Re:
Plenty of riders who could possibly do something GC-wise at their optimal form, but I can see all of them failing to make any impact on GC. I hope they'll race aggressively and make some of the mountain stages really fun to watch. It's hard to imagine any of those riders placing himself in the top5 overall. I think Hesjedal is already past his best and will not achieve any spectacular results anymore (you can't know how much would I love to be wrong on this!), so there's no point in riding cautiously.
It's also interesting they leave all what's the best of their "flat" team home. They'll have Langeveld, Van Baarle, Koren, Navardauskas, Bauer and Haas fighting for 3 or 4 spots in TdF team. Maybe it's wise to keep their options open, since flat domestiques seem to have more importance in the TdF and they'll be able to chose their best men in their best form. But it means at least 2 of these guys will be refused to ride a GT before Vuelta at the expense of Ted King or Marangoni. And then who knows what the team selection for Vuelta will be like. It seems pretty harsh on them to me.
Maybe it would be right to have things more balanced and keep on of these climbers fresh for TdF and let one of the flat guys to ride his GT instead.
It makes me wonder whether they are throwing too much of their climbing power for Giro and will be left with not enough mountain domestiques for Tour de France. I see on provisional startlist that Hesjedal and Cardoso intend to make a Giro-TdF double this year and Cannondale will probably have Dombrowski, Howes, King and Brown available to round out the TdF team. But those young American climbers combined with riders tired after Giro don't create a combination that brings much of a confidence to have a mountain support team worthy of a serious GC attempt for TdF. Especially when Martin or Talansky will not be willing to sacrifice himself too much in favour of his team-mate.durtyfat said:
Plenty of riders who could possibly do something GC-wise at their optimal form, but I can see all of them failing to make any impact on GC. I hope they'll race aggressively and make some of the mountain stages really fun to watch. It's hard to imagine any of those riders placing himself in the top5 overall. I think Hesjedal is already past his best and will not achieve any spectacular results anymore (you can't know how much would I love to be wrong on this!), so there's no point in riding cautiously.
It's also interesting they leave all what's the best of their "flat" team home. They'll have Langeveld, Van Baarle, Koren, Navardauskas, Bauer and Haas fighting for 3 or 4 spots in TdF team. Maybe it's wise to keep their options open, since flat domestiques seem to have more importance in the TdF and they'll be able to chose their best men in their best form. But it means at least 2 of these guys will be refused to ride a GT before Vuelta at the expense of Ted King or Marangoni. And then who knows what the team selection for Vuelta will be like. It seems pretty harsh on them to me.
Maybe it would be right to have things more balanced and keep on of these climbers fresh for TdF and let one of the flat guys to ride his GT instead.
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