Giro d'Italia 2015: Stage 5: La Spezia – Abetone 152 kms MTF

[Netserk]

I think it was 12-8-4 in the Vuelta in 2013, IIRC .

 

[blaxland]

wow that was an epic stage to watch.well done contador,aru and porte,attack,attack,attack.

 

[jaylew]

Landa is super strong

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

2 great days in a row, and more excitingly 2 new potential talents for the future revealing themselves to the world. i would say aru looked just about the worst of the big 3. don't know why contador or porte would attack until after stage 14, just follow the astana train and aru and let them wear themselves out. they both take big time in the TT.

You'll be surprised with Aru's time trial.

Climbers on a tear tend to have surprisingly good time trial results. See Contador @ Annecy.

Anyone know if the 1-second rule is in effect at the Giro? At the risk of sounding even more like a fanboy I thought placing Uran outside the 1:53 bunch. Yeah, it very likely won't make a difference for the Rosa but it might matter for a top-5 if he's able to find his form later on in the race.

Contador has always been good in TTs. Maybe not at Froome/Wiggy's level, but good enough.

Why not Froome level? Froome only discovered he was a good tter at exactly the same time he discovered he was the greatest climber of his generation.
Contador's career tt record remains superior.

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

As for TTs, the later they are in the tour, the better the climbers generally do (even taking into account that the later the TT, the greater the number of riders who treat it almost as a rest day).

This is also probably a factor. But even among the guys who wear themselves out in the mountains, it seems like the Indurains, Armstrongs, Wiggins & Froomes of the world tend to be consistently excellent to superb, while the Contadors & Nibalis have occasional strike-outs and home-runs along with their usual solid showings and the Puritos & Andy Schlecks seem to fluctuate from god-awful to surprisingly decent, regardless of their GC placing.

Anyway, no one here to school me on the bunch times? Is the one-second rule in force?

Neither Froome nor Wiggins were consistently excellent to superb at tts. Wiggins was for most of his career a fringe top 10 tter which is what Contador is at his worst. Froome was significantly worse than that.

Unless you are looking at only peak gt years, in which case its a bit of a false comparison to look at 1 year for Wiggins and what ammounts to a total of about 18 months here and there for Froome vs almost a decade at the top for Contador.

In that decade he has podiumed more itts than Froome Wiggins and Nibali put together.

Nibali doesn't belong in a comparison with Contador. Right now, at his absolute best he is about the same level as Contador at his worst. But the stuff Contador has achieved in his career, like fighting for olympic medals in the tt (finished 8 seconds off), being favourite for every itt with a hill in it, winning a long mostly flat tt at the Tour de France, destroying every gt contender in the tt (as he did 2008-2011), are unthinkable for Nibali.

 

[movingtarget]

I didn't think there was much between Porte, Contador and Aru. They all look good. Uran is obviously in trouble. Landa was very good and Astana definitely are the strongest on the climbs so far. Porte and Contador both look isolated on the final climbs. Sky have been disappointing. Not sure if there is any illness within the team but they are off their game at the moment but the first big mountain stage should make things clearer regarding the top three riders and their teams. Uran's race for CG is over already, he can only hope to improve and hope that one of the top three riders has a bad day if he wants to make the podium.

 

[damian13ster]

Re: Re:

Neither Froome nor Wiggins were consistently excellent to superb at tts. Wiggins was for most of his career a fringe top 10 tter which is what Contador is at his worst. Froome was significantly worse than that.

Unless you are looking at only peak gt years, in which case its a bit of a false comparison to look at 1 year for Wiggins and what ammounts to a total of about 18 months here and there for Froome vs almost a decade at the top for Contador.

In that decade he has podiumed more itts than Froome Wiggins and Nibali put together.

Nibali doesn't belong in a comparison with Contador. Right now, at his absolute best he is about the same level as Contador at his worst. But the stuff Contador has achieved in his career, like fighting for olympic medals in the tt (finished 8 seconds off), being favourite for every itt with a hill in it, winning a long mostly flat tt at the Tour de France, destroying every gt contender in the tt (as he did 2008-2011), are unthinkable for Nibali.

Is the bolded part (the 2nd part of that sentence) a joke? Thats not even close to being true.

 

[phanatic]

I'm pretty sure Bertie could have ridden away from Aru and Porte if he had wanted to, but he seems more inclined to continue sorting out the competition. Uran lost more time, but looked more annoyed than vanquished. I'm looking for him to crush the ITT and fly up the standings in the final week.

 

[Pricey_sky]

Re:

I'm pretty sure Bertie could have ridden away from Aru and Porte if he had wanted to, but he seems more inclined to continue sorting out the competition. Uran lost more time, but looked more annoyed than vanquished. I'm looking for him to crush the ITT and fly up the standings in the final week.

I doubt he could have ridden away if he wanted to. Yes of course he could have attacked again but the form of Porte, Aru and Contador seems very evenly matched at this moment so it would have been a wasted attack. All 3 of the top riders seem like they are measuring each other so far. Didn't Contador say afterwards that he didn't feel that strong?

 

[ILovecycling]

Re: Re:

As for TTs, the later they are in the tour, the better the climbers generally do (even taking into account that the later the TT, the greater the number of riders who treat it almost as a rest day).

This is also probably a factor. But even among the guys who wear themselves out in the mountains, it seems like the Indurains, Armstrongs, Wiggins & Froomes of the world tend to be consistently excellent to superb, while the Contadors & Nibalis have occasional strike-outs and home-runs along with their usual solid showings and the Puritos & Andy Schlecks seem to fluctuate from god-awful to surprisingly decent, regardless of their GC placing.

Anyway, no one here to school me on the bunch times? Is the one-second rule in force?

Neither Froome nor Wiggins were consistently excellent to superb at tts. Wiggins was for most of his career a fringe top 10 tter which is what Contador is at his worst. Froome was significantly worse than that.

Unless you are looking at only peak gt years, in which case its a bit of a false comparison to look at 1 year for Wiggins and what ammounts to a total of about 18 months here and there for Froome vs almost a decade at the top for Contador.

In that decade he has podiumed more itts than Froome Wiggins and Nibali put together.

Nibali doesn't belong in a comparison with Contador. Right now, at his absolute best he is about the same level as Contador at his worst. But the stuff Contador has achieved in his career, like fighting for olympic medals in the tt (finished 8 seconds off), being favourite for every itt with a hill in it, winning a long mostly flat tt at the Tour de France, destroying every gt contender in the tt (as he did 2008-2011), are unthinkable for Nibali.

Excellent post.(sometimes use strong words, but still)



@Pricey
Yes indeed, he said that (AC).

 

[rainman]

Re:

wow that was an epic stage to watch.well done contador,aru and porte,attack,attack,attack.

My apologies for putting the E word out there the other day, after Formolo's great win. Yes it was a fantastic stage and yesterday's was also good but neither were 'epic'.
In future I'll reserve that adjective for something truly worthy. There is enough stunning, awesome, incredible *** going around already.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

Does anyone else thinks Aru starts his sprints too early?
Yesterday I thought he's just miscalculated the effort, but today happened the same, although the outcome is better.

Yeah, but maybe he wanted to catch Chavanel.

Its actually better he didn't catch Chavanel since that would've given Contador a 4 second bonus and Aru 6. This way Aru gets 4 and Contador/Porte 0.

I know it is far from unique to the Giro, but the 10-6-4 time bonus system seems thoroughly counter-intuitive. there is a bigger incentive for beating a rival for third than there is for beating them to second.

Aru would have been worse off (comparative to Contador) had Landa been that little bit stronger to get the three contenders ahead of Chavanel: that can't be a sporting good. It won't be relevant in this race, but it illustrates the perverseness of the allocation.

Agree, I was wondering about that yesterday.
I vote for 10-5-2

 

[perico]

Re: Re:

2 great days in a row, and more excitingly 2 new potential talents for the future revealing themselves to the world. i would say aru looked just about the worst of the big 3. don't know why contador or porte would attack until after stage 14, just follow the astana train and aru and let them wear themselves out. they both take big time in the TT.

You'll be surprised with Aru's time trial.

Climbers on a tear tend to have surprisingly good time trial results. See Contador @ Annecy.

Anyone know if the 1-second rule is in effect at the Giro? At the risk of sounding even more like a fanboy I thought placing Uran outside the 1:53 bunch. Yeah, it very likely won't make a difference for the Rosa but it might matter for a top-5 if he's able to find his form later on in the race.

Contador has always been good in TTs. Maybe not at Froome/Wiggy's level, but good enough.

Why not Froome level? Froome only discovered he was a good tter at exactly the same time he discovered he was the greatest climber of his generation.
Contador's career tt record remains superior.

Was referring to 2012-14 Contador. I'm a big fan, but he hasn't been as consistent since his return in the TT. Always good, but not always in the top 3.

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

Does anyone else thinks Aru starts his sprints too early?
Yesterday I thought he's just miscalculated the effort, but today happened the same, although the outcome is better.

Yeah, but maybe he wanted to catch Chavanel.

Its actually better he didn't catch Chavanel since that would've given Contador a 4 second bonus and Aru 6. This way Aru gets 4 and Contador/Porte 0.

I know it is far from unique to the Giro, but the 10-6-4 time bonus system seems thoroughly counter-intuitive. there is a bigger incentive for beating a rival for third than there is for beating them to second.

Aru would have been worse off (comparative to Contador) had Landa been that little bit stronger to get the three contenders ahead of Chavanel: that can't be a sporting good. It won't be relevant in this race, but it illustrates the perverseness of the allocation.

I agree and have made this point in the past, though its always been like that. The traditional time bonifications were 20-12- 8 so its the same.

The idea is I think to reward people for winning a stage and podiuming it. So 2-3 are both podium positions while 3-4, one is a podium position one isn't.

 

[Catwhoorg]

10-6-3 would seem the obvious chnage

Difference of 4, 3 and 3 seconds. I'd probably push it to 12-6-3 in fact, to reward the stage winner a little more.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Re: Re:

The idea is I think to reward people for winning a stage and podiuming it. So 2-3 are both podium positions while 3-4, one is a podium position one isn't.

Is there ever a 1-2-3- podium for a stage? There is of course for GC and one day races, but I don't think I ever recall seeing 2nd and 3rd on a stage traipsing out onto the victory platform unless it is to collect other prizes.

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

The idea is I think to reward people for winning a stage and podiuming it. So 2-3 are both podium positions while 3-4, one is a podium position one isn't.

Is there ever a 1-2-3- podium for a stage? There is of course for GC and one day races, but I don't think I ever recall seeing 2nd and 3rd on a stage traipsing out onto the victory platform unless it is to collect other prizes.

There is sometimes. Eg I remember San Luis 2012 Contador on top of the podium after he won the mtf and Levi and Diaz by his side even though Levi was the overall champion. I think if it happens its usually after the broadcast.

 

[carton]

Re: Re:

The idea is I think to reward people for winning a stage and podiuming it. So 2-3 are both podium positions while 3-4, one is a podium position one isn't.

Is there ever a 1-2-3- podium for a stage? There is of course for GC and one day races, but I don't think I ever recall seeing 2nd and 3rd on a stage traipsing out onto the victory platform unless it is to collect other prizes.

There is sometimes. Eg I remember San Luis 2012 Contador on top of the podium after he won the mtf and Levi and Diaz by his side even though Levi was the overall champion. I think if it happens its usually after the broadcast.

This year I think I remember Cavendish in there with Gaviria a few times at San Luis as well.