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2019 Tour de France – Stage 6 – Mulhouse–LPDBF - 157 km

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Re: Re:

gregrowlerson said:
Moviefan1203 said:
I love G, and am so happy he went well today, but don’t understand why the other teams essentially gave Ineos a free ride.

You cannot win on this forum. If the other teams do not do anything, then there are complaints about there being no attempt to disrupt the train.

If this thread didn't have a title then I would have assumed that Thomas had just gained a minute on most of his rivals on Tourmalet :rolleyes:

There is still plenty to play for.
You do have to wonder, what the idea was behind Gaudu pulling the Ineos train when Kwiat was done, without Pinot attacking. I was expecting him to jump out of Gaudu's wheel... but that didn't happen. Unless he's already settling for 3rd place. Because i can understand, he may have seen/heard that guys like Kruijswijk, Bardet etc were on the verge of breaking, but those aren't the guys he needs to drop in order to win the Tour. Especially with an ITT coming where the former Sky boys will gain time.

Other than that, for me it was an interesting race, but i'm probably biased.
 
Re: Re:

Logic-is-your-friend said:
gregrowlerson said:
Moviefan1203 said:
I love G, and am so happy he went well today, but don’t understand why the other teams essentially gave Ineos a free ride.

You cannot win on this forum. If the other teams do not do anything, then there are complaints about there being no attempt to disrupt the train.

If this thread didn't have a title then I would have assumed that Thomas had just gained a minute on most of his rivals on Tourmalet :rolleyes:

There is still plenty to play for.
You do have to wonder, what the idea was behind Gaudu pulling the Ineos train when Kwiat was done, without Pinot attacking. I was expecting him to jump out of Gaudu's wheel... but that didn't happen. Unless he's already settling for 3rd place. Because i can understand, he may have seen/heard that guys like Kruijswijk, Bardet etc were on the verge of breaking, but those aren't the guys he needs to drop in order to win the Tour. Especially with an ITT coming where the former Sky boys will gain time.

Other than that, for me it was an interesting race, but i'm probably biased.


At least Gaudu got something for his effort for Pinot. The Movistar riders on the other hand got exactly nothing at all for all the work they put in. I also think Movistar will suffer later for their bad tactics today.
 
Re:

armchairclimber said:
I can only think that people who thought that was a rubbish stage don't like cycling. I loved it. A bit of everything in there .... sure, lots of chess, but the break got the win their bravery deserved, the yellow jersey wearer defended valiantly against the odds and absolutely no-one had a place to hide. Loved the dirt climb. And Ciccone in yellow .... YES!
The fight for the stage win and Alaphilippe's effort were indeed great. The disappointment is that there was no action between the favorites for the final victory besides Landa's attempt and people like Bardet and Nibali being dropped. It's always disappointing when someone can win the Tour by just following the wheels of his teammates until the final K.
 
Re: Re:

Koronin said:
Robert5091 said:
Chapeau Teuns and Ciccone - fought to a standstill nearly. Ala better then expected, Bardet can go home now, G sprinting up a 24% gradient - do you laugh or applaud? Team Ineos played it dead right - let the peloton dawdle along lead by 1 QS rider then follow Movistar who should have been at the front much earlier.

Pinot (and George Bennett!) still in the hunt for a podium spot, but we have still to see how it goes up a long climb and not these Vuelta-style finishes.


With the final results the way they were Movistar should never have gone to the front in the first place. They totally wasted the efforts of the team.
Movistar brought a climbers team to the TDF. This is the only card that they have. if they don't use the team here, where do they use them? This was anyway a test. The real mountain stages are a long way off. Considering the rough finish was more suited to roulers (only G is here), i think they did pretty ok. The surprise was Alaphillipe. If his recovery improves, he could be a real contender. As for Bardet,this is the end of his GC career in TDF. Better to stick to the other GTs/classics where he seems to be really good.
 
Re: Re:

Bushman said:
DFA123 said:
gregrowlerson said:
G's performance was a bit of a surprise, but I'm not sure why some seem to be conceding the race already. The alps are a full two weeks away. Thomas gained very little time on most of his rivals, and the race will be won at the really high altitudes. A good result for Quintana, and Pinot obviously. Nice for Fulgsang, given his stage 1 crash. Good for Porte, given his low key season. And Ineos will hardly be forcing Bernal to race as a domestique yet; he lost what....ten seconds?
Thomas has basically morphed into Froome 2.0. Used to be a poor climber on high mountains; now the best in the world. Used to struggle on steep climbs; now the best in the world.

We'll probably see him attack on a descent at some point, or ride off the front in a break, or win a flat TT. Not because he needs to, but just because he can.

Yeah, it would be so weird if he started winning in a discipline he has been world class in through most of his career.
When he weighed 5kg more. :rolleyes:
 
Re: Re:

IndianCyclist said:
Koronin said:
Robert5091 said:
Chapeau Teuns and Ciccone - fought to a standstill nearly. Ala better then expected, Bardet can go home now, G sprinting up a 24% gradient - do you laugh or applaud? Team Ineos played it dead right - let the peloton dawdle along lead by 1 QS rider then follow Movistar who should have been at the front much earlier.

Pinot (and George Bennett!) still in the hunt for a podium spot, but we have still to see how it goes up a long climb and not these Vuelta-style finishes.


With the final results the way they were Movistar should never have gone to the front in the first place. They totally wasted the efforts of the team.
Movistar brought a climbers team to the TDF. This is the only card that they have. if they don't use the team here, where do they use them? This was anyway a test. The real mountain stages are a long way off. Considering the rough finish was more suited to roulers (only G is here), i think they did pretty ok. The surprise was Alaphillipe. If his recovery improves, he could be a real contender. As for Bardet,this is the end of his GC career in TDF. Better to stick to the other GTs/classics where he seems to be really good.


With the energy wasted here and it was definitely wasted, it is highly likely it will bite them late when they get to the bigger mountain stages. They used energy on this stage that gained them literally nothing at all. That is not the way to keep moral high. They basically put in the work so that Thomas and Pinot could gain time.
 
Tonton said:
Politics. Valverde does what he wants, Quintana was heralded as a sure TdF winner but insecure about team loyalty, Landa is just plain wasting his time like he did with Sky. Zero leadership, planning, Movistar is just happy to be a perennial contender, win races in Spain, in their mind relevant.

I can't believe how much under-appreciated Landa is.

The same Movistar who have the Giro winner and current World Champion in their team?

Given their budget, they are the most overachieving team in the WT.
 
Re: Re:

Koronin said:
Robert5091 said:
Chapeau Teuns and Ciccone - fought to a standstill nearly. Ala better then expected, Bardet can go home now, G sprinting up a 24% gradient - do you laugh or applaud? Team Ineos played it dead right - let the peloton dawdle along lead by 1 QS rider then follow Movistar who should have been at the front much earlier.

Pinot (and George Bennett!) still in the hunt for a podium spot, but we have still to see how it goes up a long climb and not these Vuelta-style finishes.


With the final results the way they were Movistar should never have gone to the front in the first place. They totally wasted the efforts of the team.

With that logic, I look forward to seeing you ridicule the sprinters' teams that work today but don't get the stage win.
 
Re:

Simurgh said:
I can't help but think that the addition of the steep gravel sector made the riders more afraid of putting in speculative or serious attacks (e.g. Aru 2017), and so made a more boring stage overall. Sure, the last hundred meters were good and gravel was fun, but such walls with 2-3 minutes excitement are Vueltaesque and doesn't suit a race with the highest stake in pro cycling. If (or rather when) the race visits La Planche next time, I hope they return to the old finish. If the organizers still want to be trendy and include gravel (which I like btw, don't get me wrong), then use a long climb with gravel - surely there is a French Finestre that fits such a purpose?
There was Portet but they paved it before last year's kids lenght stage :rolleyes:
 
Re: Re:

Pantani_lives said:
armchairclimber said:
I can only think that people who thought that was a rubbish stage don't like cycling. I loved it. A bit of everything in there .... sure, lots of chess, but the break got the win their bravery deserved, the yellow jersey wearer defended valiantly against the odds and absolutely no-one had a place to hide. Loved the dirt climb. And Ciccone in yellow .... YES!
It's always disappointing when someone can win the Tour by just following the wheels of his teammates until the final K.

If he wins he'll win because he puts at least 60 seconds into most of his rivals in the TT, and none of them are stronger uphill, i.e. like most tour winners in history.
 
People who think this was a good stage is people who have gotten used to this passive racing, tempo grinding climbing and then a 1 km sprint. Cant blame you guys, but this is NOT how mountain stages are supposed to work. They are supposed to be exciting for more than a few minutes.
 
Re: Re:

DFA123 said:
Bushman said:
DFA123 said:
gregrowlerson said:
G's performance was a bit of a surprise, but I'm not sure why some seem to be conceding the race already. The alps are a full two weeks away. Thomas gained very little time on most of his rivals, and the race will be won at the really high altitudes. A good result for Quintana, and Pinot obviously. Nice for Fulgsang, given his stage 1 crash. Good for Porte, given his low key season. And Ineos will hardly be forcing Bernal to race as a domestique yet; he lost what....ten seconds?
Thomas has basically morphed into Froome 2.0. Used to be a poor climber on high mountains; now the best in the world. Used to struggle on steep climbs; now the best in the world.

We'll probably see him attack on a descent at some point, or ride off the front in a break, or win a flat TT. Not because he needs to, but just because he can.

Yeah, it would be so weird if he started winning in a discipline he has been world class in through most of his career.
When he weighed 5kg more. :rolleyes:

He won the opening tt in the Tour two years ago and was 2nd behind Dumoulin in the Giro before crashing out of the race. That was long after his transformation to gt contender had begun
 
Having more or less recovered from his stage 1 crash, Fuglsang now finds himself with a new and potentially bigger problem: A weak Astana team. He was riding alone in the front group for much of the final kilometers of stage 6 - that will not work in the long run. Cort broke a finger the other day - that's the main reason why he is not there for Fuglsang -, but the others? They seem out of shape. Or not motivated to work for their Danish captain.
 
With the way the stage was ridden, eventually Planche des belles Filles was more like Mur de Huy with the steep ramps finish. Hence why Alaphilippe did so well and Bennett did better than Kruijswijk IMHO. So I wouldn't read to much into the results. Even though Thomas looks jokingly strong for his preparation.

Actually it's a big fail on all accounts from FDJ & Jumbo IMHO! Until the final ramps it certainly looked like Ineos set a false fast tempo to not expose Thomas! Astana has got a valid excuse, since Fuglsang was still slightly harmed from his crash. Otherwise the Kazakhs certainly would've drilled it today. Very bad for the race that Fuglsang had to ride conservative yesterday. But why didn't FDJ & Jumbo do anything for so long? Gosh, they could've shredded Bardet earlier. Could've caught out Fuglsang a little. Even if Thomas still comes out superior... that's something to go for. Even if Kruijswijk didn't feel good yesterday, there's still the question why Pinot didn't take the initiative. No love for him yesterday. Sorry Tonton.

The Vosges are lovely, pitoresque mountains! A bit like miniature Alps, just without the big spikes! Certainly underrated outside of BeNeLux!
 
Re:

Danskebjerge said:
Having more or less recovered from his stage 1 crash, Fuglsang now finds himself with a new and potentially bigger problem: A weak Astana team. He was riding alone in the front group for much of the final kilometers of stage 6 - that will not work in the long run. Cort broke a finger the other day - that's the main reason why he is not there for Fuglsang -, but the others? They seem out of shape. Or not motivated to work for their Danish captain.
Lutsenko was there, but he was wearing the NC jersey.
 
Re: Re:

Logic-is-your-friend said:
gregrowlerson said:
Moviefan1203 said:
I love G, and am so happy he went well today, but don’t understand why the other teams essentially gave Ineos a free ride.

You cannot win on this forum. If the other teams do not do anything, then there are complaints about there being no attempt to disrupt the train.

If this thread didn't have a title then I would have assumed that Thomas had just gained a minute on most of his rivals on Tourmalet :rolleyes:

There is still plenty to play for.
You do have to wonder, what the idea was behind Gaudu pulling the Ineos train when Kwiat was done, without Pinot attacking. I was expecting him to jump out of Gaudu's wheel... but that didn't happen. Unless he's already settling for 3rd place. Because i can understand, he may have seen/heard that guys like Kruijswijk, Bardet etc were on the verge of breaking, but those aren't the guys he needs to drop in order to win the Tour. Especially with an ITT coming where the former Sky boys will gain time.

Other than that, for me it was an interesting race, but i'm probably biased.

Gaudu was not pulling any train, he was just simply chasing Landa, which Kwiat failed to do...
 
Re: Re:

Broccolidwarf said:
RedheadDane said:
Wait… the riders were equipped with a blue armbind, and a whistle after the stage?
Though… maybe the whistle was a unique Katusha thing…

No, it's normal, when the team busses are not atop the mountain.

After the stage, spectators are walking all over the road, and the riders need to decend on bike.

Pretty smart, just never seen it before.
Suppose it's only the lesser riders who have to make it down themselves, stage winner and jerseys probably get driven.
 

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