Teams & Riders Chris Froome Discussion Thread.

[dacooley]

Re:

Hopefully he will stay on that level and not improve it.Otherwise Contador and Nairo could only pray for his crash on decent or be ill.

hopefully for who?

 

[KGB]

For us of course.We all love Froomestrong,Nairo,Contador,Porte and even GVA if they fighting every stage.

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re:

For us of course.We all love Froomestrong,Nairo,Contador,Porte and even GVA if they fighting every stage.

I know Van Avermaet won TA this year but I'll be surprised if he's fighting it out for yellow in July

 

[Ataraxus]

Checking some past editions Dauphine results. The bad news for Froome opponents is that he really races Dauphine sandbagging/under-peaked compared to almost all his rivals.
-He was losing 52 seconds to Tony Martin in a 32 km flat ITT. In the Tour he lost only 12.
-He gave Alberto only 4 seconds in the first mountain stage in Valmorel. Come the Tour he gave everyone 1minute and a half.

 

[Ataraxus]

Checking some past editions Dauphine results. The bad news for Froome's opponents is that he really races Dauphine sandbagging/under-peaked compared to almost all his rivals and all the gaps of the Dauphine seem to amplify into his favor come le Tour.
In 2013:
-He was losing 52 seconds to Tony Martin in a 32 km flat ITT. In 33km flat ITT of the Tour he lost only 12.
-He distanced Alberto by only 4 seconds in the first mountain stage in Valmorel. Come the Tour he gave him 1:45.
He gave 10sec to Valverde. 1:08 in the Tour.
He gave 32 sec to Ten Dam. 1:16 in the Tour

In 2015:
He got beaten by Tj in the first hill finish but I'll use the stage into le Bettex as reference (Propper MTF and more suitable for comparison to PSM)
-17 seconds to Tejay. 2:30 in PSM
-41 to Meintjes. 5:38 in the Tour
-54 to Rodrigues. 6:07 in the Tour.
-2:03 to Valverde. 2:01 in the Tour (And we all know Valverde was pretty bad in that Dauphine. Finishing with Nibali in most of the stages).

 

[Oliwright]

Re:

Checking some past editions Dauphine results. The bad news for Froome's opponents is that he really races Dauphine sandbagging/under-peaked compared to almost all his rivals and all the gaps of the Dauphine seem to amplify into his favor come le Tour.
In 2013:
-He was losing 52 seconds to Tony Martin in a 32 km flat ITT. In 33km flat ITT of the Tour he lost only 12.
-He distanced Alberto by only 4 seconds in the first mountain stage in Valmorel. Come the Tour he gave him 1:45.
He gave 10sec to Valverde. 1:08 in the Tour.
He gave 32 sec to Ten Dam. 1:16 in the Tour

In 2015:
He got beaten by Tj in the first hill finish but I'll use the stage into le Bettex as reference (Propper MTF and more suitable for comparison to PSM)
-17 seconds to Tejay. 2:30 in PSM
-41 to Meintjes. 5:38 in the Tour
-54 to Rodrigues. 6:07 in the Tour.
-2:03 to Valverde. 2:01 in the Tour (And we all know Valverde was pretty bad in that Dauphine. Finishing with Nibali in most of the stages).

At 2012 dauphine he was 3rd and in the 2012 tour he was best rider in the race.
But his TTing has been poor in recent years.
In 2015 he also didn't concentrate on it as the tour had no TT km, also others have caught up tech wise.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

Checking some past editions Dauphine results. The bad news for Froome's opponents is that he really races Dauphine sandbagging/under-peaked compared to almost all his rivals and all the gaps of the Dauphine seem to amplify into his favor come le Tour.
In 2013:
-He was losing 52 seconds to Tony Martin in a 32 km flat ITT. In 33km flat ITT of the Tour he lost only 12.
-He distanced Alberto by only 4 seconds in the first mountain stage in Valmorel. Come the Tour he gave him 1:45.
He gave 10sec to Valverde. 1:08 in the Tour.
He gave 32 sec to Ten Dam. 1:16 in the Tour

In 2015:
He got beaten by Tj in the first hill finish but I'll use the stage into le Bettex as reference (Propper MTF and more suitable for comparison to PSM)
-17 seconds to Tejay. 2:30 in PSM
-41 to Meintjes. 5:38 in the Tour
-54 to Rodrigues. 6:07 in the Tour.
-2:03 to Valverde. 2:01 in the Tour (And we all know Valverde was pretty bad in that Dauphine. Finishing with Nibali in most of the stages).

Seriously, comparing Valmorel to Ax3 Domaines?

Lets just pick 1000 pieces of data and only pick the one that suit me

 

[PremierAndrew]

Quintana didn't turn up at the dauphine, and he looks like the main threat right now.

 

[Poursuivant]

I think what Ataraxus is saying is: Froome will be even stronger in July.

 

[SeriousSam]

His form trajectory looks similar to what it was in 2013 and 2015. In both of those Tours, he killed the GC competition at the very first MTF when only the mighty Richie managed to keep the deficit at less than a minute.

Will it be the same this year? I haven't really looked at the route in any detail yet but it seems that the first MTF isn't very amenable to the Froome Attack, and by Arcalis his relative edge may have diminished. It's also likely Quintana's climbing has improved.

The other relative unknown is his ITT. Given that his power seems to be the same it's always been, there's probably no reason to believe he can't crush the ITTs once again, like he did in 2012/2013 and up to the Dauphine in 2014.

 

[lenric]

In 2012 the tour was heavily TT oriented. No wonder that riders intended to develop their TT skills.
In 2013 the tour also had 3 TTs (one of them was a team time trial), so again I think it is normal that riders aimed to develop their TT skills.
In the last 2 years the Tour was rather poor in TTs, so it's not quite abnormal that Froome's TT wasn't as good ad before; I believed he aimed to improve his climbing skills.
Fortunately this year's parcour has a few more TTs.

 

[Poursuivant]

Going off his interviews he is saying that because he has raced less this year he hopes to be fresher in the last week, whether less race days is enough remains to be seen, because that last week will have Quintana licking his lips. Contador has great recovery too. Excited for July.

 

[Red Rick]

How much less race days did he have? IIRC last year he did Ruta del Sol + Catalunya + Romandie + Dauphine

 

[Tonton]

Re:

His form trajectory looks similar to what it was in 2013 and 2015. In both of those Tours, he killed the GC competition at the very first MTF when only the mighty Richie managed to keep the deficit at less than a minute.

Will it be the same this year? I haven't really looked at the route in any detail yet but it seems that the first MTF isn't very amenable to the Froome Attack, and by Arcalis his relative edge may have diminished. It's also likely Quintana's climbing has improved.

The other relative unknown is his ITT. Given that his power seems to be the same it's always been, there's probably no reason to believe he can't crush the ITTs once again, like he did in 2012/2013 and up to the Dauphine in 2014.

The course is set up differently this time. Lioran not as tough as it could have been, then two days later the Aspin and downhill stage, not a huge opportunity to bludgeon the opposition. Fwiw.

 

[TMP402]

Re:

How much less race days did he have? IIRC last year he did Ruta del Sol + Catalunya + Romandie + Dauphine

Good point - he has the identical number of race days at this point (27) in both last year and this year if my maths is correct, but I guess the difference is his opening race was the easier and less mountainous Herald Sun Tour - rather than last year's Vuelta a Andalucía duel with Contador, and there was a six week gap between Australia and Catalunya this year, but only a month between Andalucía and Catalunya last year.

 

[dacooley]

Bertie should have a few jokers up to his sleeve for the Tour. In particular, I'm still inclined to think he improves to the greater extent than froome between dauphine and tour. The thing I fear the most is froome-porte coalition can destroy completely destroy the first two weeks of the race. That is by far the most probable alliance.

 

[Pricey_sky]

Re:

Bertie should have a few jokers up to his sleeve for the Tour. In particular, I'm still inclined to think he improves to the greater extent than froome between dauphine and tour. The thing I fear the most is froome-porte coalition can destroy completely destroy the first two weeks of the race. That is by far the most probable alliance.

I think everyone from the Dauphine will improve into the Tour, of course some may improve a little more than others. As we have seen at the Dauphine, Froome was a step ahead and rode a good defensive race over the final 2 days rather than needlessly wasting energy. If all goes to plan he's going be very strong again when the Tour starts.

Froome's team should also be stronger which will obviously make it harder for everyone else.

 

[jens_attacks]

froome is great but me too i believe that his level from dauphine is not very far from that one in le tour. contador doesn't work like that.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

froome is great but me too i believe that his level from dauphine is not very far from that one in le tour. contador doesn't work like that.

I'd say its more like the opposite, but who knows.

 

[Oliwright]

Lets compare this seasons prep to the previous ones.

First of all 2013 was where Froome was worst in the final week, in 2015 it was only Quintana who was better than him there.

Froome seems to have decided that if he targets less races and therefore aims for less peaks in his form he should be fresher at the Tour.

2013: Oman, Criterium International, Tirreno, Romandie and the Dauphine. He was on form for all of these and won all bar 2nd in Tirreno.

2015: Vuelta a Andalucía, (Pulled out of Tirreno last minute with ilness), Catalunya, Romandie and Dauphine. He went 1vs1 with Contador straight away in Andalucia. The illness and peak of form for Tirreno won't have helped. He effectively aimed to peak 4 times before the tour and rode GC in 3 in the end. He also did a few extra one day races such as Fleche which he doesn't do.

2016: Herald Sun, Catalunya, Romandie and Dauphine. That is 1 less race he aimed to do. He only rode Gc in 2 races and Herald Sun Tour wasn't very demanding compared to Andalucia the year before. He also didn't get ill like last year as far as I know. So i think he should be more fresh as he only had 2(1 if u don't count Herald Sun Tour) peaks in form before the tour. Which is good for the 3rd week and the Olympics.

 

[jens_attacks]

Re: Re:

froome is great but me too i believe that his level from dauphine is not very far from that one in le tour. contador doesn't work like that.

I'd say its more like the opposite, but who knows.

numbers don't lie.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re: Re:

froome is great but me too i believe that his level from dauphine is not very far from that one in le tour. contador doesn't work like that.

I'd say its more like the opposite, but who knows.

numbers don't lie.

So you are talking about the numbers before the suspension I would suppose? It doesn't work like that anymore.

 

[dacooley]

don't quite get which year allows to presume that froome does not progress much in three weeks between dauphine and tour. Each of the big 3 will improve their form HUGELY for the remaining month prior the tour.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Re:

don't quite get which year allows to presume that froome does not progress much in three weeks between dauphine and tour. Each of the big 3 will improve their form HUGELY for the remaining month prior the tour.

It's down to people preferring one rider over the other, IMO.

I don't think either of them will improve by that much, though. Just looking at their past two seasons. Contador is right that Froome looks weaker than last year, but Contador doesn't come close to his 2014 Dauphine level either. Quintana is anyone's guess. No reference points as per usual.

Also, I hope we won't be talking about the Big 3 for much longer, and that some riders will have stepped up. It's about time.

 

[dacooley]

Re: Re:

don't quite get which year allows to presume that froome does not progress much in three weeks between dauphine and tour. Each of the big 3 will improve their form HUGELY for the remaining month prior the tour.

It's down to people preferring one rider over the other, IMO.

I don't think either of them will improve by that much, though. Just looking at their past two seasons. Contador is right that Froome looks weaker than last year, but Contador doesn't come close to his 2014 Dauphine level either. Quintana is anyone's guess. No reference points as per usual.

Also, I hope we won't be talking about the Big 3 for much longer, and that some riders will have stepped up. It's about time.

yes, it's pretty tiresome, the likelihood of the tour being played out by froome, quintana and contador is about 95%, though. that's the last tour belonged to these three imo. someone should step up.