Tour de France 2015 Stage 15: Mende-Valence 183km

[Frosty]

Anyone knows anything about Kennaugh,is sick or what? He's going backwards from some days

Dunno, i have noticed that too.

On a similar note, has Erviti crashed earlier in the tour or been ill? He has often been a long way behind too.

 

[Arnout]

So why is Lars Bak not riding? Someone should punch him.

 

[Linkinitouille]

Re:

What would the time limit be on a stage like this? One third of the way through and the Cavbus is at 5 minutes. The rate of time loss should decrease on the downhill but then grow again on the uphill. Not that many back there to work if letour is to be believed - is it a bigger group than 11?

Roughly 19-20 minutes.

 

[Hakkapelit]

Re:

So why is Lars Bak not riding? Someone should punch him.

Protecting the intrests of the Greipel in the Green jersey competiton surely

 

[Arredondo]

Re: Re:

If you ask me, Purito going in the break to collect a handful of KOM points with the Alps coming is pretty ***. There's only two cat 4 climbs and one cat 2, no telling if the break is going to survive for that long.

No it's not ***. Far from it.

Froome has the jersey signed sealed and delivered. He is going to get 50 points on Alp d'Huez and Rodriguez will get 0. He could also pick up another bunch of points on Stage 19. So let's assume he does that, he's going to have an 80 point lead on Purito.

If Purito wants this jersey, he needs to pick up points today if at all possible, he needs to pick up 10 points tomorrow and he is going to need to be in the breakaway on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and pick up points on the climbs Froome won't pick points up on and there's a huge chance anyway that those climbs in the middle of those stages could be contested by GC people if everyone takes it up to Sky. So Purito needs any point he can if he wants this jersey. Otherwise it's Froome's.

Any point now is going to help. If he picks up 5 points today by cresting the cat 2 climb first, then that's 5 points. That's a a big help.

Unless you can climb with the GC favourites, the only way you can win the Polka Dot jersey is being in the break every stage like Voeckler was 2012 and what Charteau did in 2010

Purito is a fool if he waits and hunts it and collects points trying to outclimb the GC guys. He made that mistake last year. This year he won't make the same mistake and he knows he needs to be in at least 4 breakaways over the next 5 stages.

He's a fool if he waits for the Alps knowing that teams are not giving up yet on beating Froome and chances are some of those Alpine stages could be hot earlier than expected thus harder to gain points, so any points he gains now is perfect. He needs to go in the break tomorrow and pick up a free 10 points.

He was in almost all the breaks in the Alps and Pyreneen stages last year. He just was horrible out of shape and was beaten by Majka fair and square. He never tried to outclimb the GC-guys last year in order to get the jersey.

I think Purito doesn't really care the polka dots. He knows it will be really difficult to get it with the current points system. He just wants to win his 3rd stage. And if he's close to Froome with Alpe d'Huez stage coming up, he tries to climb with the GC guys. If he's in form, he is still capable to finish between 4th-6th place on Alpe d'Huez (among the GC contenders), and perhaps collecting the needed points.

 

[yetanothergreenworld]

I wonder what Pinot is doing up here. He's certainly not going to win a sprint out of this group. I guess it's a good sign that he's taken yesterday's clusterf--- in stride.

That said: what are Yates and Hesjedahl doing up here?

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

C'mon Alberto attack in the descent with Majka and join Rogers and Sagan. You know you want it.

 

[roundabout]

Re:

What would the time limit be on a stage like this? One third of the way through and the Cavbus is at 5 minutes. The rate of time loss should decrease on the downhill but then grow again on the uphill. Not that many back there to work if letour is to be believed - is it a bigger group than 11?

16-19 minutes roughly depending on the average speed

 

[bigcog]

Anyone knows anything about Kennaugh,is sick or what? He's going backwards from some days

Maybe he's trying to save himself for the alps, a stretch admittedly.

 

[Arredondo]

Purito works for Kristoff. I think it's a great sign!

 

[Lance Armstrong]

Re: Re:

So why is Lars Bak not riding? Someone should punch him.

Protecting the intrests of the Greipel in the Green jersey competiton surely

You usually do that by pacing the peloton. Bak not riding because Greipel is in peloton, and Lotto not riding because Bak is up front

 

[Jagartrott]

Re: Re:

He should have Rogers.

Ah, right - I overlooked him.
That looks better. Let's hope the peloton runs out of steam.

 

[cipurian]

Does Sagan have enough left in a tank to take the win today?

 

[Eyeballs Out]

Katusha are the only serious sprint team without a rider in the break. They could be on their own in chasing for much of the way

 

[Frosty]

Re:

Demare in the Cavbus too

 

[Sasquatch]

Re:

Katusha are the only serious sprint team without a rider in the break. They could be on their own in chasing for much of the way

They can pull it off by themselves. When the break is caught though, they may not have anyone so at that stage the GC teams might keep the pace high to avoid accidents like the first few stages. If they keep the gap at 2 minutes at the end of the Cat 2 climb, they can reel it in .

 

[del1962]

Cavbus looks bigger than 12

 

[Miburo]

is contador trying to attack in the descent?

froome getting nervous, nothing will happen though i think

 

[roundabout]

Re: Re:

Katusha are the only serious sprint team without a rider in the break. They could be on their own in chasing for much of the way

They can pull it off by themselves. When the break is caught though, they may not have anyone so at that stage the GC teams might keep the pace high to avoid accidents like the first few stages. If they keep the gap at 2 minutes at the end of the Cat 2 climb, they can reel it in .

They might drop Kristoff the Magnificent in the process if they go too fast up Escrinet.

Also, I think there are only 7 of them left so little chance if the front group works together well enough.

 

[Kwibus]

Re:

C'mon Alberto attack in the descent with Majka and join Rogers and Sagan. You know you want it.

Wait for the alps! Rain is coming!

 

[DFA123]

Giant may help Katusha if Degenkolb makes it over the final climb in reasonable shape. More of a chance of them winning with him in a sprint than with Geschke against the likes of Sagan and Kwiatkowski.

 

[Eagle]

Wet descent now

 

[Arredondo]

So many opportunities to put Froome under pressure on this descent. Come on

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

So many opportunities to put Froome under pressure on this descent. Come on

Meh....

 

[Eagle]

Kwiatkowski, Sagan, Rogers and Trentin dropped the rest of the break