2014 68th Tour de Romandie, April 29 to May 4 - WT

[Gloin22]

So Uran has been training more on his TT skills. Probably he does not have the orgency to train on his mountain skills since he already have that. Besides the Giro might come down to those two TT. Remember that we don't have the Froomes in the Giro, so he has to beat the likes of Quintana and Purito.

Well obviously

He still is no match for them. He will be 3rd again.

 

[Sky High]

What an AMAZING day for BRITISH cycling!!

Yes. Completely agree. Great day, and looking very good for Froome at the Tour de France.

 

[argyllflyer]

He finished only a few seconds behind Froome last year.

It was pretty flat last year in the ITT compared to this time with the climb that contributed to the lost 25 seconds at the split. The climb was always going to tilt it heavily in CF's favour. Spilak remains a very decent bet for any ITT top 10 though.

 

[JRanton]

Tony FTW and Spilak to beat Froome.

Oops

The alien is back.

Still a bit disappointed by Spilak though. Pressure got to him?

 

[roundabout]

It was pretty flat last year in the ITT compared to this time with the climb that contributed to the lost 25 seconds at the split. The climb was always going to tilt it heavily in CF's favour. Spilak remains a very decent bet for any ITT top 10 though.

Split 1 (pre-climb)

3 1 Christopher FROOME Team Sky 00:00:25
.....
19 31 Simon SPILAK Katusha Team 00:00:50

Split 2 (top of the climb)

1 1 Christopher FROOME Team Sky 00:16:38.85
.....
7 31 Simon SPILAK Katusha Team 00:00:25

 

[argyllflyer]

Split 1 (pre-climb)

3 1 Christopher FROOME Team Sky 00:00:25
.....
19 31 Simon SPILAK Katusha Team 00:00:50

Split 2 (top of the climb)

1 1 Christopher FROOME Team Sky 00:16:38.85
.....
7 31 Simon SPILAK Katusha Team 00:00:25

So the gap was 25 seconds between them and split 1 and split 2? Maybe Spilak rode fairly conservatively going off to save something for the climb. He then lost 4 more seconds on a straight-forward descent and short flat section as far as I can see.

 

[roundabout]

It was still 25 seconds at split 3 with just a minute to race

2 1 Christopher FROOME Team Sky 00:00:01
.....
6 31 Simon SPILAK Katusha Team 00:00:26

 

[manafana]

I am warming to uran for the giro now, the parcours will allow him to come in with 2-3kg to much weight which he can easily lose before the 3rd week those tt's will come in handy.

 

[Escarabajo]

Well obviously

He still is no match for them. He will be 3rd again.

???

You mean 2nd again. That means that he still has to beat one of them.

 

[VeloHuman]

I am warming to uran for the giro now, the parcours will allow him to come in with 2-3kg to much weight which he can easily lose before the 3rd week those tt's will come in handy.

There are so many sprinters' stages to start the race to give guys like Uran and Purito time to ride back into form. Hopefully they will at least give us something interesting to watch; Kittel racking up 8 stage wins will be kind of boring.

 

[Cannavaro]

Split 1 (pre-climb)

3 1 Christopher FROOME Team Sky 00:00:25
.....
19 31 Simon SPILAK Katusha Team 00:00:50

Split 2 (top of the climb)

1 1 Christopher FROOME Team Sky 00:16:38.85
.....
7 31 Simon SPILAK Katusha Team 00:00:25

Can you tell me where do you find the split times? I would like to do some power calculation for the climb.

 

[search]

Can you tell me where do you find the split times? I would like to do some power calculation for the climb.

they are available on matsport.fr

 

[Le breton]

Can you tell me where do you find the split times? I would like to do some power calculation for the climb.

As can be seen on this pdf filehttp://www.tourderomandie.ch/etapes ... u_voir.pdf

You will have to make big corrections for the 25 Km/h wind (coming from 70° away from North, ie ENE more or less) as large fractions of the climb were not shielded by trees.
Here is the course :
http://www.tourderomandie.ch/etapes/etape05/horaires.pdf

 

[KubaWinter]

Hi everybody!

I've got huge pleasure to be at the last stage of Tour de Romandie with press pass. You can find some of my photos from Neuchatel here: http://foto.rowery.org/2014/Romandia/

Official fanpage of Tour de Romandie also shared this gallery.

 

[Cannavaro]

they are available on matsport.fr

Thanks a lot!

 

[Cannavaro]

As can be seen on this pdf filehttp://www.tourderomandie.ch/etapes ... u_voir.pdf

You will have to make big corrections for the 25 Km/h wind (coming from 70° away from North, ie ENE more or less) as large fractions of the climb were not shielded by trees.
Here is the course :
http://www.tourderomandie.ch/etapes/etape05/horaires.pdf

Thanks, this explains why my calculation produced such low values.

 

[IndianCyclist]

As the only person to match Froome in the mountains in last 2 Romandies, i donot understand why Spilak is not given a free role in Grand tours?

 

[VeloHuman]

As the only person to match Froome in the mountains in last 2 Romandies, i donot understand why Spilak is not given a free role in Grand tours?

1. Could be self-selection. He hasn't really ridden many Grand Tours in his career, maybe they're not his thing.

2. It's a pretty conservative sport. Purito has been Katusha's focus for the past few years.

He is apparently riding the Tour though. Maybe he could make something happen for the first time this year.

 

[JRanton]

1. Could be self-selection. He hasn't really ridden many Grand Tours in his career, maybe they're not his thing.

2. It's a pretty conservative sport. Purito has been Katusha's focus for the past few years.

He is apparently riding the Tour though. Maybe he could make something happen for the first time this year.

I think the Giro would be the logical GT to target in the future given he's a bad weather specialist.

 

[red_flanders]

As the only person to match Froome in the mountains in last 2 Romandies, i donot understand why Spilak is not given a free role in Grand tours?

The simplest answer is that the team doesn't feel he's up to it, but that doesn't really answer the question. Why has the team determined that he's not qualified?

Could have peaked for Romandie, probably doesn't have the recovery physiology to do well in GT's, and riding up at the front on one or two stages isn't necessarily indicative of the skills needed to be at the front when the hammer is down in a GT.

That and Froome waited for him. Nice ride and all by Spilak, don't get me wrong, but he's certainly no threat to challenge for a GT win.

 

[karlboss]

The simplest answer is that the team doesn't feel he's up to it, but that doesn't really answer the question. Why has the team determined that he's not qualified?

Could have peaked for Romandie, probably doesn't have the recovery physiology to do well in GT's, and riding up at the front on one or two stages isn't necessarily indicative of the skills needed to be at the front when the hammer is down in a GT.

That and Froome waited for him. Nice ride and all by Spilak, don't get me wrong, but he's certainly no threat to challenge for a GT win.

He's found consistency with Katusha, after last year I think they wanted to push him to do a GT this year, and given his race days this year are 28 vs last years 40 odd to this point, it appears they are keeping him fresh to ride the Tour with Trofimov in support so far sharing 24 race days. The rest of the team will probably be built around Kristoff. He might as well do it he's not yet achieved anything after June. So far, 9th, 8th, 4th, 2nd in stage races this year, looking good.
Realistically I think he could top 10 the Tour, and should be competitive with Fuglsang, Mollema, Costa etc.

 

[johnymax]

The problem with Spilak is that he can't stand the heat or should I say he doesn't ride as well in the heat. His last GT was the Giro in 2011. When he didn't finish the Tour in 2010, he said it was his last Tour ever. He was feeling that badly. When he came to Katusha they came to an agreement, that he won't be pushed to perform in GTs, they had Menchov and Purito for that. Spilak was focusing on one week stage races and he was ok with that. He was doing very well so everybody was happy. Now that he has developed so much, he will try to take another chance on GTs. He will be the leader of team Katusha in the TdF, but he already said to slovenian media, that he won't focus on GC but he will try to win a stage. I hope Purito this year finaly gets a GT win so Spilak gets the oportunity to ride the Giro as a captain (maybe next year). I think he has great chance to take a podium spot in the future.

 

[ILovecycling]

lol is he from Siberia or something?

(just for the record,I know geography of Slovenia,but still think its rare)