Re:
subweb and orica comfortably outdoing both sky and froome induvidually is not what most people could predict before the giro. notwithstanding it was happening until stage 19. it's pretty obvious sky could drill it much harder earlier in the race, but froome didn't have the power to finish it off. froome is the only guy with unbelievable uptick of form in stages 19&20, meanwhile I reckon their team effort quite plausible. elissonde was preparing specifically for the giro and that 1km catapulting pull on finestre, henao was being very very average throughout the whole giro, poels delivered a few solid stages but dissolved in others, de la cruz did nothing apart from finestre to be remembered as well. the general level of sky helpers was considerably higher than other teams had, so what they ultimately managed to explode the race once shouldn't amaze way too much. but froome going a 80 km solo is a completely different question...The Hegelian said:I just watched this - Sunweb vid of TD in the last few stages:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLcZkrykEtI&feature=youtu.be
Think it's very relevant to what Froome (& Sky) did. Because Dumoulin was clearly spent - he seems basically not that confident of even riding defensively. Add that to Yates' massive implosion. And Pinot riding to the point of exhaustion. Everyone is basically completely hammered - kind of a universal level of tiredness which you might expect for week 3 of a super hard Giro.
But Froome is not only immune from this universal tiredness, he actually gets a lot better. So do Sky. To the extent that they can do whatever they will at exactly the point where there is everything to play for. I'm with Phillipa York on this point: it's b/s that they all just suddenly rode into good form.