian's at Katusha.

Take their efforts OVER 3 weeks in the past. When on form, they are clearly superior than Porte and Rogers. As I said, Froome IMO is the only guarantee. It would take a Clinic-esque turn around for that to change. No team was ever going to have a train pulling at the front day in and day out breaking everyone in the mountains. That's the hype and garbage I've been countering for weeks now here. There will be a number of fights. Big heavy days when the guys start punching, the only reason lower domestiques are in the front bunch is because they are going slower. Rogers and Porte will be dropped a lot. The Train was a myth. Come the final mountain on the hard days everyone seriously races, with the riders at the front select niche group, it will be Wiggins and/or Froome. The rest of Sky will be next to useless at that point.

I agree with you on Rogers, certainly in the third week (stages 16 and 17).

I think it's quite possible that you'll be very surprised with Porte though. Every time the race has gone up hill this season he's been right there looking as strong as anyone frankly. I appreciate that includes very few serious mountain stages (only one really!) and came in one week races but based on what we've seen it isn't exactly a huge stretch to make a case that he'll be there for Wiggins throughout the Tour. And his improvement doesn't have to be clinic related either. He had a very promising break through season in 2010 before being denied a big money move to Sky (or a vastly improved contract at Saxo) in 2011. I think he clearly lacked motivation last year (he's admitted this himself) and since signing for Sky he's lost weight and focused a lot on his climbing ability (his time trailing has suffered a bit as a result). You could end up being right of course but I'm surprised you're so confident either way based on what we've seen in 2012.

Have you changed your position on Wiggins then? You now think he could be there in the front select niche group? The main focus of my initial question to you was really in relation to why you're so confident that Wiggins will flop massively in the mountains.

EDIT -Looking back at my post you were probably only referring to Porte and Rogers to be fair although I've seen other posts from you where you state very confidently that Wiggins will flop badly.
 
Jan 27, 2011
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Lexman said:
i took some pictures while being near the feed zone, read in the FAQ you can add them in a post but don't see the "add" button only a url option this means you have to upload them elsewhere before?

Hi Lexman, as no one has responded anyway I'll help. You can upload your images to http://www.imageshack.us or http://www.imgur.com and then upload them on this forum through the
tags. ;)
 
taiwan said:
1st MSR, 2nd WC in 2011, and he didn't ride any GTs for himself. 2010 was primarily a dom for Cav or Greipel, but still got a Giro stage from a strong Farrar. I think he's one of the fastest, but also his endurance is very good and he's good in uphill sprints (GP Plouay).

I think looking at him in the Tour this year that the HTC pecking order is confirmed, and I'd put him at maybe 4th top sprinter after Cav, Greipel, Kittel. It seems his support at GE < Lotto and Sky, that's maybe a factor.

Well the thing is that I don't quite see why people think he's that fast. He's a great rider for harder/longer stages and one day events. But it's hard for me to see how he got the reputation, plus what it's based on that he's supposed to be so fast. I know Cav said so, but what comes from his mouth has never matched what came from his legs. So I wouldn't give to much about it.
I mean, of course he's fast. But super fast? To me he seems to be a very solid Top 5 mass sprinter, who excels the most when the race is hard, but not to hilly. But a super fast guy like Cav, Kittel or Greipel? (Or maybe Guardini when the race is very very easy) That's just asking to much from the guy.
It's sad that there aren't any good speed comparisons available (which would help immensely comparing sprinters) but from the gut I'd guess that in pure speed a lot of guys are faster than Goss.
 
Aug 2, 2010
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El Pistolero said:
Lol Greipel can't stand Sagan, so why would he thank him? Greipel thinks Sagan is one of the most dangerous cyclists in the peloton.

the difference is that sagan "is" the talent, just like cav.. and "talent" is greipel's enemy.
 
El Pistolero said:
Lol Greipel can't stand Sagan, so why would he thank him? Greipel thinks Sagan is one of the most dangerous cyclists in the peloton.

That's interesting because it is not consistent with Sagan's stage 2 approach to the finish line where he let up, or gave up, because the sprinter bunch was too nervous and bargy. I'm not denying what you said, but I just think it is interesting.
 
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Rechtschreibfehler said:
Well the thing is that I don't quite see why people think he's that fast. He's a great rider for harder/longer stages and one day events. But it's hard for me to see how he got the reputation, plus what it's based on that he's supposed to be so fast. I know Cav said so, but what comes from his mouth has never matched what came from his legs. So I wouldn't give to much about it.
I mean, of course he's fast. But super fast? To me he seems to be a very solid Top 5 mass sprinter, who excels the most when the race is hard, but not to hilly. But a super fast guy like Cav, Kittel or Greipel? (Or maybe Guardini when the race is very very easy) That's just asking to much from the guy.
It's sad that there aren't any good speed comparisons available (which would help immensely comparing sprinters) but from the gut I'd guess that in pure speed a lot of guys are faster than Goss.

I mean our positions aren't that far apart. I say he's probably < Cavendish, Greipel, Kittel. You say he's considerably < those riders. TBH after a sofar mediocre season with a whole team behind him I could be persuaded your view is right, although I do still believe in his quality as a rider overall. I find seperating raw speed from a sprinters other qualities difficult to do.
 
The formatting of the stage 5 results on Cyclingnews.com makes it look like Farrar was at 4:07, and I was trying to figure out if he crashed a second time before he reached 3K or what!

Turns out - assuming letour.fr has it right :) - that the 4:07 next to Brice Feillu (who was two places ahead of Farrar) applies only to him, and also the 3:01 next to Anthony Roux applies only to him. All other 192 riders, including Farrar, are officially @0:00.
 
taiwan said:
I mean our positions aren't that far apart. I say he's probably < Cavendish, Greipel, Kittel. You say he's considerably < those riders. TBH after a sofar mediocre season with a whole team behind him I could be persuaded your view is right, although I do still believe in his quality as a rider overall. I find seperating raw speed from a sprinters other qualities difficult to do.

You're right, our positions aren't that far apart. It's just that I don't think Goss is a potential regular mass sprint winner, sometimes he can, mostly he can't I think.
But also my initial opposition was against this: "sorry if I keep bothering with this, but What the fvck is going on with Goss?".
It suggest that he should have beaten Greipel in this sprint, which isn't fair and not realistic at all, as he's not up to Greipels speed or power, or Cav's superior aerodynamics.
I do think he's very much a quality rider overall. Especially since he's not restricted to one kind of race. He can do more than just mass sprinting, which I like a lot about him. But to expect a lot of wins out of him is just plainly wrong. The races and stages that suit him are usually open ones, which means a lot of riders can win them. It can't be a flat sprint against top opposition, and probably not even against a little lesser pure sprinters if the race is flat, and it can't be to hard of a race either. In the end those opportunities aren't your everyday event in cycling.
 
Congrats to Greipel- he was the freshest/ most composed. Goss i think hit out a bit too early but he had to on the incline. He looks well set for the Green jersey- though Sagan will still be in contention.

JJ did well, especially with no Cantwell.
 
JeanRobic said:
The formatting of the stage 5 results on Cyclingnews.com makes it look like Farrar was at 4:07, and I was trying to figure out if he crashed a second time before he reached 3K or what!

Turns out - assuming letour.fr has it right :) - that the 4:07 next to Brice Feillu (who was two places ahead of Farrar) applies only to him, and also the 3:01 next to Anthony Roux applies only to him. All other 192 riders, including Farrar, are officially @0:00.
I reckon the break had just gone under 3km and the main bunch had not reached it anyway.
 

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