Amgen Tour of California 2019, May 12-18

[Ktarie]

Re:

Sagan is still in bad shape or has completed his morphing into a pure sprinter?
Today even Oss and his brother abandoned him and finished in the main group while he was with Cavendish minutes and minutes down, that's really bad even for the recent years heavy version of Sagan.

Like you already mentioned, Sagan is riding the ToC with the attitude of a sprinter and so he came in with the whole group of sprinters enjoying some quality time with smalltalk. The only regular fast guy in the first group was Philipsen, who was part of the first breakaway as Oss was.

Bora was not interested in that stage at all. They might try to win at least another one with Sagan and work for it as a team if necessary like DQS will propably try with Jakobsen and then they'll look to get Großschartner into the top 5 and Mad Max will look how his legs feel. There is nothing else to achieve for the team in Cali at all than building up some form for July.

Let's see where Sagan stands in one year from now on. I am corious as well.

 

[Bushman]

Why are people surprised Asgreen is doing well here. He is either competing against lesser riders or riders out of form and building up towards the TdF and such.

When have you ever seen him be competitive in a climbing stage like yesterday? He beat Van Garderen, Schachmann, Pogacar and Moscon on the final hill. Not exactly low level riders. And today he beat Phillipsen, Schachmann, Haas and Ballerini in a flat sprint, of course people are surprised.

 

[Velolover2]

Asgreen might be more similar to Stybar, GVA, Sagan, Trentin, Matthews than some of the specialized cobbles roulers like Terpstra in terms of abilities. He looked like he enjoyed the parcours of De Ronde much more than Roubaix.

Perhaps, he could even be competitive in hillier races like Strade Bianche and Amstel Gold Race.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re: Re:

What kind of rider is Asgreen?

Apparently the new Kwiatkowski - who knew?

He is a mix between Kwiatek and Moscon.

Sure, but to even speak of him in those terms, is a crazy fast development.

Up until a year ago, he was a continental rider - not pro-conti - just conti, and was mostly thought of as a talented TT rider, who DQ mostly picked up for team TTs and doing the grunt work at the front of the peloton, day in and day out

And to think he only got the contract because some guys got hit by a truck...

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Yeah, "some guys" got hit by a truck. Not a trivial matter. It's a miracle Vakoc is cycling again (even if he lost 2cm due to vertebrae injuries) and both him and De Plus lost a year recovering.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re:

Yeah, "some guys" got hit by a truck. Not a trivial matter. It's a miracle Vakoc is cycling again (even if he lost 2cm due to vertebrae injuries) and both him and De Plus lost a year recovering.

I'm not saying it's trivial, I'm saying it's crazy! And I really hope that in the future Lefevre will sign riders before any of his riders are hit by a truck.
I generally don't hope anyone gets hit by trucks (or even just one)…

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Re: Re:

Yeah, "some guys" got hit by a truck. Not a trivial matter. It's a miracle Vakoc is cycling again (even if he lost 2cm due to vertebrae injuries) and both him and De Plus lost a year recovering.

I'm not saying it's trivial, I'm saying it's crazy! And I really hope that in the future Lefevre will sign riders before any of his riders are hit by a truck.
I generally don't hope anyone gets hit by trucks (or even just one)…

My point was mainly that these were two very good riders. Not just "some guys".

That said, Asgreen is certainly showing a lot of potential. I'd like to fastforward a couple of years to see what type of rider he'll end up.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re: Re:

Yeah, "some guys" got hit by a truck. Not a trivial matter. It's a miracle Vakoc is cycling again (even if he lost 2cm due to vertebrae injuries) and both him and De Plus lost a year recovering.

I'm not saying it's trivial, I'm saying it's crazy! And I really hope that in the future Lefevre will sign riders before any of his riders are hit by a truck.
I generally don't hope anyone gets hit by trucks (or even just one)…

My point was mainly that these were two very good riders. Not just "some guys".

That said, Asgreen is certainly showing a lot of potential. I'd like to fastforward a couple of years to see what type of rider he'll end up.

And it would have been just as crazy if they weren't two really good riders.
Do they have anything else on DQ anyway? Even their non-winners are winning! At this rate Declercq is probably gonna win tonight?
Probably not but... you never know.

 

[RedheadDane]

Okay, could someone please give the Trek-rider participating in the pace-setting some glasses? He looks like he has trouble seeing.

 

[Lequack]

Seems to me this race was much more interesting when it wasn't a WT race.

 

[Koronin]

This stage should end in a field sprint. As for Hwy 1 along the coast in California, it is a beautiful drive. Family vacation when I was in high school and we did that drive.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Those guys from Team USA look like they ran away out of a Rocky movieset.

 

[RedheadDane]

Tejay crashed.

 

[Aristarchus]

Re:

Tejay crashed.

He's trying to close back to the peloton on someone else's bike, now, too.

Edit: and right off the road!

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

LoL

TJ refusing to take that corner

 

[Lequack]

Jeez Teejay almost went into the bushes.

 

[RedheadDane]

Tejay! What the *** was that?

I was… sort of falling asleep. I'm awake now!

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Tejay is determined to ruin this race for himself

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Chaos, branches on the road, guys going offroad... another crash.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Steff Cras on the side of the road. Race over. Was doing pretty good in GC.

 

[Aristarchus]

Doesn't look good for TJ to make the catch. The sprinters are pushing too quickly up front.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Jakobsen ahead of Philipsen

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Both Moscon and TJ lost time to Asgreen, no?

 

[Lequack]

Tejay van Garderen crosses the line 54” after the reduced bunch sprint.

 

[johnymax]

Carnage in the last 10km. Nice win for Jakobsen. Sagan again subpar. Who's the new leader?