Can Latour win Le Tour thread

[Nirvana]

Re: Re:

The next French hope will be Alaphilippe, a Tour with a lot of classics style stages, not a lot of big mountain, the return of a good TT amount to favour him could be good.

Yeah, cause with a lot of TT's Alaphilippe will smash the mountain goats Dumoulin, Thomas and Froome.

You are underestimating Alaphilippe TT if you think that the TT could damage him, last year he smashed the field in the Paris-Nice TT when he was fighting for the overall.
Against the clock he can easily gain time with almost all the contenders and limit well his losses with the strongest time trialists, his real problem are the high mountains where he's likely to lose minutes and minutes.

 

[IndianCyclist]

Podium yes win no. Best chance is Bardet

 

[tobydawq]

Re: Re:

The next French hope will be Alaphilippe, a Tour with a lot of classics style stages, not a lot of big mountain, the return of a good TT amount to favour him could be good.

Yeah, cause with a lot of TT's Alaphilippe will smash the mountain goats Dumoulin, Thomas and Froome.

You are underestimating Alaphilippe TT if you think that the TT could damage him, last year he smashed the field in the Paris-Nice TT when he was fighting for the overall.
Against the clock he can easily gain time with almost all the contenders and limit well his losses with the strongest time trialists, his real problem are the high mountains where he's likely to lose minutes and minutes.

No, he is not.

Alaphilippe is far from the level of Froome, Dumoulin, Roglic and Thomas.

The fact that he won one TT (where none of them were present) doesn't change that in the least.

 

[hfer07]

NO he Can't

Because he's neither British nor a SKY rider

 

[Brullnux]

Elissonde, clearly

 

[Escarabajo]

Sure he can!

Nowadays anybody can win the Tour in the right environment!

 

[toolittle]

Re:

I won't read racing result directly.
On paper, Latour is 20 minutes behind Thomas. Big gap from winning.

Mechanics and stage 9 influence this TDF deeply.

Thomas, Roglic, Kruijswijk and Dumoulin (TD has one bad mechanics only) are relatively lucky and keep out of troubles.

Froome, Quintana, Landa, Yates, Fuglsang and Latour crashed several times. Uran and Nibali out of the game. Bardet is luckier than those about but stopped by several bad mechanics to spend his energy.

At the same moment, Team Sky and LottoNL have only 1 rider DNF at the end. But most of other teams have 2 to 4 riders gone early.

Stage 9 took a lot of energy for lighter riders. Diesel type riders feel better in Alps in general.

Froome and Dumoulin have just finished a demanding Giro. These are factors behind the result.

Mark my words.
1. Froome is still the strongest rider and Tom Dumoulin is far stronger than Thomas.
2. Roglic and Kruijswijk are great riders. But they aren't as strong as the result. Especially Kruiljswijk. Roglic is a true future/current GC person. But still half classic behind Dumoulin.
3. Bardet improved from last year. He outsprint Dumoulin on stage 19 and good in Stage 20. Still French best chance.
4. Quintana was hammered by crashes. He is strong still as 2 years ago.
5. Latour is good. Far better then most of people think. You could see that on stage 6. Don't think his TT is less than Egal at the moment. He just roll stage 20 safely to avoid crash as last year.

My ranking after this TDF :
Froome, Dumoulin
Quintana, Porte, Nibali, Bardet, Thomas, Landa,Roglic, Pinot, Uran, Aru
Yates, López, Latour, Dan Martin, Fuglsang, Zakarin...

Furthermore, no white jersey challenger and domestique role there. Latour result cannot reflect his current ability.

 

[Nirvana]

Re: Re:

The next French hope will be Alaphilippe, a Tour with a lot of classics style stages, not a lot of big mountain, the return of a good TT amount to favour him could be good.

Yeah, cause with a lot of TT's Alaphilippe will smash the mountain goats Dumoulin, Thomas and Froome.

You are underestimating Alaphilippe TT if you think that the TT could damage him, last year he smashed the field in the Paris-Nice TT when he was fighting for the overall.
Against the clock he can easily gain time with almost all the contenders and limit well his losses with the strongest time trialists, his real problem are the high mountains where he's likely to lose minutes and minutes.

No, he is not.

Alaphilippe is far from the level of Froome, Dumoulin, Roglic and Thomas.

The fact that he won one TT (where none of them were present) doesn't change that in the least.

For sure they are superior but not so much as some think, in an hilly TT he can be there with them if he needs to go all out for a GC.

 

[tobydawq]

Re: Re:

The next French hope will be Alaphilippe, a Tour with a lot of classics style stages, not a lot of big mountain, the return of a good TT amount to favour him could be good.

Yeah, cause with a lot of TT's Alaphilippe will smash the mountain goats Dumoulin, Thomas and Froome.

You are underestimating Alaphilippe TT if you think that the TT could damage him, last year he smashed the field in the Paris-Nice TT when he was fighting for the overall.
Against the clock he can easily gain time with almost all the contenders and limit well his losses with the strongest time trialists, his real problem are the high mountains where he's likely to lose minutes and minutes.

No, he is not.

Alaphilippe is far from the level of Froome, Dumoulin, Roglic and Thomas.

The fact that he won one TT (where none of them were present) doesn't change that in the least.

For sure they are superior but not so much as some think, in an hilly TT he can be there with them if he needs to go all out for a GC.

No, he can't. And on a flat TT he will be demolished. I'm confused as to your agenda here.

 

[Nirvana]

In the pan flat TT in this year's Pais Vasco he finished only 42" down to Roglic.
That's far from being demolished.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

In the pan flat TT in this year's Pais Vasco he finished only 42" down to Roglic.
That's far from being demolished.

That TT was 19.4 km long. You were claiming alaphilippe would be a contender in a route which among other things, is very TT heavy. I'd say a TT heavy route has over 80 kilometers of TT'ing, maybe nowadays a route with 60 km would already count as TT heavy. In any case alaphilippe would lose well over two minutes to guys like Roglic and I don't think there is any terrain where he could gain that as long as they don't put muritos at the end of every other stage with 20 seconds time bonifications for the winner. That's not gonna happen

 

[tobydawq]

Re: Re:

In the pan flat TT in this year's Pais Vasco he finished only 42" down to Roglic.
That's far from being demolished.

That TT was 19.4 km long. You were claiming alaphilippe would be a contender in a route which among other things, is very TT heavy. I'd say a TT heavy route has over 80 kilometers of TT'ing, maybe nowadays a route with 60 km would already count as TT heavy. In any case alaphilippe would lose well over two minutes to guys like Roglic and I don't think there is any terrain where he could gain that as long as they don't put muritos at the end of every other stage with 20 seconds time bonifications for the winner. That's not gonna happen

Downhill finishes would be good to him, to be fair.

 

[Nirvana]

[quote="Nirvana":211v78hf]In the pan flat TT in this year's Pais Vasco he finished only 42" down to Roglic.
That's far from being demolished.

That TT was 19.4 km long. You were claiming alaphilippe would be a contender in a route which among other things, is very TT heavy. I'd say a TT heavy route has over 80 kilometers of TT'ing, maybe nowadays a route with 60 km would already count as TT heavy. In any case alaphilippe would lose well over two minutes to guys like Roglic and I don't think there is any terrain where he could gain that as long as they don't put muritos at the end of every other stage with 20 seconds time bonifications for the winner. That's not gonna happen[/quote]
In the last years the design of the Tour was drastically changed to favour Bardet, why they couldn't do it in a way to favour Alaphilippe if in 3/5 years he'll become their biggest hope?

A lot of hilly/medium mountain stages, easy MTFs, a long hilly TT, a short MTT, a long TTT, no big mountains and he could be a contender if his recovery will allow him to ride a GT for GC.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

[quote="Nirvana":1acvioc4]In the pan flat TT in this year's Pais Vasco he finished only 42" down to Roglic.
That's far from being demolished.

That TT was 19.4 km long. You were claiming alaphilippe would be a contender in a route which among other things, is very TT heavy. I'd say a TT heavy route has over 80 kilometers of TT'ing, maybe nowadays a route with 60 km would already count as TT heavy. In any case alaphilippe would lose well over two minutes to guys like Roglic and I don't think there is any terrain where he could gain that as long as they don't put muritos at the end of every other stage with 20 seconds time bonifications for the winner. That's not gonna happen

In the last years the design of the Tour was drastically changed to favour Bardet, why they couldn't do it in a way to favour Alaphilippe if in 3/5 years he'll become their biggest hope?

A lot of hilly/medium mountain stages, easy MTFs, a long hilly TT, a short MTT, a long TTT, no big mountains and he could be a contender if his recovery will allow him to ride a GT for GC.[/quote]
But the ASO won't just make a route with only one or two high mountain stages and to be honest, even one hard mountain stage would probably already be enough to eliminate Alaphilippe. Even if he only loses a few minutes, it's not as if Alaphilippe is head and shoulders above the rest in hilly stages. In a hilly tdf with only two mountain stages and two long time trials I'd still take the top four of this years race over Alaphilippe and in addition to that I'd take guys like Kwiatkowski or Jungels over Alaphilippe as well. Alaphilippe winning the tour is just not gonna happen unless he makes a Thomas like transformation.

 

[Alexandre B.]

Taken by the massive crash caused by Ben King during La Klasikoa, Pierre unfortunately has to end his season. Multiple cuts at a vertebrae.

 

[Tim Booth]

Re:

Taken by the massive crash caused by Ben King during La Klasikoa, Pierre unfortunately has to end his season. Multiple cuts at a vertebrae.

might be back for Lombardy
http://www.cyclismactu.net/news-route-pierre-latour-de-retour-en-competition-debut-octobre-77701.html

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

Taken by the massive crash caused by Ben King during La Klasikoa, Pierre unfortunately has to end his season. Multiple cuts at a vertebrae.

Ben King really did screw up, didn't he.

Good to hear that he may come back towards the end of the season.