2016 Vuelta a España, stage 3: Marín > Mirador de Ézaro

[Breh]

Who wants that? I thought, in general, people want to keep FW the way it is and make AGR/LBL more exciting.

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

Vuelta a España once again the best race of the year.

Indeed. Not really sure why murito's get so much stick. They guarantee action from the big names every single time. Even multiple high mountain stages couldn't do that in the Tour.

The repeated use of muritos and ultra steep MTFs (more than one each in a GT) demonstrates that organisers don't believe in aggressive cycling anymore, and revert to using climbs and stages that will automatically force the hand of the riders because they are so hard. However, this will at most guarantee just 10k of action. If we become content with these stages then sure, we will have guaranteed action often, but it demonstrates so little of a rider and so little of the beauty of cycling. If we become content we will then cause three week GTs to become not occasions in which we can watch a stage all day, but just 30 minutes. There will be no more heroic rides, no more incredible comebacks.

If we, as fans, come to like these stages, the organisers will use more and more of them. Not as a novelty, but as the instrument of choice. We will have less stages like last year's Giro Stage 4 or Stage 9. In those we had whole days of action, or at least a good bit. If organisers decide the most money comes from 10-20 minutes of, I admit, often very good action, then that's what we'll get. I, for one, prefer to have possible action for one or two hours, like this year's Giro in the last week, and hope the riders can deliver. Muritos are the product of defensive racing and poor overall race structure and design. The more we like them, the more they will happen. They make they will happen, the more defensive and boring racing will become on the stages that historically were the greatest in GTs. Or at least have some climbs before the goddamn murito.

 

[Bolder]

Re: Re:

I still cannot believe that riders don't just sit on Froome's wheel on these climbs.

Froome isn't messiah, his rivals must doing their own race, one day he could have an off day and not practice bluff. But like always his tactic works because he's the best srm rider and because he's bloody confident in himself.

It's a climb where drafting doesn't matters very little. You know for sure he's pacing well, so if you're looking at his back wheel, you're also pacing well.

I don't think you want Froome to dictate the pace. He can attack depending on how he feels. He's a dominant rider who won't crack, but no reason to make it easy for him.

 

[Flamin]

Re: Re:

Last km 2012: 4'34" (Purito)

Last km 2016: 4'24" (Fernández)

Froome was faster than Fernandez in the last km.
To my measurements : Froome was 16 seconds behind Fernandez with ~1k to go (~700m to go for the race leader). and he finished 5 seconds behind.
Ergo (assuming your initial measurement was right) the quote must go like this:

Last km 2016: 4'13" (Froome)

My timing is right, but as pointed out earlier, the red kite was in a different place so Purito had 4'05" measured from where the red kite was yesterday.

 

[SafeBet]

What happened to Superman?

 

[del1962]

Re:

What happened to Superman?

Crashed in run in to final climb, so was left with a few teammates while the peloton was on full charge.