Le Tour 2018 stage 17: BDL to Saint-Lary-Soulan 65k

[Jagartrott]

If its the first 20 riders at front of grid, I can see krusher going up the road for Roglic with one of the Movistar guys. They need to get SKY working from the start as most people have said. This will test G's mettle today, if he gets through this stage unscathed, I can't see him losing this race, then it's a race for 2nd and 3rd between Dumo and Froome. I can't see Roglic or any of the Movistar lot to make any difference. Hope it isn't a borefest though.

I was surprised Sky didn't send Bernal up the road yesterday. In the big breakaway, he would've entered the top-20 and thus be part of the first cohort of riders. Now Froome and Thomas have no-one in direct support. Of course, probably no-one of relevance will try anything at the start, playing in the hands of Sky once again.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

So still no information about the gaps between the groups?

 

[RattaKuningas]

Re:

So still no information about the gaps between the groups?

If there are no gaps between the groups, I hope that at least the road in the start would be narrow, which would make it harder to come to the front from the last groups.

 

[spalco]

Re:

So still no information about the gaps between the groups?

No gaps AFAIK, couple of seconds at most. There was an article on cyclingnews explaining the procedure in more detail, but I can't find it immediately.

 

[Laplaz]

Who is the most likely to attack right from the start? I'll go with Landa, Fuglsang, D. Martin and Kru. And maybe Zaka.

 

[s.i.]

Chris Froome will win this bike race.

Hoping to see Landa try something like last years short stage. Although this one is shorter and harder. And if I remember correctly it was Contador who initiated that attack.

 

[Savant12]

Demare to vanish from our screens right from the start but still finishes within the time limit.

 

[Rollthedice]

Re:

I hope Movistar goes all-out from the get-go. Don't make the Skybots bar perhaps Bernal return and have Froome and Thomas work themselves. If they turn out the strongest, c'est la vie, but don't let them dictate today's race.

On the first climb Kwia can drop all of Movi bar the three amigos until he steps aside, then it's Bernal, then it's Poels. Inevitable.

 

[Red Rick]

Col de Portet

Finestre's less evil lil bro

 

[Frihed89]

AlaphIlIppe goes for 3 stage wins to start his legend. Why not? Sky can't afford to let any of the other contenders get away early. Froome can't afford to let Thomas get away. Thomas can't afford to let Froome get away. Who?

 

[saganftw]

bernal,thomas and froom to finish top 3 gewiss-ballan style

 

[yaco]

The start will be chaos because the breakaway riders who start in the middle of the peleton will be charging forwards which will make for an exciting start.

 

[wirral]

Re:

The start will be chaos because the breakaway riders who start in the middle of the peleton will be charging forwards which will make for an exciting start.

The commissaires' eyes will need to be everywhere. Riders will be stealing a few yards all over the place. If you want to have an idea of the professional racing cyclist's idea of line discipline, reflect on how they deal with level crossings in Northern France and Belgium (and the commissaires' enabling weak response).

 

[Eyeballs Out]

Demare to vanish from our screens right from the start but still finishes within the time limit.

As far as I can work out, the time limit today is the same as for ITTs ( = 25% regardless of pace). Which is pretty generous. In a normal short mountains stage it would be about half that. So Demare (and everyone else) should be ok to contest the sprint tomorrow

 

[Pricey_sky]

Edited the OP to include profiles and climbs.

I hope this stage delivers, but I don’t hold my breath, Froome has to drop Thomas here if he wants to win his 5th Tour.

 

[Forever The Best]

Re: Re:

This is the day that Froome will make his Giro-like performance and win the Tour. At least I hope so, we need something to happen to salvage an absolutely horrible Tour.

It has been better than 2016 and 2017 so far.....

I dont know what to expect. I would be glad if I at least got to see a blow out on the last climb, but Im not sure. Bernal, Poels and Kwiatkowski are so incredibly strong its not even funny

Hmm, 2017 wasn't that bad though. The stages to Chambery and Foix were very good. It was probably better than this one till now.

 

[ontheroad]

The gaps between groups will not be sufficiently big enough to deter early attacks.

I'd expect Valverde, Kruiswijk and possibly even Quintana to go up the road from the beginning from GC whilst Alaphilipe and Barguil will also probably be there for polka dot points. It will be a strong enough group if they can get themselves organised together and work against the likely Sky train behind.

Sky meanwhile will just grind out a strong tempo for the entire stage in a bid to keep the breakaway under control. They will rotate their riders to take 10km pulls until Froome and Thomas are left standing and then it will get interesting. I'd expect Froome to close down any late attacks and it just depends whether Thomas is able to follow or not. If he is then it is very likely Thomas will win the tour.

 

[spalco]

If he has the legs to do it, I'm hoping for Froome to attack on the second climb and do the descent alone. That would make things exciting.

Small chance, I know...

 

[Red Rick]

Either

Nothing happens until the last climb, and Kwiat and Castro bring back any long range attacks by secondary GC riders

Or

Sky isolate Dumoulin really early, and Froome attacks from far, and forces him to chace Froome while Thomas is laughing on his wheel. The only risk for this is that Kruijswijk might do the work for Roglic then.

 

[Lance Armstrong]

Demare's time will be the limit. So you just have to beat Demare to make sure you stay in the race.

 

[muppetkokken]

Will a break be able to do much on such a short stage even though it got some hard climbs?

 

[skippo12]

Re:

Demare's time will be the limit. So you just have to beat Demare to make sure you stay in the race.

Yeah...but you need at a big advantage going into the final climb because he will be faster than the best GC guys.

 

[Taxus4a]

Today I expect an exhibition by Landa, once he is better of his backpain-

Quintana maybe will go crazy for the begining.

Thomas will lose 1 minute at least with the first.

I think the podium will be Froome, Landa, Domoulin.

Friday lot of things could happen, even Thomas could lose 10 minutes.

But today start a new Tour and stiil everything could happen.

 

[Finn84]

Philippe Gilbert is out of the race following yesterday's crash.

 

[glassmoon]

Re: Re:

Demare will be 57 minutes behind on top of the first climb but will manage to finish just inside the time limit once again.

Démare is perhaps candidate for
- the most solo riden kilometers
- the only rider whose biceps is bigger AFTER the tour

He's still in the race? WTF? What a farce, what a disgrace

Why is it a farce? Did he make the time limit? Yes. Did you see him cheat? No.

? is, why we didn't see him cheating