State of the peloton 2022

[Libertine Seguros]

Having the Vini Zabù logo on their shorts and the fluoro touches at the Giro is of course a huge red flag, but we don't need to dub them CSF Groupe Gobert just yet.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Wanty is overperforming like crazy

Look into their doctor

 

[The Hegelian]

It's been a very non-nuclear Giro. To the degree that.....it probably needs a blood bag or two somewhere to give some extra kick.....

 

[SafeBet]

On par with Carthy whom he clearly beat yesterday. And I think both of them lost time to Leemreize on the final climb, not to mention how they were blasted by Buitrago.

Carthy is a proven GT rider. Hirt, while being a very talented climber, never showed the recovery required to be a factor over three weeks.
On top of his stage win and his very solid performance yesterday he now sits 7th in GC, which would be by far his best ever result in a Grand Tour (at 31).
Weak field and everything, but this is too much of an outlier to not raise an eyebrow.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Carthy is a proven GT rider. Hirt, while being a very talented climber, never showed the recovery required to be a factor over three weeks.
On top of his stage win and his very solid performance yesterday he now sits 7th in GC, which would be by far his best ever result in a Grand Tour (at 31).
Weak field and everything, but this is too much of an outlier to not raise an eyebrow.

At least in GTs Hirt has pretty much always been only notable in the 3rd week. It's the first week where he always looses lots of time.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Having the Vini Zabù logo on their shorts and the fluoro touches at the Giro is of course a huge red flag, but we don't need to dub them CSF Groupe Gobert just yet.

I mean, if Hirt had also won today and would produce more mountain raids on the final 2 stages we might as well call him Jan Sella...

 

[Roku]

Carthy is a proven GT rider. Hirt, while being a very talented climber, never showed the recovery required to be a factor over three weeks.
On top of his stage win and his very solid performance yesterday he now sits 7th in GC, which would be by far his best ever result in a Grand Tour (at 31).
Weak field and everything, but this is too much of an outlier to not raise an eyebrow.

It's completely the opposite, Hirt's strength lies at recovery and the third week. He is one of the best riders in the peloton in terms of endurance. Check his past performance and you will see a clear pattern, his results massively improve as weeks go by. Even when underperforming he gets up there in the hardest stages on third week. He has usually done strong races in Switzerland after riding the Giro as well. His third week this year is consistent with what he has shown in the past. Comparisons with Sella do not make any sense.

The only real outlier in Hirt's performance is how good he climbed the first week, which was better than his standards.

Regarding Wanty, I agree they are overperforming as a team and we could argue they are well "equipped", but they are far from notorious cases like Saunier Duval, CSF-Navigare or even Europcar. Worst case scenario, I put it on par with a 2020 Sunweb/DSM kind of performance, and I think that collective performance was much more weird than this one.

Kristoff, Pasqualon and Pozzovivo are on track with their usual performances.

Wanty have been very lucky as well. For instance, take Hermans finishing second in Liege, which is a bit deceiving in terms of strength displayed on the race. He was maybe the 10/11th strongest rider, was dropped for good on Roche aux Facons but there was a regrouping and benefited from there. It's much more conceivable Hermans finishing 11th than 2nd.

 

[SafeBet]

It's completely the opposite, Hirt's strength lies at recovery and the third week. He is one of the best riders in the peloton in terms of endurance. Check his past performance and you will see a clear pattern, his results massively improve as weeks go by. Even when underperforming he gets up there in the hardest stages on third week. He has usually done strong races in Switzerland after riding the Giro as well. His third week this year is consistent with what he has shown in the past. Comparisons with Sella do not make any sense.

The only real outlier in Hirt's performance is how good he climbed the first week, which was better than his standards.

I stand corrected on recovery then.

 

[roundabout]

Hermans finishing 11th would still be rather suspect.

Hermans rather comfortably outsprinting the rest is suspect anyway.

 

[Red Rick]

Carthy is a proven GT rider. Hirt, while being a very talented climber, never showed the recovery required to be a factor over three weeks.
On top of his stage win and his very solid performance yesterday he now sits 7th in GC, which would be by far his best ever result in a Grand Tour (at 31).
Weak field and everything, but this is too much of an outlier to not raise an eyebrow.

It's funny cause I consider Carthy's Vuelta podium a big, big fluke.

 

[Mayomaniac]

It's funny cause I consider Carthy's Vuelta podium a big, big fluke.

Looks like I'm not the only one who does.
Carthy can finish top 10 in a gt, but that podium was the definition of punching above his weight..

 

[Fergoose]

The five man break crawling up the final climb was lovely to behold. Even with a Bahrain stage win I remain very happy with what I'm seeking on GC and in the breaks. All we need now is some entertainment.

 

[PhiLiz]

This bianual Hindley super peak deserves its own thread...

 

[therealthing]

The way he was charging up that climb was ridiculous

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Bora got a good program going. They were flying in 2019 and again this year. Vlasov and Hindley now 3rd and 4th best gc riders in the world. And higuita winning all the time. Kamna at a huge level and Haller even won a bunch sprint yesterday

 

[yaco]

It's too much for me - I've read three weeks of whinging about the lack of competitiveness at the Giro, but yet, when one of the three strongest riders wins a stage by just over a minute, then all hell breaks loose.

 

[PhiLiz]

Did about 6.5w/kg on the last climb.

Passo Fedaia - Marmolada (5,3km; 11,11%; 589m)

2022 | 18'50min | Hindley
2008 | 20'05min | Pozzovivo
2002 | 20'20min | Perez Cuapio
2001 | 20'30min | Simoni, 3 riders
2000 | 18'48min | Casagrande, Garzelli
1998 | 18'52min | Pantani, Guerini
1996 | 18'27min | Zaina - RECORD

https://twitter.com/x/status/1530592816119926786

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/i/web/status/1530592816119926786

 

[Mayomaniac]

Did about 6.5w/kg on the last climb.

Passo Fedaia - Marmolada (5,3km; 11,11%; 589m)

2022 | 18'50min | Hindley
2008 | 20'05min | Pozzovivo
2002 | 20'20min | Perez Cuapio
2001 | 20'30min | Simoni, 3 riders
2000 | 18'48min | Casagrande, Garzelli
1998 | 18'52min | Pantani, Guerini
1996 | 18'27min | Zaina - RECORD

https://twitter.com/x/status/1530592816119926786

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/i/web/status/1530592816119926786

It has to be said that 2008 was the only other time that Fedaia was used as a MTF.

 

[Netserk]

To be fair, you could not have scripted better circumstances for a fast time. Two previous days were quite easy, today's stage was slow until Fedaia, and it was the only time other than 2008 as a MTF. I think they did the first part of Fedaia at a moderate pace as well, and then Sivakov really blasted the steep part.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Still it was a great piece of climbing at the end of long GT at pretty high elevation. Currently very few guys could achieve a VAM in high 1800s for almost 20 minutes: Pogacar, Roglic and maybe Yates'.

 

[Nick2413]

Still it was a great piece of climbing at the end of long GT at pretty high elevation. Currently very few guys could achieve a VAM in high 1800s for almost 20 minutes: Pogacar, Roglic and maybe Yates'.

It comes across as a single stage boost rather than that the capability was there this whole tour. Would make sense given how the tactics have played out thus far at least, unless he really was just avoiding pink that much.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

It comes across as a single stage boost rather than that the capability was there this whole tour. Would make sense given how the tactics have played out thus far at least, unless he really was just avoiding pink that much.

Maybe but even the Slovenians can't produce such outputs day in day out, only sometimes.

 

[Rackham]

It was a Pog-esque performance.

It's not the single day aspect which makes it remarkable, it's the context: last mountain stage on the last Saturday after a 3 week GT.

The execution was perfect & the blow to Carapaz was massive. It was wild because Carapaz actually made Sivakov lay the foundations for an attack which he was about to launch just as Hindley countered him. Then the tempo set by Kämna was just far too much for Carapaz to endure & he exploded.

Anyway, it's promising for future GT's (because Hindley has now 'arrived' as a contender) & also for the spectacle this summer, i.e. I might always be one of the first to jump into the clinic after some nuclear attack but as a spectator there's always a fascination for perfect performances - especially from climbers in a GT.

Hindley in that respect was a remarkable display yesterday in terms of his riding style & efficiency. It was like osmosis between a rider & his bike aka when a rider reaches a form of cycling tantra.

 

[Red Rick]

May be a hot take, but the effect of the 3rd week on the top performances in a GT are vastly overrated. It's really normal that the biggest watt bombs drop around the end of the 2nd week or in the 3rd. It's the tiring riders that get dropped that really go down, but the ones still good still drop their best performances.

Fedaia gradient is perfect for a high climbing performance. They did low watts all day before, then they blasted the very bottom too. Every thing inch perfect for high W/kg from the best climber, while many of the others exploded because they held on too long.

The factor that's more crazy than "third week" is the fact that it's at 1700m average altitude, and I'm not super sure how to compare it to a ~30 minute 6.5W/kg climb at 1100m average altitude.

 

[Nick2413]

Maybe but even the Slovenians can't produce such outputs day in day out, only sometimes.

That’s why it doesn’t seem legit at all. Everyone’s surprised he waited this long to do anything as if he’s held back but to me it seems more like something shady happened specifically for this day, especially given everyone else was distanced significantly and not just Carapaz, and the numbers were a major outlier.