71st Tour de Romandie - April 25th-30th

[Hugo Koblet]

The GC is pretty open still.

I'm gonna go with:

1. Porte
2. Yates
3. Roglic
4. Felline
5. Jungels
6. Izagirre
7. Buchmann
8. Herrada
9. De la Cruz
10. Ulissi

 

[silvergrenade]

Re:

its like some have never Froome do this before, I'm sure he too it easy here last year as well? he looks overweight right now, maybe he was wanting the extra timber to help him in the colder conditions, and he hasn't done a lot of racing this year...

he will be fine, his big targets are the tour and the Vuelta , everything else is just a bonus.

nice climbing from Porte and Yates, Porte has been flying from the start of the year

And as others have said the roads looked amazing and the scenery was jaw dropping

When have you seen Froome this bad?
I think this is his worst performance till date(post 2011).

 

[rhubroma]

Re: Re:

Froome is fat, needs to loose masive weight, or he won't be a factor at le Tour.

This reminds me of Jan Ullrich. He would put on weight in the offseason then leave himself too much to lose nearing the Tour which sapped his strength. Hopefully for Froome's sake that does not happen especially with Sky's attention to minor details.

I am more excited at Porte's form. In last year's Tour he proved could last 3 weeks so if he hasn't peaked too early he might finally silence the doubters.

Jan Ullrich was ready to ride the Tour when he finished the Tour.

So true. Jan just couldn't give up the wurstel and stay out of the biergarten.

 

[tobydawq]

It is Froome's worst since 2011.

Yet we see many more posters writing about how they can't believe so many are making a fuss about the performance than posters making a fuss about the performance.

To me, this is quite interesting. No, we cannot assume that he will not have pulled himself together come June but it is very unlike Froome to just throw away half a season (and his performance yesterday was very surprising in light of his decent showing in Catalunya).

 

[dlwssonic]

Anyone got the profile of today's climb

 

[Põhja Konn]

In the last couple of years when he has taken spring program lightly, Froome has always improved from Catalunya to Romandie. Now it is obviously vice versa. We can only speculate what are the reasons behind it and whether it influences his Tour form or not, but until he repeats yesterdays performance in the Dauphine nothing has changed about him being the man to beat in July. Too early to fear or hope (depending on allegiances) yet.

About todays stage and overall, Roglic is the favourite for both imo. During this spring in he has been a level or two above everyone infront of him right now and has been one of the best TT-ers overall not just among GC-riders. Froome was mediocre in prologue, but a longer TT today should suit him better, so I expect at least a half decent performance from him.

 

[deValtos]

I think I'm going to put this poor performance down to some bad effects (sickness) due to the bad weather they had earlier on in the week. Would be interesting to see what Froome himself says.

 

[SafeBet]

My guess: last year he realized the Tour-Vuelta double is actually doable and he wants to delay his peak as much as he can.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

It will be more interesting to judge Froome's form on today's stage.

Last year he was decent in the TT.

Froome's TT shape varies a lot from year to year depending on his goals. Last year his shape was pretty good because there were relatively long ITT's in the Tour and the Vuelta, and the Olympic ITT was one of his season goals. In years like 2015 his TT shape seemed to be much worse because he was completely concentrating on the tour with only about 10 ITT kilometers. This year I think it will be something in between these two years so I'm not really sure what to expect and what would be a good result for him.

On a side note, what do you think Felline will be able to do in the ITT? He won the prologue, but I think todays longer TT doesn't suit him as well.

 

[The Barb]

Like all right thinking people I'd like to think that Froome's ride yesterday is a portent for his season but unfortunately I suspect he'll be fine come July.

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

It will be more interesting to judge Froome's form on today's stage.

Last year he was decent in the TT.

Froome's TT shape varies a lot from year to year depending on his goals. Last year his shape was pretty good because there were relatively long ITT's in the Tour and the Vuelta, and the Olympic ITT was one of his season goals. In years like 2015 his TT shape seemed to be much worse because he was completely concentrating on the tour with only about 10 ITT kilometers. This year I think it will be something in between these two years so I'm not really sure what to expect and what would be a good result for him.

On a side note, what do you think Felline will be able to do in the ITT? He won the prologue, but I think todays longer TT doesn't suit him as well.

Felline in the past has tended to do just as well or even better in longer ITTs. Last year in the Vuelta he finished 9th in the fairly long ITT, he finished 8th in the NC in his first race after his awful self inflicted crash, and perhaps most notably he finished 8th in the monster time trial at the Giro 2015, just over a minute down on Contador.

 

[wirral]

I hadn't previously heard of Lennard Kamna.

 

[DNP-Old]

Betancur 3rd at the intermediate.

 

[Popchu]

Re:

Betancur 3rd at the intermediate.

Now I'm very interested to see how he does in the second part of the ITT, where the speed is much higher.

Edit: 8th. Still very good, one of his best ITT performances in his career.

 

[roundabout]

there are 40 or so riders still to finish

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Any stream?

 

[veganrob]

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/TkBJTT2rvKa

 

[glassmoon]

LoL Alexis

 

[silvergrenade]

Froome 25'44''
Decent Time I think. Unfortunately this tells us nothing about his form really.

 

[klintE]

Re:

The GC is pretty open still.

I'm gonna go with:

1. Porte
2. Yates
3. Roglic
4. Felline
5. Jungels
6. Izagirre
7. Buchmann
8. Herrada
9. De la Cruz
10. Ulissi

IMO:
Yates
Porte
Roglić
Izagirre
Jungels
Felline
Buchmann
De La Cruz
Howson
TJVG

 

[HelloDolly]

So what is Zakarins excuse for not climbing well then ?

Edit : Z not X

 

[del1962]

Re:

Froome 25'44''
Decent Time I think. Unfortunately this tells us nothing about his form really.

Is there a ticker.

The strange thing about yesterday was Froome on the penultimate climb was chasing people down so he must have felt stronger than he really was, in his current shape he should have left others to do it

 

[infeXio]

Re: Re:

Froome 25'44''
Decent Time I think. Unfortunately this tells us nothing about his form really.

Is there a ticker.

The strange thing about yesterday was Froome on the penultimate climb was chasing people down so he must have felt stronger than he really was, in his current shape he should have left others to do it

http://tissottiming.com/Stage/00030E0101010106FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

 

[HelloDolly]

TJ best at intermediate point so far

 

[del1962]

Re: Re:

Froome 25'44''
Decent Time I think. Unfortunately this tells us nothing about his form really.

Is there a ticker.

The strange thing about yesterday was Froome on the penultimate climb was chasing people down so he must have felt stronger than he really was, in his current shape he should have left others to do it

http://tissottiming.com/Stage/00030E0101010106FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Thanks