Amgen Tour of California 2019, May 12-18

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Re: Re:

Asgreen... the guy for Paris Roubaix... wins.

Vlaanderen. Continuing the random Danish debutant gets second tradition.

After his second place in RVV, everybody was saying he would be even better for PR.

 

[Anderis]

EF and its previous incarnations have never won Tour of California... but they have had 10 overall podiums in total (and they finished 4th on a couple of those podiumless occassions). That's quite astonishing to be so close to winning on so many occassions and never managing it.

I hope they use their numbers wisely in the following stages. Would be a shame if they burnt GC-relevant riders like Higuita and Morton trying to control the stage because of the leader's jersey and then found out that Tejay doesn't have the legs to fight for the overall win or that they just failed to bring back one of many attakcs.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re: Re:

Asgreen... the guy for Paris Roubaix... wins.

Vlaanderen. Continuing the random Danish debutant gets second tradition.

After his second place in RVV, everybody was saying he would be even better for PR.

I'm obviously an idiot who read 'for' as 'from'.


(Then I tried to delete to hide the evidence, but was told I wasn't allowed…)

 

[perico]

Re:

EF and its previous incarnations have never won Tour of California... but they have had 10 overall podiums in total (and they finished 4th on a couple of those podiumless occassions). That's quite astonishing to be so close to winning on so many occassions and never managing it.

I hope they use their numbers wisely in the following stages. Would be a shame if they burnt GC-relevant riders like Higuita and Morton trying to control the stage because of the leader's jersey and then found out that Tejay doesn't have the legs to fight for the overall win or that they just failed to bring back one of many attakcs.

TeeJay has flopped spectacularly in GTs the last few years, but he has much better week long palmares than either Higuita or Morton. Hell, he finished 2nd overall in this same race last year, and neither Morton or Higuita could've contained Bernal either.

And it could be that switching to Slipstream is what he needed to reignite his career. Look at Van de Velde, Wiggo, and Ryder's careers before Vaughters. Even Rigo was borderline as a GC rider before the move to Cannondale after never living up to his initial Giro results.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Re: Re:

Asgreen... the guy for Paris Roubaix... wins.

Vlaanderen. Continuing the random Danish debutant gets second tradition.

After his second place in RVV, everybody was saying he would be even better for PR.

I'm obviously an idiot who read 'for' as 'from'.

(Then I tried to delete to hide the evidence, but was told I wasn't allowed…)

lol

Anyway, so it's clear he can go uphill rather good. Though, i'm still thinking, the reason why he won this stage, is maybe more because he's got a lot of depth (as evident by his RVV) and maybe just had more left in the tank, compared to guys who "should" be able to outclimb him. But he should definitely try to find out where this can take him.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Re: Re:

Asgreen... the guy for Paris Roubaix... wins.

Vlaanderen. Continuing the random Danish debutant gets second tradition.

After his second place in RVV, everybody was saying he would be even better for PR.

I'm obviously an idiot who read 'for' as 'from'.

(Then I tried to delete to hide the evidence, but was told I wasn't allowed…)

lol

Anyway, so it's clear he can go uphill rather good. Though, i'm still thinking, the reason why he won this stage, is maybe more because he's got a lot of depth (as evident by his RVV) and maybe just had more left in the tank, compared to guys who "should" be able to outclimb him. But he should definitely try to find out where this can take him.

Asgreen was also the last remnant of the initial break in the Worlds road race on a course not suited for him. He has an extraordinary engine for tough races.

 

[King Boonen]

T-yay!

Also glad to see Cav pushing on and finishing. It'll be a hard road back but it looks like he's at least got the fight for it.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Re:

EF and its previous incarnations have never won Tour of California... but they have had 10 overall podiums in total (and they finished 4th on a couple of those podiumless occassions). That's quite astonishing to be so close to winning on so many occassions and never managing it.

I hope they use their numbers wisely in the following stages. Would be a shame if they burnt GC-relevant riders like Higuita and Morton trying to control the stage because of the leader's jersey and then found out that Tejay doesn't have the legs to fight for the overall win or that they just failed to bring back one of many attakcs.

TeeJay has flopped spectacularly in GTs the last few years, but he has much better week long palmares than either Higuita or Morton. Hell, he finished 2nd overall in this same race last year, and neither Morton or Higuita could've contained Bernal either.

And it could be that switching to Slipstream is what he needed to reignite his career. Look at Van de Velde, Wiggo, and Ryder's careers before Vaughters. Even Rigo was borderline as a GC rider before the move to Cannondale after never living up to his initial Giro results.

I'm not saying Van Garderen shouldn't be their leader here, all I'm saying is that I hope they'll not burn their matches trying to keep it all together when they have so many strong riders, like they did in Romandie where they had the strongest team but ended up with very little results-wise. They should rather send riders on attack to force others to react. Van Garderen has good one-week races palmares but it's at least since 2017 when he was among the best climbers in any race, all results he got in 2018 were mainy thanks to TT so it should not be trusted he will win on Mt Baldy, therefore I think EF should try multiple free-role riders approach instead of putting all eggs into one basket.

And as much as I'm a fan of Slipstream, I can't see any progress Uran has made since he had joined there. 2017 Tour de France was the only WT stage race in which he finished in the top6 in the last 3.5 years. That's much fewer than his last 3 years before the switch.

 

[Screecher]

Rohan Dennis is in the breakaway. He is just 42 seconds down on GC.

 

[Ktarie]

I like to watch the ToC in general. But Without an ITT I would like to see at least one more hilly / uphill stage,
because four out of seven stages for sprints should still be enough, I guess.

Yesterdays stage was fun to watch. EF did a good job so far. Pogocar is in a really good position as well, that is fine.

I felt a bit sorry for the young Powless yesterday. Of course there is an team order and Bennett is his captain, but
if I have a young talented US-rider in my squad, who is oerhaps one of the five bigger hopes of his country in cycling and he is in a good position in a stage race at home, I would not carry him back twice to do the work, instead I would like to know where his legs can bring him on his own, which at the end might also be the better commercial for my sponsor in this region.

 

[RedheadDane]

Cort has made one of those rare, and honestly I thought against-the-rules, mid-race transfers.

Magnus Cort, Steff Cras (Katusha-Alpecin)

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Stage profile seems to contradict the name of the finish town.

 

[LuckyLoek]

I felt a bit sorry for the young Powless yesterday. Of course there is an team order and Bennett is his captain, but
if I have a young talented US-rider in my squad, who is oerhaps one of the five bigger hopes of his country in cycling and he is in a good position in a stage race at home, I would not carry him back twice to do the work, instead I would like to know where his legs can bring him on his own, which at the end might also be the better commercial for my sponsor in this region.

I completely agree with that. He probably wouldn't have won the stage, but Bennett wouldn't have won it either, even if he had raced a little more aggressively when he needed to. It was a shame, because he was strong yesterday. They should have taken the risk to bet on Powless and hope that other teams would have limited the 'pelotons' losses.

 

[Koronin]

I felt a bit sorry for the young Powless yesterday. Of course there is an team order and Bennett is his captain, but
if I have a young talented US-rider in my squad, who is oerhaps one of the five bigger hopes of his country in cycling and he is in a good position in a stage race at home, I would not carry him back twice to do the work, instead I would like to know where his legs can bring him on his own, which at the end might also be the better commercial for my sponsor in this region.

I completely agree with that. He probably wouldn't have won the stage, but Bennett wouldn't have won it either, even if he had raced a little more aggressively when he needed to. It was a shame, because he was strong yesterday. They should have taken the risk to bet on Powless and hope that other teams would have limited the 'pelotons' losses.

I felt badly for him as well. I understand that Kuss was supposed to be their leader for California before being switched to the Giro, however with how well Powless was doing yesterday, I'd have left him alone to try.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

I felt a bit sorry for the young Powless yesterday. Of course there is an team order and Bennett is his captain, but
if I have a young talented US-rider in my squad, who is oerhaps one of the five bigger hopes of his country in cycling and he is in a good position in a stage race at home, I would not carry him back twice to do the work, instead I would like to know where his legs can bring him on his own, which at the end might also be the better commercial for my sponsor in this region.

I completely agree with that. He probably wouldn't have won the stage, but Bennett wouldn't have won it either, even if he had raced a little more aggressively when he needed to. It was a shame, because he was strong yesterday. They should have taken the risk to bet on Powless and hope that other teams would have limited the 'pelotons' losses.

I felt badly for him as well. I understand that Kuss was supposed to be their leader for California before being switched to the Giro, however with how well Powless was doing yesterday, I'd have left him alone to try.

Evenepoel, just turned 19 that week, in his first pro race, was defending a podium spot in the last stage of San Juan, had to drop back to work for Alaphilippe. I found that a lot harsher. He nearly lost his youth jersey as well. Powless is turning 23 in a few months.

 

[Lequack]

They're climbing Mt Hamilton:

 

[RedheadDane]

I felt a bit sorry for the young Powless yesterday. Of course there is an team order and Bennett is his captain, but
if I have a young talented US-rider in my squad, who is oerhaps one of the five bigger hopes of his country in cycling and he is in a good position in a stage race at home, I would not carry him back twice to do the work, instead I would like to know where his legs can bring him on his own, which at the end might also be the better commercial for my sponsor in this region.

I completely agree with that. He probably wouldn't have won the stage, but Bennett wouldn't have won it either, even if he had raced a little more aggressively when he needed to. It was a shame, because he was strong yesterday. They should have taken the risk to bet on Powless and hope that other teams would have limited the 'pelotons' losses.

I felt badly for him as well. I understand that Kuss was supposed to be their leader for California before being switched to the Giro, however with how well Powless was doing yesterday, I'd have left him alone to try.

Evenepoel, just turned 19 that week, in his first pro race, was defending a podium spot in the last stage of San Juan, had to drop back to work for Alaphilippe. I found that a lot harsher. He nearly lost his youth jersey as well. Powless is turning 23 in a few months.

You could argue that means Evenepoel has longer time to get to ride his own chance.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

You could argue that means Evenepoel has longer time to get to ride his own chance.

The thing is, he was in a break in the final of the last stage, while he already wàs on the podium. Powless wasn't defending a podium spot which he had to forfait.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Looks like a difficult descent from Mt Hamilton. Is this where Skujins had his famous crash a couple of years back?

 

[RedheadDane]

You could argue that means Evenepoel has longer time to get to ride his own chance.

The thing is, he was in a break in the final of the last stage, while he already wàs on the podium. Powless wasn't defending a podium spot which he had to forfait.

I'm sure Remco will get pretty of chances, and who knows how Powless would've done if he'd being let lose?

---

Could Hoehn catch Cavagna? Can he sprint? Can Cavagna sprint?
How much time do they need to have at the buttom to make it?
Why is it telling me I spelled 'buttom' wrong?

 

[Vroome.exe]

You could argue that means Evenepoel has longer time to get to ride his own chance.

The thing is, he was in a break in the final of the last stage, while he already wàs on the podium. Powless wasn't defending a podium spot which he had to forfait.

:lol: Oh yeah, that good old San Juan stage. Evenepoel had like 20 meters on Alaphilippe, who was the leader of the race. Stop being ridiculous, he was never going to podium that race, he was just not strong enough.

 

[Lequack]

Re:

Looks like a difficult descent from Mt Hamilton. Is this where Skujins had his famous crash a couple of years back?

Yes that was it, here is the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12OUjb6N7Ro

They really shouldn't have let him continue after that.

 

[RedheadDane]

DQ going to go two-in-a-row? With another not-quite-a-star rider?

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

You could argue that means Evenepoel has longer time to get to ride his own chance.

The thing is, he was in a break in the final of the last stage, while he already wàs on the podium. Powless wasn't defending a podium spot which he had to forfait.

:lol: Oh yeah, that good old San Juan stage. Evenepoel had like 20 meters on Alaphilippe, who was the leader of the race. Stop being ridiculous, he was never going to podium that race, he was just not strong enough.

After pulling for Alaphilippe, he only lost... 33 seconds on Alaphilippe's group. So it seems it's you who's being ridiculous. Had he gone in the break he wouldn't have had to do all of the work, unlike when he had to fall back.
Furthermore, you're completely missing the point. Evenepoel had a podium spot as well as a youth jersey to defend. Whether or not you think he was strong enough is completely besides the point. Powless has nothing to defend. The argument was made that he (Powless) should have been able to ride for himself, because he's a young guy who should be able to show himself. That's why i brought it up. Benett is the leader in California, not Powless. Same deal.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

30K to go... looks like Cavagna has this in the bag. Unless those time indications are way off again.