Critérium du Dauphiné 2017 (04/06 > 11/06/2017)

[Valv.Piti]

Tiesj Benoot, the insanely talented rider that will never win any races

 

[sir fly]

I've just finished watching the stage.
Fantastic racing!
Everybody turned themselves inside out.
Congrats to Fuglsang. Great victory for him.
Martin rode excellent, too.
But the man of the race, for me, is Benoot.
Who would've expected such a performance? And where does it take him?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

Insane ride by Tiesj Benoot.

Trying to be the next Valverde? Or even Sean Kelly?

But yes, the lack of a sprint weapon is going to hurt him.

 

[Escarabajo]

Re:

Thanks Gigs you didn't watch!

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[tobydawq]

The odd thing is that he isn't even that slow. Two years ago in the Dauphiné he was fourth on the first stage by finishing third in the bunch sprint - ahead of Gerrans and Bouhanni.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frXAnNueHSo

And throughout his career he has a lot of high placings in semi-bunch sprints. Perhaps he has lost some of his punch by focusing more on sustained efforts such as mountain rides.

 

[glassmoon]

Re: Re:

Thanks Gigs you didn't watch!

:lol: :lol: :lol:

ROFL
Just came back from a pub after a 6hr MTB ride half-drunk with zero knowledge of what happened during today's stage to read this comment to literary fulfill my desire of knowing what actually happened and crack me up as a brilliant bonus

 

[Escarabajo]

Re:

Props to Kwiatkowski for disappearing right before the top of the Col de la Colombière. When the Froome gets to the valley, Kwiatkowski suddenly made it back on, pulled them to the last climb on which he was passed by about 100riders and lost about half an hour.

I noticed that too. How did that happened?

He blew past Porte?

 

[portugal11]

Re: Re:

Props to Kwiatkowski for disappearing right before the top of the Col de la Colombière. When the Froome gets to the valley, Kwiatkowski suddenly made it back on, pulled them to the last climb on which he was passed by about 100riders and lost about half an hour.

I noticed that too. How did that happened?

He blew past Porte?

After sagan, he is the best descender in the peloton

 

[deValtos]

Big shame we missed Kwiatkos descent, must've been insane.

On the positive note though we could get to see a Froome/Kwiatko team descent in the TDF which would be pretty awesome.

 

[Escarabajo]

Re: Re:

I don't mind the flat after Chat actually. Stage reminds of the the great Madeleine stage in 2010 where Sammy died in the valley, that was hard to watch..

Yeah, it's at least an effort to include a stage where the best tactics haven't been worked out years ago as well. So has the potential to be unpredictable. I'm just not sure on the Foix stage of the wisdom of putting a proper little murito followed by a long, almost false flat at times. I'd probably prefer to see either a proper HC climb followed by the false flat, or a murito followed by a fast descent.

As always though, it's up to the riders if we get a spectacle or not. There's certainly a chance on any short stage - especially in the mountains - if enough teams are committed to creating chaos.

Don't get me wrong, I too do think the stage to Foix is laughable, but stranger things have happened. We mocked the stage to Formigal almost to the same extent. But if they will open on the first mountain, then Agnes, there are possiblities.

I was one of the few that didn't laugh about Formigal. Then it was unpredictable. In the Tour I think they will be more prepared.

Having said that everything is possible! Let's hope for the best.

 

[Ruby United]

Re: Re:

Is the Porte hype train back in the station yet, or have the brakes just been temporarily applied?

It picked up speed, better hop on whilst there's still time

let's hope it doesn't use up all it's fuel too early!

You hopped on the wrong train, the Aru train takes the fastest route to Paris

Nope, Froome's a helicopter - it starts on the ground and goes straight to flying high automatically, no build up.

I hope.

 

[deValtos]

The Porte train is definitely the fastest one, wise choice to hop on!

Problem is it's going at such a speed on a rickety track there's always a risk the wheels fall off ...

Or it will puncture and get a big time penalty for a wheel change.

That's why Froome always brings Thomas the tank engine in case of problems.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Well that certainly made a mess of everyone's assumption that this Tour is all but in the bag for Froome.

Not too many people would have been shocked to see that Porte was the strongest climber in a week long race. But if you'd said that the next three strongest climbers in the Dauphine would be Fuglsang, Martin and Aru, while Froome, Contador and Valverde would get dropped hard, people might reasonably have wondered if you were off your meds.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

I suspect Hermans and Roche will have had a pretty uncomfortable dinner time conversation with Richie and the team DS.

 

[johnymax]

Re: Re:

Props to Kwiatkowski for disappearing right before the top of the Col de la Colombière. When the Froome gets to the valley, Kwiatkowski suddenly made it back on, pulled them to the last climb on which he was passed by about 100riders and lost about half an hour.

I noticed that too. How did that happened?

He blew past Porte?

After sagan, he is the best descender in the peloton

I've been just thinking about that. Kwiatkowski was dropped by Froome and Porte before the top of Colombiere. He was at least 15 seconds behind if not more. Then he reappears in the group with Froome on the flat between the two climbs. He must have done the descend like a madman.
:surprised:

 

[SafeBet]

What an epic stage!

I love Birdsong but nothing screams "contract year" as loud as his performance in this Dauphine.
Porte was superb in his defense. Today he convinced me he can win the Tour, he's much stronger than before mentally.
Froome is just amazing, hopefully Sky won't be super strong in July. That could make for some great racing.

Overall the situation reminds me a bit of 2003 TdF, with no dominant rider and a lot of contenders. Sadly the route will not help attackers.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

What an epic stage!

I love Birdsong but nothing screams "contract year" as loud as his performance in this Dauphine.
Porte was superb in his defense. Today he convinced me he can win the Tour, he's much stronger than before mentally.
Froome is just amazing, hopefully Sky won't be super strong in July. That could make for some great racing.

Overall the situation reminds me a bit of 2003 TdF, with no dominant rider and a lot of contenders. Sadly the route will not help attackers

I know, right. This is the year we needed a good route. Arghh

 

[klintE]

Re: Re:

Props to Kwiatkowski for disappearing right before the top of the Col de la Colombière. When the Froome gets to the valley, Kwiatkowski suddenly made it back on, pulled them to the last climb on which he was passed by about 100riders and lost about half an hour.

I noticed that too. How did that happened?

He blew past Porte?

After sagan, he is the best descender in the peloton

I've been just thinking about that. Kwiatkowski was dropped by Froome and Porte before the top of Colombiere. He was at least 15 seconds behind if not more. Then he reappears in the group with Froome on the flat between the two climbs. He must have done the descend like a madman.
:surprised:

https://www.strava.com/segments/1546792?filter=overall

 

[RedheadDane]

Just a sweet thing I realised last night.
As Fuglsang crossed the line he pointed towards the sky; without doubt a greeting to Scarponi, and made that weird gesture at his stomach; a greeting to his unborn daughter.
He dedicated his win to the life that was lost, and the life that is coming.

 

[el_angliru]

Re. the Colombière descent:
Simon Clarke was with Porte, Oomen, Benoot when they started the descent, but Clarke somehow also managed to bridge to the Froome/Contador group. I don't know if Clarke joined Kwiatkowski at some point during the descent but I would assume so becuse it seems like they made it to the Froome group at the same time.

Not to detract anything from Kwiatkowski/Clarke but there was some waiting game going on when when the Froome/Contador bridged to Martin/Bardet/Fuglsang. Everyone began drinking, Fuglsang was talking in his radio and so on.

 

[el_angliru]

Here are some estimated descending times from Col de la Colombière (km 34.5) to Marnaz (km 19.3). This is calculated from the tv-pictures so there's some guessing going on becuse the coverage didn't show us everything. Marnaz is chosen only because this was where we got the most coverage of riders passing by. Selected riders only!

Kwiatkowski                                  13:47*
Clarke                                       14:02
Froome                                       14:13
Valverde, Aru                                14:16
Contador, Yates, Buchmann, Meintjes, Valls   14:28**
Porte, Oomen, Benoot                         14:32
Martin, Fuglsang, Bardet                     14:48***

* Assuming Kwiatkowski passed the col 15 secs behind Porte.
** Assuming the Contador group passed the col 20 secs behind Fuglsang
*** The Martin/Fuglsang/Bardet-trio waited for the Froome Contador-group at some point but their descent still wasn't very fast. Possibly on par with Porte's at best.

 

[sienna]

Re:

The Porte train is definitely the fastest one, wise choice to hop on!

Problem is it's going at such a speed on a rickety track there's always a risk the wheels fall off ...

Or it will puncture and get a big time penalty for a wheel change.

That's why Froome always brings Thomas the tank engine in case of problems.

You should write books for little kids.

 

[Broccolidwarf]

Re:

I couldn't watch the last climb. Pretty close to a dead heat considering Porte was robbed of that stage win by Froome and Fulsang won because of it! What a finish.

Robbed?

What stopped him from following the favorites up the last 2 climbs?

 

[shalgo]

Re: Re:

I couldn't watch the last climb. Pretty close to a dead heat considering Porte was robbed of that stage win by Froome and Fulsang won because of it! What a finish.

Robbed?

What stopped him from following the favorites up the last 2 climbs?

He was referring to stage 6, where Froome blocked Porte in the sprint.

 

[carton]

Porte needs to realize, as Dumoulin quickly did, that when you're leading a race people are going to attack you. Man up like you saw Henao doing three months ago on Col d'Eze. To be fair this was true of Wiggins, Evans, et al; all these guys who become stage racers late don't seem to know what's what. I do get it. It must be absolutely crushing to have to fend off attack after attack like that.

Great job by Birdsong, BTW, good to see a guy keep at it.