2019 Giro d'Italia, Stage 1: Bologna - San Luca ITT 8km

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Re:

No Roglic-Dumoulin 1-2, Yates 2nd after all. Yikes

Yeah I thought Dumo would be second at 10/15 seconds but he did slightly worse. Maybe because he is going in this Giro a bit undercooked to stay fresh for the TDF? But I don't know, Dumoulin himself said he felt good and his wattages were good. So the others were simply too strong today.

And for Red Rick: No he went too slow on the first part especially. On the climb only Roglic and Yates splits were faster. He was on par with Nibali, 2s faster on the climb than Lopez and faster than most others. As always it's not as bad as you make it out to be. But it's not good either. It's "meh".

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Re:

Ha, Thomas De Gendt was not too pleased with himself!

https://twitter.com/DeGendtThomas/status/1127271875858579458

He also had the same idea as Ciccone. Easypedal the first 6k, in order to go all out on the climb in order to grab the mountain jersey.

 

[Laplaz]

Let's see what Jumbo will do now. I don't think they want to ride at the front for 3 weeks now.

 

[tobydawq]

Re: Re:

No Roglic-Dumoulin 1-2, Yates 2nd after all. Yikes

Yeah I thought Dumo would be second at 10/15 seconds but he did slightly worse. Maybe because he is going in this Giro a bit undercooked to stay fresh for the TDF? But I don't know, Dumoulin himself said he felt good and his wattages were good. So the others were simply too strong today.

And for Red Rick: No he went too slow on the first part especially. On the climb only Roglic and Yates splits were faster. He was on par with Nibali, 2s faster on the climb than Lopez and faster than most others. As always it's not as bad as you make it out to be. But it's not good either. It's "meh".

Exactly - he went way too slow there. He was even slower than López!! On 6 kilometres of flat time trialing. He should normally put 20 seconds on him in such circumstances. Obviously, López rode the TT of his life but still.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

No Roglic-Dumoulin 1-2, Yates 2nd after all. Yikes

Yeah I thought Dumo would be second at 10/15 seconds but he did slightly worse. Maybe because he is going in this Giro a bit undercooked to stay fresh for the TDF? But I don't know, Dumoulin himself said he felt good and his wattages were good. So the others were simply too strong today.

And for Red Rick: No he went too slow on the first part especially. On the climb only Roglic and Yates splits were faster. He was on par with Nibali, 2s faster on the climb than Lopez and faster than most others. As always it's not as bad as you make it out to be. But it's not good either. It's "meh".

Exactly - he went way too slow there. He was even slower than López!! On 6 kilometres of flat time trialing. He should normally put 20 seconds on him in such circumstances. Obviously, López rode the TT of his life but still.

Yeah, he probably miscalculated something. Maybe held something back on the flat bit so he could go harder on the climb. But ended up holding back too much. It's definitely poor from Dumoulin; but if he just miscalculated in the numbers he was riding to, then that's less concerning than if he went at 100% throughout and still got beaten by Lopez and Nibali.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

If Roglic can keep this form till the end, he will win.

However, 3 weeks is a long time, especially in a race this climb heavy towards the end.

No, if Roglic keeps this shape, he will end up winning 5 stages and win more convincingly than Armstrong in the darkest years of years.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

Honestly mostly just a shocking performance from Dumoulin.

Honestly this TT favors the climbers, but the issue here is that Dumoulin is an elite climber too and he laid a huge egg here

Not sure I get this reaction. Seemed to do about exactly what one would have expected. Near the top, and given the late demands of this race, entirely consistent with someone timing his peak in a couple weeks. I thought he was fine.

Dumoulin two weeks away from a monster peak, should be beating Lopez and Nibali handsomely on any time trial though.

Also losing 30 seconds to Roglic in a 13 minute effort is just not good for a guy who is probably the best time triallist in the world. I think the main hope is that the failure was tactical rather than physical.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

If Roglic can keep this form till the end, he will win.

However, 3 weeks is a long time, especially in a race this climb heavy towards the end.

No, if Roglic keeps this shape, he will end up winning 5 stages and win more convincingly than Armstrong in the darkest years of years.

It's quite exciting. Kind of like with Yates last year; either the guy is going to win in absolutely demolishing and seriously impressive fashion; or there's going to be some point where he implodes and the whole race is thrown wide oepn.

 

[Lequack]

25 Big Photos from the Stage 1 ITT (more photos added) — rcs/corvos/bettini
http://www.steephill.tv/2019/giro-d-italia/photos/stage-01/

 

[Valv.Piti]

Ivan Purito Sosa was magnificent today. Reminded me of the Andy Schleck and Rasmussen days where they would lose more than one minute on a flat, 7 km prologue.

 

[Lequack]

Re: Re:

If Roglic can keep this form till the end, he will win.

However, 3 weeks is a long time, especially in a race this climb heavy towards the end.

No, if Roglic keeps this shape, he will end up winning 5 stages and win more convincingly than Armstrong in the darkest years of years.

It's quite exciting. Kind of like with Yates last year; either the guy is going to win in absolutely demolishing and seriously impressive fashion; or there's going to be some point where he implodes and the whole race is thrown wide oepn.

And then out of nowhere Froome comes to win the race.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Oh yeah, its super exciting. Somehow I have the feeling that Roglic isn't overdoing it and just has raised his level massively the last 2 years, so what we have seeing from him so far has just been Valverde 2017 esque without really peaking, just being better than everyone else. If your 90% is better than most riders at 100%, then you are pretty good.

 

[Rollthedice]

Re: Re:

If Roglic can keep this form till the end, he will win.

However, 3 weeks is a long time, especially in a race this climb heavy towards the end.

No, if Roglic keeps this shape, he will end up winning 5 stages and win more convincingly than Armstrong in the darkest years of years.

He went a few seconds faster than everyone was expecting and everyone was expecting him to win not only because he showed good form in Romandie but because this TT was tailor made for him. The hype will most likely reach unbearable levels after he'll win the second ITT. And then the real Giro begins.

 

[Lequack]

Stage 1 Analysis w/ R Moore, L Birnie, D Friebe (36:41 English) — cyclingpodcast
http://www.steephill.tv/players/720/audioboom/?title=Stage+1+Analysis+w/+R+Moore,+L+Birnie,+D+Friebe&dashboard=giro-d-italia&id=7258362-stage-1-bologna-to-bologna-san-luca-giro-d-italia-2019&yr=2019

Nice podcast if anyone cares to listen.

 

[DFA123]

Re:

Oh yeah, its super exciting. Somehow I have the feeling that Roglic isn't overdoing it and just has raised his level massively the last 2 years, so what we have seeing from him so far has just been Valverde 2017 esque without really peaking, just being better than everyone else. If your 90% is better than most riders at 100%, then you are pretty good.

Yeah, I think I agree. He just looks so comfortable; and has absolutely no weaknesses now. He's the best (or at least second best) TTist, probably the best descender, one of the best climbers, the best sprinter or the GC men, and has the best form. Also proved in the Tour last year that he can handle the three weeks. Just looks very, very difficult to beat right now.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

I just want to say to that: it's just been 1 day. Long way to go. Way too early to say Roglic is unbeatable etc or we might as well not start tomorrow

 

[JosephK]

It's encouraging to hear that Tom Dumoulin felt good on the TT, considering his somewhat underwhelming final place (5), relative to expectations. Roglic was great, as expected. Yates . . . very, very strong, also as expected (based also on his TT win at Paris-Nice this year and his improved time-trialing last year as well). Stage 1 was, after all, a time-trial that requires strength in climbing ability as well as on the flat part. Nibali was encouragingly strong -- even better than I was hoping--just 4 seconds behind Yates, who had the strategic advantage of starting after all the other GC favorites (and no rain materialized). And the big positive surprise of the day was Lopez, who was actually 2 seconds faster than Dumoulin on the flat part and held strong form through the climb.

As soon as the stage was done, I initially thought that Dumoulin's performance was quite disappointing (again, relative to expectations). But now that I've had more time to ponder it, I'm thinking that he's not in a bad place if he's coming into the Giro undercooked, which is what one might expect, considering his ambitions for the TDF. Sort of like Froome last year (coming in undercooked). Froome looked quite fragile in the early stages of last year's Giro. By week 3, he was Super Dawg. -- Not expecting such a great transformation from Tom D., but it's possible he will be stronger in the final week (comparatively) than he is now, if this is his strategy. In addition, being the first rider off the blocks was something of a strategic disadvantage as the bad weather did not materialize later, and it looks like Tom may have been too conservative on the first 6 kilometers, seeing as how he was actually 2 seconds slower than MAL on this section. The silver lining is that he climbed the final part 2 seconds faster than MAL. So, I wouldn't write off Dumoulin's podium chances for this year's Giro, just yet.

 

[Red Rick]

Gonna assume Dumoulin is coming in a little bit undercooked on shorter, more explosive work and that's why he also decided to not go too hard on the flat part of the ITT and ended up being too conservative.

Literally lost the ITT to MAL on the flat part

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Re:

Gonna assume Dumoulin is coming in a little bit undercooked on shorter, more explosive work and that's why he also decided to not go too hard on the flat part of the ITT and ended up being too conservative.

Literally lost the ITT to MAL on the flat part

Yep, although it's as he says, you never know how much you must conserve. Though a specialist like him should have been able to pace better.

However, considering he did the climb flat out and was faster than Lopez there I'd say his form is fine. Roglic and Yates are simply stronger. The others are there or thereabouts.

The real answer will be in the first big time trial I think. If he doesn't gain significant time in 35km hilly test. Then he is not going to win time anywhere else.

 

[JosephK]

Re: Re:

If Roglic can keep this form till the end, he will win.

However, 3 weeks is a long time, especially in a race this climb heavy towards the end.

No, if Roglic keeps this shape, he will end up winning 5 stages and win more convincingly than Armstrong in the darkest years of years.

It's quite exciting. Kind of like with Yates last year; either the guy is going to win in absolutely demolishing and seriously impressive fashion; or there's going to be some point where he implodes and the whole race is thrown wide oepn.

And then out of nowhere Froome comes to win the race.

It would be a real mind-blower if Froome literally came out of nowhere to win this year's Giro in week 3. I can see it now . . . Right before the start of Stage 17, Pavel Sivakov (now trailing the GC leader by 7 minutes) stands up and pulls off a facial mask (Mission Impossible-style) to reveal that he's actually been Chris Froome riding in stealth mode all along. Then, with a cackle, he leaves the field in his dust at the start of the stage and finishes alone 10 minutes ahead of the trailing chasing pack, comprised of Dumoulin, Yates, Roglic, Nibali, and Lopez.

 

[movingtarget]

Dumoulin's time gap was a surprise. Yates, Lopez and Nibali should be happy. Jungels, Landa and Zakarin not so happy. Decent rides by Chaves and Pozzo and a surprisingly good one by Majka. That last km seemed to go on and on........

 

[gregrowlerson]

Re: Re:

If Roglic can keep this form till the end, he will win.

However, 3 weeks is a long time, especially in a race this climb heavy towards the end.

No, if Roglic keeps this shape, he will end up winning 5 stages and win more convincingly than Armstrong in the darkest years of years.

It's quite exciting. Kind of like with Yates last year; either the guy is going to win in absolutely demolishing and seriously impressive fashion; or there's going to be some point where he implodes and the whole race is thrown wide oepn.

And then out of nowhere Froome comes to win the race.

It would be a real mind-blower if Froome literally came out of nowhere to win this year's Giro in week 3. I can see it now . . . Right before the start of Stage 17, Pavel Sivakov (now trailing the GC leader by 7 minutes) stands up and pulls off a facial mask (Mission Impossible-style) to reveal that he's actually been Chris Froome riding in stealth mode all along. Then, with a cackle, he leaves the field in his dust at the start of the stage and finishes alone 10 minutes ahead of the trailing chasing pack, comprised of Dumoulin, Yates, Roglic, Nibali, and Lopez.

The ultimate ambush stage

Nice ride from Majka. I had forgotten about him as one of the race outsiders. Put a line through Zakarin and replace with the Pole.

 

[Lequack]

Backstage Pass Stage 1 (05:06 Music/English) — MitcheltonSCOTT
https://youtu.be/-DIZrEnbP3k

 

[Bolder]

Re: Re:

Honestly mostly just a shocking performance from Dumoulin.

Honestly this TT favors the climbers, but the issue here is that Dumoulin is an elite climber too and he laid a huge egg here

Not sure I get this reaction. Seemed to do about exactly what one would have expected. Near the top, and given the late demands of this race, entirely consistent with someone timing his peak in a couple weeks. I thought he was fine.

It was a "fine" TT from Dumoulin, but he would have benefited from knowing splits and getting some feedback had he not started first. He may have raced the first part too conservatively, or lacked that little bit on the climb. He's definitely an elite climber but given his physiology he's not necessarily the best at short, intense efforts.

Anyway, I'll be buried in work for the next two weeks and won't be able to watch much. Hoping it's still a tight race by the time I can tune in again...

 

[yaco]

Re: Re:

Is there any benefit to Roglic keeping hold of the Maliga Rosa? All the post-race time wasted as leader probably didn't help Yates last year

I'm not even sure he'll get a decent chance to give it away.

There’s a reasonable chance of a break winning tomorrow, particularly if the leader’s team are deliberately slack in chasing.

Sprinter teams will do everything to keep it together - Doubt the pink jersey will change until after stage 12.