59th Itzulia Basque Country (2.UWT) 8 - 13 April

[Broccolidwarf]

Re: Re:

Pogacar... what a talent

Indeed, let's hope he will leave UAE.

Why? Things seem to be working out there for him.

I agree.

And especially with an ailing Aru in the team, it gives Pogacar a lot of space to be "more", than just a talented domestique for the captain.

Also, UAE seem to have turned a corner this year, and it appears they have also - at long last (being an archetypical italian team) - learned that you can no longer run a team like in "the good old days", where it was "all for 1 - always" - and be successful.

They seem to have also moved towards the DQ philosophy, where the team comes first, no matter who the rider in question is, just like another archetypical italian team - Astana - did last year, with great effect.

Almost all the big teams are moving in this direction, with Movistar and Bahrain being the notable exceptions IMO.

 

[Samamba]

Re: Re:

Pogacar, Hirschi, Madouas, Lambrecht. Youngsters on fire

I was just writing words to that effect, when I saw your post.

I'm SO annoyed by that last crash, young dane Honore was right there at the front, finally without a captain...... would have liked to see what he could have done.

Oh well, maybe tomorrow

I'm only expecting Pogacar tomorrow though

Maaaybe Hirschi (he surprised me uphill today)

Next 2 days are proper climbs, not puncheur climbs, so it will be quite a different race.

I agree Pogacar will be there - but saying "only" - is far too soon to say..... there are plenty of young talented climber domestiques in the peloton this race, who know the next 2 days can make or break them, in terms of what stage races they ride the rest of the year.

Motivation to do well will be high.

Ofcourse i ment youngsters getting a top 10 for example. Guys like Hamilton (who was pretty strong today) have a clear leader. The only guys who don't are Lambrecht, Hirschi and Pogacar (yeah sure Martin but don't think he's gonne be a dom with his legs). Lambrecht didn't really convince me uphill today. He was in like 25th-30th position on the top of the cat 1 climb and barely hanging on the last climb. To be fair he never liked racing in the rain and tomorrows weather is better.

 

[Laplaz]

Re: Re:

Pogacar... what a talent

Indeed, let's hope he will leave UAE.

Why? Things seem to be working out there for him.

If it will always be like this year I agree. But I simply don't trust them 100%.

 

[Sestriere]

Is Izua the climb that featured in the stage Diego Rosa won solo by 3 min in the pouring rain a couple of years back? I remember that one to absolutely brutal. If so, the race will be in bits and pieces afterwards and it will be a hard day for Schachmann.
Interesting are also the tactical options of BORA. It seems likely that Buchmann would be able to hang with the climbers for longer that Konrad and Max but would it be useful to send him with eventual attacks?

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Re: Re:

Ofcourse i ment youngsters getting a top 10 for example. Guys like Hamilton (who was pretty strong today) have a clear leader. The only guys who don't are Lambrecht, Hirschi and Pogacar (yeah sure Martin but don't think he's gonne be a dom with his legs). Lambrecht didn't really convince me uphill today. He was in like 25th-30th position on the top of the cat 1 climb and barely hanging on the last climb. To be fair he never liked racing in the rain and tomorrows weather is better.

He did a decent job hanging on to the favorites in Suisse last year. Only really lost time in the ITT (which was rather abismal).

 

[Broccolidwarf]

Re: Re:

Pogacar, Hirschi, Madouas, Lambrecht. Youngsters on fire

I was just writing words to that effect, when I saw your post.

I'm SO annoyed by that last crash, young dane Honore was right there at the front, finally without a captain...... would have liked to see what he could have done.

Oh well, maybe tomorrow

I'm only expecting Pogacar tomorrow though

Maaaybe Hirschi (he surprised me uphill today)

Next 2 days are proper climbs, not puncheur climbs, so it will be quite a different race.

I agree Pogacar will be there - but saying "only" - is far too soon to say..... there are plenty of young talented climber domestiques in the peloton this race, who know the next 2 days can make or break them, in terms of what stage races they ride the rest of the year.

Motivation to do well will be high.

Ofcourse i ment youngsters getting a top 10 for example. Guys like Hamilton (who was pretty strong today) have a clear leader. The only guys who don't are Lambrecht, Hirschi and Pogacar (yeah sure Martin but don't think he's gonne be a dom with his legs). Lambrecht didn't really convince me uphill today. He was in like 25th-30th position on the top of the cat 1 climb and barely hanging on the last climb. To be fair he never liked racing in the rain and tomorrows weather is better.

All the DQ riders have no captain.

Many other big teams - like Sky - don't have a realistic shot at the overall podium, and many captains are not going deep anyway, because they are riding the race as preparation, both of which will release some riders to do their own thing.

 

[Gigs_98]

I just can't See schachmann hanging on. In theory at least the real climbers should be able to drop him at will on the last two stages and if they don't so that it's their own fault. Anyway there should be two fantastic days of racing ahead of us

 

[Red Rick]

Tomorrow should be interesting.

 

[WKA311]

Yeah, after that Cat 1 today I will be surprised to see Schachmann holding on to the lead over the next two days. Buchmann looked the strongest Bora rider while Konrad was hiding or hurting a bit.
I definitely see Astana and Mitchelton bringing the attacks. Mitchelton already did a lot of work today, Yates just wasn't good enough on that small hill.

 

[Red Rick]

Izua is the perfect place to open the race tomorrow, but I'm not sure who'd want to try. There is always Saturday to try shenanigans, and even Yates could still be in it for the win if he just wins on the Arrate and Schachman gets dropped early.

 

[Velolover2]

Izua is a Yates' climb. He should definitely go there if he wants to win the overall and put Bora under pressure.

Fuglsang would be the perfect companion.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

Izua is a Yates' climb. He should definitely go there if he wants to win the overall and put Bora under pressure.

Fuglsang would be the perfect companion.

I can see it happening if he gets somebody with him. Fuglsang would be the prime candidate for that if he works with Yates.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Re: Re:

Pogacar... what a talent

Indeed, let's hope he will leave UAE.

Why? Things seem to be working out there for him.

I agree.

And especially with an ailing Aru in the team, it gives Pogacar a lot of space to be "more", than just a talented domestique for the captain.

Also, UAE seem to have turned a corner this year, and it appears they have also - at long last (being an archetypical italian team) - learned that you can no longer run a team like in "the good old days", where it was "all for 1 - always" - and be successful.

They seem to have also moved towards the DQ philosophy, where the team comes first, no matter who the rider in question is, just like another archetypical italian team - Astana - did last year, with great effect.

Almost all the big teams are moving in this direction, with Movistar and Bahrain being the notable exceptions IMO.

Yes, the whole staff became more international durning the winter, they got rid of nearly all the old lampre guys and the team seems to perform a lot better.
Matxin is also an important figure, he's signing young talents just like he did when he was at Quickstep.

 

[yaco]

I fear that Yates did too much in the last two days in stages that were a touch unsuitable - Time will tell.

 

[Gigs_98]

Don't think an attack on Izua is necessary. Karakate should be hard enough to drop someone like Schachmann as well and it's not much further away from the finish of the last stage than Izua is tomorrow. So if I was Yates I'd just wait for Arrate tomorrow, look if it's already enough to crush Schachmann and if it isn't there is still the final stage left to try shenanigans.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

1995 and younger (top 60)

04 Daniel Martinez 1996 + 01:07
11 Marc Hirschi 1998 + 01:49
14 Bjorg Lambrecht 1997 + 01:56
16 Tadej Pogacar 1998 + 02:01
18 Valentin Madouas 1996 + 02:08
20 Sam Oomen 1995 + 02:13
26 Enric Mas 1995 + 02:40
34 Oscar Rodriguez 1995 + 03:33
38 Aldemar Reyes 1995 + 04:19
39 Dmitriy Strakhov 1995 + 04:36
41 Lucas Hamilton 1996 + 05:08
45 David Gaudu 1996 + 06:37
48 Jai Hindley 1996 + 07:08
51 Leo Vincent 1995 + 08:30
52 Mikkel Honore 1997 + 09:59
55 Jonas Vingegaard 1996 + 10:11
59 Nicola Conci 1997 + 11:49

 

[Lequack]

Some past times on the finishing climb tomorrow:

 

[Gigs_98]

That 12:15 by Contador is just ridiculous.

 

[Mayo from Mayo]

Looking at stage 4 results on the main site both Alaphilipe and Kwiatkowski are still listed as 2nd and 3rd in the points classification despite no longer being in the race. Have the rules changed, or is this wrong?

 

[Valv.Piti]

That 12:15 by Contador is just ridiculous.

Yup, the best he had ever been that 2009 season, including 2014. Some other ridicolous performances include La Montagne de Lure (dropping everyone with 1 min in P-N) and obviously Verbier in TdF. Full *** all out performances on basically mono-climb stages, 15-30 min efforts. Nobody in the world stood a chance on stages like that that year. Looking at his career in hindsigt, that was his absolute speciality and why he also was ridicolous on hilly/mountanious time trials at that length, even flat one in his prime. His FTP for those performances were unbeliveable and you could argue similar to Porte in skillset, altho Contador obviously did it better at this peak and had a lot more other abilities in GTs that Porte can only dream off having including positioning, recovery, panache (which he didnt need around that time to be frank) etc.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

Izua is the perfect place to open the race tomorrow, but I'm not sure who'd want to try. There is always Saturday to try shenanigans, and even Yates could still be in it for the win if he just wins on the Arrate and Schachman gets dropped early.

I think the plan is for Astana, Yates and others looking for advance in the GC is to set a high pace and blow the race apart on the Arrate and then use Saturday's stage for lange range attacks.

 

[Red Rick]

That 12:15 by Contador is just ridiculous.

Yup, the best he had ever been that 2009 season, including 2014. Some other ridicolous performances include La Montagne de Lure (dropping everyone with 1 min in P-N) and obviously Verbier in TdF. Full *** all out performances on basically mono-climb stages, 15-30 min efforts. Nobody in the world stood a chance on stages like that that year. Looking at his career in hindsigt, that was his absolute speciality and why he also was ridicolous on hilly/mountanious time trials at that length, even flat one in his prime. His FTP for those performances were unbeliveable and you could argue similar to Porte in skillset, altho Contador obviously did it better at this peak and had a lot more other abilities in GTs that Porte can only dream off having including positioning, recovery, panache (which he didnt need around that time to be frank) etc.

I believe he only won that stage by like 8 seconds over a decent chunk of riders. Either must have been tailwind or the entire field was flying that year.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Might be, but differences are always bound to be small on that climb for some reason. I just remember watching the stage with my dad and Horner set an insane tempo in the bottom and Contador flew away. It was over in the bottom almost and we were both stunned since it looked easy. Certainly looked much more convincing than the 8 seconds indicate.

 

[sir fly]

That 12:15 by Contador is just ridiculous.

Yup, the best he had ever been that 2009 season, including 2014. Some other ridicolous performances include La Montagne de Lure (dropping everyone with 1 min in P-N) and obviously Verbier in TdF. Full *** all out performances on basically mono-climb stages, 15-30 min efforts. Nobody in the world stood a chance on stages like that that year. Looking at his career in hindsigt, that was his absolute speciality and why he also was ridicolous on hilly/mountanious time trials at that length, even flat one in his prime. His FTP for those performances were unbeliveable and you could argue similar to Porte in skillset, altho Contador obviously did it better at this peak and had a lot more other abilities in GTs that Porte can only dream off having including positioning, recovery, panache (which he didnt need around that time to be frank) etc.

Good comparison with Porte. He'd have been one hell of a lieutenant to Froome.

 

[Lequack]

We can look look at the results of UAE Tour just a few weeks back which ended with a mountain top finish, with Valverde winning ahead of Roglic. It was a pretty brutal climb with peloton fracturing pretty soon so it was mostly every man for himself.

These were the results. Basically Bauchmann lost almost no time, while Schahmann only lost a minute, climbing with the likes of Teejay and Nibali.