Giro d'Italia 2018 stage 6: Caltanissetta - Etna 164 km

[Cance > TheRest]

Re: Re:

Chaves will be even better in the 3rd week, I reckon. Not a lot of racing days thus far the season, he will improve.

As for the not-so-good performances of the day, I think Lopez was downright disappointing having his team set him up for no reason at all other than making sure Chaves didn't get too big of an advantage. Also, Pozzo must be frustrated having gained nothing despite looking the strongest for the past few days.

To be fair he tried atleast 4-5 times. He might of told the team he was strong

You are ofcourse right, that he tried. I guess, I'm just disappointed in Lopez' giro start so far. And the fact that he wasn't better today, doesn't bode too well for the remainder of the race. He's not really known as a last week peaker like many of the other colombians (if anything he's a 2nd week peaker), so he needs to have a better 3rd week than what he managed in the Vuelta last year. He has to gain back time now and the coming week, because his start has been so poor and since he cannot rely on consistency the last week.

Granted, in the same fashion as Uran Uran, he appears to have lost the time trial that gave him a win in TdS a few years back, so his time trial wasn't that bad considering the crash beforehand. But I sense that even the Astana management is starting to become frustrated with his bad start so far. Martinelli, according to CN, expressed big frustration with Lopez' stupid crash yesterday. He cannot afford anymore of those amateur mistakes.

 

[Craigee]

Re:

There are 25 riders in the current peloton who finished in the top ten of at least one GT last year; 11 of them are riding here. That's a pretty good GT field.

Gee you're drawing a long bow here.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Nice stage.

I don't think Dumoulin is winning this Giro, neither do I think Froome is. Froome was much better than expected today, but I still don't think he has what it takes to win a GT. Which very well might sound very weird, but that has been my impression ever since the Tour in 2017. Dumoulin was pretty mediocre, but managed to stay in the group. Dont think his Giro was a fluke by no means, but Im certainly no backing him on stages 14 and 19. Lopez disappointed a bit, but he needs to get his diesel going and harder stages. I fully expect him to be better on Gran Sasso.

Pinot has really made a niche out of spring for bonus seconds and just being good, but not great. Solid, but not a Giro-winner IMO. Aru has been disappointing since forever and still is - he was extremely lucked to be at the right place at the right time in 2015. Imagine him not riding for Astana in those Giro and Vueltas and the results are drastically different.

Bennett? Nice rider, really on the up, but not good enough to be a real threat. Neither is Pozzovivo in the long run. Chaves was good, but not great, while Si Yates didn't seem to breathe responding to those attacks and suddenly just flew up to Lopez. That was a great spectacle in the end and nice to see it pays of to attack and to go all-in in the Giro with those riders. Really happy for Chaves to get his career back on track (probably a bit drastic), him and Yates seem to like to race with each other very much. Contrary to others, I think Yates can challenge for win overall and so can Chaves who most likely will be better than him on in the end, but question is how much ahead Yates is at that point.

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

Then again, Froome aside, this is a really weak GC line up.

Are you trolling here? By definition a GC line up featuring the reigning champions of all three GTs is not “really weak”. By Giro standards this is a super strong GC line up.

Well Froome won most of them, hence the comment "Froome aside, this is a really weak GC line up".

I think this is a pretty weak GT era right now. Apart from Froome the entire field only has 2 GT wins and about 4 podiums between them.

“This is a pretty weak GT era right now” is in my view an incorrect statement but it’s one you can make an argument for. “This is a pretty weak field by current standards” or “this is a pretty weak field by Giro standards” are not positions that any kind of reasonable argument can be made for.

Once again "Froome aside ,this is a really weak GC line up". Not sure why you keep trying to create a straw man by ignoring that caveat. The point is, that you don't have to be a GC superstar to end up on the podium in this field.

If you purely look at peak level or results or whatever, every GT field is gonna look weak compared to say 3 years ago, because the top GC rider from then bar Quintana are either declining (Nibali, Froome) or retired (Contador).

Those niches or whatever are either filled by declining or upcoming riders, the latter of which you don't realise until years later.

I mean, the battle for GC in the 2007 Tour was piss weak if you look at what those riders had achieved at that point.

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

Then again, Froome aside, this is a really weak GC line up.

Are you trolling here? By definition a GC line up featuring the reigning champions of all three GTs is not “really weak”. By Giro standards this is a super strong GC line up.

Well Froome won most of them, hence the comment "Froome aside, this is a really weak GC line up".

I think this is a pretty weak GT era right now. Apart from Froome the entire field only has 2 GT wins and about 4 podiums between them.

I kind of agree, but that's a hard thing to judge. The thing is, there are only six active winners in the field (Froome, Quintana, Nibali, Bala, Aru and Dumoulin). This has half of those, and nibali and bala are porbbaly past their best. I agree that apart from Dumoulin and Quintana a lot of the 24-30 year olds are second tier riders, who are good, but need to make that last step soon. Regardless, though, I do think that the giro field is basically as good as it can be.

 

[Rollthedice]

Re:

Nice stage.

I don't think Dumoulin is winning this Giro, neither do I think Froome is. Froome was much better than expected today, but I still don't think he has what it takes to win a GT. Which very well might sound very weird, but that has been my impression ever since the Tour in 2017. Dumoulin was pretty mediocre, but managed to stay in the group. Dont think his Giro was a fluke by no means, but Im certainly no backing him on stages 14 and 19. Lopez disappointed a bit, but he needs to get his diesel going and harder stages. I fully expect him to be better on Gran Sasso.

Pinot has really made a niche out of spring for bonus seconds and just being good, but not great. Solid, but not a Giro-winner IMO. Aru has been disappointing since forever and still is - he was extremely lucked to be at the right place at the right time in 2015. Imagine him not riding for Astana in those Giro and Vueltas and the results are drastically different.

Bennett? Nice rider, really on the up, but not good enough to be a real threat. Neither is Pozzovivo in the long run. Chaves was good, but not great, while Si Yates didn't seem to breathe responding to those attacks and suddenly just flew up to Lopez. That was a great spectacle in the end and nice to see it pays of to attack and to go all-in in the Giro with those riders. Really happy for Chaves to get his career back on track (probably a bit drastic), him and Yates seem to like to race with each other very much. Contrary to others, I think Yates can challenge for win overall and so can Chaves who most likely will be better than him on in the end, but question is how much ahead Yates is at that point.

So, nobody wins this Giro?

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Ha I was about to say that.

Dumoulin said he simply didn't have great legs today, which he felt straight after his first attack. He said nobody else was really better than anyone today, except Simon Yates, who was vastly superior. Says Yates is the favorite if he keeps this form

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

Ha I was about to say that.

Dumoulin said he simply didn't have great legs today, which he felt straight after his first attack. He said nobody else was really better than anyone today, except Simon Yates, who was vastly superior. Says Yates is the favorite if he keeps this form

This makes a lot of sense.

And Yates is kinds of hard to gauge cause he had to do a whole lot of nothing, and then once he had the gap people spent a bit of time looking at one another.

The Giro is wide open.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

If you purely look at peak level or results or whatever, every GT field is gonna look weak compared to say 3 years ago, because the top GC rider from then bar Quintana are either declining (Nibali, Froome) or retired (Contador).

Those niches or whatever are either filled by declining or upcoming riders, the latter of which you don't realise until years later.

I mean, the battle for GC in the 2007 Tour was piss weak if you look at what those riders had achieved at that point.

Well that's kind of the point. It's both a weak GT field in general at the moment. And the most promising 'upcoming riders' with real x-factor (Bernal, Landa) are missing, as well as the best stage racers at the moment (Quintana, Nibali, Porte, Valverde).

Riders like Aru, Chaves and Pinot are decent. But you'd struggle to make a case that any of them will go on to become dominant GT superstars.

 

[Valv.Piti]

I just haven't believed in the favourites (Froome and Dumoulin) from the start of this race for various reasons. My initial pick was Lopez, and Im sticking to that, but for all I know Chaves and Yates could also win. Aru is weak, Pinot can definitely podium. Dumoulin is rightfully so still the consensus pick...

All in all, totally open race which is nice.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

I just haven't believed in the favourites (Froome and Dumoulin) from the start of this race for various reasons. My initial pick was Lopez, and Im sticking to that, but for all I know Chaves and Yates could also win. Aru is weak, Pinot can definitely podium. Dumoulin is rightfully so still the consensus pick...

All in all, totally open race which is nice.

If anybody disappointed me today it was Lopez.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re: Re:

I just haven't believed in the favourites (Froome and Dumoulin) from the start of this race for various reasons. My initial pick was Lopez, and Im sticking to that, but for all I know Chaves and Yates could also win. Aru is weak, Pinot can definitely podium. Dumoulin is rightfully so still the consensus pick...

All in all, totally open race which is nice.

If anybody disappointed me today it was Lopez.

Gotta stick to it I guess

He was disappointing indeed, but his peak climbing is better than anyone else here and I have learned not to judge him at least on the first week of a GT. As I said above, I think he should be doing a lot better on Gran Sasso - if he isn't I will begin to have my reservations, but there's still that super hard last week. And then I don't care if he is 3-4 minutes down with that team if he can hold that Vuelta shape for a few days he had for the last 8-9 days of the race

 

[Rollthedice]

Re: Re:

I just haven't believed in the favourites (Froome and Dumoulin) from the start of this race for various reasons. My initial pick was Lopez, and Im sticking to that, but for all I know Chaves and Yates could also win. Aru is weak, Pinot can definitely podium. Dumoulin is rightfully so still the consensus pick...

All in all, totally open race which is nice.

If anybody disappointed me today it was Lopez.

Rocky Bilbao on the other hand... Froome and Aru level!

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

If you purely look at peak level or results or whatever, every GT field is gonna look weak compared to say 3 years ago, because the top GC rider from then bar Quintana are either declining (Nibali, Froome) or retired (Contador).

Those niches or whatever are either filled by declining or upcoming riders, the latter of which you don't realise until years later.

I mean, the battle for GC in the 2007 Tour was piss weak if you look at what those riders had achieved at that point.

Well that's kind of the point. It's both a weak GT field in general at the moment. And the most promising 'upcoming riders' with real x-factor (Bernal, Landa) are missing, as well as the best stage racers at the moment (Quintana, Nibali, Porte, Valverde).

Riders like Aru, Chaves and Pinot are decent. But you'd struggle to make a case that any of them will go on to become dominant GT superstars.

Sorry.

I watch a lot of tennis.

I know what a piss weak era looks like

This is more of a transitional era, and also a bit of a situation where the Giro and Vuelta are relatively more important than they were 20 years ago, so those era's are very hard to compare.

 

[yaco]

Lopez is a diesel climber and needs multi-mountain pedigrees to show his true potential - He's not out of reach of a podium, providing he does a decent TT in stage 16.

 

[shalgo]

Re: Re:

There are 25 riders in the current peloton who finished in the top ten of at least one GT last year; 11 of them are riding here. That's a pretty good GT field.

Gee you're drawing a long bow here.

Well, "the winner of all three GTs last year" wasn't enough to convince someone that the field isn't weak, so I went in the other direction with my evidence.

 

[ColonelKidneyBeans]

Re:

Nice stage.

I don't think Dumoulin is winning this Giro, neither do I think Froome is. Froome was much better than expected today, but I still don't think he has what it takes to win a GT. Which very well might sound very weird, but that has been my impression ever since the Tour in 2017. Dumoulin was pretty mediocre, but managed to stay in the group. Dont think his Giro was a fluke by no means, but Im certainly no backing him on stages 14 and 19. Lopez disappointed a bit, but he needs to get his diesel going and harder stages. I fully expect him to be better on Gran Sasso.

Pinot has really made a niche out of spring for bonus seconds and just being good, but not great. Solid, but not a Giro-winner IMO. Aru has been disappointing since forever and still is - he was extremely lucked to be at the right place at the right time in 2015. Imagine him not riding for Astana in those Giro and Vueltas and the results are drastically different.

Bennett? Nice rider, really on the up, but not good enough to be a real threat. Neither is Pozzovivo in the long run. Chaves was good, but not great, while Si Yates didn't seem to breathe responding to those attacks and suddenly just flew up to Lopez. That was a great spectacle in the end and nice to see it pays of to attack and to go all-in in the Giro with those riders. Really happy for Chaves to get his career back on track (probably a bit drastic), him and Yates seem to like to race with each other very much. Contrary to others, I think Yates can challenge for win overall and so can Chaves who most likely will be better than him on in the end, but question is how much ahead Yates is at that point.

I can't make head nor tail of what's going on with Aru, he was super promising in 2014 (that monte grappa TT and that montecampione win were incredible, and his two vuelta stage win weren't bad either), good but inconsistent during the 2015 giro (the back to back stage wins in the end were pretty amazing), "meh" but pretty consistent and helped by a good team during the 2015 vuelta and then it's like he fell of a cliff, the only glimpse of the "old" Aru we have seen since is PDBF last year, and he should be actually hitting his prime...

 

[jmdirt]

Re:

I still see Yates as more of a Dan Martin type rider than a serious GT contender. Not sure he can hold it together for three weeks, particularly on the toughest mountain stages. But he can put time into almost anyone in the world on the final 1-2km of a climb if he's in a decent position.

Then again, Froome aside, this is a really weak GC line up. So he could sneak a podium.

I assume this view is by someone: 1) new (ish) to cycling, and/or 2) who prefers the top fuel era (or I guess both).

Simply having past GT winners doesn't make a line up strong.

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

If you purely look at peak level or results or whatever, every GT field is gonna look weak compared to say 3 years ago, because the top GC rider from then bar Quintana are either declining (Nibali, Froome) or retired (Contador).

Those niches or whatever are either filled by declining or upcoming riders, the latter of which you don't realise until years later.

I mean, the battle for GC in the 2007 Tour was piss weak if you look at what those riders had achieved at that point.

Well that's kind of the point. It's both a weak GT field in general at the moment. And the most promising 'upcoming riders' with real x-factor (Bernal, Landa) are missing, as well as the best stage racers at the moment (Quintana, Nibali, Porte, Valverde).

Riders like Aru, Chaves and Pinot are decent. But you'd struggle to make a case that any of them will go on to become dominant GT superstars.

I don't think you can seriously with a straight face say that Porte, or Valverde for that matter, is a better GT rider than Dumoulin. Or, tbh, Nibali. And Lopez is here, and he's as exciting as Landa, if not more. Ofc, Lopez is also very disappointing, but that's neither here not there.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

There are 25 riders in the current peloton who finished in the top ten of at least one GT last year; 11 of them are riding here. That's a pretty good GT field.

Gee you're drawing a long bow here.

Well, "the winner of all three GTs last year" wasn't enough to convince someone that the field isn't weak, so I went in the other direction with my evidence.

I'll say it once again, for the benefit of those who still didn't comprehend it the first three times. "Aside from Froome". So "the winner of all three GTs last year" is a pretty irrelevant comment. Because Froome won most of them.

Some lame stat about top 10 finishes will do nothing to convince me that a field where Aru, Chaves, Pinot and Dumoulin are among the favourites for the win, is anything but weak.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

If you purely look at peak level or results or whatever, every GT field is gonna look weak compared to say 3 years ago, because the top GC rider from then bar Quintana are either declining (Nibali, Froome) or retired (Contador).

Those niches or whatever are either filled by declining or upcoming riders, the latter of which you don't realise until years later.

I mean, the battle for GC in the 2007 Tour was piss weak if you look at what those riders had achieved at that point.

Well that's kind of the point. It's both a weak GT field in general at the moment. And the most promising 'upcoming riders' with real x-factor (Bernal, Landa) are missing, as well as the best stage racers at the moment (Quintana, Nibali, Porte, Valverde).

Riders like Aru, Chaves and Pinot are decent. But you'd struggle to make a case that any of them will go on to become dominant GT superstars.

I don't think you can seriously with a straight face say that Porte, or Valverde for that matter, is a better GT rider than Dumoulin. Or, tbh, Nibali. And Lopez is here, and he's as exciting as Landa, if not more. Ofc, Lopez is also very disappointing, but that's neither here not there.

I would say Valverde is clearly a better GT rider than Dumoulin - unless there are 70km odd of TTing. Porte obviously isn't. But I did say best stage racers, rather than GT riders. I think having guys like Valverde and Porte in a GT - even if they may not last the distance, does significantly raise the overall quality. Because at their very best they are the best in the world on a given stage. And so there will be some stages where they will tear the race apart and help seperate the wheat from the chaff.

Instead you will have a situation where the chaff will probably remain in contention throughout the race. Which, back to the point I was making, is why a rider like Yates could make the podium.

 

[Angliru]

Re: Re:

That is moronic. Yates in front, stronger rider, and better ride today, and they just threw away bonus seconds

Yates may quite reasonably think that a grateful Chaves is worth more than four seconds and a resentful Chaves should Simon find himself in with a real shot at GC victory in the last week.

I fully agree. It was far from "moronic". It was a win/win for Mitchelton-Scott. To have a rider out in the break for such a period of time, one that is designated as a co-leader for the overall, with a sure win in his hands AND with the other co-leader also there to potentially take over the race lead, all this without risking the gains made by his teammate versus their rivals (he didn't drag anyone up to Chavez with him). There was no risk in rewarding Chavez for his time spent in the break by allowing his the win. Imagine the level of moral in the team. As you said, there was nothing to be gained by Yates snatching a sure victory from Chavez other than dissension within the team. This way everyone is happy.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

So a GT isn't a GT when there's 70km+ TT in it? You know DFA, 70km ITT is statistically speaking really little, at least historically.
That the recent trend is to have as little TT kilometers as possible so only climbers should win GT's (basically the least complete riders in the field), makes the GT's weak actually

 

[DFA123]

Re:

So a GT isn't a GT when there's 70km+ TT in it? You know DFA, 70km ITT is statistically speaking really little, at least historically.
That the recent trend is to have as little TT kilometers as possible so only climbers should win GT's (basically the least complete riders in the field), makes the GT's weak actually

Massive straw man alert.

Historically stages also used to be 400km long and riders took the train for half of them. The 'recent trend' has been going on since before a lot of the current peloton were born.

 

[Blanco]

I would say Dumoulin is still the favorite, with Froome behind (we won't know his true level until Zoncolan imo). But Yates, Chaves and Pinot are right behind them.