2014 Tour of California May 11-18

[yespatterns]

Odds are there will be some terse conversations over team dinners this evening.

 

[willbick]

dont be daft, this stage was clearly fixed as a win for the yankie break merchants. opqs made a perfunctory effort in the last few km to make it look slightly convincing. nothing to see here

 

[CycloAndy]

dont be daft, this stage was clearly fixed as a win for the yankie break merchants. opqs made a perfunctory effort in the last few km to make it look slightly convincing. nothing to see here

Shame they let a Canadian win then!

 

[Vino's Mum]

From the tourtracker commentary captions:

11.40 15.4km to go
11.44 12.3km to go
11.47 4.2km to go
11.52 1km to go

>160 km/h in bold. Take that, OPQS.

 

[willbick]

north americans allowed on this occasion

 

[yespatterns]

From the tourtracker commentary captions:

11.40 15.4km to go
11.44 12.3km to go
11.47 4.2km to go
11.52 1km to go

160 km/h in bold.

Best mid stage sprint speed evah. Not normal

 

[Aristarchus]

Shame they let a Canadian win then!

Just one American on the podium, overall, today.

 

[CycloAndy]

north americans allowed on this occasion

I'm not entirely ruling out your theory, but to many Americans I can imagine a Canadian victory is a loss.

 

[CycloAndy]

Just one American on the podium, overall, today.

If this was a fix, it backfired! Which is a great result

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Brilliant finale lol. Confusion everywhere.

Also, the director was looking for Wiggins in that placement sprint lol. Idiot didn't realise what was going on.

 

[53x11 in DC]

True, but nobody was fast there AND they screwed it up.

Well done Routley.

Especially that the win went to their intra UnitedHealth Group rival, Optum!! Tamayo will be ticked off tonight that the "poor cousin" got the better of them!!

Chapeau Optum and Routley!!

 

[Dazed and Confused]

9 GOSS Matthew Orica GreenEDGE

so are we seeing any improvement?

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

9 GOSS Matthew Orica GreenEDGE

so are we seeing any improvement?

When you look at his overall results, I think it's interesting that he never won much at all, even in his good years. Personally I was amazed of his good seasons. Overall I don't now if he didn't have a couple of good years and now is on his usual level. Personally I guess he had a couple of good years because he is, on his best, quite good at being fast in hard races. But when he's not at his top leve he fades quite badly fast. It's sad really in a way, but maybe he's just a bit like Haussler who overall probably had more potential (or whatever clinic bound stuff) and couldn't get close to it ever after that.
But was Goss ever really a threat in a lot of great races really, except for the Milan San Remo (fluke?) win? I can't really remember any.

 

[willbick]

Goss was the Kristoff of 2011. i was gonna say he's not getting any younger, thinking he was about 32 but he's only 27!! looks older

 

[karlboss]

When you look at his overall results, I think it's interesting that he never won much at all, even in his good years. Personally I was amazed of his good seasons. Overall I don't now if he didn't have a couple of good years and now is on his usual level. Personally I guess he had a couple of good years because he is, on his best, quite good at being fast in hard races. But when he's not at his top leve he fades quite badly fast. It's sad really in a way, but maybe he's just a bit like Haussler who overall probably had more potential (or whatever clinic bound stuff) and couldn't get close to it ever after that.
But was Goss ever really a threat in a lot of great races really, except for the Milan San Remo (fluke?) win? I can't really remember any.

His best year form wise he was riding for HTC leading out. If he held that level he was one of the top 4 sprinters, if he continued we'd be talking about Goss instead of Kittel, but he was a little slower when he left HTC, and then really slowed down after his first year with Orica. Right now he's cooked if he makes the finale and can't sprint.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

His best year form wise he was riding for HTC leading out. If he held that level he was one of the top 4 sprinters, if he continued we'd be talking about Goss instead of Kittel, but he was a little slower when he left HTC, and then really slowed down after his first year with Orica. Right now he's cooked if he makes the finale and can't sprint.

But if you look at his results, he never was a Top 4 sprinter even in his best year. He was in 2011 pretty good in hard finishs, but besides this year never even close to be really at the top level. I'm happy to be corrected but I don't think that besides maybe a solitary indecent he was ever close to be a competitor except for that year.

 

[christopherrowe]

Loved it, and may watch it again. Will Routley was fantastic, out for the third road stage in a row raiding for KoM points and then hanging in for the stage win, just glorious, a joy to see.

 

[alspacka]

Missed this stage but WTF?? Quickstep can't bring back the break with Trentin, Boonen, Terpstra..? Giant and Cannondale did nothing I guess?

 

[Pricey_sky]

Couldn't watch it last night, surprised that the sprinters teams let this one go although it seems like a massive miscalculation. Wiggins gained 4 seconds on Dennis too?

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Stage 5

Cannondale and Sagan to go ballistic?

Last 20-30kms could be very interesting.

 

[Kokoso]

they went almost as fast as last year for the full climb. fast but it's a pretty easy climb for the pros.

http://www.climbing-records.com/2014/05/rohan-dennis-best-up-mount-diablo.html

I've read they went one minute slower than König last year.

 

[jens_attacks]

it depends on where you start your stopwatch.

 

[Kokoso]

it depends on where you start your stopwatch.

Anyway last year was faster and weather worse, really hot day.

 

[JRanton]

Anyway last year was faster and weather worse, really hot day.

Makes sense. Last year there were was a pretty strong BMC team driving the pace. There were four BMC riders still left with Tejay at the same point on the climb as Wiggins took over on the front this year. Just shows how weak the Sky team is there.

 

[SKSemtex]

Couldn't watch it last night, surprised that the sprinters teams let this one go although it seems like a massive miscalculation. Wiggins gained 4 seconds on Dennis too?

Looks like pure calculation from Cannondale to me. Sagan chances to get the green jersey are much much higher now then if he would have finished second or third yesterday.

It looks like today stage and stage No7 ??? could be his with no points to Cav.

Last stage goes to Cav again but Sagan can be second, third again.

But this is pure speculation.