Le Tour 2018 stage 14: Saint-Paul-3-Ch. > Mende 188 km

[jaylew]

Re: Re:

I find this as a kinda funny/interesting situation. The top 4 TT riders and the 4 with the biggest question mark are thee leaders and the strongest at the moment.. But Thomas and Roglic are yet to prove that they can keep it up 3 weeks and Froome and Dumoulin can still be hit by the Giro.
Shame that ASO didnt make a proper mountain stage it the 3rd week.

They should start thinking about dropping Dumo, otherwise they are risking a lot with the final TT

I think not. Thomas lost '50 to Dumoulin, while being injured, in the Giro 2017 TT.

If he's fit he probably won't even lose 10/20 seconds. If the standings are like this going into the TT then Thomas wins the TDF. Froome might have to worry about his 2nd place though. Both Roglic and Dumo are better

Interesting that the best TTers among the GC guys (and almost the best TTers left in the race period) are the guys who are top 4 on GC before we've even had an ITT.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re: Re:

So it's between a track rider, a sick man, a former ski jumper and a Dutch guy named Dumoulin.

So, you're saying that Dutch guys named Dumoulin are kinda unusual for being GT contenders?

Afaik he isn't the first one

The only Dumoulins I could find were Tom, Samuel, and some Belgian dude named Mirando.

 

[Salvarani]

Re: Re:

I find this as a kinda funny/interesting situation. The top 4 TT riders and the 4 with the biggest question mark are thee leaders and the strongest at the moment.. But Thomas and Roglic are yet to prove that they can keep it up 3 weeks and Froome and Dumoulin can still be hit by the Giro.
Shame that ASO didnt make a proper mountain stage it the 3rd week.

They should start thinking about dropping Dumo, otherwise they are risking a lot with the final TT

I think not. Thomas lost '50 to Dumoulin, while being injured, in the Giro 2017 TT.

If he's fit he probably won't even lose 10/20 seconds. If the standings are like this going into the TT then Thomas wins the TDF. Froome might have to worry about his 2nd place though. Both Roglic and Dumo are better

Interesting that the best TTers among the GC guys (and almost the best TTers left in the race period) are the guys who are top 4 on GC before we've even had an ITT.

Maybe its about being resilient, ability to recover and having a big engine that makes for a good GT rider. While also still being a good climber...

 

[TourOfSardinia]

You could see the panache oozing out of Bernal at the finish.
That flavour we're now missing on the GC.
no Nibali
no Alberto
no Andy
...
bland flavourless athleticism

 

[yaco]

Re: Re:

Guess Movistar needs a couple more leaders.

Or simply better form and shape. Always doom and gloom on here.

Or a healthy Landa? They knew coming into the Tour Valverde had no intention on having any kind of form for this race. He's made it very clear that it's not one of his goals and that his plan all along was to save his 2nd peak for the Vuelta/Worlds combo at the end of the season instead of doing his normal 3 peaks for a season.

How many times can you remind us of Valverde peaking for the Vuelta.

 

[yaco]

not bad by quintana i'm sure he wants to win a stage,btw time of roglic 9.13 10 sec slower than epo time

How relevant is the timing for this climb when it was a coffee ride for the peleton.

 

[Lequack]

not bad by quintana i'm sure he wants to win a stage,btw time of roglic 9.13 10 sec slower than epo time

 

[yaco]

Re: Re:

I find this as a kinda funny/interesting situation. The top 4 TT riders and the 4 with the biggest question mark are thee leaders and the strongest at the moment.. But Thomas and Roglic are yet to prove that they can keep it up 3 weeks and Froome and Dumoulin can still be hit by the Giro.
Shame that ASO didnt make a proper mountain stage it the 3rd week.

They should start thinking about dropping Dumo, otherwise they are risking a lot with the final TT

Thomas won’t lose 1m 50 in that TT, it’s Dumoulin who needs to pull out time. He only put 13s into Froome in the slightly longer Giro TT, and trails him by 11s.

Obviously if Thomas cracks then Froome does need a few seconds.

Dumoulin is strongest in TT's that have a rolling parcours - Would expect him to put 30 seconds into froome and 40 seconds into Thomas - Expect Roglic could finish second of the GC contenders.

 

[Rollthedice]

I wonder what will Sky do to make Plan G loose about 2 minutes so that Froome can win his fourth GT in a row.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Re:

I wonder what will Sky do to make Plan G loose about 2 minutes so that Froome can win his fourth GT in a row.

mechanical

 

[mortand]

Re: Re:

The stage to Laruns is pretty hard. I generally agree though that this is a weird situation. There could be a lot of cracking and riders making big jumps forward in the third week. Looking at you mikel

Bad joke-alert:

Advantage Roglic then!

Sorry 'bout that. I'll get me coat.

 

[Son of Amsterhammer]

Sky having G lose time so Froome can win ain't happening. Dumo and Roggers too close now. Fight to the end for everyone. If Thomas Cracks a little and Roggers picks up some time here and there, we could be in for a quite amazing TT. Still...long way to go.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Re: Re:

I find this as a kinda funny/interesting situation. The top 4 TT riders and the 4 with the biggest question mark are thee leaders and the strongest at the moment.. But Thomas and Roglic are yet to prove that they can keep it up 3 weeks and Froome and Dumoulin can still be hit by the Giro.
Shame that ASO didnt make a proper mountain stage it the 3rd week.

They should start thinking about dropping Dumo, otherwise they are risking a lot with the final TT

I think not. Thomas lost '50 to Dumoulin, while being injured, in the Giro 2017 TT.

If he's fit he probably won't even lose 10/20 seconds. If the standings are like this going into the TT then Thomas wins the TDF. Froome might have to worry about his 2nd place though. Both Roglic and Dumo are better

Interesting that the best TTers among the GC guys (and almost the best TTers left in the race period) are the guys who are top 4 on GC before we've even had an ITT.

Yeah, the top 4 are the strongest ITT-ers and also the best climbers in the race. So the course is of no disadvantage or advantage of anyone.

But with Sky's team, it's hard to see them lose.
Roglic might be interesting in the podium battle by the way... he's not too far

 

[Escarabajo]

not bad by quintana i'm sure he wants to win a stage,btw time of roglic 9.13 10 sec slower than epo time

Hah!

But I think there have been some good reasons for other riders not performing at the top but still makes you wonder.

 

[hfer07]

not bad by quintana i'm sure he wants to win a stage,btw time of roglic 9.13 10 sec slower than epo time

Hah!

But I think there have been some good reasons for other riders not performing at the top but still makes you wonder.

To me this is the prove of the other Teams stepping up/not taking the SKY bs anymore on the "marginal gains department". What Roglic did was ET style

 

[sprints n stones]

Re: Re:

On Italian TV they are discussing the fact that Sagan can be competitive for WC in Innsbruck

No, but I for sure would like to see him target LBL some day

he ruled out trying to add monuments Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Il Lombardia to his palmarès.

“I’m almost 80 kilograms,” he said. “Don’t believe those that say 73-74, my in form weight varies between 78 and 79. How can I win those races?”

In any case he's already tried to focus on improving climbing in 2014-2015. It did not go well

Cool.

Does not mean he might reconsider some day, especially when he can prove to himself like today that he for sure can be up there in these type of stages which been very hard with a lot of ups and down. AGR from this year he was 4th also.

Again, he already tried.

His coach Patxi Vila talked about that. He does not have the physical potential to improve his climbing much, so when he lost 7kg in 2014-2015 his climbing only got a tiny bit better and his power on the flat suffered considerably. He won a weak Tour of California but Tinkov was otherwise calling him out for having worse results than before

I'd have thought it unlikely he would go for LBL. However, on the Ask Sagan feature on Eurosport a few days ago Sagan was asked would he ever target LBL or Il Lombardia. His answer was his choice would be LBL and he said something like "they change the course a bit sometimes so maybe would be possible". So he could be at the start line one year, with Sagan never say never.
Wouldn't have thought he'd have got 4th today. Couldn't believe it when the camera panned back at the finish line to see a green streak racing down.

 

[Lequack]

But I think there have been some good reasons for other riders not performing at the top but still makes you wonder.

I am guessing comparing times on such a short climbs is not that beneficial though as for example comparing the times on Alpe D'Huez.

 

[woodburn]

The fact there is only one summit finish left and it is on day of 65k stage is going to be very interesting. Figure Froome is going to attack and Thomas will sit on Tom. I just can't believe Thomas is going to give this Tour away when he probably is equal in the TT and just needs to hang on to Wednesday and avoid issues on the descents.

 

[woodburn]

But I think there have been some good reasons for other riders not performing at the top but still makes you wonder.

I am guessing comparing times on such a short climbs is not that beneficial though as for example comparing the times on Alpe D'Huez.

Also, the leaders were basically walking through the stage so riders were very fresh on the final hill.

 

[sprints n stones]

not bad by quintana i'm sure he wants to win a stage,btw time of roglic 9.13 10 sec slower than epo time

Hope Roglic continues to go well, picked him for 3rd. Voted Quintana for first and that's certainly not going to happen!

 

[Metal earth]

Re: Re:

The stage to Laruns is pretty hard. I generally agree though that this is a weird situation. There could be a lot of cracking and riders making big jumps forward in the third week. Looking at you mikel

Bad joke-alert:

Advantage Roglic then!

Sorry 'bout that. I'll get me coat.

I laughed

 

[Lequack]

Shame about Dan Martin having a technical just at the start of the climb and losing some more time.

 

[jaylew]

Re: Re:

I find this as a kinda funny/interesting situation. The top 4 TT riders and the 4 with the biggest question mark are thee leaders and the strongest at the moment.. But Thomas and Roglic are yet to prove that they can keep it up 3 weeks and Froome and Dumoulin can still be hit by the Giro.
Shame that ASO didnt make a proper mountain stage it the 3rd week.

They should start thinking about dropping Dumo, otherwise they are risking a lot with the final TT

I think not. Thomas lost '50 to Dumoulin, while being injured, in the Giro 2017 TT.

If he's fit he probably won't even lose 10/20 seconds. If the standings are like this going into the TT then Thomas wins the TDF. Froome might have to worry about his 2nd place though. Both Roglic and Dumo are better

Interesting that the best TTers among the GC guys (and almost the best TTers left in the race period) are the guys who are top 4 on GC before we've even had an ITT.

Yeah, the top 4 are the strongest ITT-ers and also the best climbers in the race. So the course is of no disadvantage or advantage of anyone.

I agree about the 1st 3, but Roglic hasn't been a top 4 climber to this point. He looked good today but it was really short climb. Bardet has climbed better so far, I'd say.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Bardet only climbed slightly better than Roglic on Alpe. They were equal on Rosiere, and today Roglic was better. So. Hmhm

 

[Red Rick]

Roglic will probably win about 15 minutes on Bardet in the ITT