2017 Tirreno-Adriatico, March 8-14, WT

[Cance > TheRest]

Re:

11:50 for Caruso. Seems unlikely that Quintana does worse, barring a major mistake. So that means Dennis needs a 10:45 to have a significant chance..

Mollema did 12.00. I'm guessing Quintana will hit 12.05 or something. Dennis needs to beat Fabian's record from last year by quite a bit.

 

[barmaher]

Times have gotten slower. Kirby blames the wind picking up, and he is probably right.

Nice ride by Rogla.

 

[AlexNYC]

Roglic's time is really good in context. If the wind is actually this much of a factor, Quintana is going to be affected a lot worse than the other guys at the top of GC.

 

[barmaher]

Rohan Dennnis has really improved in all disciplines this season.

 

[DBotero]

Just managed it by Dennis.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

great performance by dennis

 

[AlexNYC]

Hmm. It's going to be close for Dennis. He has a good chance of taking this.

 

[barmaher]

10'50 at flamme rouge. Should get 12 mins 5s.

 

[AlexNYC]

Not as close as I thought.

 

[carton]

Great ride by Dennis to take it, after all the effort he has expended over the week. And good win by Quintana, battling the colds, a course that on paper wasn't overly suited to him (two pan flat time trials and only one true mountain stage) and seemingly not going too deep.

P.S. Got caught out before editing in an additional word in my last post

 

[Valv.Piti]

Dennis almost beat Dumoulin by half a minute.

I don't think Dennis will contend for the top-3 in the Giro, but what a watt-monster that guy is. And Tom obviously did very badly, you win some uphill, you lose something elsewhere.

 

[Rollthedice]

Re:

Dennis almost beat Dumoulin by half a minute.

I don't think Dennis will contend for the top-3 in the Giro, but what a watt-monster that guy is. And Tom obviously did very badly, you win some uphill, you lose something elsewhere.

Except for Thomas. You win some uphill you win some everywhere.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Re:

Great ride by Dennis to take it, after all the effort he has expended over the week. And good win by Quintana, battling the colds, a course that on paper wasn't overly suited to him (two pan flat time trials and only one true mountain stage) and seemingly not going too deep.

P.S. Got caught out before editing in an additional word in my last post

I'd say it was a pretty good course for Quintana. 1) The TTT, as expected, helped establish a lead over some of the other contenders other than the BMC-duo, 2) a proper summit finish always favours him in a field that boasts no top climbers other than himself and 3) a 10km time trial, where it is impossible to lose minutes.

 

[yaco]

Re: Re:

Hopefully one of Colbrelli, Degenkolb, Matthews, Greipel, Swift or Groenewegen - the guys who actually rode the last two stages and repected the race - instead of throwing in the towel (*cough* Kristoff, Demare, Bouhanni, Kittel).

Cort.

Hey! I can dream!

Cort is a classics rider - He is a very good sprinter at the second level - Can make the final selection at MSR and it's not always won by the fastest sprinter - Will be a protected rider along with Ewan, though He has little chance of getting over the Poggio and Cipressa - Gerrans will be the fall back if Ewan is dropped.

As a point of comparison, Cort is quicker than Matthews but not as good at steeper gradients - Orica consider Cort will end up as good as Matthews.




(Not very likely, I know...)

Hmm, don't let the danish press fool ya, he ain't winning bunch sprints against this calibre of guys and probably never will. And thats totally fine, but its annoying the crap out of me to listen to guys like Rolf Sorensen hype him.

 

[johnymax]

Why are Italians on RAI talking about how Pinot completely messed up this ITT. WTF!? He is not a specialist ffs. He has done as expected. Castroviejo and Dumoulin on the other hand did a poor ITT for their standards. Battle for the GC on the climbs took a toll on them (or maybe they didn't feel right today I don't know).

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re: Re:

Dennis almost beat Dumoulin by half a minute.

I don't think Dennis will contend for the top-3 in the Giro, but what a watt-monster that guy is. And Tom obviously did very badly, you win some uphill, you lose something elsewhere.

Except for Thomas. You win some uphill you win some everywhere.

He's obviously in some great shape, but yeah... same for Wiggo at an even higher rate. Doesn't happen to many riders.

 

[yaco]

Dennis won as expected - Hepburn was the surprise, especially seeing Durbridge is going better in this discipline.

Interesting the Australian ITT over around 40kms was won by Dennis by 59 seconds over Durbridge and Hepburn was around 1m and 30 second down - Interesting thing is that in that race Durbridge was 3 seconds ahead of Dennis at the halfway split - Anyway its proving a decent form race at this early stage of the year.

 

[LosBrolin]

Re:

Why are Italians on RAI talking about how Pinot completely messed up this ITT. WTF!? He is not a specialist ffs. He has done as expected. Castroviejo and Dumoulin on the other hand did a poor ITT for their standards. Battle for the GC on the climbs took a toll on them (or maybe they didn't feel right today I don't know).

Our local ESP-commentator was talking exactly the same nonsense. "What a poor time trial by Tibopino, not good at all!"

Eh, honestly, I don't know what they were expecting

 

[slosada]

OK DNP, you asked me to come back to you after the ITT:
Here is the thing: You made a blank statement based on Uran's bunch positioning at the beginning of Terminillo ("He has lost it"), but the very same day he was one of the top-4 at the end.
Instead of accepting that it was a little premature, you angrily replied: Wait until the ITT. (I still struggle to find a connection between bunch positioning and ITT but I gave you that leeway).
The next day Urán was again in the selected group.
And today, was just average but only lost one position to Castroviejo.

Now, if you ask me, Rigo had two bad years, with one win (Québec) and a couple of podiums, and I still don't see him at 2013 or 2014 level. His TT was an asset and now a weakness. I'm not sure if his side business has something to do with his performance, but he seems to be very professional even if his joie de vivre makes someone think the opposite.

 

[Escarabajo]

Does anybody have full results?

 

[frisenfruitig]

Re: Re:

Dennis almost beat Dumoulin by half a minute.

I don't think Dennis will contend for the top-3 in the Giro, but what a watt-monster that guy is. And Tom obviously did very badly, you win some uphill, you lose something elsewhere.

Except for Thomas. You win some uphill you win some everywhere.

He's obviously in some great shape, but yeah... same for Wiggo at an even higher rate. Doesn't happen to many riders.

Pretty remarkable how these Sky boys can get so skinny yet keep smashing everyone in TTs innit #marginalgains

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Re:

Castroviejo and Dumoulin on the other hand did a poor ITT for their standards. Battle for the GC on the climbs took a toll on them (or maybe they didn't feel right today I don't know).

Both seem to want to transform into Wiggins-style GC riders, but may, in fact, end up as second-rate Geraint Thomases. Time will tell...

 

[Geraint Too Fast]

Re:

Dennis won as expected - Hepburn was the surprise, especially seeing Durbridge is going better in this discipline.

Interesting the Australian TTT over around 40kms was won by Dennis by 59 seconds and Hepburn was around 1m and 30 second down - Interesting thing is that in that race Durbridge was 3 seconds ahead of Dennis at the halfway split - Anyway its proving a decent form race at this early stage of the year.

Hepburn is flying at the moment - http://www.cqranking.com/men/asp/gen/race.asp?raceid=30941 - I think that's comfortably his best ever performance in a hard race.

 

[Anderis]

Re:

Interesting the Australian TTT over around 40kms was won by Dennis by 59 seconds and Hepburn was around 1m and 30 second down - Interesting thing is that in that race Durbridge was 3 seconds ahead of Dennis at the halfway split - Anyway its proving a decent form race at this early stage of the year.

Do they race Team Time Trials individually in Australia? :surprised:

 

[carton]

Re:

And good win by Quintana, battling the colds, a course that on paper wasn't overly suited to him (two pan flat time trials and only one true mountain stage) and seemingly not going too deep.

I'd say it was a pretty good course for Quintana. 1) The TTT, as expected, helped establish a lead over some of the other contenders other than the BMC-duo, 2) a proper summit finish always favours him in a field that boasts no top climbers other than himself and 3) a 10km time trial, where it is impossible to lose minutes.

Fair point, but I did get my qualifier in my original draft there. My point is that two pool table time trials and just the one mountain stage isn't his ideal stage race. I would even think something like Catalunya would be better suited for him, despite the longer TT, never mind something like last year's Dauphine.

Now, if you ask me, Rigo had two bad years, with one win (Québec) and a couple of podiums, and I still don't see him at 2013 or 2014 level. His TT was an asset and now a weakness. I'm not sure if his side business has something to do with his performance, but he seems to be very professional even if his joie de vivre makes someone think the opposite.

Yeah, I mean, Sagan in particular has done a pretty good job disproving that one hast to have no life to be a good cyclist, even nowadays. Which was an unnecessary point to be proven, since all-time greats (asteriscs where applicable) like Boonen, Armstrong, LeMond, Cipollini, Merckx, Wiggins, and so many others seem to have done a pretty good job juggling cycling with other marketing and business opportunities and generally enjoying themselves. Meanwhile guys like Kwiato, Majka, even Marianne Vos have had troubles with burnout lately. Gaviria, all of 21 at the time, was struggling last year with overuse and overtraining as well. Sky have done good and bad things for cycling, but the whole "you can be a Grand Tour contender if you just stick to avocados for breakfast" angle is one of the most brilliantly ridiculous things anyone has ever peddled (although you might want to try that before splurging on the hydrodynamic lube and the ceramic bearings). Just as long as you don't go full Pozzato (or Betancur), you'll be better off not overdoing things.