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Teams & Riders Tom Dumoulin discussion thread

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If he does a good Mur de Bretagne and good Roubaix stage, which I think he will. Thinks suddenly look really nice.

I still think he'll have somewhat of a breakdown in week 3. But he might save an unlikely top 5
I hope for a few days of yellow now. Would be nice 29 years after Breukink
 
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Dekker_Tifosi said:
If he does a good Mur de Bretagne and good Roubaix stage, which I think he will. Thinks suddenly look really nice.

I still think he'll have somewhat of a breakdown in week 3. But he might save an unlikely top 5
I hope for a few days of yellow now. Would be nice 29 years after Breukink
Why? Everyone expected him, Jungels and Thomas to come out on top after these 9 days. They are the most complete riders on the best TTT-teams. For them to stand a chance in this race, they need to put time into Froomey, Nibali, Porte, Movistar etc. The problem has always been the Alps which are extremely hard and to a lesser extent the Pyrenees.
 
I presume currently the general level of Dimoulin and Froome is considerably higher than Bardet, Nibali, Landa and other Tour contenders. They are the riders of exclusive quality, so both finishing at top-5 would be rather logical than sensational.
 
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dacooley said:
I presume currently the general level of Dimoulin and Froome is considerably higher than Bardet, Nibali, Landa and other Tour contenders. They are the riders of exclusive quality, so both finishing at top-5 would be rather logical than sensational.
Agree, wouldn't be surprised if Dumoulin finished top-5 at all. I still consider Froome to be on a different level, at least when it comes to doing the double. Tom is on uncharted territory.
 
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Valv.Piti said:
dacooley said:
I presume currently the general level of Dimoulin and Froome is considerably higher than Bardet, Nibali, Landa and other Tour contenders. They are the riders of exclusive quality, so both finishing at top-5 would be rather logical than sensational.
Agree, wouldn't be surprised if Dumoulin finished top-5 at all. I still consider Froome to be on a different level, at least when it comes to doing the double. Tom is on uncharted territory.
This. Dimoulin is the best time trialist in the world and somewhere close to Froome at dosing effort and pacing himself uphill. The latter is quite possibly is a key skill in modern high-tech cycling, because wiping out the whole field with a courage of sparkling repeated attacks is getting increasingly harder.
 
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Jspear said:
I think he'll crack hard in the 3rd week. He's a big guy...it's probably going to be harder for him to keep a high high level of form to compete in two consecutive gt's.
The one time iv'e seen Dumoulin crack, was in the last stage of a Vuelta (unprepared!) vs Aru, Quintana, Valverde, Landa, Chaves and Rodriguez. This isn't a guy who's going to crack when he's prepared for a race. His engine is big enough for two GT's, but mentally is more important than physical. So Froome has the advantage in that department, perhaps.
 
For people who think he wasn't good because he was with Kragh Andersen after the mechanical. Nope.

Dumoulin said he felt good which is why today stunk so bad. He said there was a movement in the peloton and he had nowhere to go so he hit somebody's back wheel (Bardet) and he broke all his spokes. He switched wheels with Geschke and just went from there. No word about the time penalty (but i don't think he was informed at the time of the interview)
 
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Dekker_Tifosi said:
For people who think he wasn't good because he was with Kragh Andersen after the mechanical. Nope.

Dumoulin said he felt good which is why today stunk so bad. He said there was a movement in the peloton and he had nowhere to go so he hit somebody's back wheel (Bardet) and he broke all his spokes. He switched wheels with Geschke and just went from there. No word about the time penalty (but i don't think he was informed at the time of the interview)

I heard somebody found a voodoo doll by the roadside. It had "Dumoulin" scrawled on the forehead and pins stuck in it.
 
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Baldinger said:
Dekker_Tifosi said:
For people who think he wasn't good because he was with Kragh Andersen after the mechanical. Nope.

Why would anyone think that? Kragh Andersen is able to set a massive pace on a hill like that.

Yeah, I really would have liked to see him (Kragh) go for it on that finale. He looked very good yesterday but was positioned badly at the bottom.
 
Re:

Dekker_Tifosi said:
For people who think he wasn't good because he was with Kragh Andersen after the mechanical. Nope.

Dumoulin said he felt good which is why today stunk so bad. He said there was a movement in the peloton and he had nowhere to go so he hit somebody's back wheel (Bardet) and he broke all his spokes. He switched wheels with Geschke and just went from there. No word about the time penalty (but i don't think he was informed at the time of the interview)

Maybe he felt good and as he is an honest guy it's probably true but he still conceded 20 seconds on the climb to Dan Martin and even around 15 seconds to a somewhat struggling Froome. Why couldn't he go faster? The headwind? Or the last 3 km was too exhausting for him? It doesn't look very promising for the mountains anyway. I think it's a worrying sign and combined with the quick loss of two of his best helpers (Kelderman and Matthews) and with the 70 seconds (with the penalty) lost yesterday his chances for a good result seems to be very slim now. I hope that I'm wrong on this btw.
 
Re: Re:

kiszol said:
Dekker_Tifosi said:
For people who think he wasn't good because he was with Kragh Andersen after the mechanical. Nope.

Dumoulin said he felt good which is why today stunk so bad. He said there was a movement in the peloton and he had nowhere to go so he hit somebody's back wheel (Bardet) and he broke all his spokes. He switched wheels with Geschke and just went from there. No word about the time penalty (but i don't think he was informed at the time of the interview)

Maybe he felt good and as he is an honest guy it's probably true but he still conceded 20 seconds on the climb to Dan Martin and even around 15 seconds to a somewhat struggling Froome. Why couldn't he go faster? The headwind? Or the last 3 km was too exhausting for him? It doesn't look very promising for the mountains anyway. I think it's a worrying sign and combined with the quick loss of two of his best helpers (Kelderman and Matthews) and with the 70 seconds (with the penalty) lost yesterday his chances for a good result seems to be very slim now. I hope that I'm wrong on this btw.
He had already been chasing a bit, which really ruins your climbing time on a short hill.

Do we have an exact number of the time gap at the foot of the hill?
 

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