argyllflyer said:Schleck will be zero threat to the GC. Evans will hang in there but has shown little of the final few percent needed to be the last man standing. Cunego has become a stage hunter. The difference between Froome and the others you've named is he can sustain his final attack for the entirety of the time he chooses to go from, while the others - going by evidence of this season - cannot.
The nasty shock it would seem awaits you I'm afraid.
I don't expect schleck to fade into the distance with only a whimper. He's highly motivated to perform, more so than previous years. From my perspective he appears a lot stronger mentally and more determined, completely ignoring him would appear very foolish, ignorant or arrogant. Give someone like schleck an inch of freedom and he'll have minutes on froome. Same applies to evans. He has actually raced a similar amount to froome but has had a longer break so will be coming into the tour much fresher. His approach of doing the Giro Before the Tour is far from experimental and has resulted in several tdf podiums during those specific seasons.
All the rivals when attacking do not fade away like you have said. Just look at contador or rodriguez for example. I doubt either of them could win stages if they couldn't sustain an effort. It seems a very ignorant statement to me, especially to base a riders abilities purely on several races where they are clearly unfit.To beat someone like rodriguez, froome would have to attack from about 5kms out and sustain a very high effort. I've only seen froome once attack from more than a km out so far. Rodriguez has made his career off chasing down pathetic late race attacks like which froome commonly does. At both the tour and vuelta he has chased down attacks substantial from more than 3kms out and easily outsprinted the attacker. Saying froome would easily win is an uninformed statement.
As for why his rivals are unfit (with the exception of maybe contador) they're trying to finely tune their build up so that they can peak for the first mountain stages and not too early, plus hide their form. Do you really think these small races matter much to them?? You fail to see the bigger picture which is the tdf.
Meanwhile, Froome is coming in with a very high level, so is unlikely to improve more than by a few percent, while his rivals have a greater amount they can improve by. As for cunego, yes he has sadly become a stage hunter, but again you fail to see my point that froome would easily be beaten by him despite the fact that froome is being labelled as unbeatable. Sure froome has outsprinted specialists like evans, but evans was sick, rather than Froome actually being better. This year the parcours of the tour is less favourable for a team that tries to control the entire race like sky. The stars have aligned for froome, but as many good riders like Gilbert have found, they only align for a short period of time