2016 Vuelta a España, Info & Discussion

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

Steven Kruijswijk's flying nicely under the radar once again! Just saying.

Rightly so, IMO. The Vuelta is really a different race to the Giro.

How big time differences will we see on the first TTT? I could see some big riders lose 1 minute or so.

 

[Valv.Piti]

FDJ:
ELISSONDE, Kenny
FISCHER, Murilo Antonio
GENIEZ, Alexandre
LADAGNOUS, Matthieu
LE BON, Johan
MANZIN, Lorrenzo
PICHON, Laurent
RÉZA, Kévin
EIKING, Odd Christian

Direct Energie:
SICARD, Romain
JEANDESBOZ, Fabrice
CARDIS, Romain
CALMEJANE, Lilian
MORICE, Julien
ANDERSON, Ryan
HUREL, Tony
NAULEAU, Bryan
QUEMENEUR, Perrig

Cofidis:
BAGOT, Yoann
CHETOUT, Loïc
COUSIN, Jérôme
HARDY, Romain
MATÉ, Luis Ángel
MOLARD, Rudy
ROSSETTO, Stephane
SÉNÉCHAL, Florian
VANBILSEN, Kenneth

Thats some sorry team, guys. AG2R yet to be announced, but they at least have Latour who should do relatively well. No Bouhanni once again makes Cofidis look amateurish, FDJ has a couple of decentish climbers, while Direct Energie also looks like a very bad outfit. #LessTeams

 

[LaFlorecita]

FDJ and Cofidis should be able to score a few top-10s with those lineups, Direct Energie doesn't look as promising but breakaways for the win

 

[afpm90]

I'm interested in seeing how Odd Christian Eiking will fare, after a nice race in Norway.

 

[yaco]

So Valverde and Landa are doing ' A Hansen' by riding 3 GT's.

 

[Anderis]

Re:

So Valverde and Landa are doing ' A Hansen' by riding 3 GT's.

Landa not really, since you need to finish all of them to do "a Hansen" properly.

 

[flashke]

Meintjes just tweeted that he will start in La Vuelta. I'm really curious to see who will be the best young rider. Meintjes, Latour, Barguil or Lopez, who do you think?

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Re:

Meintjes just tweeted that he will start in La Vuelta. I'm really curious to see who will be the best young rider. Meintjes, Latour, Barguil or Lopez, who do you think?

My guess:

1. Lopez
2. Latour
3. Meinjtes
4. Barguil

 

[Samamba]

Lopez for sure. Meintjes is not going to be 100% after his TDF, Barguil & Latour just aren't good enough to beat Lopez.

 

[Sykes]

Chris Froome,Ian Boswell, Michal Golas, Peter Kennaugh, Christian Knees, Leopold Konig, Michal Kwiatkowski, Mikel Landa, Salvatore Puccio.
Landa starting his 3rd GT this year

Doesn't look strong enough to control the race IMO, if we include the fact it's Landa's 3rd GT this year and that Kwiatkowski hasn't shown his 2013 climbing form for a while.

Thank god they don't have, in theory, a good enough team to control every single stage! That means we will have a much more open race. Giro was good, but Vuelta it's now the best contender to the best GT of the year...

 

[Sykes]

Re:

Lopez for sure. Meintjes is not going to be 100% after his TDF, Barguil & Latour just aren't good enough to beat Lopez.

I believe that Meintjes still has something in the tank to make a good Vuelta. About the GC aspirations of the young guys in the Vuelta, my bet is the following:

*** López and Meintjes
** Barguil
* Latour and (maybe!) Elissonde

 

[Josh Homme]

Just a remainder, there's no such thing as a Young Rider Classification in La Vuelta. Instead, there's a silly Combined Classification

 

[PremierAndrew]

Lopez is a genuine contender for the podium, unlike Latour Barguil and Meinjtes

 

[Arredondo]

If Meintjes is in peak shape, he's a podium contender. He was strong as hell in Río too.

You can't expect a lot from Lopez in his first GT.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Just a remainder, there's no such thing as a Young Rider Classification in La Vuelta. Instead, there's a silly Combined Classification

Well, isn't the young riders classification a bit silly as well?

 

[Sykes]

Just a remainder, there's no such thing as a Young Rider Classification in La Vuelta. Instead, there's a silly Combined Classification

I know Josh :razz: But i like to measure the performances of the future stars against each other anyway

 

[Josh Homme]

Just a remainder, there's no such thing as a Young Rider Classification in La Vuelta. Instead, there's a silly Combined Classification

Well, isn't the young riders classification a bit silly as well?

I like it. At least more than a combined classification in a GT with the same parcours all along :lol:

 

[PhiberAwptik]

Anyone else feel like this Sky lineup won't be able to do the Sky train act?

 

[flashke]

You can't really do a Sky-act on short steep hills, but I do think that Sky will take control of the race most of the time.

 

[Oliwright]

I don't think Sky will take control.
Froome won't be in that good shape, neither will landa imo and I doubt Konig will be flying.
I imagine Froome's form will be worse than 2014
Tinkoff and Mov will.
As Quintana and Contador really need to do well.

 

[Sykes]

KATUSHA

Tiago Machado (POR)
Sven Erik Bystrom (NOR)
Jhonathan Restrepo (COL)
Egor Silin (RUS)
Sergey Lagutin (RUS)
Alberto Losada (RUS)
Matvey Mamykin (RUS)
Rein Taaramae (EST)
Pavel Kochetkov (RUS)

So...what to expect from this Katusha team?
I'm curious about Mamykin and Taaramae performances and suporting my portuguese mate Tiago Machado!

 

[flashke]

We have to be honnest, this Katusha team is pure ***.

 

[vredeling]

Astana selection:

http://www.cyclismactu.net/news-la-vuelta-lopez-cataldo-scarponi-d-astana-sur-la-vuelta-vuelta-espana-astanateam-cataldo-sanchez-61565.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

[Carols]

Re: Re:

I'm disappointed that Froome will be at the Vuelta. I hope it doesn't make it as boring as the TdF was as a result of his participation. Hope for better performances from Quintana and Contador, I guess.

Has Froome ever been boring at the Vuelta? sky race the Vuelta differently

Not really, they still are at the front all the time. The only difference is that froome is usually worse.

I still remember 2014 La Camperona when Cataldo set a pace that was so high that Froome was almost dropped and in the end he still beat the other gc riders.
Yoyo Froome is usually fun to watch.

Froome drops Contador because of proper pacing and cadence. You can see when he attacks, which is a good 5 minutes after Contador, he has another sprocket on the casette and is spinning at 100 cadence compared to Conti's 80. I wonder who will be the first to spin like Froome?

LOL Lance Armstrong made spinning a high cadence popular a few years back. Transformed Froome does it now, go figure.

 

[Pantani_lives]

There aren't enough MTFs.