2016 Paris - Nice, March 6th - 13th, WT

[pastronef]

sunny weather for tomorrow

around 7 deg C for, the Chalet Reynard at 1:00 pm

http://montagne.lachainemeteo.com/meteo-alpes-du-sud/station-montagne/previsions-meteo-chalet-reynard-294-1.php

 

[LaFlorecita]

sunny weather for tomorrow

around 7 deg C for, the Chalet Reynard at 1:00 pm

http://montagne.lachainemeteo.com/meteo-alpes-du-sud/station-montagne/previsions-meteo-chalet-reynard-294-1.php

Good news. Tinkoff, Sky, BMC and Movistar should go full gas to drop Matthews. If they don't succeed they can try again on stage 6.

 

[Matteo.]

sunny weather for tomorrow

around 7 deg C for, the Chalet Reynard at 1:00 pm

http://montagne.lachainemeteo.com/meteo-alpes-du-sud/station-montagne/previsions-meteo-chalet-reynard-294-1.php

Good news. Tinkoff, Sky, BMC and Movistar should go full gas to drop Matthews. If they don't succeed they can try again on stage 6.

totally agree

 

[RedheadDane]

Love how this has basically turned from being merely The Race to the Sun to being more of a Quest for the Sun.
Have the riders actually seen the sun yet?

 

[StryderHells]

sunny weather for tomorrow

around 7 deg C for, the Chalet Reynard at 1:00 pm

http://montagne.lachainemeteo.com/meteo-alpes-du-sud/station-montagne/previsions-meteo-chalet-reynard-294-1.php

Good news. Tinkoff, Sky, BMC and Movistar should go full gas to drop Matthews. If they don't succeed they can try again on stage 6.

I think that they would be wasting there time on stage 5 but if they really go for it on stage 6 then they can drop him early enough

 

[pastronef]

sunny weather for tomorrow

around 7 deg C for, the Chalet Reynard at 1:00 pm

http://montagne.lachainemeteo.com/meteo-alpes-du-sud/station-montagne/previsions-meteo-chalet-reynard-294-1.php

Good news. Tinkoff, Sky, BMC and Movistar should go full gas to drop Matthews. If they don't succeed they can try again on stage 6.

I don´t get the dislike for Matthews from many on here. he´s a good racer, no?

 

[Matteo.]

sunny weather for tomorrow

around 7 deg C for, the Chalet Reynard at 1:00 pm

http://montagne.lachainemeteo.com/meteo-alpes-du-sud/station-montagne/previsions-meteo-chalet-reynard-294-1.php

Good news. Tinkoff, Sky, BMC and Movistar should go full gas to drop Matthews. If they don't succeed they can try again on stage 6.

I don´t get the dislike for Matthews from many on here. he´s a good racer, no?

I do not understand the meaning of this observation with what is written by laflo .

anyway if one is a fan of Porte ot Thomas or Contador, what he should say or write?!

 

[Hugo Koblet]

sunny weather for tomorrow

around 7 deg C for, the Chalet Reynard at 1:00 pm

http://montagne.lachainemeteo.com/meteo-alpes-du-sud/station-montagne/previsions-meteo-chalet-reynard-294-1.php

Good news. Tinkoff, Sky, BMC and Movistar should go full gas to drop Matthews. If they don't succeed they can try again on stage 6.

You mean they should try and drop Matthews on Ventoux? That's never gonna happen. It would be great if it did however

 

[DBotero]

Can't wait to see this monstrous coalition against poor Matthews

 

[Matteo.]

Can't wait to see this monstrous coalition against poor Matthews

In my opinion, if they are waiting for last kms of Utelle,Matthews will be able to defend .Many sayhe has improved, and slopes will not be hard

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Can't wait to see this monstrous coalition against poor Matthews

In my opinion, if they are waiting for last kms of Utelle,Matthews will be able to defend .Many sayhe has improved, and slopes will not be hard

He indeed has improved. But he has always been a good climber. Just take a look at the climb he won a stage on in the 2014 Giro. If they wait until Utelle, Matthews will win. They have to put him under pressure from far out.

 

[Pricey_sky]

Can't wait to see this monstrous coalition against poor Matthews

Well if anyone wants to actually win this race then teams have got to go full gas and put him in the red on these climbs. By all accounts Movistar got him in a little trouble yesterday. Sky will obviously set a high tempo on Saturday and they have a pretty strong team, as do Tinkoff with the likes of Majka (if he actually rides for Contador) and Kiserlovski.

 

[willbick]

Re: Re:

gilbert abandoned?!

Did not start today, sick, flu

Philip gilbert has influenza??! more likely he has a cold...

 

[Kwibus]

sunny weather for tomorrow

around 7 deg C for, the Chalet Reynard at 1:00 pm

http://montagne.lachainemeteo.com/meteo-alpes-du-sud/station-montagne/previsions-meteo-chalet-reynard-294-1.php

Good news. Tinkoff, Sky, BMC and Movistar should go full gas to drop Matthews. If they don't succeed they can try again on stage 6.

I don´t get the dislike for Matthews from many on here. he´s a good racer, no?

I'm not reading any dislike in this particular post. What I do read is that LaFlo is hoping for an aggresive race as the GC contenders have to make the race hard in order to get rid of Matthews.

 

[dacooley]

Can't wait to see this monstrous coalition against poor Matthews

yeah, coalitions is something like a myth of an afterlife here. all the teams should combine their efforts to allow a desirable rider to win.

 

[willbick]

Can't wait to see this monstrous coalition against poor Matthews

yeah, coalitions is something like a myth of an afterlife here. all the teams should combine their efforts to allow a desirable rider to win.

The general format is all non-english speaking teams should combine against the english-speaking race leader

 

[Billie]

Saying Matthews is a good climber because he won a MTF in the Giro is like saying Ballan was a good climber cause he won a Vuelta MTF once.

Montecassino was basically neutralised climbing for that front group.

Edit: see last year he was in yellow aswell before chabouret (quite similar climb to Utelle) and was nowhere close.

 

[LaFlorecita]

I don´t get the dislike for Matthews from many on here. he´s a good racer, no?

I don't know how you reached the conclusion I dislike Matthews? I just made an observation that if Sky, Movistar, Tinkoff or BMC want to win the race, they have to drop Matthews and the easiest way to do that is to put him under pressure early on in stage 6 or on Ventoux.

 

[Kwibus]

Re:

Saying Matthews is a good climber because he won a MTF in the Giro is like saying Ballan was a good climber cause he won a Vuelta MTF once.

Montecassino was basically neutralised climbing for that front group.

Edit: see last year he was in yellow aswell before chabouret (quite similar climb to Utelle) and was nowhere close.

Circumstances were not normal. That's true, but the climb was races hard.
As far as I can remember a lot of GC men fell while BMC was pulling for Evans. After the crash they certainly didn't stop and pushed as hard as possible up the climb to get as much time for Evans, but Evans didn't attack himself because of the crashes. Only a fairly small group reached the finish and Matthews was part of that group. Sure it was no GC riders attacking up the climb, but it was quite a ferocious pace as the other GC contenders never made it back to Evans his group.

It's also unlikely Matthews will hang on until the very end. The question is for how long will he hang on? And what if the other GC contenders can't drop eachother? That will likely drop the pace quite a bit.

 

[dacooley]

I don´t get the dislike for Matthews from many on here. he´s a good racer, no?

I don't know how you reached the conclusion I dislike Matthews? I just made an observation that if Sky, Movistar, Tinkoff or BMC want to win the race, they have to drop Matthews and the easiest way to do that is to put him under pressure early on in stage 6 or on Ventoux.

matthews is not a threat at all in consideration of the stage 6. he will easily snipp off 1.5-2 minutes at madone d'utelle and be happy ending up in top 20 in the GC imo

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Re:

Saying Matthews is a good climber because he won a MTF in the Giro is like saying Ballan was a good climber cause he won a Vuelta MTF once.

Montecassino was basically neutralised climbing for that front group.

Edit: see last year he was in yellow aswell before chabouret (quite similar climb to Utelle) and was nowhere close.

Matthews was a very good climber in his younger days. Of course a lot has happened since, and he's now a different type of rider. However, the last two years he's been working very hard on improving his climbing. Also this year he's actually targeting the GC (and has been training towards this goal ever since the PN route was announced).

 

[TourOfSardinia]

What's today's weather like on the route?

 

[pastronef]

Re:

What's today's weather like on the route?

https://twitter.com/mwkeenan/status/707877685620510720

sunny, 7-10 degrees

 

[HelloDolly]

Surely climbing teams need ot attack Matthews on Ventoux (if they are going ot do this)

The problem is you line out against Matthews you still have Dumoulin ...who I was going to say is no Matthews but now I wonder

Even today teams cannot afford to let Matthews take bonus seconds so they need their sprinters to the fore

One cannot leave it all till Saturday

 

[Breh]

Re: Re:

Well, you're a pussy because humans used to live in caves and now u live in a house.

Luckily for us, we keep evolving and so does the sport.

Oh well, sure the human species evolved a lot in 50 years...

You would disagree?

yes. The cyclists today are the same human beings as a century ago. Only, better trained and equipped. If anything,they should be able to endure more than their past counterparts.

Hmmm, I didn't make myself very clear, my bad.
I meant society instead of the human species. Society evolved alot. Labor rights for example. I do think calling riders pussies is uncalled for. The sport has changed aswell, way more riders, more money, more crashes, more nervosity, more cars/motos, more media attention, higher (average) speeds, more contenders,...

Racing in horrible weather conditions belongs to days past.