Still think its misunderstood Porte is prone to bad days. He really isn't and I think he can win this Tour and not just by an outside shot, this guy is for real.
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Great ride by Porte and I expect him to be the favorite to win the Dauphine and a strong contender in the Tour.
You do have to look at the time gaps relative to his competition, though. Tony Martin was below par today; if Martin had been 30 seconds faster, would we be saying the same things about Porte's performance?
You do have to look at the time gaps relative to his competition, though. Tony Martin was below par today; if Martin had been 30 seconds faster, would we be saying the same things about Porte's performance?
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Considering the amt of time he put into Froome and Pistoleros, yes it was impressive.DanielSong39 said:
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I think the answer to your question is yes. The indicator is Porte Vs the GC rivals not Porte Vs a TT specialist. In any case Martin wasn't that bad. But Porte still needs to confirm his early season climbing in the coming stages. Lets see if he hasn't traded climbing strength in a quest to improve his TT.
DanielSong39 said:
I think the answer to your question is yes. The indicator is Porte Vs the GC rivals not Porte Vs a TT specialist. In any case Martin wasn't that bad. But Porte still needs to confirm his early season climbing in the coming stages. Lets see if he hasn't traded climbing strength in a quest to improve his TT.
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Even Porte himself said he would rather be climbing well than TTing well but his TT has been up and down so he must be happy about yesterday's performance. I don't think GVA will be a problem for Porte as he still has seven other riders and if he wins a stage early in the race he might then settle into a domestique role for Porte. It's the MTFs and the TTs that will decide the race as usual but they just have to keep Porte out of trouble as much as possible in the first week especially when he sometimes has issues. the last thing he wants in this type of form is another mechanical or puncture where he has no assistance but sometimes that can just come down to luck. It's all in the timing especially when the peloton is moving fast. You never want to puncture with 5 kms to go with the breakaway being chased down hard.
Cookster15 said:
Even Porte himself said he would rather be climbing well than TTing well but his TT has been up and down so he must be happy about yesterday's performance. I don't think GVA will be a problem for Porte as he still has seven other riders and if he wins a stage early in the race he might then settle into a domestique role for Porte. It's the MTFs and the TTs that will decide the race as usual but they just have to keep Porte out of trouble as much as possible in the first week especially when he sometimes has issues. the last thing he wants in this type of form is another mechanical or puncture where he has no assistance but sometimes that can just come down to luck. It's all in the timing especially when the peloton is moving fast. You never want to puncture with 5 kms to go with the breakaway being chased down hard.
So my favourite little-man is already peaking at the beginning of June? Isn’t that too early? The hardest Tour stages are 6 weeks from now. And if not, he will win the Tour by 30min ... but I still believe he will crack because he peaked too early or will have one of those "Little Richie Misfortunes".
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He's been in decent form since January and he's probably gonna get even better.
Jancouver said:
He's been in decent form since January and he's probably gonna get even better.
He is always very impressive in the first big mountain stage. Let's see what he is capable in the next stages
There are a lot of descents in this years Tour ...today must give him confidence that he can stay with his rivals on them all ...because todays must be the hardest
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This is turning into some Hamilton vs Armstrong kind of ***, in a good way!
HelloDolly said:
This is turning into some Hamilton vs Armstrong kind of ***, in a good way!
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Sounds like a one-way friendship to me, at least until Froome lets Porte win a Tour.Netserk said:
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More impressive stuff from Ritchie today. Until today I wasn't sure how good Porte was going downhill. I guess we now know. He seems to be in the best shape of his career if he can hold or even build on this for the 3rd week of the Tour. But I think Froome bounced back today he will lose that puppy fat by next month.
lbennie said:
More impressive stuff from Ritchie today. Until today I wasn't sure how good Porte was going downhill. I guess we now know. He seems to be in the best shape of his career if he can hold or even build on this for the 3rd week of the Tour. But I think Froome bounced back today he will lose that puppy fat by next month.
Porte sounds pretty confident he'll be able to hold off the charging Dawg. You just never know with Froome
Good thing for the race is that Porte doesn't seem content with defending his lead. It seems he really, really wants to drop Froome 1on1.. if he can
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So how good is he going downhill? He didn't impress me for sure. If Fuglsang wasn't there, Froome would've gaped him easily.
Cookster15 said:
So how good is he going downhill? He didn't impress me for sure. If Fuglsang wasn't there, Froome would've gaped him easily.
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Even if Froome picked up some time it wouldn't have been that much and Froome sat on Porte's wheel for the entire climb. So it's pretty obvious who is stronger at the moment and descents are not going to to decide the Tour.
Blanco said:
Even if Froome picked up some time it wouldn't have been that much and Froome sat on Porte's wheel for the entire climb. So it's pretty obvious who is stronger at the moment and descents are not going to to decide the Tour.
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I didn't argue who's stronger, I saw it was Porte. I asked how is he going downhill, cause to me it looks like he's going not so good.
And you don't know what's going to decide Tour, maybe exactly descents, you just don't know...
movingtarget said:
I didn't argue who's stronger, I saw it was Porte. I asked how is he going downhill, cause to me it looks like he's going not so good.
And you don't know what's going to decide Tour, maybe exactly descents, you just don't know...
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Porte is a more cautious descender but that doesn't mean he is a bad one and that descent was trickier than most.
Blanco said:
Porte is a more cautious descender but that doesn't mean he is a bad one and that descent was trickier than most.
Yeah, that's what I've been talking about, cautious descenders usually aren't a good ones 
As I said earlier, without Fuglsang he would've been gaped, just like Contador was...
As I said earlier, without Fuglsang he would've been gaped, just like Contador was...
I wonder if little Ritchie will ever realize he's not a sky dom anymore ? He paced his buddy up the mountain and was repaid by Froome trying to put him into the barrier .
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