red zone said:
Why isn't Uran going for the win at this time . he's well within striking distance . I'm not saying he has a good chance of winning but this opportunity may never present itself again however slight a chance he may have .
Uran isn't going for the win because he'd rather play safe and get a podium than risk and win. This is more of a morale GT after a couple of dodgy years than an out and out goal, especially considering his ever improving standing in one day classics.
also you first argued they wouldn't put much time if any on Froome if they sat back let him him tire himself out and then attack together and now you're arguing they'd possible lose 30/40 seconds to Q and Martin on the flats if they did that ? you're not making any sense by arguing opposing ends of the argument
Yes, and I don't see why it is contradictory. If Froome is forced to work alone, then I doubt he will go full pace or as fast as they actually did in chasing Bardet and putting time into those behind. Therefore, the gap to the group behind will come down. When Aru and/or Fugslang would have attacked, it would probably have to be with around 5-8km to go for it to make sense. Any more than that and Froome easily follows, and less and there is a minimal gap. Therefore, the gap to Froome (if it had worked) would not have been big and and the gap behind would have been smaller than what it was at the finish. And then there's the Bardet problem, which affects both Astana and Froome, although the former more as Froome could afford to give Bardet some breathing space and still retain his position. Although, I do not think that Astana were too worried about that
it's a losers mentality and idiotic if Astana was worried about Q/Martin instead of possibly putting time into Froome and enough of this crap about Froome being stronger than Aru since i'll repeat again (until it sinks in) it wasn't Aru against a fresh Froome , it was a Froome who's worked much harder against a fresher Aru-Birdsong-Uran working together
And I'll repeat it until it sinks in as well. The likelihood that Aru and Fugslang ended up in the same attack that dropped Froome is very low. Usually in classics when teams do use the 1-2 counterpunch, it is a solo rider that escapes, not both members of the same team. What would they have had to do, a simultaneous attack? If Fugslang had attacked in order to tire out Froome then he would have been let go, after all he was already over a minute and a half down on GC. You can force a rider to work all you want but a simultaneous team attack is extremely rare in cycling; when was the last time it happened? They could have tried it but it's possible/likely that Froome would have just taken their wheel, especially as both Fugslang and Aru are not the most explosive on flat roads (although Fuglsang did win the sprint in the Dauphine).
Astana made a decision that the risk of not working with Froome so that they can get time on him was too high, because of the threat from behind and the possibility of it not working. They decided that there will be other times in this Tour when Froome will be isolated and in a vulnareble place, and at that point they will not be worried about putting time into those behind because they are far ahead of them already. Seeing how Martin was going, that may not have been a bad idea. We will see as the Tour goes on if the 20 potential seconds will have been crucial. Beacsue the race for Aru too is a morale-booster, not only one he is trying to win. After last year's calamity he needs a podium here, and I think that was the main goal coming into the Tour. Now the yellow jersey is a very real goal, he will try more to win that rather than just cement his podium place. The road to Paris is long.
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