Teams & Riders Tom Dumoulin discussion thread

[Blanco]

Re: Re:

Underestimating Nibali, which is almost always the case especially on these forums is good. He mostly delivers when he is not the top favorite. That said Tom looks to be the man to beat followed closely by Yates.

Yes, Roglic has to be considered too now though. Those 3 are definitely the favorites. TD deserves to be the top favorite, but he's not going to win this race easily.

Alot depends on their respective teams
Bahrain, SKY, Lotto V and MS have very strong lineups to help win the Giro
Sunweb would have to bring Kelderman,Oomen, KA, Bakelants and Roche which would mean all their eggs in the one Giro basket

No love for Movistar? Landa, Valverde, Carapaz should all be there. That's one hell of a team! One of them will be at least a podium contender...

 

[kiszol]

Re: Re:

Alot depends on their respective teams
Bahrain, SKY, Lotto V and MS have very strong lineups to help win the Giro
Sunweb would have to bring Kelderman,Oomen, KA, Bakelants and Roche which would mean all their eggs in the one Giro basket

1) Dumoulin proved at every GT he seriously challenged for the win that he doesn't need a SKYlike dominating team to have a chance of victory. If he has 1-2 good climbing domestiques and 1-2 good other helpers that's perfectly enough for him. Heck, he won the 2017 Giro without a single good climbing domestique as Kelderman crashed out early!

2) Sunweb won't put all its eggs in the Giro basket. Kelderman and Bakelants will be there with Tom, but the others are for the Tour I think. The Tour team will be all star however as Dumoulin, Kelderman, Oomen, Roche, Kragh Andersen and Matthews will all be part of the team. Anyway, the Giro team should be strong enough for Tom, not worse than last year's team, not to mention the one in 2017.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Interesting stuff from an interview with Algemeen Dagblad:

-He was still a bit too heavy in the spring (71kg), but he usually struggles to be on 'GT' weight in that period. He says ideally in a GT he's between 69 and 70kg
-He says he wasn't bad, his time trial was good, his explosiveness was good and his climbing was good. But good isn't enough, it needs to be top obviously. So he just needs that little bit extra
-About the opponens he sees 5/6 main challengers who all have won a lot or shown a lot this season (you can fill in who). The interviewer asks about Roglic specifically, he says while Roglic has done very well he still has beaten him more than the other way around (fair enough in GT's I guess).
-He says that winning a GT isn't about being the best physically. It's a giant puzzle of food, training, rest and recovery and he is 'darn good' at that puzzle.
-He says GT's have something heroic with stages day after day and long gruelling rides, and the added fatigue at the end of a grand tour. He is totally against shortening GT's. The extra week is what makes GT's so special, and it's what makes the mythical.

 

[Salvarani]

Some good points.

Man I am looking forward to the Giro starting soon

 

[Red Rick]

Interesting stuff from an interview with Algemeen Dagblad:

-He was still a bit too heavy in the spring (71kg), but he usually struggles to be on 'GT' weight in that period. He says ideally in a GT he's between 69 and 70kg
-He says he wasn't bad, his time trial was good, his explosiveness was good and his climbing was good. But good isn't enough, it needs to be top obviously. So he just needs that little bit extra
-About the opponens he sees 5/6 main challengers who all have won a lot or shown a lot this season (you can fill in who). The interviewer asks about Roglic specifically, he says while Roglic has done very well he still has beaten him more than the other way around (fair enough in GT's I guess).
-He says that winning a GT isn't about being the best physically. It's a giant puzzle of food, training, rest and recovery and he is 'darn good' at that puzzle.
-He says GT's have something heroic with stages day after day and long gruelling rides, and the added fatigue at the end of a grand tour. He is totally against shortening GT's. The extra week is what makes GT's so special, and it's what makes the mythical.

He's making good points, and it sounds good for the Giro.

Generally this spring was actually his best even if he was outgunned by a few riders in Tirreno. Him beating Roglic in a pan flat ITT which Dumo doesn't really like was a good sign imo.

Really think Dumoulin will put a decent bit of time into Roglic in the Giro ITTs too.

Anyone know what Dumoulin's weight was in the Vuelta 2015, and Tour of 2018 and Giro of 2017 and 2018?

 

[Mayomaniac]

I think he'll have one of the stronger teams at the Giro. Oomen and Bakelans are have some experience and have finished top 10/top 20 in a gt before and the young Aussie trio has potential, those 3 can rotate a bit as climbing domestiques.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

in the Vuelta 2015 he was 72kg (down from 74kg he was as pure TT specialist), then 68kg in tour 2018 (lowest ever). around 70/71kg in both giro 2017/2018. Eea he was lighter in the TDF last year than in the Giro.
But one of the explanations was he needed the extra weight or "base" to not be completely empty with the demanding course of the Giro.

And in hindsight, they were right, look at how emtpy Pinot and Yates were. It's a trade off between being sharp and being healthy. I think that's also what he means with the 'puzzle'.

Sure, he can do into the Giro weighting 68kg and limit the damage better to Yates/Bernal in pure mountain stages. But would he then be able to go to the end?

 

[HelloDolly]

Re:

in the Vuelta 2015 he was 72kg (down from 74kg he was as pure TT specialist), then 68kg in tour 2018 (lowest ever). around 70/71kg in both giro 2017/2018. Eea he was lighter in the TDF last year than in the Giro.
But one of the explanations was he needed the extra weight or "base" to not be completely empty with the demanding course of the Giro.

And in hindsight, they were right, look at how emtpy Pinot and Yates were. It's a trade off between being sharp and being healthy. I think that's also what he means with the 'puzzle'.

Sure, he can do into the Giro weighting 68kg and limit the damage better to Yates/Bernal in pure mountain stages. But would he then be able to go to the end?

I think Dumoulin weight trajectory is fine this year
I think people think as we have seen with SKY that skinny is best but it does not always translate into performance
The Giro is backended so riding into form/weight is best
I think his main rivals are Roglic, Yates & Nibali ...I think its a little early yet for Bernal and 3 Weeks

The winner will be the rider who stays the course best ...and that for me is Dumoulin
Yates will outclimb him but not enough and Roglic will probably lead alot of the race but not the end imo
Nibali is the big threat at the end but Dumoulin will prevail

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

To me it's hard to gauge. I think Yates and Bernal are going to be the biggest threats in the mountains. Roglic is good everywhere, Nibali is the biggest danger in the 3rd week. My hope is Dumoulin is the most consistent over three weeks, and the best in the time trials. But even that is not a given.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

in the Vuelta 2015 he was 72kg (down from 74kg he was as pure TT specialist), then 68kg in tour 2018 (lowest ever). around 70/71kg in both giro 2017/2018. Eea he was lighter in the TDF last year than in the Giro.
But one of the explanations was he needed the extra weight or "base" to not be completely empty with the demanding course of the Giro.

And in hindsight, they were right, look at how emtpy Pinot and Yates were. It's a trade off between being sharp and being healthy. I think that's also what he means with the 'puzzle'.

Sure, he can do into the Giro weighting 68kg and limit the damage better to Yates/Bernal in pure mountain stages. But would he then be able to go to the end?

I think the difference was that he lost weight during the Vuelta and 2017 Giro and they decided to stay on weight as long as possible in the 2018 Giro, thus getting much more consistent performances. I don't remember the development during the Tour, but in 2017 his best days were better and his worse days were worse, and I really don't have a frigging clue if he can put out Giro wattage on Tour weight.

To me it's hard to gauge. I think Yates and Bernal are going to be the biggest threats in the mountains. Roglic is good everywhere, Nibali is the biggest danger in the 3rd week. My hope is Dumoulin is the most consistent over three weeks, and the best in the time trials. But even that is not a given.

Fully expecting Roglic to win the prologue and then get soundly beaten by Dumoulin in the other 2 TTs.

Bernal clearly needs to be a level he hasn't shown before, and with him going very hard in both PN and Catalunya I'm not sure how possible that is. Yates I have no clue. Nibali should actually do very well in the TTs too but I think the Bahrain TT bikes aren't the best.

I think Dumoulin is the default favorite and the weak team is the bigger problem than the mountains.

 

[Lequack]

Re:

To me it's hard to gauge. I think Yates and Bernal are going to be the biggest threats in the mountains. Roglic is good everywhere, Nibali is the biggest danger in the 3rd week. My hope is Dumoulin is the most consistent over three weeks, and the best in the time trials. But even that is not a given.

Bernal is out of the Giro. Although I think you're underestimating MAG, he has already beaten both Bernal and Yates already this year.

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

To me it's hard to gauge. I think Yates and Bernal are going to be the biggest threats in the mountains. Roglic is good everywhere, Nibali is the biggest danger in the 3rd week. My hope is Dumoulin is the most consistent over three weeks, and the best in the time trials. But even that is not a given.

Bernal is out of the Giro. Although I think you're underestimating MAG, he has already beaten both Bernal and Yates already this year.

He won a race without ITT because the others were looking at each other in one stage.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

MAL loses way too much time in silly *** especially in a 3 week Tour.

I have him in a CQ team so i wouldn't mind but I don't see him as the main opponent

 

[movingtarget]

Roglic and Dumoulin should be the top choices for the Giro. The lesser TT riders have to win the mountain stages and win them by a decent margin to have any hope at the overall and you rarely see such one sided mountain stages these days. No doubt Lopez is an improved rider but it's rare for the best climbers to improve their TT by a good margin. Some do. Andy Schleck and Quintana never managed it. Remains to be seen if Yates has improved enough even though recent shorter races indicate he has but racing TTs in a three week race is another matter. . Yates is probably the main danger to the other two. Been a while since Nibali has looked great in a grand tour but the team seem very happy with his preparation. Bernal not starting won't change the podium battle too much. Still a very good field.

 

[Robert5091]

Re:

Roglic and Dumoulin should be the top choices for the Giro.

I'd say Dumoulin can do the longer climbs slightly better then Roglic but otherwise they're both contenders.

 

[HelloDolly]

Many writing Dumoulin off after today maybe are not seeing the bigger picture
Dumoulin has come from altitude training and has not raced much
He is also going for the double this year and I think Wiggo was correct when he said Dumoulin has learnt from Froome and come under cooked

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

I don't get it either. I mean:

#Giro102, Stage 1. SAN LUCA (2.10 km, 9.71 %, 204 m) Primoz Roglic: 6:06, 20.66 Kph, VAM 2007 m/h Tom Dumoulin: 6:23, 19.74 Kph, VAM 1917 m/h Miguel Angel Lopez: 6:25, 19.64 Kph, VAM 1908 m/h

Yeah Roglic went thermonuclear and Yates went a few seconds faster. But other than that, his climb at least was fine.
If you can critique him it's that he clearly went too slow / careful at the flat part. But his climbing form is up there with the best.

Roglic is a problem but that's nothing new. Everyone and his mother knew that before the Giro. Roglic wins everything lately.

 

[Ripper]

Re:

I don't get it either. I mean:

#Giro102, Stage 1. SAN LUCA (2.10 km, 9.71 %, 204 m) Primoz Roglic: 6:06, 20.66 Kph, VAM 2007 m/h Tom Dumoulin: 6:23, 19.74 Kph, VAM 1917 m/h Miguel Angel Lopez: 6:25, 19.64 Kph, VAM 1908 m/h

Yeah Roglic went thermonuclear and Yates went a few seconds faster. But other than that, his climb at least was fine.
If you can critique him it's that he clearly went too slow / careful at the flat part. But his climbing form is up there with the best.

Roglic is a problem but that's nothing new. Everyone and his mother knew that before the Giro. Roglic wins everything lately.

Exactly. Hmmmmmm

 

[Winnen]

Re:

I don't get it either. I mean:

#Giro102, Stage 1. SAN LUCA (2.10 km, 9.71 %, 204 m) Primoz Roglic: 6:06, 20.66 Kph, VAM 2007 m/h Tom Dumoulin: 6:23, 19.74 Kph, VAM 1917 m/h Miguel Angel Lopez: 6:25, 19.64 Kph, VAM 1908 m/h

Yeah Roglic went thermonuclear and Yates went a few seconds faster. But other than that, his climb at least was fine.
If you can critique him it's that he clearly went too slow / careful at the flat part. But his climbing form is up there with the best.

Roglic is a problem but that's nothing new. Everyone and his mother knew that before the Giro. Roglic wins everything lately.

But if you compare his performance with Yates and MAL then this is worse then expected. I mean, how many people predicted MAL to be in front of TomD yesterday? So if you can't take time on your strongest discipline, how can you expect to beat these guys in the end. And fully agree on Roglic, he is superb at this moment. The good thing about that is that everybody is now already forced to be aggresive. Including TomD. Hoping for a Froome like performance is the last week!

 

[Valv.Piti]

So, Red Rick......

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

So, Red Rick......

 

[kiszol]

Re: Re:

But if you compare his performance with Yates and MAL then this is worse then expected. I mean, how many people predicted MAL to be in front of TomD yesterday? So if you can't take time on your strongest discipline, how can you expect to beat these guys in the end. And fully agree on Roglic, he is superb at this moment. The good thing about that is that everybody is now already forced to be aggresive. Including TomD. Hoping for a Froome like performance is the last week!

Well, it wasn't expected from Tom to obliterate the field in this TT. Yes, perhaps lots of us thought he might win but the realistic expectation was to limit the losses to Roglic to ~10 sec and give ~10-20 sec to the other contenders. He performed worse than that but not by much. And he felt okay which is more important. He was satisfied with himself, what suggests that he is not in his peak form yet as he came a bit undercooked deliberately and HE KNOWS THAT. He expected to perform subpar in this TT. Let's see how will his form be in the second TT and in the third week.

As for how can he beat the climbers if he can't beat them in TT: Firstly, he will beat them soundly in the other two TTs. Secondly, everyone seems to forget that Dumoulin is a superb climber and a very consistent one. He was the fastest climber in last year's Giro, even faster than Froome. Froome was better in the downhill portions of the Finestre stage.

 

[Blanco]

Re: Re:

But if you compare his performance with Yates and MAL then this is worse then expected. I mean, how many people predicted MAL to be in front of TomD yesterday? So if you can't take time on your strongest discipline, how can you expect to beat these guys in the end. And fully agree on Roglic, he is superb at this moment. The good thing about that is that everybody is now already forced to be aggresive. Including TomD. Hoping for a Froome like performance is the last week!

Well, it wasn't expected from Tom to obliterate the field in this TT. Yes, perhaps lots of us thought he might win but the realistic expectation was to limit the losses to Roglic to ~10 sec and give ~10-20 sec to the other contenders. He performed worse than that but not by much. And he felt okay which is more important. He was satisfied with himself, what suggests that he is not in his peak form yet as he came a bit undercooked deliberately and HE KNOWS THAT. He expected to perform subpar in this TT. Let's see how will his form be in the second TT and in the third week.

As for how can he beat the climbers if he can't beat them in TT: Firstly, he will beat them soundly in the other two TTs. Secondly, everyone seems to forget that Dumoulin is a superb climber and a very consistent one. He was the fastest climber in last year's Giro, even faster than Froome. Froome was better in the downhill portions of the Finestre stage.

Very funny stuff :lol:

 

[kiszol]

Well, it's a fact. He did all the climbs combined in the shortest time during the race. Faster than Lopez and Froome, and obviously faster than the impoding Yates and Pinot. The same could be said for the Tour with the exception of Thomas who was faster than Tom. I'm not saying Dumoulin is the best climber in the world as he isn't but with his consistency he can gain time in the mountains over almost any other rider. He rarely has a bad day and when he does it is not that bad as other's bad days. If you disagree I'm ok with that but the facts remain facts.

 

[Gigs_98]

Dumoulin is great at limiting his losses uphill but when he has to drop other riders it might get problematic for him. The 2nd time trial comes pretty soon so his shape won't have entirely changed by then, and while the last TT comes on stage 21, that stage is pretty short.
It's not like dumoulin lost all chances to win but I still rate his chances clearly lower now than I did two days ago