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

[Gigs_98]

Re: 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.

It was impressive for a sprinter to not fall behind on a 2nd category climb (though almost a 3rd cat. climb) while Evans pulled on but the group which formed before the climb because of the crash, basically stayed the same, so Matthews wasnt bad, but also not better than anyone else in the front group. Moreover you already mentioned an important point. Nobody attacked on Montecasino while on Utelle there will be attacks. Evans's goal on Montecasino wasnt to gain time on Matthews but to gain time on the riders in the group behind. If he wanted to drop Matthews he probably could have done so. When guys like Contador, Dumoulin, Thomas,... attack each other, Matthews will drop, I'm very very sure about that.

 

[jaylew]

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

Agreed. I'm ok with Bling but he has zero chance of winning this.

 

[Gigs_98]

I just started to watch and what do I see? Ofc, Kittel dropped...again.

 

[Tonton]

I just started to watch and what do I see? Ofc, Kittel dropped...again.

Long Live The King !

 

[StryderHells]

I just started to watch and what do I see? Ofc, Kittel dropped...again.

Yeah he just doesn't look good at all here, you'd think something is wrong with him the way he is going

 

[Irondan]

Demare gone. Too bad...

 

[carolina]

kittel really needs to improve his climbing.

 

[May0maniac]

I just started to watch and what do I see? Ofc, Kittel dropped...again.

He needs to improve or he'll never be the captain of the German squad at the WC RR, he needs to ride a few one day race and show that he can handle the distance, otherwise Greipel will be the (rightful) leader.

 

[Miburo]

LMAO kittel dropped? Made my day xD

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

Re:

LMAO kittel dropped? Made my day xD

There was a crash on the final climb and some moderate echelons splitting up the peloton - you can see the peloton isn't too big.

Kittel however just got dropped when the road went up.........

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Go Chava ffs.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

The break might actually take this. I think they will.

 

[Gigs_98]

The gap of the break is getting bigger

 

[shalgo]

Vanmarcke and Chavanel looking strong for the classics; the peloton is going all out and isn't gaining on the break.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

Sep and Chava looking super strong! C'mon guys!

 

[Jspear]

Katusha wants Cofidis to help.

 

[StryderHells]

The Break really are making this interesting

 

[May0maniac]

LoL and the 3rd guy is Delio Fernandez.

 

[May0maniac]

It's going to be pretty close.

 

[StryderHells]

Damn! Didn't want them to get caught

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Nacer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good stuff. Congrats.

 

[shalgo]

Fair win for Bouhanni that time.

 

[StryderHells]

Bouhanni

 

[jaylew]

Bohanni easy. Sweet revenge. He completely owned Kristoff and Greipel.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Greipel still not 100% gorilla