82nd Volta a Portugal em Bicicleta Santander (August 4-15)

[Mayomaniac]

Marquemania running wild, brother!

 

[Netserk]

Already more than 40 seconds. ¡Auch!

 

[Mayomaniac]

Efapel are clueless, use Carvalho as a domestique since the other 2 are clearly stronger.
Put me and my cousin as a translator in the teamcar and they'll do better...
That said, W52 is also messing up atm.

 

[Netserk]

Efapel are clueless, use Carvalho as a domestique since the other 2 are clearly stronger.
Put me and my cousin as a translator in the teamcar and they'll do better...
That said, W52 is also messing up atm.

Yeah, pretty amazing to end up in this situation with the team they have.

 

[ice&fire]

I'm having flashbacks from the Olympic women's road race

 

[trevim]

Efapel are clueless, use Carvalho as a domestique since the other 2 are clearly stronger.
Put me and my cousin as a translator in the teamcar and they'll do better...
That said, W52 is also messing up atm.

There’s no messing up tactics in the Volta, it’s a cultural feature of the race

 

[Mayomaniac]

Marque and Veloso are working much better as a team than W52 and Efapel...

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Considering the colours on his jersey, should we call him Marque Padun?

 

[Netserk]

Considering the colours on his jersey, should we call him Marque Padun?

Pardon?

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Pardon?

I guess you either see the joke or you don't.

W52 and Epafel are just destroying each other's races now.

 

[Netserk]

Brandao can't really decide if he is going to commit to his 'attacks' or not.

I guess you either see the joke or you don't.

It was a follow up in the same vein.

 

[MnR]

W52 with 3 leaders and no one to work. Efapel just responding to atacks.

Moreira is realy a surprise how its doing the summit.

Gonzalez from Movistar seems to be fine and holding this start and stop.

 

[Ricco']

Efapel have been training hard.

Because of that they missed most of the Tour and only saw Quick Step pacing Cavendish up the mountains. So that's why they are going for the same pace strategy.

 

[trevim]

it’s great how Porto is playing this. Not sure what these half attacks are good for

 

[Netserk]

Antunes has been quite disappointing here.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Marque has won two time trials and the GC in this race, but never a regular stage before.

 

[ice&fire]

WTF! They've shutdown the international RTP stream!

 

[Mayomaniac]

W52 with 3 leaders and no one to work. Efapel just responding to atacks.

Moreira is realy a surprise how its doing the summit.

Gonzalez from Movistar seems to be fine and holding this start and stop.

76kg Moreira riding down attacks by Rodrigues and Antunes would be pretty wild in any other race. At the Volta it's just another day at work.

 

[Victor S]

Efapel screwed up and then W52 beat them by screwing up more. Tavira with Marque and even Veloso doing good things.

 

[MnR]

76kg Moreira riding down attacks by Rodrigues and Antunes would be pretty wild in any other race. At the Volta it's just another day at work.

I just realize now that André Cardoso os riding for Efapel...

But its just another Volta day. Candido Barbosa was 11° at Torre so, the Kg dont matter

 

[Mayomaniac]

I just realize now that André Cardoso os riding for Efapel...

But its just another Volta day. Candido Barbosa was 11° at Torre so, the Kg dont matter

Candido Barbosa is an almost mythical creature, so it's hard to compare a normal human being to him.

Marque now leads the gc, 51sec ahead of Moreira. Efapel and W52 should be able to drop him on the less tactical ascents, but his teammate Veloso sits 4th on the gc, only 18 sec behind Moreira and is also a good TTer. He can be used to cover attacks, if W52 and Efapel manage to play the numbers games.

It would be the most Volta thing ever if Marque and Veloso were the ones to end theW52/Porto streak.

No idea what W52 were doing today, maybe they were shocked by the fact that they couldn't drop Moreira and that he was the one riding down attacks. No idea what Efapel were doing, both Moreira and Figueiredo looked really strong and they still didn't use Carvalho, who was clearly weaker and struggling a lot, as a domestique.
And worst of all, they didn't even chase their own teammates, so it wasn't even proper Volta team tactics...

 

[carolina]

W52 and Efapel make Movistar tactics look good. So many leaders and no one to work. It was priceless.

 

[Põhja Konn]

It genuinely looked like Efapel and W52 had their own private race there, completely oblivious to what was happening around them.

Regarding Tavira jersey, from a certain angle it somewhat reminded the 2009 Astana jersey, so for a split second I was wondering how can they be there. In the end, Marque's winning margin was not that dissimilar to Contador on Verbier...

 

[lenric]

Pogacar wouldn’t win this bike race

 

[Mayomaniac]

About the stage, I prefer the 2017 and the 2018 stages that included Torre to a simple MTF on top of the climb, I think that makes for a more interesting race and the wind also becomes less of a factor, unlike last year for example when nobody was able to make his attack stick beecause of the wind.