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

[Pantani_lives]

Great show by Chaves & Yates today. It was the right decision to let Chaves win. He has been attacking all day and Yates still took pink without winning the stage, so it's equally divided.

Yates took 28 secs in less than 2K. That means that some of the others have been passive, but Yates looks at least like a podium contender. And maybe Chaves too, who could also try to win the mountain jersey.

 

[Angliru]

Re: Re:

Yeah in the event that Yates proves demonstrably stronger than Chaves over 3 weeks, how incredibly valuable will it be to have Chaves in his corner? If he had chased won Chaves and kicked past him for the win, do you think Chaves would want to help him?

Having said that, putting 26s on the main GC field seemingly while breathing through his nose...wow.

I take the point, but equally, Chaves has spent his whole career as a protected rider, including lots of races where Yates has lowered his own chances to help him. I'm not sure what value he has as a team mate if he's really such a diva as to be upset about giving the bonus seconds to the stronger rider who already has a lead.

In reality, I expect both Chaves and team management to consider Chaves the leader, and Yates is going to have to hold the jersey for a while for that to change despite his results all year, so the logic above does not even come in to it

I would think that if Chaves is chosen by the team as the protected rider for a race it's because he gives them the best chance at success. Maybe he's targeting that race with Yates targeting other events on the calendar and using that particular event to build his form for his own established goals for the season. Under most circumstances Yates wouldn't have even attempted to bridge to Chaves for fear of dragging his rivals along with him. Chaves had a sure win on his hands and what Yates did was rather unconventional but I'm sure that if he had attacked and another rider or riders had been able to respond, then Yates would have sat in and not worked, hoping that they would not reel in Chaves. If they had, the hope would be that he would take the win at the line as surely Chaves would have been too fatigued to challenge anyone that had been in the chase group for the duration of the breaks' escape.

 

[hazaran]

Re: Re:

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.

We might be doing this the wrong way around. Why don't you tell us who you are missing? Richie "didn't finish a GT" Porte? :lol:

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

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.

We might be doing this the wrong way around. Why don't you tell us who you are missing? Richie "didn't finish a GT" Porte? :lol:

I already have.

I think it'll turn out similar to the Tour last year. Froome apart, the top stage racers all absent or massively out of form. Leading to a rider like Uran not getting dropped in three weeks and finishing on the podium.

 

[Frankschleck]

Oh pinot. Please don't turn into a gerrans. That was dissapointing. He attacked right after, but when he had a gap with Bennet, Pozzivivo and Yates, he just sat on their wheels. Expected better of him.

 

[HelloDolly]

Will people stop entertaining DFA123

All he does is moan and talk rubbish

This fiield is great ...mostly because they are all very near each other on GC and contain the current Tour , Vuelta & Giro champions
Plus a bucket load of upand coming riders like MAL, Formolo, Haig, OOmen, Bennett...however they are performing or will perform

Nibali and Quintana were here last year and both were beaten and if Valverde was her he'd be beaten too

So who does that leave ..Landa ? Not yet won a GT and doubt he will
Porte ...well
Bernal, Soler ...too young and untested yet

So total and utter bollocks arguments as per

 

[DFA123]

Re:

Will people stop entertaining DFA123

All he does is moan and talk rubbish

This fiield is great ...mostly because they are all very near each other on GC and contain the current Tour , Vuelta & Giro champions
Plus a bucket load of upand coming riders like MAL, Formolo, Haig, OOmen, Bennett...however they are performing or will perform

Nibali and Quintana were here last year and both were beaten and if Valverde was her he'd be beaten too

So who does that leave ..Landa ? Not yet won a GT and doubt he will
Porte ...well
Bernal, Soler ...too young and untested yet

So total and utter bollocks arguments as per

Well done, you've completely missed the point. For a change.

 

[rghysens]

Re: 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.

The Indurain and Armstrong editions of the Tour often had 2 long itt's (and a prologue). I think none of the current peloton were born after that. 2006 and 2007 had 2 long itt's, 2008 had a medium length and a long itt, 2009 a short a long(ish) itt, 2010 a prologue and a long itt. It was in 2011 that for the first time since long there was less than 50km itt. But in 2012 that was compensated. In 2013 there was about 70km itt, in 2014 one long itt. Only in the last editions of the tour the amount of itt has been ridiculously low.
Of course, the vuelta and giro often had lower amounts of tt'ing.

 

[staubsauger]

Honestly Pinot looked absolutely on his limit when hanging onto Pozzovivo & Co. and once he attacked later it was a move missing any kind of punch!

 

[Angliru]

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.

You'd have trouble making a case like that at virtually any grand tour. How many grand tour dominant superstars come along every generation? Two or three would be about the maximum and three would be pushing it. The argument is generally that winning the Giro and Vuelta is not comparable to a Tour win. Since the year 2000, you've only had 3 riders that actually won the Tour (on the road) more than once (Armstrong, Contador and Froome) to qualify as "dominant". Can a rider be considered a "dominant" grand tour rider if they've never won the Tour?

 

[shalgo]

Perhaps a more productive direction for the discussion would be to ask DFA123 for a recent example of a GT that did have a "strong" field.

 

[zapata]

Re:

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

Four seconds. Your raging chauvinism is clouding your judgment. Going for the stage win in that situation would have been the ultimate douche-move.

 

[Kwibus]

Dfa can be a bit like el trolero at times

Anyways good stage. MS obviously did great and Yates currently is the strongest. Yates drpped them all and benefited maximum from having a chase group full of favourites behind him where nobody wanted to work which handed him a great deal of his seconds gained.

 

[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.

You'd have trouble making a case like that at virtually any grand tour. How many grand tour dominant superstars come along every generation? Two or three would be about the maximum and three would be pushing it. The argument is generally that winning the Giro and Vuelta is not comparable to a Tour win. Since the year 2000, you've only had 3 riders that actually won the Tour (on the road) more than once (Armstrong, Contador and Froome) to qualify as "dominant". Can a rider be considered a "dominant" grand tour rider if they've never won the Tour?

I agree to an extent. But I kind of mean a bit more generally than just winning a GT. Like Pantani for example, was not a dominant winner, but he was a dominant GT superstar imo, someone who could raise the standard of a race and force a selection between the contenders and the also rans.

In the peloton today I think riders like Landa, Quintana, Nibali, Valverde, Froome can do that as well. Contador certainly could, and Purito as well. Maybe even Porte could at his best. But the likes of Aru and Pinot can't - and never will be able to imo. Their peak level just isn't good enough to really impose themselves on a GT.

They can grind out a podium, and maybe even the odd victory if the competition around them folds. But they are not GT superstars. They are good, solid stage racers. And this Giro is full of that type of rider and not much else, aside from Froome. Maybe Lopez could do something.

 

[DFA123]

Re:

Perhaps a more productive direction for the discussion would be to ask DFA123 for a recent example of a GT that did have a "strong" field.

2015 Tour. Even the Giro last year was a strong start list. But then Landa and Quintana crashed, and Nibali was missing something, so in reality it wasn't so strong.

 

[Koronin]

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.

You'd have trouble making a case like that at virtually any grand tour. How many grand tour dominant superstars come along every generation? Two or three would be about the maximum and three would be pushing it. The argument is generally that winning the Giro and Vuelta is not comparable to a Tour win. Since the year 2000, you've only had 3 riders that actually won the Tour (on the road) more than once (Armstrong, Contador and Froome) to qualify as "dominant". Can a rider be considered a "dominant" grand tour rider if they've never won the Tour?

I agree to an extent. But I kind of mean a bit more generally than just winning a GT. Like Pantani for example, was not a dominant winner, but he was a dominant GT superstar imo, someone who could raise the standard of a race and force a selection between the contenders and the also rans.

In the peloton today I think riders like Landa, Quintana, Nibali, Valverde, Froome can do that as well. Contador certainly could, and Purito as well. Maybe even Porte could at his best. But the likes of Aru and Pinot can't - and never will be able to imo. Their peak level just isn't good enough to really impose themselves on a GT.

They can grind out a podium, and maybe even the odd victory if the competition around them folds. But they are not GT superstars. They are good, solid stage racers. And this Giro is full of that type of rider and not much else, aside from Froome. Maybe Lopez could do something.

I think Chaves could IF he can stay healthy. Bardet might be able on top form. Give Soler another year or two of learning and he might also be in this group. He still has some developing to do.

 

[Angliru]

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.

Dumoulin is a rider on the rise as statements of him being a favorite are based on his being last year's Giro winner and on his potential to improve. So him being a favorite is not far fetched or evidence of a weak field, IMO. Chaves and Pinot are relatively young riders on the rise (potential) and both having made the podium of grand tours in the past, with Pinot making the Tour podium. Aru has won a grand tour before but of course he has been a shadow of that the rider more often than not since then.

I can't understand where you get the idea that a field is weak unless it has "dominant" grand tour riders at the start line.

 

[YavorD]

DFA, Quintana (even through he is one of the best GT riders) rarely did "something interesting" HIs two GT wins are either because of the Contador attack, either (mostly) because ot a chaotic decent and major confusion. Valverde has never been a great GT rider (with all respect to his podiums), Landa as well.. results wise he is worse than Aru. You may put a statement that Landa can blow the race apart....so does Aru in his day.
And you even put Purito into your argument, who with the exception of Alpr D Huez and Semnoz 2013 never really did anything outside the final 2 kms.
So this GT field is just about as strong as it could be. Especially for a Giro.

 

[Frankschleck]

Re:

DFA, Quintana (even through he is one of the best GT riders) rarely did "something interesting" HIs two GT wins are either because of the Contador attack, either (mostly) because ot a chaotic decent and major confusion. Valverde has never been a great GT rider (with all respect to his podiums), Landa as well.. results wise he is worse than Aru. You may put a statement that Landa can blow the race apart....so does Aru in his day.
And you even put Purito into your argument, who with the exception of Alpr D Huez and Semnoz 2013 never really did anything outside the final 2 kms.
So this GT field is just about as strong as it could be. Especially for a Giro.

This. It's the best giro field in ages.

 

[Bot. Sky_Bot]

:razz: I've just watched it. Excellent stage with marvellous win of both, Yates&Chaves.
And quite entertaining discusssion, as almost always if CF is in competition.
Before the stage we all could get to know that CF:
- looked so bad;
- will lose more time;
- will ship more time off to his rivals;
- will be back driven by Poels;
- will lose every chance to win Giro;
- wiil be anywhere near the Giro win;
- will be buried on Etna (edit: excellent, replied few times );
- will attack backward (it was supposed to be funny, yeah?);
- will bleed ( :surprised: );
- will lose minutes.
During the stage we got to know CF is preparing volcanic attack, is cooked, is going backward, is dropped by Dumo well I ever.
Atfer the stage we have some well known hate, as "The Dawg isn't not dead, blech.." and some interesting points as:
- I get the feeling we are going to see a third week where he smashes the TT and the mountains, and
- Froome was much more better than expected..........

So really excellent stage, so entertaining, with a lot of laugh.

 

[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.

Dumoulin is a rider on the rise as statements of him being a favorite are based on his being last year's Giro winner and on his potential to improve. So him being a favorite is not far fetched or evidence of a weak field, IMO. Chaves and Pinot are relatively young riders on the rise (potential) and both having made the podium of grand tours in the past, with Pinot making the Tour podium. Aru has won a grand tour before but of course he has been a shadow of that the rider more often than not since then.

I can't understand where you get the idea that a field is weak unless it has "dominant" grand tour riders at the start line.

I think the field is weak because, aside from Froome, there are lots of very good riders, but not exceptional ones. There are, however, a lot of riders around the same level, which could make for a close and entertaining race. Just not a high quality one.

 

[DFA123]

Re:

DFA, Quintana (even through he is one of the best GT riders) rarely did "something interesting" HIs two GT wins are either because of the Contador attack, either (mostly) because ot a chaotic decent and major confusion. Valverde has never been a great GT rider (with all respect to his podiums), Landa as well.. results wise he is worse than Aru. You may put a statement that Landa can blow the race apart....so does Aru in his day.
And you even put Purito into your argument, who with the exception of Alpr D Huez and Semnoz 2013 never really did anything outside the final 2 kms.
So this GT field is just about as strong as it could be. Especially for a Giro.

Completely disagree. On every single point you have made.

 

[Netserk]

"someone who could raise the standard of a race and force a selection between the contenders and the also rans.

In the peloton today I think riders like Landa, Quintana, Nibali, Valverde, Froome can do that as well."

How on earth does that list include Valverde - and not Dumoulin?!

 

[DFA123]

Re:

"someone who could raise the standard of a race and force a selection between the contenders and the also rans.

In the peloton today I think riders like Landa, Quintana, Nibali, Valverde, Froome can do that as well."

How on earth does that list include Valverde - and not Dumoulin?!

Because Valverde can drop people on high mountains, hills and anything in between, he can force selections where only the very best can follow. Dumoulin is the best TTist in the world; he wins stage races by gaining minutes in the TT, but he rarely forces selections in the other stages. He generally rides to power and responds to attacks when necessary.

 

[Angliru]

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.

How can Porte be included in this equation if his best finishes in grand tours are a 7th at the beginning of his career and a 5th, with no other top tens ??!! You have to be basing this solely on potential and if that is the case then riders like Bardet, Pino, Chaves, and the Yates also deserve a mention and you completely disrespect those that may just be going through a rough patch (Aru).

Edit: Cleaned up multiple typo's. Having a bad day posting!