Vuelta a España 2022 Vuelta a España stage 6(Bilbao > Ascensión al Pico Jano. San Miguel de Aguayo),181,2 km - Mountain

[KZD]

Great stage today, one of the best of the year in Grand Tours. Evenepoel showed the ceptics that his Tour of Norway climbing performance wasn't a fluke and demolished the field with a very good from Alaphilippe who seems to be coming into shape in the right moment. Let's see if he can avoid bad days but right now things are looking really good at least for the podium. Mas once again doing a great jod, the only one capable of staying with Evenepoel and despite the TT he has experience on his side. Ayuso doing a very good climb too, he lost a but in the final part but I am starting to think that he can do a similar thing to what Pogacar did 3 years ago and I expect Almeida to get better as the race goes on. Roglic clearly didn't had a good day but being just 1 minute behind Remco he is still a threat for the win while Carapaz has to be the disappontment of the day even if Ineos still has three leaders so maybe they can sneak one of them into the podium.

Finally a word about Jay Vine, he won this stage attacking from the GC group and apart from Evenepoel and Mas, he gained a lot of time on everyone so a mighty performance from him.

 

[houtdffan]

Today Remco finally rode a mountain with a head on his shoulders

He went to the front, didn't slow down when nobody would help, and dieseled everyone off his wheel. Reminiscent of Indurain at Hautacam in 1994

He rides like this, his lack of team strength may not matter. Who will be able to attack when they are getting ground into dust?

 

[staubsauger]

Who even has the team strength though? It's not that one of Tao or Sivakov is that much stronger than the other, so Ineos calls the other a clear helper. Even though I still think Tao looked slightly better

If you look at how today nobody helped Roglic to burn him. But hey, you actually let Mas and Ayuso earn time. You didn't distance Arensman and Almeida either. At least today the team strength didn't really help but harm Ineos and BORA. And they didn't even realize.

Because otherwise Hindley and either Geoghegan Hart or Sivakov simply help Roglic to distance the stronger tt'ers.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Congratulations to Jay Vine for winning the stage and for taking Zwift seriously. Congratulations to Remco Evenepoel for taking the leaders jersey on a GT race for the first time.

It was a great stage to watch. A rather nervous one. Packed with action and weather playing a big role. Rarely you hear Eurosport commentators openly cheering for Rogla to crash. Still one remark about that must be made. Rogla is not a bad descender. He actually is a great descender. On top of that most of the notable crashes from his career came from an outside influence. Not his own doing. Sure there where a couple of self inflicted ones too. But nothing special in regards to other GT GC contenders of his caliber. Anyway. While watching the race i felt a bit down as it looked like Rogla is struggling. After analyzing everything things are really not that grim. Minus Mas and Ayuso he was still the best of the rest. Other cyclists tucked behind him and heavens forbids anybody doing a pull. Tells a bit on who the peloton feels the main favorite still is. Another issue is Rogla gets isolated rather easy. His team will hence need to change the approach. Carapaz in a rather bad position. Almeida likely in doubt on who works for who.

Now i guess comes the decision time if it makes sense to try to take time back from Remco ASAP or to instead let them lead the race accordingly. Some teams having bigger concerns about ITT then others.

We'll see on how the initiative will be distributed in the stages to come.

 

[Tonton]

This could become a great and very entertaining Vuelta!

Setback for Roglic and his many fans. Remco's supporters are singing the "no one ever gave him respect" song . We're only six stages in and some time gaps exist; it's already gone back and forth once.

Today was an excellent bike race. Bravo Jay Vine! It was a very, very big win. And I hope that Padun will win a stage: he is so brave. Mas, as he always does, disappointed me: sorry, but when you are that good, in that spot, you don't just sit on your @ss like he did ...

I thought that Remco, Rog, and Carapaz would finish together and I was wrong. Did Roglic's win mislead us or did he have an off day? We'll know a little bit (but not much) more after stage 8. Things can change again.

Good Vuelta so far.

 

[CyclistAbi]

It will be much easier to judge in retrospective. On how well Roglič did today. As currently we don't know on how Evenepoel will perform on stage 7, 8, 9 ... If he flops just once then Roglič might have still performed good today. Regardless of the fact that Evenepoel was better today and has put some serious time in the bunch. Lets not forget a whole lot of GC favorites still finished behind Roglič today. And it's not unreasonable to expect that the ones that finished ahead might not stay there. Point being that although Roglič lost time today i am leaning more towards the idea it's not such an issue as it might look at first glance.

We'll see.

 

[staubsauger]

Maybe Jumbo should have brought Koen Bouwman after all? Although I don't know how his shape had been after his mountainbike crash.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Maybe Jumbo should have brought Koen Bouwman after all? Although I don't know how his shape had been after his mountainbike crash.

Someone like Jonas in good shape would likely make a difference. Still Vuelta is usually more mano-a-mano anyway. Hence i guess it comes down to if Evenepoel can continue with such performances as seen today in mountains or not.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Another thing we will get to witnesses is on how Remco and his team will lead the race. Always nice to see youngsters in such role. For the first time. If he is a natural or if he will just need to learn that first like the rest.

 

[CyclistAbi]

All in all lets first see some Sepp enough terrains. And if Rogla will perform good over there a minute is well in reach. It likely doesn't even have to be in one blow.

Fingers crossed!

 

[JosefK]

I just saw Chris Horner's video on stage 6. He thought it was curious that the entire Jumbo team seemed not to perform well--he speculated that it might have had something to do with calorie deficits, maybe not getting the meals right the night before, or some other team-wide phenomenon. He didn't think injuries were currently an issue for Primoz. He still thought Rog did a very good job of damage control.

 

[Tonton]

The meal stuff is BS. Was the "milk shake" missing? Tell me more. At this level, with this budget, I don't buy it. Vingo had no problem with the chow. JV's trying to minimize what happened today and remain positive.

 

[houtdffan]

What happened today was Remco was in form. Nobody has showed they can compete with an in form Remco.

Don't think Remco went all out today. As I said, he rode with his head

 

[Extinction]

It's right to ponder Remco's longue duree capability, but to say he is "prone to bad days" based on last year's Giro, as some have suggested, is poor reasoning. For one thing, his entire prep then was hastened and consequently woefully inadequite and, for another, he was coming back from a fractured pelvis in three spots without prior racing. In hindsight, it was insane that the team should have brought him to the Italian start at all (verging on sinning of hubris).

Indeed Evenepoel may yet have a sans jour, but last year's Giro gives no indication of whether or not this will be a permanent feature, the Achille's heal, of his GT career. Only this Vuelta, having finally arrived in fine form with a proper build-up, may suggest something more significant (although still at just 22 perhaps not even) in this regard. At any rate, only time will tell.

 

[houtdffan]

What would this form have said about Merckx in the 1967 Vuelta? He won a few stages but only managed to finish 9th overall

I could see the howling that Merckx would never win a grand tour and he should focus on stage hunting

 

[Bonimenier]

What would this form have said about Merckx in the 1967 Vuelta? He won a few stages but only managed to finish 9th overall

I could see the howling that Merckx would never win a grand tour and he should focus on stage hunting

I'm sure that was the general consensus on internet fora back then.

 

[Wvv]

@Ilmaestro99 , @Logic-is-your-friend , @alltherest:

Apparently Masnada started the Vuelta with a buttocks injury and he was close to DNS/DNF during the first stages. But he showed character and there's still a decent chance of recovery. The explanation for Van Wilder's absence and time loss is being stuck behind one of the big crashes. He returned at the back of the bunch during the penultimate climb, but bonked because of the high pace by his teammates.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

In Mas' defense, he said he was fighting to hang on. So taking a turn was not in the cards.

 

[Extinction]

Correct, if you can only follow it's stupid to take a turn, because a) you inevitably slow down and b) risk getting popped.

 

[jflemaire]

In Mas' defense, he said he was fighting to hang on. So taking a turn was not in the cards.

Not surprised. Just looking at his grimacing face told everything one needed to know.

 

[yaco]

They won 3 Giro stages and 2 Tour stages, I don’t think not taking climber hurt them at either race.

It may not have hurt the team but it hurt the rider's development - Also if you take Vine to the Giro it then gives you more days when you can go for the win.

 

[Riek s]

I don't know if it hurt him, he seems to have been happy to loose time to go for breakaways. I think given his late introduction in WT cycling, him starting and slowly building up makes sense. Maybe a GC isn't something he wants either. He also attacked in Swiss while coming out of Norway it was clear he could have tried waiting. So maybe he just likes riding at the front and picking his days while not caring about being their every day. Maybe he knows what his limits are in terms of recovery/handling as well.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Regarding Vine and Alpecin:
It’s quite funny that when a rider have developed well and suddenly win on top level, instead of applauding his team for right decisions to bring him to this level the team get called out for mismanaging him with a bad calendar and said to have hurt his development.

It makes zero sense.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

What would this form have said about Merckx in the 1967 Vuelta? He won a few stages but only managed to finish 9th overall

I could see the howling that Merckx would never win a grand tour and he should focus on stage hunting

Well, Merckx didn't enter the 1967 Vuelta - I'm assuming a mistype as what you state refers to the 1967 Giro, but by that time we already knew he could handle recovery within one day's racing (he'd already won San Remo twice) and the stages he won were stages 12 (finishing at Blockhaus) and 14, so we knew he could handle recovery within a Grand Tour, so bearing in mind he was not yet 22 at that point, I don't think anybody in their right mind would have said there was anything missing from the toolbox for him to win a Grand Tour. If anybody was claiming him the favourite for the 1967 Giro, people would have rightly been saying to pump the brakes until he'd proved he could do it over three weeks.

Remco has not yet demonstrated the recovery that Merckx showed in that 1967 Giro that put the final piece of the puzzle together in terms of the weapons at his disposal to win a GT - in his one attempt at a Grand Tour he faded badly after week 1, but it's also not really a representative performance in my opinion because of the circumstances of that Giro regards his injury, crashes, illnesses and so on. He may well be able to do that now that he's been able to target a Grand Tour without the injuries or disrupted preparation he had before - but we haven't seen it yet. Merckx's stage wins in 1967 were after more days' consecutive racing than he'd ever done before, whereas Remco's is on stage 6 - we know he can do it in one week, it's whether he can replicate this type of form after another week and a half of racing that is the only real remaining question.

Regarding Vine, as a late starter the most significant deficit I think is likely to be in pack skills, the fight for position in the péloton in the stages unsuited to you that comes with trying to do a high GC placement. For the moment it's probably best for him to stagehunt with no pressure on maintaining a GC position. Pack skills are an underrated requirement of top level pro riders, as there are certain riders who will frequently get caught up in crashes in the bunch, or miss splits in the péloton, and similar, and once in a while it's unlucky, once it's a pattern it's a problem. Some riders like David Moncoutié would always sit right on the back of the péloton and accept that he'd miss a split in the bunch if it happened, but he was happier to be there where it was safer as he could see everything going on around him.

 

[Prim]

Regarding Vine and Alpecin:
It’s quite funny that when a rider have developed well and suddenly win on top level, instead of applauding his team for right decisions to bring him to this level the team get called out for mismanaging him with a bad calendar and said to have hurt his development.

It makes zero sense.

Had the exact same thought. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say.