2016 Tour of California 2.HC May 15-22

[jahn]

Alaphillippe finished 33 seconds on a guy who did 5.67 w/kg for 35 minutes on the final climb.

 

[Martin]

Re:

That was unreal from Alaphilippe ...

I wonder what would happen if he would come prepared for the race.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/alaphilippe-downplays-tour-of-california-ambitions/

 

[May0maniac]

Powless is the best 19year old I 've seen in the last 20 years. The boy has insane potential

He looked great but that seems a bit extreme. Wasn't Sagan 19 when he burst onto the scene?

I was talking about Gc riders, sorry.

Powless looked really smooth, great climbing style.
If we're talking about American riders, Ian Boswell was also really impressive when he was 19, he finished 3rd in the Tour of Utah.
I know that he wasn't born in the USA, but at some point Lachlan Morton was a very interesting prospect, but the guy just likes riding for fun and dislikes being in Europe...

 

[Isaak-Gabriel]

Powless is the best 19year old I 've seen in the last 20 years. The boy has insane potential

He looked great but that seems a bit extreme. Wasn't Sagan 19 when he burst onto the scene?

I was talking about Gc riders, sorry.

Powless looked really smooth, great climbing style.
If we're talking about American riders, Ian Boswell was also really impressive when he was 19, he finished 3rd in the Tour of Utah.
I know that he wasn't born in the USA, but at some point Lachlan Morton was a very interesting prospect, but the guy just likes riding for fun and dislikes being in Europe...

Good to see some riders having cycling lifestyle, competition isn't only that matters. Be happy on a bike.

 

[Echoes]

Re: Re:

Don't understand all this slagging off of the North American races. Even Utah does not avoid it these days. Best part is to see the U.S folks on the forefront of all criticism. Give it a break.

[...]90% of routes in European races could also be improved. It just seems that people are quick and eager to jump on the U.S hate-bandwagon for various reasons. I understand how ATOC can be seen as pretencious or undeserving of much attention, but I get the feeling people see NA as some sort of poser in the cycling world, unaware or ignoring the fact that the sport also has rather deep roots there and, as far as I'm concerned, a larger interest than where I live. I've been laughed at because of this but I don't care and will repeat it.

I repeat the laughs too.

And U.S. hate-bandwagon is not as popular as the U.S. fan-bandwagon in Europe, be that as it may. It's "cool" for a Euro to watch the ToC, mainly if those Euros have the American flags on all their sweaters... It gives a welcome change of surroundings to our dirty old Europe where people are suffering unemployment and misery. The good old American Dream, after all.

 

[Anderis]

Ben King had a mechanical at the base of the climb, yet he finished the stage only 5 minutes behind the winner. I wonder what could he do.

 

[TMP402]

Ben King had a mechanical at the base of the climb, yet he finished the stage only 5 minutes behind the winner. I wonder what could he do.

Finish 3 minutes behind?

 

[DNP-Old]

Jaramillo is horrible in big races.

 

[perico]

Powless is the best 19year old I 've seen in the last 20 years. The boy has insane potential

He looked great but that seems a bit extreme. Wasn't Sagan 19 when he burst onto the scene?

I was talking about Gc riders, sorry.

Adrien Costa may be even better. There are a couple of American talents that really have potential to be contenders.

 

[Oldermanish]

Re:

Powless has a pretty nice climbing style.

On the American feed Phil and Paul were constantly giving Axel Merkcx credit for "discovering" all of this talent...most of these guys funnel through Northwest Washington teams like Hagens Berman, local Audi team along with Red Truck in BC. Axel discovers little but has a budget.
Most of the Euros that have spent time in that region know that the riders are generally pretty tough and dedicated. Logan Owen, Tyler Farrar for example-totally home grown and schooled.

 

[trevim]

Ruben Guerreiro 13th is pretty insane even if the field has pretty low quality. He's more like a puncheur/sprinter than really a climber. Waiting for him to smash Sagan and Kristoff in one of those reduced bunch sprints

 

[carolina]

cavendish is in the breakaway. nice

 

[RedheadDane]

So... what kind of stage is this?

 

[Anderis]

Re:

So... what kind of stage is this?

There are profiles on the first page.

5,5km at 5,7% followed by 1,1km at 10,3% and everything inside last 15 kilometers. I think this stage may be GC relevant. Should suit Alaphilippe even more than yesterday. I guess he will want more time on Dennis ahead ot ITT.

 

[RedheadDane]

Cool thanks.
Got a suspicion it wasn't exactly a sprinter's stage when I saw that Cavendish was in the break, and Mørkøv too.

Guess I'll stay up tonight as well.

 

[Jancouver]

Do I see some similarity? Hopefully, the Cali stage will be as exciting as the Giro

Todays Giro

Todays California

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Is it correctly understood that the riders are tackling the cork screw hill on the Mazda Raceway/Laguna Seca track at the end of this stage?

 

[Oldermanish]

Re: Re:

Powless has a pretty nice climbing style.

On the American feed Phil and Paul were constantly giving Axel Merkcx credit for "discovering" all of this talent...most of these guys funnel through Northwest Washington teams like Hagens Berman, local Audi team along with Red Truck in BC. Axel discovers little but has a budget.
Most of the Euros that have spent time in that region know that the riders are generally pretty tough and dedicated. Logan Owen, Tyler Farrar for example-totally home grown and schooled.

So they're heading into a choppy uphill finish. If the break holds I'll pick another punk kid from the NW and former Red Truck guy, Will Routley. He can climb and finish. Oh wait, he's not on Axel's team...

 

[jahn]

Race tech is actually pretty good:
http://microsofttourtracker.amgentourofcalifornia.com/

 

[GuyIncognito]

I expect a sprint from a reduced group.
Is this the day Mr.Bean finally decides to get in on the sprint?


edit - scratch that, he was 8th in stage 1. I didn't catch that.

 

[GuyIncognito]

Re:

Race tech is actually pretty good:
http://microsofttourtracker.amgentourofcalifornia.com/

Heh. Just realized there's an easy way to ignore the video ads and get the race feed 100% of the time. Silly.

 

[Taxus4a]

I think Samu can win today

 

[SlickMongoose]

Attack after attack. This is pretty good!

 

[TMP402]

Haas really died away pretty dramatically there.

 

[TMP402]

If Haas hadn't attacked, he really could have had that sprint.