2012 Tour of California May 17 stage 5: Bakersfield ITT 29.6 km

[Dekker_Tifosi]

The Schlecks were at 2'40 at the end of the Tour from Tony.

A Gesink in this kind of TT shape would be easily within 1'30

 

[Mellow Velo]

Compared to Tony, If he loses less than 2 minutes in the first TT, or 3 minutes in the 2nd TT, i will have a Gesink avatar for the rest of the year!

Tony won't be at Le Tour.
His local autobahn needs re-surfacing and they need an expert.

The best TT parcours? Sure, if TT stands for Total Turd.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

The Schlecks were at 2'40 at the end of the Tour from Tony.

A Gesink in this kind of TT shape would be easily within 1'30

Yes, but the long TT in this year's TDF suits the specialists much more. It's longer and, more importantly, flat. 3 minutes isn't a whole lot, also because Martin won't go for GC, but will focus on the Olympics instead.

 

[patrick767]

I think that 'we euros' take this race seriously since last year. When it was finally a proper tough race.
I will definately be cheering if Gesink wins it.
Don't call it a GT though else we will come roaring in and flame you like hell

hah... we yanks with any brains know it's nowhere near a GT. It's a good race these days though. It's great to see the caliber of competition at a high level with the European teams sending strong contenders. The new Pro Cycling Challenge is attracting the big names too, though I wish they'd take advantage of Colorado's stunning terrain to make some tougher finishes. Cycling is on the up swing in the US.

 

[4smajeure]

Not so fast . . .

Armstong was quicker than almost half the guys around the course... she would've been in 65th place on the day. Admittedly the motivation probably wasn't there for some of those guys... but still not a bad performance.

Here we go again with the LPGA vs the PGA comparison. Kirstin Armstrong's win should be merited in its own right. But her time should not be compared to the men's time. To be fair, the men have endured four days of intense mileage, heat and climbing, even though the finishes were field sprints. The majority of them were domestiques killing themselves for their leaders. Others braved long breakaway attempts. And the team leaders with TT skills did their part while their support riders got the day off. So Kirstin's victory should be saluted as a stand alone and not be drawn in with the men's performance.