2019 Tour de France, stage 3: Binche - Epernay, 215km

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Going to be very hard for Thomas DeGendt

I'm sure he's pissing his pants.

 

[Koronin]

Zakarin lost 3'51" today. Looks like he will now be relegated to stage hunting only.

Gong to be a very crowded talented field for stage hunters. Here who said they were going to stage hunt or have to or the team said they will

Valverde
Nilabi
Aru
Zakarin
Kelderman
Dennis

Going to be very hard for Thomas DeGendt

At least when Nibali says he's going stage hunting he actually intentionally loses time where it makes sense to do so so he can go out in breaks. Zakarin today showed he needs to do the same. Now can someone get it through Valverde's head that he needs to do the same thing?

 

[rick james]

Re:

haha yep, Bernal now confirmed leader of Ineos

Non Anglo Saxon so that’s a no

 

[Midnightfright]

Zakarin lost 3'51" today. Looks like he will now be relegated to stage hunting only.

Gong to be a very crowded talented field for stage hunters. Here who said they were going to stage hunt or have to or the team said they will

Valverde
Nilabi
Aru
Zakarin
Kelderman
Dennis

Going to be very hard for Thomas DeGendt

At least when Nibali says he's going stage hunting he actually intentionally loses time where it makes sense to do so so he can go out in breaks. Zakarin today showed he needs to do the same. Now can someone get it through Valverde's head that he needs to do the same thing?

I dont follow his career as closely as you obviously but it is strange I can only think

1) Talking about a stage win is a red herring and he is riding for a top 10 or top 5.(We know Alejandro values placing more than most)

2) He still thought he could we today and it was too late to bother dropping time when it became obvious
he couldn't.
3) He wants to have his cake and eat it

4) He is a moron

 

[tomorrow]

Re: Re:

I agree that if this was 2012 or 2013, he would be the overwhelming favourite but I still don't agree with you when you say there has to be 70-100 people left for him to be in contention.

I mean, last year at Amstel, the guy was on the level of Valverde and stronger than Alaphilippe.

Maybe 100 is a bit too much but today were around 60 in the bunch at the foot of the last stretch to the finish so probably 70/80 on the wall and Sagan in the second half of the climb was slipping behind clearly at the limit when Astana upped the pace, that climbs are harder than Amstel ones and suit less the actual Sagan.

Are you sure? Sagan was 20th over the last cat 3 climb and he certainly wasn't suffering. It was Oss who was dropped both at last and on the second to last categorized climbs.

However that doesn't change the fact, that he would have not won today no matter what. I think his punchiness is not fully back, although it got better reasonably. He will be happy to finish the tour with the green and one victory, maybe even without victory. His main goal probably is getting the rainbow stripes back.

In the interview for slovak nation broadcaster, he mentioned he lacked motivation to race for another second place, but I don't think it was the case, especially if the actual contenders for the green were ahead of him.

 

[Danskebjerge]

Re: Re:

Meanwhile, while we are waiting for the last 50 k of the day to make it interesting, here are the highest 10 average watts on yesterdays TTT:

Luke Durbridge
423 W
Michael Valgren
394 W
Mads Würtz Schmidt
394 W
Jack Haig
390 W
Rein Taaramäe
385 W
Nicolas Roche
384 W
André Greipel
379 W
Reinardt Janse van Rensburg
374 W
Amael Moinard
374 W
Hugo Houle
372 W

Interesting. I don't know how wattage correlates exactly to speed, in the sense that if you don't have a great aero position, you could be producing higher wattage than someone with a better position but still moving at the same speed. Is that the case?

Looking at today's stage, it looks like a lightweight puncheur should win. That last stretch looks pretty hard.

The most important factor here is weight. Big guys push a lot of watts, but if they are too heavy, they don't go fast. If a small guy like Quintana could produce 423 watts, he would already be leading the Tour by several minutes.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Thanks for clearing up the confusion surrounding time gap. Regardless, it still looks like some very "cheap" 5 seconds that Pinot and Bernal earned, considering that there was also a measurable gap in front of Pinot

 

[tobydawq]

Re:

Thanks for clearing up the confusion surrounding time gap. Regardless, it still looks like some very "cheap" 5 seconds that Pinot and Bernal earned, considering that there was also a measurable gap in front of Pinot

A gap can be measurable but if it's not bigger than a second, it doesn't matter.

I think they use their fancy photo finish technology to measure these gaps, so I don't think they are really up for much discussion.

 

[Armchair cyclist]

Re:

Thanks for clearing up the confusion surrounding time gap. Regardless, it still looks like some very "cheap" 5 seconds that Pinot and Bernal earned, considering that there was also a measurable gap in front of Pinot

Any gap is measurable: the issue is whether it is measured at more or less than one second.

 

[Tonton]

Yep, one second is the measurable. It happens all the time as riders free wheel, sometimes the other way too, for example when a guy beaten in a sprint stops his effort. It may happen thirty riders ahead of you and instead of same time, you lose time. That's why riders must stay up front and be vigilant.

The one second gap is a basic rule of competitive cycling. All riders know it. Nothing new here.

The first marginal gain for a rider is to keep pedaling.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Re: Re:

Thanks for clearing up the confusion surrounding time gap. Regardless, it still looks like some very "cheap" 5 seconds that Pinot and Bernal earned, considering that there was also a measurable gap in front of Pinot

A gap can be measurable but if it's not bigger than a second, it doesn't matter.

I think they use their fancy photo finish technology to measure these gaps, so I don't think they are really up for much discussion.

Thanks, that I did know. Bad choice of words on my behalf. What I meant was that it was cheap in the sense, that had Benoot crossed the line 0,1 seconds slower, then Pinot and Bernal would not have gotten the same time as the front group of sprinters and then they would only have won 1 second on the other GC contenders.

Small margins that do not really reflect anything can suddenly lead to a 5 second time gain.

 

[Leinster]

Re: Re:

Thanks for clearing up the confusion surrounding time gap. Regardless, it still looks like some very "cheap" 5 seconds that Pinot and Bernal earned, considering that there was also a measurable gap in front of Pinot

A gap can be measurable but if it's not bigger than a second, it doesn't matter.

I think they use their fancy photo finish technology to measure these gaps, so I don't think they are really up for much discussion.

Thanks, that I did know. Bad choice of words on my behalf. What I meant was that it was cheap in the sense, that had Benoot crossed the line 0,1 seconds slower, then Pinot and Bernal would not have gotten the same time as the front group of sprinters and then they would only have won 1 second on the other GC contenders.

Small margins that do not really reflect anything can suddenly lead to a 5 second time gain.

Again, the riders all know this. If you come in 60th in a group, you run the risk that the guy in 50th place let’s a gap open in front of him. It can take 20-30 seconds or more for a full peloton to cross the line, so gaps much bigger than 5 seconds have happened in the past.

It’s one of the reasons GC riders can get caught up in sprints; they don’t want to be the wrong side of one of those splits, and the only solution is to be in the first 20-25.

 

[Tonton]

Amen.

 

[Tigerion]

Yep, one second is the measurable. It happens all the time as riders free wheel, sometimes the other way too, for example when a guy beaten in a sprint stops his effort. It may happen thirty riders ahead of you and instead of same time, you lose time. That's why riders must stay up front and be vigilant.

The one second gap is a basic rule of competitive cycling. All riders know it. Nothing new here.

The first marginal gain for a rider is to keep pedaling.

Didn't they change that to a 3 second gap to try and stop GC getting to close to the sprint trains? Or is that only on specific stages

 

[F_Cance]

only for flat sprint stages

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Re:

Nice win by Ala. Very strong. Zakarin struggled but not much action with the GC riders.

Zakarin was never going to perform GC-wise in this Tour.

No but it's pretty early in the race and Nibali and Landa also rode the Giro. He will go for a stage win if he can.

 

[Nirvana]

Yep, one second is the measurable. It happens all the time as riders free wheel, sometimes the other way too, for example when a guy beaten in a sprint stops his effort. It may happen thirty riders ahead of you and instead of same time, you lose time. That's why riders must stay up front and be vigilant.

The one second gap is a basic rule of competitive cycling. All riders know it. Nothing new here.

The first marginal gain for a rider is to keep pedaling.

Didn't they change that to a 3 second gap to try and stop GC getting to close to the sprint trains? Or is that only on specific stages

The rule says that the organizers have to inform the various stakeholders involved (UCI, jury, teams) before the race if they want to use the 3 seconds gap, otherwise it's still 1 second as before.