Tremendous tour for Alaphilippe. Two stage wins and a top 5 in GC, many days in the yellow jersey, and he should receive the most combative award for the Tour overall.
-
The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to
In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.
Thanks!
Top 10 for Barguil? I take it back, one of the worst TDFs ever. Who on earth allowed that to happen...
Re:
Supposedly the best climber in the world according to this forum. King of nothing sh it attackswoodburn said:
Re:
I have a very hard time seeing whats so wrong with that. Barguil has been pretty decent this Tour.Pantani Attacks said:
German TV celebrating Buchmann. The guy just sat in the group all day today, tried a little dig for a few seconds, and that was the highlight of his tour. They are celebrating him as if he just won the tour. I get the need to hype the leading German rider who finished 4th, but c'mon, he didn't do anything significant during this tour.
Buchmann and Steven were clearly close to their limit and could have lost sizeable time if they'd gone into the red and popped. The chance of any action was lost the moment Alaphillipe was dropped.
I think we can be extra confident that Bernal would have beaten Steven and Buchmann by at least 40 seconds yesterday even if the stage hadn't been curtailed. Funny to hear the UK commentators convince themselves that Steven would unleash hell in the final km!
I think we can be extra confident that Bernal would have beaten Steven and Buchmann by at least 40 seconds yesterday even if the stage hadn't been curtailed. Funny to hear the UK commentators convince themselves that Steven would unleash hell in the final km!
BullsFan22 said:
Can forgive him a bit because he's at the pointy end of a GT for the first time but yeah, the most anonymous 4th place I can remember.
Speaks to the low quality of this tour without froome or big tom, for better or worse.
The winner attacked once and the other time was a quarter effort. That’s it, you have Landa attacking from 7 minutes behind and G half hearted attacks. That’s it for the whole tour and you want target a kid ?BullsFan22 said:
He did well, his first top 10 in a gt.TomLPC said:
Once again Mühlberger was at his best in the high mountains, he outlasted every domestique but freaking Poels.
I don't think criticising Buchmann is fair, if you'd have said that he'd be 4th when the Tour started, everyone would say that was an amazing effort.
Re: Re:
As said, Valvarde held off his attack till the 500 meter point, and got within 8 seconds...... so Landa could easily have made it, if he had the legs.
As for me being mentally lacking - be careful you don't get yourself a ban buddy
Hayabusa said:Broccolidwarf said:LOL - sure he did - for 5 seconds
Are you that mentally lacking that you don't get that Landa attacked far too late to win?
Sure if the stage was 1km longer then you have a point but he literally waited to attack till he had no chance to win.
As said, Valvarde held off his attack till the 500 meter point, and got within 8 seconds...... so Landa could easily have made it, if he had the legs.
As for me being mentally lacking - be careful you don't get yourself a ban buddy
Re:
They could have won the stage and Bernal the KOM but didn't want to risk Thomas' second place and maybe waited for Buchmann or Kruijswijk to do something.
Escarabajo said:
They could have won the stage and Bernal the KOM but didn't want to risk Thomas' second place and maybe waited for Buchmann or Kruijswijk to do something.
TomLPC said:
It's really weird how, for a great tour, the top 15 has so many anonymous riders, being harsh, only 4 of them have really done anything beyond follow wheels
Manny Buchmann one of the revelations of the Tour, he should be commended considering his team was not ideal for his goal. Give him an Ineos or Jumbo team and he might well have jumped up a few more spots. Ready to wash my hands with Kruijswijk, it appears Roglic is the only one on the team with some guts.
mb2612 said:
I don't see anything wrong in following wheels. If you are clearly not the strongest rider in the peloton what are you supposed to do. By attacking you don't achieve anything and it probably results in getting dropped earlier. I am more than a sure that if a rider feels 110% on a day and clearly sees that he is stronger than is rivals, then he is for sure going to attack.
It's a shame that the race ended anticlimactically, which may dampen some people's enthusiasm for what has been one of the most open Tours in years (and also, the fact that the widely unpopular Ineos team did a 1-2 after everything that came before will leave a sour taste in many people's mouths), but it couldn't be helped - this was a lot like the Monte Zoncolan stage of the 2014 Giro or Mont Vonteux in the 2009 Tour; the best climber among the heads of state group already had the jersey (I hesitate to say in the race, because for most of the race I believe Pinot was the best climber, but obviously he is no longer in the race, and Bernal's performances in the last three days had shown him to be the best of those that remained - just a real shame Pinot wasn't there because even had he not gone with Bernal yesterday, I'd have doubted he'd have not made it into the Thomas/Kruijswijk group, so he would have been duking out the podium and might have made things more aggressive, but shoulda woulda coulda, and while he may have led to a more exciting stage today, I sincerely doubt he'd have made a dent in Bernal's lead, so it would have come down to Thomas, who looked far more comfortable in the Alps than he did in the Pyrenees), and so none of the others had the belief they could take the time required, amongst any who may or may not have had the legs - and clearly most of them didn't as we saw moves made from a few different tertiary contenders who weren't able to really go anywhere. Alaphilippe dropping so early also rather sounded the death knell for an exciting stage, because whether or not he could hold on was one of the main pre-stage narratives; his dropping so early, but there being such a big gap from Buchmann in 5th to Landa in 6th on the GC so that Landa didn't feel incentivized to attack earlier (or if he did, didn't have the legs to despite Movistar trying to set things up with Oliveira and Soler) hurt things.
Of course, there will always be a huge quantity of "what ifs" around a Grand Tour; it's three weeks of racing, and while that does give maximum opportunity to even out the bad luck (as opposed to a one-day race, where a single puncture or being caught behind a split ruins the entire race), there will probably be more "what ifs" attached to this Tour than most of the last few years' TDFs, because of its open nature.
What if stage 19 had been run to its conclusion? What if Roseland was passable and we got a fuller final stage - would Alaphilippe have dropped earlier, would the pace have been lower? Would Movistar have tried something creative again? What if Pinot had been fit to ride on through stages 19 and 20? What if Landa hadn't been knocked over in stage 10 and lost 2 minutes? What if the crosswind split hadn't happened at all? What if Ineos had instructed to stick to Thomas as plan A today (probably a moot point as Poels was still there, of course)? What if Wout van Aert hadn't crashed in the ITT? What if Simon Yates had withdrawn from the Giro early and targeted this race, seeing as he mistimed his form so badly in Italy and proved one of the best climbers in the Tour? What if Quintana had told the team he wasn't up to it earlier on the Tourmalet stage? What if they'd annulled the stage 19 time gaps and cancelled it entirely (possibly a moot point as Alaphilippe obviously cracked early today)?
While you can say that it's silly to run through all these hypotheticals, the thing is: the more unanswered questions and hypotheticals there are within a race like that, the better. It creates longer-running narratives. We never saw Pinot and Bernal go at it in peak form - one was strongest in the Pyrenees, one was strongest in the Alps. It's something to be enthused by for future editions. Alaphilippe turned into a GT rider - is he a Voeckler-like flash in the pan story, or might he be able to become a GC rider 'for real' - especially at a race like the Vuelta which has lots of climbs that are more suited to his style? A good competition that leaves unanswered questions is good for the sport because it will draw the audience back for more. All too often in recent years, we've come out of the Tour without such questions, because victory has been emphatic. Here, the right man may have won, assuming Bernal makes it to the line on the Champs Elysées (the strongest man to complete the whole race), but the situation around the race, both things within it and external to it, means that there is intrigue when these guys line up against each other again.
Of course, there will always be a huge quantity of "what ifs" around a Grand Tour; it's three weeks of racing, and while that does give maximum opportunity to even out the bad luck (as opposed to a one-day race, where a single puncture or being caught behind a split ruins the entire race), there will probably be more "what ifs" attached to this Tour than most of the last few years' TDFs, because of its open nature.
What if stage 19 had been run to its conclusion? What if Roseland was passable and we got a fuller final stage - would Alaphilippe have dropped earlier, would the pace have been lower? Would Movistar have tried something creative again? What if Pinot had been fit to ride on through stages 19 and 20? What if Landa hadn't been knocked over in stage 10 and lost 2 minutes? What if the crosswind split hadn't happened at all? What if Ineos had instructed to stick to Thomas as plan A today (probably a moot point as Poels was still there, of course)? What if Wout van Aert hadn't crashed in the ITT? What if Simon Yates had withdrawn from the Giro early and targeted this race, seeing as he mistimed his form so badly in Italy and proved one of the best climbers in the Tour? What if Quintana had told the team he wasn't up to it earlier on the Tourmalet stage? What if they'd annulled the stage 19 time gaps and cancelled it entirely (possibly a moot point as Alaphilippe obviously cracked early today)?
While you can say that it's silly to run through all these hypotheticals, the thing is: the more unanswered questions and hypotheticals there are within a race like that, the better. It creates longer-running narratives. We never saw Pinot and Bernal go at it in peak form - one was strongest in the Pyrenees, one was strongest in the Alps. It's something to be enthused by for future editions. Alaphilippe turned into a GT rider - is he a Voeckler-like flash in the pan story, or might he be able to become a GC rider 'for real' - especially at a race like the Vuelta which has lots of climbs that are more suited to his style? A good competition that leaves unanswered questions is good for the sport because it will draw the audience back for more. All too often in recent years, we've come out of the Tour without such questions, because victory has been emphatic. Here, the right man may have won, assuming Bernal makes it to the line on the Champs Elysées (the strongest man to complete the whole race), but the situation around the race, both things within it and external to it, means that there is intrigue when these guys line up against each other again.
Seriously. Strongest climber in the lead with the strongest team on a not too steep climb is always boring
Re: Re:
Probably best not to rub too much salt in the wounds of the locals after the past couple of days.
I’d have loved to see him show once again why he was the strongest in this final week, but it was job done with the 1-2.
KZD said:
Probably best not to rub too much salt in the wounds of the locals after the past couple of days.
I’d have loved to see him show once again why he was the strongest in this final week, but it was job done with the 1-2.
TRENDING THREADS
-
-
Liege Bastogne Liege-7 hour monument, Sunday, April 21, 2024- Started by topcat
- Replies: 985
-
Paris - Roubaix 2024, one day monument, April 7- Started by Dreginald
- Replies: 2K
-
-
-
De Ronde van Vlaanderen (270.8 km), 2024 March 31 (Sunday)- Started by Netserk
- Replies: 1K
-
Teams & Riders The Remco Evenepoel is the next Eddy Merckx thread- Started by DNP-Old
- Replies: 24K
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram