TdF 2018 stage 3 TTT Cholet 35.5 km

[Leinster]

Re:

Top 5 more or less as expected, though Sunweb and Mitchelton are closer than I would have guessed - good rides by them.

Rides of the day for me:

EF and Astana, both delivering much better than expected, with the injuries they suffered.

Acceptable performances from Movistar, Bahrain, AG2R and Bora (Majka definitely riding GC).

Disappointing times by Katusha, Lotto NL, Trek and UAE.

I half expected UAE to lose 2 minutes or more, so I would say having Martin as close as he is, is a decent effort for them. He’ll still be a marked man on the Quimper and Mur de Bretagne stages, but he’ll be less of a threat to the heads of state.

 

[Juan Pelota]

Re: Re:

Who is most likely to be in yellow after stage 6?

G

Alaphillipe has a shot.

 

[Kwibus]

Re:

No **** QS made mistakes, they should be fined another 30 seconds - what the hell is their DS doing driving in front of riders when their team is imploding. Stay the **** back.

Woah.. Calm down there

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

Who is most likely to be in yellow after stage 6?

G

Alaphillipe has a shot.

Alaphilippe and Gilbert both have a shot at it in that stage. Although GVA could hold onto it through the cobbled stage.

 

[tobydawq]

Re: Re:

Much ado about nothing - Riders often have bad day or need 100+ kms to warm up their legs - You are in a TT and you have nowhere to hide - Expect sagan to be at the pointy end in tomorrow's final.

I was a little bit scared. There was info that he supposed to do 18 seconds pulls, and he was lucky to stay with team 10 km. I feel sorry for Majka a little bid. He needed this TTT to be much better.

Me too.

I have not seen him that bad except for in the fall of 2014 and usually he is so freaking consistent and is the rider that makes the others suffer in hilly TTTs - plus it's the first time ever he hasn't finished with the team in a TTT. So perhaps he really is sick. Tomorrow should be an easy day, and even sick he might still get involved in the sprint because he positions himself so effortlessly.

But he needs to be good Wednesday.

 

[Robert5091]

Good for Tommy D & Uran - Chapeau Craddock! Landa would be glad with a 2 second lead over Froome at the start of the day.

 

[Koronin]

Re:

Good for Tommy D & Uran - Chapeau Craddock! Landa would be glad with a 2 second lead over Froome at the start of the day.

From Landa's comments after the stage he is. He said if someone had told him before the Tour started that he'd have a 2 second lead on Froome after the TTT he'd have taken it and been happy as he was expensive to be about a minute behind Froome after the TTT. He said he considers the first 3 stages to be very good overall.

 

[Oude Geuze]

I heard today that Froome was doing 45sec pulls (the move podcast maybe?) Anyone know if that’s true? If so he must be feeling great. Good ride by TD also, he did some monster turns and is completely under the GC radar it seems, sneaking up on everyone and could easily get more time on some mountain goats before the week is over. In fact, the top 4-5 virtual GC guys are also amongst the strongest on cobbles and classics style racing. This years tdf is extremely well designed to favor a broad spectrum of abilities, although I suspects we’ll be left with the usual suspects come week 3.

A little side bet: How many minutes will Zakarin loose on the cobbles? Or will he dnf?

 

[del1962]

Re: Re:

Good for Tommy D & Uran - Chapeau Craddock! Landa would be glad with a 2 second lead over Froome at the start of the day.

From Landa's comments after the stage he is. He said if someone had told him before the Tour started that he'd have a 2 second lead on Froome after the TTT he'd have taken it and been happy as he was expensive to be about a minute behind Froome after the TTT. He said he considers the first 3 stages to be very good overall.

Landa will be even happier with his lead over Quintana :lol:

 

[del1962]

Re:

I heard today that Froome was doing 45sec pulls (the move podcast maybe?) Anyone know if that’s true? If so he must be feeling great. Good ride by TD also, he did some monster turns and is completely under the GC radar it seems, sneaking up on everyone and could easily get more time on some mountain goats before the week is over. In fact, the top 4-5 virtual GC guys are also amongst the strongest on cobbles and classics style racing. This years tdf is extremely well designed to favor a broad spectrum of abilities, although I suspects we’ll be left with the usual suspects come week 3.

A little side bet: How many minutes will Zakarin loose on the cobbles? Or will he dnf?

G felt he had much left in tank as he was on front on downhills, he could take another minute out of Froome on stage 9 :lol:

 

[Escarabajo]

Why did LottoNL-Jumbo do a poor time, as compared with others, having some of the best time trailers on the team?

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Good for Tommy D & Uran - Chapeau Craddock! Landa would be glad with a 2 second lead over Froome at the start of the day.

From Landa's comments after the stage he is. He said if someone had told him before the Tour started that he'd have a 2 second lead on Froome after the TTT he'd have taken it and been happy as he was expensive to be about a minute behind Froome after the TTT. He said he considers the first 3 stages to be very good overall.

Fully agree. Regular programming would have Froome up by a minute or more at this stage of the race and more over Bardet / Nibali. Froome is also going to have to deal with the Thomas factor. Does he work or does he not?

 

[Anderis]

Re:

Why did LottoNL-Jumbo do a poor time, as compared with others, having some of the best time trailers on the team?

Lotto's roster for TdF is not all that strong TT-wise, apart from Roglic.

 

[Escarabajo]

Re: Re:

Why did LottoNL-Jumbo do a poor time, as compared with others, having some of the best time trailers on the team?

Lotto's roster for TdF is not all that strong TT-wise, apart from Roglic.

I thought Kruijswijk and Gesink were decent time trialers. Oh well.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Re:

Why did LottoNL-Jumbo do a poor time, as compared with others, having some of the best time trailers on the team?

Lotto's roster for TdF is not all that strong TT-wise, apart from Roglic.

I thought Kruijswijk and Gesink were decent time trialers. Oh well.

In almost every team you would be able to find SOME decent time trialers. Even Cofidis has some TT power with Laporte and Herrada.
But to finish higher than lower mid-pack, you need a bit more than that.

The last season in which Gesink was consistently good in TTs was 2015.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

https://www.nu.nl/tour-de-france-2018/5355707/bedrijfsgeheim-van-dumoulin-en-sunweb-in-ploegentijdrit.html

So Sunweb also have the science part down. They know the aerodynamic and power values of their selected riders and put the data through a data simulation on the course of the TTT to calcualte the ideal setup. And then ride by that plan. They were happy to only lose 11 seconds to BMC with this particular team set-up.

Interesting stuff.

 

[Broccolidwarf]

Re: Re:

Why did LottoNL-Jumbo do a poor time, as compared with others, having some of the best time trailers on the team?

Lotto's roster for TdF is not all that strong TT-wise, apart from Roglic.

I thought Kruijswijk and Gesink were decent time trialers. Oh well.

In almost every team you would be able to find SOME decent time trialers. Even Cofidis has some TT power with Laporte and Herrada.
But to finish higher than lower mid-pack, you need a bit more than that.

The last season in which Gesink was consistently good in TTs was 2015.

So how do you explain Astanas ride yesterday?

 

[Anderis]

Re: Re:

Why did LottoNL-Jumbo do a poor time, as compared with others, having some of the best time trailers on the team?

Lotto's roster for TdF is not all that strong TT-wise, apart from Roglic.

I thought Kruijswijk and Gesink were decent time trialers. Oh well.

In almost every team you would be able to find SOME decent time trialers. Even Cofidis has some TT power with Laporte and Herrada.
But to finish higher than lower mid-pack, you need a bit more than that.

The last season in which Gesink was consistently good in TTs was 2015.

So how do you explain Astanas ride yesterday?

They just did well to maximise what they had.

Fuglsang is in good TT form, as shown in Tour de Suisse.
Gruzdev once finished 6th in WC ITT.
Kangert has always been solid TT-er.
Valgren can also be good on a good day and he's grown into an exceptional all-around rider recently.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

LottoNL had the quality but just started to slowly. They admitted they were too careful

 

[Leinster]

Re:

https://www.nu.nl/tour-de-france-2018/5355707/bedrijfsgeheim-van-dumoulin-en-sunweb-in-ploegentijdrit.html

So Sunweb also have the science part down. They know the aerodynamic and power values of their selected riders and put the data through a data simulation on the course of the TTT to calcualte the ideal setup. And then ride by that plan. They were happy to only lose 11 seconds to BMC with this particular team set-up.

Interesting stuff.

Short of winning the stage by a big margin, I think finishing 11s down was the best result Sunweb could have hoped for. No yellow jersey to defend, flying under the radar, but negligible time loss at this point.

Don’t suppose you could provide a good translation of the article, it sounds interesting.

 

[del1962]

You have to think that if the steppers hadn't blown apart they could have won the TTT

 

[kiszol]

Re: Re:

https://www.nu.nl/tour-de-france-2018/5355707/bedrijfsgeheim-van-dumoulin-en-sunweb-in-ploegentijdrit.html

So Sunweb also have the science part down. They know the aerodynamic and power values of their selected riders and put the data through a data simulation on the course of the TTT to calcualte the ideal setup. And then ride by that plan. They were happy to only lose 11 seconds to BMC with this particular team set-up.

Interesting stuff.

Short of winning the stage by a big margin, I think finishing 11s down was the best result Sunweb could have hoped for. No yellow jersey to defend, flying under the radar, but negligible time loss at this point.

Don’t suppose you could provide a good translation of the article, it sounds interesting.

I've got no translation, but I'd be happy with one too.
If you check Sunweb's FB there's a 3 min video about the TTT with some interesting details about this simulation stuff as well. Worth watching!