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Teams & Riders Jakob Fuglsang discussion thread

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Even halfway the peloton, you can easily get stuck behind a crash, depending on the width of the road, even when you are not involved in the actual crash yourself. You can get caught by splits (not only caused by crashes, but unforseen crosswinds, attacks, unexpected obstacles, unclear roadbook sections...), or get caught by narrowing sections by timing your move to the front wrong, finding yourself without the room to move up, caught with your pants down when in the front a rival attacks...
Halfway stage 3, this won't seem to matter much, because any leader will have plenty of domestiques around, who will likely be able to bridge 30 second gaps. But Those efforts might cost the team later in the same stage or later in the Tour. When going from narrow to wide roads and back, being in the middle of the peloton also involves more "yo-yo'ing" which also can cost energy.
Being on the fourth or fifth row would probably be best of both worlds, but not every GC guy can be in the same spot together with 3 teammates, obviously. Unless you are the race leader, with the strongest team and you're confident you can pull it off for the remainder of the race.

In short, ideally yes, but easier said than done.
 
Replying to fuglsang saying he thought about going with Ala... If he follows him the move gets shut down very quickly. Only in the opening stages of the tdf does Ala win like this. Peloton hesitates. GC teams don't need to chase. If it's stage 19 or a classic the result would be different completely.
 
Re:

hammerthaim said:
Replying to fuglsang saying he thought about going with Ala... If he follows him the move gets shut down very quickly. Only in the opening stages of the tdf does Ala win like this. Peloton hesitates. GC teams don't need to chase. If it's stage 19 or a classic the result would be different completely.

Well, remind me how it was shut down immediately when they went in Amstel.
 
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tobydawq said:
With regards to our national hero and usual playmate of Alaphilippe's; Fuglsang said today that he considered following Alaphilippe's attack but didn't want to go too deep too early with the rest of the race in mind.

If he really could have done that, I think it was a mistake not to do. Because then they could maybe have opened quite a gap. Of course, Ineos would have been more keen to chase but it would have taken a little while to get organised.

In any case, today seemed really promising considering his knee, and the Fuglsang bandwagon can get into speed once more.

I don't think I have ever looked forward to a mountain stage in the Tour with this particular feeling of nervous excitement as I currently do to stage 6.
I have the same feeling apart from the legendary 2015-Tour with the big 4 on a harder final climb, but easier first mountain stage overall. It delivered big time. I remember the excitement on this forum, it was just totally insane how much everybody looked forward to La Pierre Saint Martin that year. It was relatively late in the race and everyone had survived the first 9 days which probably also added further excitement to that stage.
 
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tobydawq said:
With regards to our national hero and usual playmate of Alaphilippe's; Fuglsang said today that he considered following Alaphilippe's attack but didn't want to go too deep too early with the rest of the race in mind.

If he really could have done that, I think it was a mistake not to do. Because then they could maybe have opened quite a gap. Of course, Ineos would have been more keen to chase but it would have taken a little while to get organised.

In any case, today seemed really promising considering his knee, and the Fuglsang bandwagon can get into speed once more.

I don't think I have ever looked forward to a mountain stage in the Tour with this particular feeling of nervous excitement as I currently do to stage 6.
Oh man I only can get so erect.
 
Re: Re:

tobydawq said:
hammerthaim said:
Replying to fuglsang saying he thought about going with Ala... If he follows him the move gets shut down very quickly. Only in the opening stages of the tdf does Ala win like this. Peloton hesitates. GC teams don't need to chase. If it's stage 19 or a classic the result would be different completely.

Well, remind me how it was shut down immediately when they went in Amstel.

I do think Ala got the gap because the attack was really strong with no hesitation and others simply didnt want to go that deep or put in that effort that Ala did. Not because they couldnt. There was no reason to really chase. Ala was alone. It took time to organize and in the end only Ineos had enough riders to chase after Lotto gave up.

A classic race is a bit different. They went from far out and nobody responded. They were the strongest riders during this time and in the race. Except for Mvdp who in the end won, but was unfortunate during the race. Crazy he won. Crazy race.
 
Re: Re:

Salvarani said:
tobydawq said:
hammerthaim said:
Replying to fuglsang saying he thought about going with Ala... If he follows him the move gets shut down very quickly. Only in the opening stages of the tdf does Ala win like this. Peloton hesitates. GC teams don't need to chase. If it's stage 19 or a classic the result would be different completely.

Well, remind me how it was shut down immediately when they went in Amstel.

I do think Ala got the gap because the attack was really strong with no hesitation and others simply didnt want to go that deep or put in that effort that Ala did. Not because they couldnt. There was no reason to really chase. Ala was alone. It took time to organize and in the end only Ineos had enough riders to chase after Lotto gave up.

A classic race is a bit different. They went from far out and nobody responded. They were the strongest riders during this time and in the race. Except for Mvdp who in the end won, but was unfortunate during the race. Crazy he won. Crazy race.
I believe the words you are looking for are 'tactically inept'
 
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Dekker_Tifosi said:
batshit insane would be better.
Jakob has gotten some of MVDPs insanity this year, without riding like a tactical moron.

But hey, MVDP is new to professional road cycling. He's excused. If he continues riding in that "highly oblivious to the world around him"-style when he's two or three years into his road career, then it is fair to question the man's intelligence.
 
Ofcourse Fuglsang is not attacking on an early intermediate stage, where he could, at best, gain 15-20 seconds, after expending himself completely.

It's in the real mountain stages he has to make a difference, if he is serious about hitting the podium, and until then, all possible energy has to be saved, especially when he is riding injured.

Because of the injury, I also think you will see him ride stage 6 defensively - he might even drop a minute - because it is from stage 11 and onwards the race will be decided, and that is when he needs to be in peak condition.
 
Today was another fail by Astana in the finale.

They did great till the 10 k mark, but from 10 to 3, Fuglsang was all alone.

On stage 1 Cort was there, but he apparently crashed and broke a finger earlier in the stage.

It's in the last 10 k (until the 3 k mark), that it is the most important to keep the captain up front - Ineos does it day after day.

One has to question, why neither Lutsenko or Sanchez assumed the responsibility - or why the DS did not order it.
 
I still don't get the optimism. We will see but if he drops a minute on stage 6 I think Fuglsang can forget about any podium challenge. Sad due to a crash that wasn't his fault but that is reality. But even when not handicapped by bad luck I have never thought Fuglsang was a serious threat to the other GC favourites like Bernal, Pinot, Thomas, Nibali, A.Yates, or even Uran.

Week long races like Dauphine don't impress me when he has done nothing in Grand Tours since 2013 but now he's 34 years old. He won the 2017 Dauphine against Froome, Porte and Co but I never considered him any threat for the TdF then either. Meanwhile another two years of ageing has elapsed. Having said all this I wouldn't mind being proven wrong and would be the first to congratulate him.
 
"I thought about going witn Julian"...

Yeah, of course you did. Of course. But you decided not to, not because you wasn't able to, but because you chose not to.

This little injury sucks so much because thats yet another excuse if the potentially fails again. It reminds me of the later Contador-days on this forum
 
Re:

Valv.Piti said:
"I thought about going witn Julian"...

Yeah, of course you did. Of course. But you decided not to, not because you wasn't able to, but because you chose not to.

This little injury sucks so much because thats yet another excuse if the potentially fails again. It reminds me of the later Contador-days on this forum
What Jakob said was that he'd have to go really deep if he wanted to go with Alaphilippe, and that such an effort would definitely not be worth it this early in the Tour - just to get the context of what Jakob said for the non-danish forum members.

But really, had it not been for his knee injury, I would not be surprised if Jakob could have gone with him, seeing that he was consistently as strong, if not slightly stronger, than Alaphilippe during the spring this year.
 
Re: Re:

Broccolidwarf said:
Valv.Piti said:
"I thought about going witn Julian"...

Yeah, of course you did. Of course. But you decided not to, not because you wasn't able to, but because you chose not to.

This little injury sucks so much because thats yet another excuse if the potentially fails again. It reminds me of the later Contador-days on this forum

You just LOVE to hate Fuglsang :D

Yeah, that was a pretty harsh comment from Valv, I agree.
 
Just think its kind of a whack comment to make. Nobody could follow Alaphilippe, he was, as Longo Borghini said about Annemiek, a total alien yesterday. Miles stronger than anybody else. The gap he opened in that short amount of time on the climb was pretty insane, then went on to extend the gap on the flat roads. Its completely hypothetical to speculate about if he could follow him without the injures - maybe he could, maybe he couldnt. Thats completely irrelevant tho.
Bernal tried to follow in the start, then just gave up instantly.

My point is, Jacob is constantly doing this, playing the media and always having excuses if he doesnt succeed. He is suggesting that he CHOSE not to follow, but could have, which is in total contrast to him saying he is still just operating at 80-85% or something like that. Its just typical, thats all.
 
Re:

Valv.Piti said:
Just think its kind of a whack comment to make. Nobody could follow Alaphilippe, he was, as Longo Borghini said about Annemiek, a total alien yesterday. Miles stronger than anybody else. The gap he opened in that short amount of time on the climb was pretty insane, then went on to extend the gap on the flat roads. Its completely hypothetical to speculate about if he could follow him without the injures - maybe he could, maybe he couldnt. Thats completely irrelevant tho.
Bernal tried to follow in the start, then just gave up instantly.

My point is, Jacob is constantly doing this, playing the media and always having excuses if he doesnt succeed. He is suggesting that he CHOSE not to follow, but could have, which is in total contrast to him saying he is still just operating at 80-85% or something like that. Its just typical, thats all.

I fail to recall the myriad other incidents where Fuglsang has said that he could have followed an attack but chosen not to (and I can't really think of other situations where you could say equivalent white lies).

That said, I also don't think he could have followed Alaphilippe. He was an absolute missile yesterday.
 
Re:

Valv.Piti said:
Just think its kind of a whack comment to make. Nobody could follow Alaphilippe, he was, as Longo Borghini said about Annemiek, a total alien yesterday. Miles stronger than anybody else. The gap he opened in that short amount of time on the climb was pretty insane, then went on to extend the gap on the flat roads. Its completely hypothetical to speculate about if he could follow him without the injures - maybe he could, maybe he couldnt. Thats completely irrelevant tho.
Bernal tried to follow in the start, then just gave up instantly.

My point is, Jacob is constantly doing this, playing the media and always having excuses if he doesnt succeed. He is suggesting that he CHOSE not to follow, but could have, which is in total contrast to him saying he is still just operating at 80-85% or something like that. Its just typical, thats all.

Isn't Fuglsang the ONE guy who has been able to stay with Alaphilippe every race, all season?

Have you not watched the same races the rest of us have?

Either way, you know very well he elaborated in the same interview, that it would have made no sense in terms of the overall GC, to go with Alaphilippe, so whether he was able to or not is entirely besides the point.

As for you thinking Fuglsang is "playing the media", that just seems like extreme bias. He got asked the question, he answered it, what else do you want?

You have been on his case in here for years, every chance you get, however minute, you are there with your underhand comments that REALLY mean: "See, I told you he sucks".

It's getting old.
 
Toby: Im not arguing he uses that particular argument. Just saying he always has something up his sleeve: Nibali, Aru, bad team, dehydration, fish oil etc etc. Im just getting tired of it. Thats why I absolutely HATE that he crashed since everybody will fall back on the argument of the crash. Which may or may not be the case, we won't know if thats the reason for a potential timeloss, but either way it will be a totally legitimate argument. At least for this upcoming MTF. Unless he obviously says he doesnt feel the crash, but knowing Fuglsang, he will always have it up his sleeve. I would too in that case.

Broccoli: Yes he was, but dont tell me Alaphilippe isn't stronger than in Amstel at this very moment. He has never been known for his rouleur ability, always able to open a gap, but not necessarily maintaining it or even extending it to a fresh TdF-peloton. And going by Fuglsang words, how in the world would he be able to follow at 80% anyways?
 
Re:

Valv.Piti said:
Toby: Im not arguing he uses that particular argument. Just saying he always has something up his sleeve: Nibali, Aru, bad team, dehydration, fish oil etc etc. Im just getting tired of it. Thats why I absolutely HATE that he crashed since everybody will fall back on the argument of the crash. Which may or may not be the case, we won't know if thats the reason for a potential timeloss, but either way it will be a totally legitimate argument. At least for this upcoming MTF. Unless he obviously says he doesnt feel the crash, but knowing Fuglsang, he will always have it up his sleeve. I would too in that case.

I hate that he crashed for two reasons:

1) His chances of winning the Tour decreased - perhaps significantly.

2) Doubters (less reflective than you) will now, should he fail to win the Tour or make the podium, say that the crash is an illegitimate excuse for that, and that he had previously proven to being incapable of doing great things in the Tour, so that his is just same old, same old.
 
Maybe his explanation wasn't necessary but still the fact is he didn't have to follow. Just like the others - everybody knew what Ala is doing.
Nothing happened and real test of abilities is up to come soon. SStorm in a glass of water.
 
Re:

Valv.Piti said:
Just think its kind of a whack comment to make. Nobody could follow Alaphilippe, he was, as Longo Borghini said about Annemiek, a total alien yesterday. Miles stronger than anybody else. The gap he opened in that short amount of time on the climb was pretty insane, then went on to extend the gap on the flat roads. Its completely hypothetical to speculate about if he could follow him without the injures - maybe he could, maybe he couldnt. Thats completely irrelevant tho.

I don't think it was a planned statement. He was probably asked by a journalist if he thought he could have gone with Alaphilippe, and this is what he said. Considering that Fuglsang and Alaphilippe have been basically even during spring, his assessment sounds plausible.

My point is, Jacob is constantly doing this, playing the media and always having excuses if he doesnt succeed.

Most riders tend to do that. I once heard somebody say that if you don't have a good excuse for bad results, you're not a winner.
 

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