Tour 2018 stage 20: St P-S-Nivelle - Espelette 31km ITT

[Hugo Koblet]

Re: Re:

Lol! Thomas gifted the stage to Froome only to find out the time keeping has been trolling.

Of all people, a poster with the handle of Hugo Koblet shouldn't be
surprised by deceitful ITT time-keeping at the Tour de France!!

Haha that's true! I don't remember the story very well though. Wasn't it Koblet who layed down a protest again Bobet or someone?

 

[tretiak]

Re:

I think Thomas tried to gift Froome the stage

A team order I think.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Thomas did not gift ***. Stop the lies. Thomas lost too much time on the climb (look at 28km, that's the speed of the climb)

 

[movingtarget]

Thomas hit the wall on the climb. He went out too fast then he rode the descents like Zakarin to play it safe.

 

[Escarabajo]

Re:

Some other facts, apart from Thomas and Froome no GC contender within 1 minute.
Most lose 1:30 or more.

And this was a tough rolling time trial. Like I said, if there's a hilly TT in the Tour, or 2, no climber is going to be even close to Sky or Dumoulin

Dekker, this is our mistake and we do this every year. We speculate based on what happened this year only to be wronged again the following. So many things can change.

I am happy for Dumoulin and Roglic. At least we have new blood bringing it to Sky. And very strong because they looked very solid in the mountains. Not sure if Thomas will bring this level again this year. Especially when Froome will be so focused for the Tour. I personally prefer the climbers as an outsiders so they have more freedom and bring more spectacle than just following the big diesels in the mountains. I can tell you that with these new studs in the Tour the dynamics is going to change for the better. My 2 cents.

 

[Blanco]

Re: Re:

On itv Tom D looks super happy, first time I’ve seen him like that..

Dude beat Froome and Thomas in a time trial after 2 super hard GT's. I think he has right to be happy

This was not counted as such a feat just couple of weeks ago...

 

[oldcrank]

Re: Re:

Lol! Thomas gifted the stage to Froome only to find out the time keeping has been trolling.

Of all people, a poster with the handle of Hugo Koblet shouldn't be
surprised by deceitful ITT time-keeping at the Tour de France!!

Haha that's true! I don't remember the story very well though. Wasn't it Koblet who layed down a protest again Bobet or someone?

Exactly. The first results showed the Frenchman Bobet winning by 1 second :surprised:
but after protesting the results were amended to Koblet winning by 59 seconds.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

So what's gonna change? If the climbers get dropped on each stage by the rouleurs..? They are going to magically climb better? Think not.

 

[Robert5091]

Thanks to Gee locking up his back wheel, I've got a nice coffee stain on the couch ... close!

Tommy D - chapeau! With very little team help, 2 nd in Giro & Tour.

The Sky Juggernaut rolls on ... zzzzzzz ... "They'll be singing in the vallies tonight". SDB must be glad in a way that Dawg did not win - the questions would never stop.

 

[Escarabajo]

Re:

So what's gonna change? If the climbers get dropped on each stage by the rouleurs..? They are going to magically climb better? Think not.

They can be let go if the lose enough time in the flat or there are more ITT kilometers. Among other scenarios.
Pressure goes off on them from the get go. That sometimes can do wonders to riders.

This year might not be the best example but climbers in better shape (No cobbles) is better for the spectacle even if they don't win. I didn't say they were going to win but the dynamics can change. One of those mountain goats can drag one of those diesels as well. They might not win it but decide races a la Contador. And there are probably other scenarios.

If they decide to put 2 ITT's then race is over for all mountain goats from the beginning. They have to learn to TT but that not always have worked out for them.

You don't have to agree with me but that's how I see it. And that's how it used to happened in the past.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Interesting stuff from Van Erp (sunweb science guy) at dutch tour show.

They showed the pacing plan for Dumo:
https://imageshack.com/a/img921/9092/yCwgyt.png

100% is full, yellow is near limit, 75% is just over limit. 50% is rest. Dumoulin himself said he started a bit easier though, so probably a bit more red in the end

Van Erp also said a few things about the position of other riders:
-Quintana: Arms are too far apart, which is not very aerodynamic
-Zakarin: Good position, but moves around too much on the bike
-Roglic: very good position, and does what you should do in a tt, look ahead, then move head down for more streamline

 

[arvc40]

Re:

some fans seem to be quite obsessed about little pocket-size pantani-like climber destroying all-rounders uphill and conquering the tour with blistering mountain solos. not gonna happen, ladies and genlemen. not in the tour, at least. the sport a long ago got completely calculated where it's all down to pure watts.

This !

 

[woodburn]

Re:

The only three pure climbers to win in the past 40 odd years have been Van Impe, Pantani and Sastre. Winners have mostly been good at both disciplines and some of the climbers even further back could still do a decent TT. Not sure how good Bahamontes and Gaul were at the TT. I think Gaul was not too bad.

Schleck? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. He was an awful TTer but, man, could he climb and he didn't typically have big off days in his prime other than 2011 into Gap.

 

[Red Rick]

Interesting stuff from Van Erp (sunweb science guy) at dutch tour show.

They showed the pacing plan for Dumo:
https://imageshack.com/a/img921/9092/yCwgyt.png

100% is full, yellow is near limit, 75% is just over limit. 50% is rest. Dumoulin himself said he started a bit easier though, so probably a bit more red in the end

Van Erp also said a few things about the position of other riders:
-Quintana: Arms are too far apart, which is not very aerodynamic
-Zakarin: Good position, but moves around too much on the bike
-Roglic: very good position, and does what you should do in a tt, look ahead, then move head down for more streamline

That was really cool. He also said Dumoulin didn't listen on the first part

I really wonder what it is cause arm positioning should be the easiest thing to get right. It's not like you need to be very flexible at all to get them in the right position.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

I always think the hardest part is sitting still. I have aero bars for my road bike and can hold myself in that position. But I move around more than Zakarin. :lol:

 

[del1962]

Interesting stuff from Van Erp (sunweb science guy) at dutch tour show.

They showed the pacing plan for Dumo:
https://imageshack.com/a/img921/9092/yCwgyt.png

100% is full, yellow is near limit, 75% is just over limit. 50% is rest. Dumoulin himself said he started a bit easier though, so probably a bit more red in the end

Van Erp also said a few things about the position of other riders:
-Quintana: Arms are too far apart, which is not very aerodynamic
-Zakarin: Good position, but moves around too much on the bike
-Roglic: very good position, and does what you should do in a tt, look ahead, then move head down for more streamline

That was really cool. He also said Dumoulin didn't listen on the first part

I really wonder what it is cause arm positioning should be the easiest thing to get right. It's not like you need to be very flexible at all to get them in the right position.

is that Quintana after his crash, or his general position

 

[Vesica]

Another fun fact (from the same Dutch Tour show): the difference between Froome and Dumoulin after Giro + Tour, 42 stages, over 6500 km of racing...13 seconds in advance of Froome. Insane.

 

[Escarabajo]

Re: Re:

The only three pure climbers to win in the past 40 odd years have been Van Impe, Pantani and Sastre. Winners have mostly been good at both disciplines and some of the climbers even further back could still do a decent TT. Not sure how good Bahamontes and Gaul were at the TT. I think Gaul was not too bad.

Schleck? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. He was an awful TTer but, man, could he climb and he didn't typically have big off days in his prime other than 2011 into Gap.

Schleck was a climber because he chose to be that way. With his height it is not appropriate to call him a mountain goat!

 

[woodburn]

Re: Re:

The only three pure climbers to win in the past 40 odd years have been Van Impe, Pantani and Sastre. Winners have mostly been good at both disciplines and some of the climbers even further back could still do a decent TT. Not sure how good Bahamontes and Gaul were at the TT. I think Gaul was not too bad.

Schleck? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. He was an awful TTer but, man, could he climb and he didn't typically have big off days in his prime other than 2011 into Gap.

Schleck was a climber because he chose to be that way. With his height it is not appropriate to call him a mountain goat!

I suppose. Hard to argue there were many better climbers this century. For all the love about Bernal, people forget Andy was second in the Giro at age 21.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Well. With all I've seen from Bernal this year, with full Sky support he could've been top 3 in either Giro or Vuelta.

They chose to have him domesique in the TDF though. No chance of Vuelta now

 

[woodburn]

Re:

Well. With all I've seen from Bernal this year, with full Sky support he could've been top 3 in either Giro or Vuelta.

They chose to have him domesique in the TDF though. No chance of Vuelta now

It's possible. Will never know. Maybe next year. Andy was also arguably the top climber in 2008 Tour but was forced to work for brother and Sastre. Similar to Bernal. Lot of similar comparisons.

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

Well. With all I've seen from Bernal this year, with full Sky support he could've been top 3 in either Giro or Vuelta.

They chose to have him domesique in the TDF though. No chance of Vuelta now

It was the right call for the team especially with Poels not being at his best and Moscon getting kicked off the race. Different pressures for domestiques and team leaders and great domestiques don't always become even good GT leaders. Sky win two of the three grand tours. Another good year. Bernal will get his chance when he's a bit more seasoned which makes sense.

 

[dastott]

Along with many in this forum, I thought it was the wrong move to take Bernal to the Tour but he and Sky proved us wrong. Without him Froome probably wouldn't have made the podium, and G benefited too. I was hoping he would get a leadership role at the Vuelta instead. Now it seems that De La Cruz will get that, almost by default.