2015 Vuelta stage 20: San Lorenzo de El Escorial>Cercedilla

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

 

[jsem94]

Re: Re:

Nice words of solace from Purito to Dumoulin
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/rodriguez-defends-second-place-overall-in-vuelta-a-espana/

“It’s very hard, losing the jersey so late on, I remember what happened with Alberto at Fuente De, but at least [Dumoulin ]'s lost it when he’s much younger than I was. “

“He has to be very proud of what he’s done. He was lacking a bit of team support at the end, with one more rider in the mountains he might have come through. But in any case he has to think about what he can do in the future.”

CN missed the best part of the interview:
Q: Have you thought about attacking yourself to drop Aru and win the race?
A: Yes, every evening during the massage. But then in the morning I put my bib number on and the race turns out to be completely different

Simple as that. He gets flamed and burned non stop here by people that think cycling is a computer game. The guy simply couldn't. Like plenty of riders can't when people shout at them to attack. It's just not that simple.

Couldn't agree more. The only thing I could really see as a possible improvement would have been a stronger TT, because as is often the case with weak TTers - when you put a rider 50 metres in front of him he seems to most often be able to hold that gap - so he doesn't know how to properly suffer and pace himself on a TT bike. He is too afraid to blow up.

 

[hrotha]

Wait a minute, how come that's an acceptable explanation for the time he lost on the ITT, but not for the time he failed to take on the climbs?

 

[gregrowlerson]

Re:

Horrible Astana tactics. They have wasted two of their best riders.

So okay then, my predictions don't always come off either, but it has to be said that this remark was a little off the mark

 

[gregrowlerson]

Re:

Lulu and Zeits up the road is just perfect. Aru will go on Morcuera for sure. Vai Fabio!

This was the post of the day

Great tactics as it turned out by Astana. Tom D was rather unlucky not to get back on before the final climb. I am pretty sure that he would have if Aru didn't have Zeits and Sanchez to come back and assist with the pacemaking. And if he had got back on then who knows; there's a slight chance that he could have hung on to Aru on the final climb (or remained close enough to make it interesting for the last 17 kms), because although he looked cooked towards the end of the stage, how much of that was due to the loss of morale of getting within ten seconds of returning to the group, only to have that suddenly reverse itself to being a one minute deficit thanks to Zeits in beast mode?

And regardless of that I reckon Tom was unlucky due to the lack of ITT kms. Nine uphill finishers (including a couple of ridiculously tough multi mountain stages) and only 39 kms against the clock? Not exactly a great parcours for him. I think he deserved to finish on the podium, but congrats to Fabian. Been so consistent these past couple of seasons and is a worthy grand tour winner.

But I think Landa will win the Giro next season.

 

[jsem94]

Re:

Wait a minute, how come that's an acceptable explanation for the time he lost on the ITT, but not for the time he failed to take on the climbs?

Well. I guess you could look at it that he's afraid to blow up which is why he doesn't attack from further out.

I do think he rides at the limit of his capabilites on the road most of the times though.

 

[Broccolidwarf]

Completely *** Giant-Alpecin tactics

Why on earth do they not put people in the break away, when they know beforehand they won't be able to hack it in the mountains?

 

[hrotha]

Perhaps Craddock or even Degenkolb could have made it to the break, but it wasn't an easy one. You needed to be able to climb a fair bit to get in.

 

[roundabout]

I think there were a couple of guys at 3 hours plus on GC who made it. I recall Reza was one of them. With Astana having riders there Giant should have tried to follow. But maybe the tried and weren't able to, I haven't seen the beginning of the stage

 

[burning]

You can watch the beginning of the stage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sA5Jfys5Oo

LLS and Zeits basically joined the break at the last possible moment and I couldn't see any Giant riders trying to get in the break and they did no reaction when LLS and Zeits attacked.

 

[jsem94]

Re:

Completely *** Giant-Alpecin tactics

Why on earth do they not put people in the break away, when they know beforehand they won't be able to hack it in the mountains?

I think they tried, but you need to be in good shape and a decent climber to get into a break like that. Nearly no one in the Giant team fits that category. They built their team around Degenkolb.

 

[hrotha]

Yeah, it was a tactical blunder, but I mean maybe they reckoned they wouldn't be able to get in the break so they decided to save their energy for later.

Still though, it seems they went into the stage without a real plan, even though Astana's tactic was pretty obvious.

 

[Taxus4a]

This want maybe an epic stage becouse nobody of the GC did an impressive performance, but it was a great stage to remerber.

My view of the stage is here:

La Vuelta to an edge (gap) of "Sierra" (Mountain range and handsaw in spanish). Final analysis of the Tour of Spain 2015.

The iberian imperial eagle (Aquila adalberti) is one of the jewels of the Iberian fauna. A jewel that used to fly over the high pine forests of the newly created National Park of the Sierra de Guadarrama, a Mediterranean high mountain ecosystem unique in the world, leaving his shadow many times in the glacial lake of Peñalara , the dominant peak in these conflicts that separates the two Castillas and both sub-plateau.

That is not so rare scene to see from the Alto de Cotos , between the provinces of Madrid and Segovia. And this would be the scenario where the last battle of the Tour of Spain 2015 could deliver.

http://patrimoniociclista.blogspot.com.es/2015/09/la-vuelta-un-corte-de-sierra-analisis.html