How bothered are the lower riders with their GC position?

[Gubby Allen]

In the grand tours, outside of those with serious chances of wiining remaining stages, when they tour reaches this point, are any of the riders from say 80th downwards, bothered with their GC position.

To pluck a few for examples, would DuMoulin being looking at being 162nd on GC and be thinking, "Renshaw's only a few seconds ahead and if I gain 6 minutes on the bus tomorrow, I'll probably climb up 8-10 places, or will he not give a monkeys about finshing 142nd or 162nd?

If it is the latter, with the lantern rouge are there riders desperate to avoid being last? Will Sabatini desperately be trying to gain the 2 mins on Amador or not?

 

[El Pistolero]

Lol no............

 

[Libertine Seguros]

No, these guys don't care about GC position at all, and in fact the lanterne rouge is a position of some prestige (given that the lanterne rouge used to be invited to all the lucrative post-Tour crits back when there was money involved), and in fact there's often quite some race for that position. A couple of years ago Wim Vansevenant was fighting to lose time on the Champs Elysées to avoid losing his lanterne rouge position. I was surprised to see Amador get involved in the break yesterday exactly for that reason.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Sabatini will be happy finishing last

 

[Ramira]

In the grand tours, outside of those with serious chances of wiining remaining stages, when they tour reaches this point, are any of the riders from say 80th downwards, bothered with their GC position.

To pluck a few for examples, would DuMoulin being looking at being 162nd on GC and be thinking, "Renshaw's only a few seconds ahead and if I gain 6 minutes on the bus tomorrow, I'll probably climb up 8-10 places, or will he not give a monkeys about finshing 142nd or 162nd?

Riders between 30'ish and last place couldn't care less about their positioning. Top 20 is generally something that people care for, sometimes top 25 but if they got no chance for that they'll just care about reaching Paris.

If it is the latter, with the lantern rouge are there riders desperate to avoid being last? Will Sabatini desperately be trying to gain the 2 mins on Amador or not?

If anything it's the other way around, while it's not the case as much as it used to be in the past the Lantern Rouge is pretty good for PR reasons. There used to be riders that let themselves get dropped on flat stages (even on the Champs Elysees if I remember correctly) to win it.

 

[will10]

It's July, definitely.

 

[Cooper]

Riders ~30th and lower will not care about the GC. They will focus on team goals and where ever they end up at the end of the day, so be it.

I'm sure Danny Pate could easily do better than 166th but his job is to protect Cav and perhaps others like Tony Martin as much as possible. That is his lot in life for this year's TDF.

 

[gerrans for the win]

i always wonder why they don't try an get a better GC result... it's got to be a good bargin chip if you can say i finished 65th an helped my team leader win blah blah how good was that ....would add a zero to your contract maybe

 

[El Pistolero]

No, these guys don't care about GC position at all, and in fact the lanterne rouge is a position of some prestige (given that the lanterne rouge used to be invited to all the lucrative post-Tour crits back when there was money involved), and in fact there's often quite some race for that position. A couple of years ago Wim Vansevenant was fighting to lose time on the Champs Elysées to avoid losing his lanterne rouge position. I was surprised to see Amador get involved in the break yesterday exactly for that reason.

You're saying crits aren't lucrative anymore? Phil gets 25000 euros for every crit he starts in.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't think they give a ****.

 

[Finn84]

They don't care much. I think some riders who took part last year (I think more of first-timers then) may think that they want finish in better position this time.

Just as an random example Kristijan Koren from Liquigas who was 94th last year. Well, with three stages to go he is 95th so it's close.

 

[hrotha]

You're saying crits aren't lucrative anymore? Phil gets 25000 euros for every crit he starts in.

Yes but their wages are higher these days. Back in the day much of their income would come from criteriums.

 

[The Hitch]

You're saying crits aren't lucrative anymore? Phil gets 25000 euros for every crit he starts in.

25 000 Euros for racing a crit? Wtf.

Isnt that around how much the winner gets for winning Paris Nice?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Those crits are still big business - they're just not as big business comparative to a rider's wages as they were in years gone by.