2015 Tour de France Stage 11: Pau › Cauterets

[veji11]

Movistar doing nothing...Unzue is such a coward...

+1
Porte was not making very hard pace (you could see that Majka was gaining when Porte was in front) and later Porte was dropped twice. If Movistar had pushed, maybe they could have isolate Froome. But they did not even try. Cowards.

mah come on, what were they to do.. People here forget that what we are seeing is what we see a good 80% of all Tours : the boss stamps the race on the first couple of ITT/MTFs and from then on the others play for seconds... Happened all the time with Coppi, Anquetil, MErckx, Hinault, Indurain, Armstrong, with Riis and Ulrich, with Contador in 2009, etc...

Valverde has his last chance of doing a podium on the tour, and Quintana is too far behind. Both are playing it "2009 Schleck brothers style" : they race as if Froome wasn't there, their goal will be to try and beat TVG, Contador and all.

This is the fifth year in a row the tour has been a foregone conclusion coming out of the first week. This is the reason that interest in the tour has fallen behind that of the Giro and Vuelta with hardcore cycling fans. I miss the Nibali of 2012 and the Contador of 2013, who didn't give up and kept fighting until the very end. This year appears to be a fight for the scraps.

Dude it's the way it is. The Giro and the Vuelta benefit from the lesser plateau in that sense. When a team like Sky goes full throttle with all its financial girth on winning the tour, it smashes the opposition... since 2012 only falls in 2014 have prevented this scenario. Sucks but what to do ?

 

[HiroAntagonist]

DB has flat out admitted Sky's riding style makes the race much less exciting. Complaints about Sky killing the race are justified to say the least. Personally, if I wanted to see a robot in motion I'd turn on my Roomba, at least it's useful.

 

[damian13ster]

Every team wishes they could ride the style that Sky does.
Movistar tried yesterday. Every team with strong leader wants to be able to control the race.

 

[Carols]

Re: Re:

Sky simply has the best rider and by far the best team!!!

Yeah sure, it's the new Us Postal

Yep, Sky were unbeatable in the Giro too. Oh, wait ! Wasn't it Saxo Tinkoff showing total dominance there?

Well No, it was Astana that was the strongest team in the Giro I watched! Alberto was isolated many times far from the finish!

 

[veji11]

Re:

Every team wishes they could ride the style that Sky does.
Movistar tried yesterday. Every team with strong leader wants to be able to control the race.

This is why a key to make racing entertaining is to weaken top teams in general : salary cap to avoid excessive concentration of talent, less riders per team to weaken the teams and the bunch and encourage individual initiative, no more oreillettes so that teams can less control the race and have to adapt on the fly, etc...

Otherwise any leader will just honestly say that they want to have what Sky has.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

Every team wishes they could ride the style that Sky does.
Movistar tried yesterday. Every team with strong leader wants to be able to control the race.

This just reeks of the F1 aero debate back in 2008-9, when the mutant hedgehogs with dozens of aero winglets were racing, and there was so much dirty air they couldn't get next to each other.

Basically, everybody agreed they all wanted closer, more exciting racing, except the teams. The teams all wanted all the OTHER teams to do the racing, and their guys to be able to just put in the laptimes in their finely tuned racing machines thank you very much.

Everybody wishes the races were more exciting, but everybody who had the strength to do the Sky tactic would probably do so if given the chance. The thing is, Sky have proven themselves time and again to be tactically inflexible. Their one real tactic is a simple bludgeoning tactic, predicated on having the strongest guy in the race. When they don't, they toast people unnecessarily; when they do, they are like an HTC train of tedium but in ALL stages, not just flat ones.

 

[damian13ster]

Well, to be fair to them, so far other teams were doing majority of the work. Sky just had a train for 3-4km yesterday, and didn't really throttle the race today since there were hardly any attacks.
They also didn't have a train setup for first week of the Tour so they showed that they can adapt to the situation. Of course having the strongest rider in the race makes it much easier to win the race, but that is the case for everyone. Despite TTT's, doms, cycling is still mostly individuals and if you are stronger than others and avoid bad luck- you win. Not many GT winners that weren't the strongest cyclists in the race.

 

[veji11]

Re: Re:

Every team wishes they could ride the style that Sky does.
Movistar tried yesterday. Every team with strong leader wants to be able to control the race.

This just reeks of the F1 aero debate back in 2008-9, when the mutant hedgehogs with dozens of aero winglets were racing, and there was so much dirty air they couldn't get next to each other.

Basically, everybody agreed they all wanted closer, more exciting racing, except the teams. The teams all wanted all the OTHER teams to do the racing, and their guys to be able to just put in the laptimes in their finely tuned racing machines thank you very much.

Everybody wishes the races were more exciting, but everybody who had the strength to do the Sky tactic would probably do so if given the chance. The thing is, Sky have proven themselves time and again to be tactically inflexible. Their one real tactic is a simple bludgeoning tactic, predicated on having the strongest guy in the race. When they don't, they toast people unnecessarily; when they do, they are like an HTC train of tedium but in ALL stages, not just flat ones.

Only when teams are weak can the strongest rider lose because of race tactics. Strong teams make unpredictability go a way and ensure that the race is reduced to a wattage contest. Weakening teams' influence is the key, but how the hell do you get top teams (not only Sky, but Tinkoff, Astana, Movistar and other bigs) to go from 9 to 7 riders in a GT, to drop the oreillette and to have a salary cap in place that means you cannot have a top notch rider as your n°4/5 rider in the team ?

ASO have tried to suggest some of those things (well at least the less riders per team and no oreillette part) and were soundly rebuffed by the teams.

 

[Carols]

Kudos to Majka, really nice ride! Hopefully this lifts the spirits of TCS a bit.

Astana made a daring move way out and Nibali looked good only to falter again late while they trashed Birdsong. Scratches head in wonderment.

 

[Kwibus]

Too much crap on Sky while they didn't do anything wrong besides having a huge budget and thus an realllly strong team which is hard to crack.

I prefer equal budgets for all teams as well, but that's not going to happen.

 

[Jim2784]

Twice now in the tour Dan Martin has been tactically inept and finished second both times, which is strange for him as hes normally quite cunning. If he had got in the break today he'd of won the stage, madness to think of all the energy he wasted today bridging across to the break...shocking tactics but maybe it was hid DS and not Dan's decision....thoughts people ?

 

[veji11]

Re:

Twice now in the tour Dan Martin has been tactically inept and finished second both times, which is strange for him as hes normally quite cunning. If he had got in the break today he'd of won the stage, madness to think of all the energy he wasted today bridging across to the break...shocking tactics but maybe it was hid DS and not Dan's decision....thoughts people ?

yeah, just flabbergasted by the overall strategy.. he would be better served saving his legs for Rodez and Mende, stages that suit him very well.

 

[Warhawk]

Re:

Twice now in the tour Dan Martin has been tactically inept and finished second both times, which is strange for him as hes normally quite cunning. If he had got in the break today he'd of won the stage, madness to think of all the energy he wasted today bridging across to the break...shocking tactics but maybe it was hid DS and not Dan's decision....thoughts people ?

Well, sure, not getting in the initial break was a key error, but he got damn close to winning even without doing so, so even though it was a failure in the sense that he didn't get in that initial break, I think it was ultimately a good call to bridge across to it and give himself a shot.

 

[Eyeballs Out]

He said he tried to go with Voeckler to get in the break but didn't have the legs at the time

Seemed like he had an up and down day

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

https://www.strava.com/activities/346660107/segments/8239100519

this suggests it wasn't an easy stage. Look at the average power output on the final 2 climbs.

 

[yaco]

Astana bossed the Giro with their B team, but yet supposedly saved their A team for the TDF. Astana have ridden like a C team.

 

[Carols]

Re:

Astana bossed the Giro with their B team, but yet supposedly saved their A team for the TDF. Astana have ridden like a C team.

Can't dispute that. Wondering if there is sickness in the team, they have been pretty poor!

 

[Vino attacks everyone]

Re: Re:

Astana bossed the Giro with their B team, but yet supposedly saved their A team for the TDF. Astana have ridden like a C team.

Can't dispute that. Wondering if there is sickness in the team, they have been pretty poor!

Boom, Grudzev both confirmed sick, an Boom already left. My guess also Taramaee as he retired from the race today.

 

[Carols]

Re: Re:

Astana bossed the Giro with their B team, but yet supposedly saved their A team for the TDF. Astana have ridden like a C team.

Can't dispute that. Wondering if there is sickness in the team, they have been pretty poor!

Boom, Grudzev both confirmed sick, an Boom already left. My guess also Taramaee as he retired from the race today.

Then there were 6. We can expect nothing from them. Brave move today though!

 

[Eagle]

Re: Re:

Astana bossed the Giro with their B team, but yet supposedly saved their A team for the TDF. Astana have ridden like a C team.

Can't dispute that. Wondering if there is sickness in the team, they have been pretty poor!

Boom, Grudzev both confirmed sick, an Boom already left. My guess also Taramaee as he retired from the race today.

Scarponi was also sick in the first week, wasn't he?

 

[Gogojv]

Re: Re:

Astana bossed the Giro with their B team, but yet supposedly saved their A team for the TDF. Astana have ridden like a C team.

Can't dispute that. Wondering if there is sickness in the team, they have been pretty poor!

Boom, Grudzev both confirmed sick, an Boom already left. My guess also Taramaee as he retired from the race today.

Scarponi was also sick in the first week, wasn't he?

Indeed. boom confirmed in an interview Scarponi was the first to be sick.

 

[masking_agent]

Movistar doing nothing...Unzue is such a coward...

+1
Porte was not making very hard pace (you could see that Majka was gaining when Porte was in front) and later Porte was dropped twice. If Movistar had pushed, maybe they could have isolate Froome. But they did not even try. Cowards.

mah come on, what were they to do.. People here forget that what we are seeing is what we see a good 80% of all Tours : the boss stamps the race on the first couple of ITT/MTFs and from then on the others play for seconds... Happened all the time with Coppi, Anquetil, MErckx, Hinault, Indurain, Armstrong, with Riis and Ulrich, with Contador in 2009, etc...

Valverde has his last chance of doing a podium on the tour, and Quintana is too far behind. Both are playing it "2009 Schleck brothers style" : they race as if Froome wasn't there, their goal will be to try and beat TVG, Contador and all.

This is the fifth year in a row the tour has been a foregone conclusion coming out of the first week. This is the reason that interest in the tour has fallen behind that of the Giro and Vuelta with hardcore cycling fans. I miss the Nibali of 2012 and the Contador of 2013, who didn't give up and kept fighting until the very end. This year appears to be a fight for the scraps.

^ well said. I agree totally.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

the average wattage on the last 7km on the Tourmalet was only 10w lower than what Gesink did last stage, according to his strava files. So I doubt Movistar could've done much

 

[May0maniac]

Re:

Who will be Astana's new leader tomorrow?

Vino

 

[SafeBet]

https://www.strava.com/activities/346660107/segments/8239100519

this suggests it wasn't an easy stage. Look at the average power output on the final 2 climbs.

always very interesting. thanks!