Eshnar
Moderator
I'm sharing this nice video of the sterrato sectors made by a Cicloweb user on Saturday. Obviously in Italian but the pictures speak for themselves.
View: https://youtu.be/9_qvbo7J0tU
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You can use the term dropped for the tour (unless Remco rides) but you only get the chance to use it 2 or 3 times. The giro is a better race where we can imagine riders getting dropped on most stages.Dropped is no longer an allowable term.
Please only use approved terminology like 'temporarily distanced' or 'temporally challenged'.
So I've given it a lot of thought and this is my preview for tomorrow's stage.
5 minutes after the official start PCS reports that a large break has formed. It includes Marengo, Gallopin, Pellaud, Battistella, Sagan, Marengo and Bennet among others. Poeple on the forum make silly jokes about Marengo having a secret brother or whatever. I laugh.
With 70 km to go the peloton starts the first sterrato sector. Remco crashes immediately. Logic goes loco and complains about DQS not properly warning Remco over the radio. RedheadDane asks him how he can be sure they didn't warn him properly. For the following 10 minutes they indulge in semantics until Red Rick makes a geek joke and we all start focusing on the race again.
Meanwhile the break has been caught but Sagan attacks again and goes solo. Remco had to change bikes and is chasing 2 minutes behind, peloton goes fast because the fight for position before Passo del Lume Spento is furious. As soon as the climb starts Formolo attacks. Formolo is also known as Roccia (literally rock) so he feels at home on these roads. He's a bit leaner than The Rock though. Formolo bridges to Sagan and they gain one minute on the peloton. Ineos is pushing the pace and many complain that they should wait for Remco. But he's not in the maglia rosa so people complain a bit less than usual.
At the end of Passo del Lume Spento the peloton is in pieces. Ciccone is 30 seconds behind. Yates and Buchmann one minute behind. Carthy almost 2 minutes behind and Bettiol is not with him. At first he tried to help him but then a fellow Tuscan fan on the road shouted at him: "Maremma maiala , sei proprio una fava" (no translation available) and he got back to the front. Evenepoel is somewhere in between these guys but he was going so fast that the moto lost contact to him. There is no information on Dan Martin. Moscon keeps drilling it for Bernal. Gaps get bigger. Only Bardet, Vlasov, Soler, Bettiol, Quinten Hermans and Masnada (finally living up to the hype) are in the group. Sagan is also there after being dropped by Formolo who leads with a 30 seconds advantage.
They are about to hit the final sterrato sector when Remco finally regains contact. He has not eaten or drunk anything for the past 90 minutes, but he looks fresh. He passes the group at double speed and goes chasing Formolo. Final sector starts, Remco crashes again, Lefevere personally informs the forum members that he indeed warned Remco but the Belgian prodigy allegedly ate his radio when hit by a hunger knock a few minutes before. Masnada gives him his bike which makes Remco less aero than normal but he still chases like a madman. He's one minute behind when Froome enters the race and tells him to follow his lead: "this will be your Finestre", he says. The sterrato opens in front of them like the Red Sea for Moses. They pass rider after rider and get back to Bernal right on top of the climb. Only Formolo is ahead.
Froome disappears. But Nibali appears out of nowhere with a bionic left arm. He can finally get out of the saddle but unfortunately the climbing is over. He doesn't care though, he descends out of the saddle and drops both Bernal and Remco. He bridges to Formolo and outsprints him at the finish. Gazillion jokes about the bag. I don't particularly laugh. The end.
Well, yes. Because the GTs are tailormade for them. Don't you think there's a correlation between route design and the physique of GC riders? It's not merely random coincidence...but who are these TT strong guys who compete for GC these days? They are few and far between. Nearly all of the GC people are now small climber types. It used to be the reverse.
In 1975, the main contenders at the start were Merckx, Gimondi, Thevenet, Ocana and Zoetemelk. Each of those riders could win a TT as well as a mountain stage. Van Impe was considered too much of a climber but reached his first podium. Why? Because he actually could TT pretty well. He finished third in the flat prologue behind Moser and Merckx. And won a long TT, albeit a very hilly one. I mean, seriously, can you imagine Bernal finishing third in a flat prologue, or Herrera, or Fuente?
top three in 84 and 85? Hinault, Roche, Fignon, Lemond. All riders who won mountain stages and ITTs. Herrera wasn’t even considered a threat. Delgado only became a threat once he started to top five in ITTs.
We need Tobydawq to start a second thread for this stage because this one got lost somewhere along the way!
Or perhaps we needed a rest-day threat posted two days ahead of timeMaybe that's the danger of starting threads two days early. Plenty of time to talk about things that isn't actually the stage.
Or perhaps we needed a rest-day threat posted two days ahead of time
No threat of a rest day tomorrowOr perhaps we needed a rest-day threat posted two days ahead of time
Modern cycling is different.
but who are these TT strong guys who compete for GC these days? They are few and far between. Nearly all of the GC people are now small climber types. It used to be the reverse.
Back to the topic then.I'm sharing this nice video of the sterrato sectors made by a Cicloweb user on Saturday. Obviously in Italian but the pictures speak for themselves.
View: https://youtu.be/9_qvbo7J0tU
Ha! Freudian slip . . . On the loose-gravel descentNo threat of a rest day tomorrow
That road around 19 minutes in looks fabulous.I'm sharing this nice video of the sterrato sectors made by a Cicloweb user on Saturday. Obviously in Italian but the pictures speak for themselves.
View: https://youtu.be/9_qvbo7J0tU