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Critérium du Dauphiné 08/12 > 08/16/20

Page 21 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

Which rider will surprise the most?

  • Sepp Kuss

    Votes: 3 4.7%
  • Enric Mas

    Votes: 8 12.5%
  • Chris Froome

    Votes: 12 18.8%
  • Sergio Higuita

    Votes: 13 20.3%
  • Adam Yates

    Votes: 3 4.7%
  • Dylan Teuns

    Votes: 2 3.1%
  • Benoît Cosnefroy

    Votes: 3 4.7%
  • Guillaume Martin

    Votes: 10 15.6%
  • other, French

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • other, non-French

    Votes: 11 17.2%

  • Total voters
    64
  • Poll closed .
Are we underestimating Bernal a bit? He was probably the best climber in last years Tour and is currently the one who comes Roglic the closest in the preperation races. He has a super strong team and without a doubt Ineos will again improve towards the Tour. So why would he be not a favourite for the win? Because he lost 10s today?

He was the strongest climber on one single shortened stage.
I mentioned it in the Buchmann thread. He lost time to Pinot on every single uphll finish in the first two weeks. Take away the TTT and he is 14s behind Buchmann after stage 17. Take away stage 19 and he gained a few seconds on the Galibier and the following downhill. That´s it. And that wasn´t really about strength. More about Ineos having the numbers.
I agree that Bernal is one of the biggest favorites to win the Tour but I don´t think that he is levels above riders like Pinot, Buchmann or even Landa.
 
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I think French people can really put their hopes into the Pinot basket, that would be reasonable and can be fun (also emotional and consuming...) and let Alaphilippe do his thing (whatever that may be, but if I was him I would lose a lot of time on stage 2 and then go for stages).
Why would he go out to lose time on stage 2, which is a stage he might actually be able to win? There’s plenty of other stages for him to lose time later in the race, IF he wants to.
 
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Well, well, well...needless to say, a good day for yours truly. It may yet lead to a heartbreak of epic proportions in September (good thread name: September is the new July ;)), we shall see.

What makes reading CN forums so entertaining is how we react, over-react, as well as humor and witty posts as well as a blend of witty, funny, sarcastic posts and comparisons.

After viewing stage reports, your comments, Youtube and highlights, here's my take:

Roglic is not the new Rominger right now. Not the new Remco, who's the new Merckx. Today, for me he was the new Ullrich. Mighty strong and definitely one notch above the rest.

I wrote a few weeks ago that Bardet worried me. He does. Like other big names who get dropped consistently, if nothing good happens in the days to come, well, he might as well lose time early on, go for a stage and the polka-dot jersey, be the new Virenque.

Froome is the old Froome, the one he was before he started winning. I may be cruel after what's he has been through, sorry, I like the guy but not what he represents. He and Geraint will dom for Bernal. Kruijswijk is too hard to spell but he seems to be coming along. He and Dumoulin will have no choice but sacrifice their chances for Roglic at the Tour. Super teams are all very fine, but it means that some legit riders won't compete for the overall.

Quintana is not as dominant as he was early in the season, but he's in the mix. Bernal lost to Roglic on a few occasions now, and to put it in the CN forum format, some cry that he's like the Black Album: very good but way overrated. Come on!

No, I'm not the new Netserk ;). I love and I'm looking forward to reading your posts and contributing if I feel that I have a different angle on what is going on.

I see more Roglic this week, Bernal, Pinot, some Quintana, some Landa. Buchmann. The race is on, but beyond, some will be mentally destroyed for they got their butts kicked five days in a row.

Roglic will win this bike race, but Pinot won't be far behind.
 
In my opinion, Alaphilippe could just ride Tours for stages, and if there's an especially dreadful Vuelta and now suitable WC for him, then maybe he should consider it.
Yes don't see him getting much better in the high mountains. Most riders have that ability when they are younger, it's not something that gets developed late,r with a few exceptions. Even someone like Voeckler was better in the high mountains than Ala especially when in yellow !
 
Quintana is not as dominant as he was early in the season, but he's in the mix. Bernal lost to Roglic on a few occasions now, and to put it in the CN forum format, some cry that he's like the Black Album: very good but way overrated. Come on!

No, I'm not the new Netserk ;). I love and I'm looking forward to reading your posts and contributing if I feel that I have a different angle on what is going on.

I see more Roglic this week, Bernal, Pinot, some Quintana, some Landa. Buchmann. The race is on, but beyond, some will be mentally destroyed for they got their butts kicked five days in a row.

Roglic will win this bike race, but Pinot won't be far behind.
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Your wisdom is appreciated and it's fun to see such aggressive efforts to help on the long term prognostications, isn't it?IMO this race is an extension of this early, condensed season and will emphasize what's to come during the Tour. There isn't a lot of time for magic unless someone is sandbagging in a big way along with their team. Watching the high tempo selections suggests there aren't a lot of fakers, yet.

Per your take and the obvious; Roglic and JV are on. My long odds money is on DuMoulin getting stronger 3 weeks from now and a creating a nice mini-dilemma for JV. Hopefully their desire is to get the Yellow for the team no matter what and keep both guys in play. If Sepp Kuss improves much more he'll be the "next generation" for them, too.
Quintana is going to need to be very selective and cagey about his big moves. His team lacks support and you cannot defend on even a short stage race without it which is depressing as his opportunities are aging.
Pinot is definitely the emotional favorite (no pun on him) and his upside is encouraging.

Buchmann is podium material and the team looks like they will die to make that happen; another sign racing is getting better.
Tadej….he's around and he always seems to make the best of opportunities when it counts. I suspect he wants a Tour podium or better and may be the King Sandbagger. Don't know that for any logical reason other than he can do more. This should be more fun if Geraint and Egan get seriously aggressive. That could still happen.

Sorry Mr. Froome. You need more time to get back to whatever you can do. Numbers aside, Ineos doesn't have you on the contract horizon and will support the future.
 
No big surprises from the top 10, except maybe MAL, who seemed pretty far off earlier this month. Roglic is clearly a step above everyone else right now, but might be peaking too early.

Ineos seem to care less about winning than to test their mountain train and see how long and hard everyone can ride for at the front.

It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the week plays out and who recovers well from today's efforts. I don't know if the lack of racing will make recovery easier or more difficult.
 
what exectly has Roglic done to be "to hot" right now; all he does is outsprint Bernal

This is my thought. He is just riding tempo with his team and proving to be too strong in the sprint. Does this mean he is wasting energy unnecessarily? I suppose he could sit back and let others win the stages. I wouldn't mind seen Kuss go solo at some point. But it seems that he isn't putting forth a ton of energy to win these stages. Seems sensible and hopefully won't burn him out.
 
He was the strongest climber on one single shortened stage.
I mentioned it in the Buchmann thread. He lost time to Pinot on every single uphll finish in the first two weeks. Take away the TTT and he is 14s behind Buchmann after stage 17. Take away stage 19 and he gained a few seconds on the Galibier and the following downhill. That´s it. And that wasn´t really about strength. More about Ineos having the numbers.
I agree that Bernal is one of the biggest favorites to win the Tour but I don´t think that he is levels above riders like Pinot, Buchmann or even Landa.
Winning GTs is not about being the strongest climber every time the road goes up.
The reason why Bernal is considered levels above those guys you mention, and rightly so, is consistency.

He's the best GT rider we've seen at his age in a long time (sorrry Andy), he won the Tour at 22. He can't be overrated.
 
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Winning GTs is not about being the strongest climber every time the road goes up.
The reason why Bernal is considered levels above those guys you mention, and rightly so, is consistency.

He's the best GT rider we've seen at his age in a long time (sorrry Andy), he won the Tour at 22. He can't be overrated.
He's been very underwhelming this year, so let's see this Tour.
 
He's been very underwhelming this year, so let's see this Tour.
Underwhelming compared to whom? To Roglic maybe, but we did know even before 2020 that Roglic is by far the best one week stage racer out there (Remco is making a case though).

To all of the others I see mentioned as Tour contenders? Has Pinot been better than Bernal this year because he outsprinted him yesterday?

Besides, this is a very odd season. Results have to be taken with a grain of salt. We have no idea how riders endured the lockdown period and both north and south American riders are probably still worried on a personal/familiar level by COVID-19. I won't make conclusions on a rider overall talent based on this season's performances.
 
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One thing has to be said about roglic also, he has improved every year since joining JV, we dont even know what his peak is.
All I am reading here is "he is to hot" but nobody explains the context. Would he be "not to hot" if he was losing to Bernal ? or does the context mean "I think Bernal is better than Roglic therfore he must be to hot". Perhaps Bernal is to hot ? he manages to ride with Roglic until last km.
Roglic didnt do anything special, just winning sprints.
He said himself he is not in top form.
 
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Underwhelming compared to whom? To Roglic maybe, but we did know even before 2020 that Roglic is by far the best one week stage racer out there (Remco is making a case though).

To all of the others I see mentioned as Tour contenders? Has Pinot been better than Bernal this year because he outsprinted him yesterday?

Besides, this is a very odd season. Results have to be taken with a grain of salt. We have no idea how riders endured the lockdown period and both north and south American riders are probably still worried on a personal/familiar level by COVID-19. I won't make conclusions on a rider overall talent based on this season's performances.
His attack yesterday gave me shades of 2013 Contador.
 
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Does anybody know what happened to Cosnefroy? Has he fallen ill? I was quite surprised to see him let go already on the penultimate climb and he ended up third last, more than half an hour down (maybe those times are a bit weird, considering the hail storm, but still).
The storm is the reason why he finished among the last riders.

Regarding his abilities, Cosnefroy is really not much more than a very punchy guy who excels at attacking on hilly terrain.
 
The storm is the reason why he finished among the last riders.

Regarding his abilities, Cosnefroy is really not much more than a very punchy guy who excels at attacking on hilly terrain.

I wasn't expecting him to fight for the stage win yesterday but if Hirschi can make a top 20 on a stage like that, I would have expected Cosnefroy to have been near him - not being dropped on a pretty easy climb where the peloton still consisted of 80 riders or so.

And the worrying thing for me was that he really looked like a guy who gave his all when he was dropped.
 
I wasn't expecting him to fight for the stage win yesterday but if Hirschi can make a top 20 on a stage like that, I would have expected Cosnefroy to have been near him - not being dropped on a pretty easy climb where the peloton still consisted of 80 riders or so.

And the worrying thing for me was that he really looked like a guy who gave his all when he was dropped.

Yes, yesterday was a negative surprise to me, too. You would not expect him to climb amazingly, but at least be somewhere in the bunch.
 

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