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2016 TdF, Stage 17: Bern → Finhaut-Emosson (185km)

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Feb 16, 2011
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Any one else wanna defend TJ Van Middle-class comfortable Kindegarten?








P.S. I'm gutter glass proletarian. My parents owned sh*t. I mean that. They owned they're sh*t and nothing else.
 
Mar 25, 2013
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Not sure the Contador of now would make much of a race of this either.

It needed the Contador of 2014 for that.

Terrible race overall. I can't wait for it to end.
 
Re: Re:

DFA123 said:
ILovecycling said:
Would have been interesting to see where Alberto would have been...this version of Froome is not the strongest at all
He looks stronger than ever to me. Hasn't even been close to being in difficulty all tour. He's still got a gear or two extra if he needs it - but he won't, certainly not after the TT tomorrow.

Brailsford said it yesterday. He has to look as humanly possible in order to avoid questions. All goes according to the plan.
 
Re: Re:

Laggard said:
El Pistolero said:
What a low quality field in this Tour. Contador gone, Nibali rode the Giro and isn't interested in GC here, Quintana not in form, Porte lost two minutes because of a flat tire and crashed at Ventoux, Valverde has the Giro in his legs, etc.

Or perhaps sky are just that much better?

or maybe it's something about being in france...(?)

what makes anyone think that we wouldn't have seen the same French Contador we have seen since 2010 - the one that sits resolutely on his seat with his head tilted to one side and eventually gets dropped? there's been no "dancing on the pedals" in france...
 
Mar 14, 2016
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Re: Re:

trucido said:
Red Rick said:
Did anyone catch Poels dragging Mollema's **** over the line? Dom of #1 helping #2.

Well considering they are both from the same nation and he completed his primary task...
Stupid to waste energy pulling someone who just happens to be born in the same general area as him.
 
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bassano said:
PremierAndrew said:
Escarabajo said:
ontheroad said:
Froome barely breathing crossing the line.
He wasn't as good this Tour. The rest were just worse. Don't play it like he is supreme because he is not.

Let's wait for him to crush everyone tomorrow first.

Froome has demolished every top rider in the world bar Contador, who he crushed in the Dauphine anyway. You can't just dismiss that

Yeah, in one most predictable and easy race to ocntrol every year, you saw how superior he was at Vuelta

I do hope your'e joking. His Vuelta results:

2nd (after being the best rider but sacrificing himself for Wiggins; also he was the quickest rider in the race but lost on time bonuses)
4th (after ripping everyone apart in the Tour and coming 2nd there)
2nd (after crashing out the Tour; he clearly never recovered)
DNF (after winning the Tour and looking like the strongest rider in the last mountain stage in the Vuelta, he then crashed out)

So in what way does the statement above, barely written in legible English, correct?
 
Re:

El Pistolero said:
What a low quality field in this Tour. Contador gone, Nibali rode the Giro and isn't interested in GC here, Quintana not in form, Porte lost two minutes because of a flat tire and crashed at Ventoux, Valverde has the Giro in his legs, etc.

On paper the start list was extremely strong with a lot of strength in depth. I wonder how the race would have unfolded if Froome and the Sky TGV weren't there. Would there be a lower pace in the mountains and would we see Mollema, Yates, Bardet, etc. attack each other from further out - would the mountain stages end with a group containing just the Heads of State (© P&P) like we typically saw from 2006-2011 or would Movistar and Astana deploy their own trains in similar fashion to Sky?

Also Christian Prudhomme if you're reading, please fit in as many medium mountain stages as you can next year. When you can't find medium size climbs, please hug the coast for maximum crosswind potential. Don't put multiple crazy hard stages back to back. And reclassify the Tour as a HC race instead of WT, which would mean 8 man teams.
 
gooner said:
Not sure the Contador of now would make much of a race of this either.

It needed the Contador of 2014 for that.

not sure what contador 2014 would have done?

he was almost 3 mins down and was obviously going to lose tons of time in the ITT (lack of power showed on the cobbles stage).

also, contador 2014 was beaten by froome in the dauphine prologue, and still couldn't come around him for the stage win after froome had led the entire way up the first MTF. it was only after froome CRASHED badly that contador could do anything.

and then he went and lost to freakin' talansky.

"contador 2014" is a myth.
 
Re: Re:

Rollthedice said:
DFA123 said:
ILovecycling said:
Would have been interesting to see where Alberto would have been...this version of Froome is not the strongest at all
He looks stronger than ever to me. Hasn't even been close to being in difficulty all tour. He's still got a gear or two extra if he needs it - but he won't, certainly not after the TT tomorrow.

Brailsford said it yesterday. He has to look as humanly possible in order to avoid questions. All goes according to the plan.
when reading you, I always catch myself thinking that Froome winning the Tour is the biggest possible cycling tragedy. :p
 
Apr 15, 2016
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Re: Re:

DFA123 said:
ILovecycling said:
Would have been interesting to see where Alberto would have been...this version of Froome is not the strongest at all
He looks stronger than ever to me. Hasn't even been close to being in difficulty all tour. He's still got a gear or two extra if he needs it - but he won't, certainly not after the TT tomorrow.

if he had an extra gear he would have shown it by now , he's barely made any attacks (none prolonged) and none that have stuck and distanced his rivals like in his past tour wins

Froome isn't holding anything back , lucky for him LRP still thinks he's riding for Sky or he would have kicked again and dropped him instead of pacing him to the finish line today .
 
What is more sad? That I missed everything except the last two kilometers of the gc guys on one of the hardest tour de france stages or that I still everything important. :eek:

The tour had its moments in the 2nd week and I thought this could still turn out to be an interesting race but now it's really becoming one of the worst gt's I have ever seen.