Tour de France 2015 Stage 9: Vannes-Plumelec 28 km TTT

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

BMC #1. Not sure how the others are going to do. The ideal scenario would be for Astana and Movistar to gain at least a minute on Tinkov and Sky, to make things closer again between the Big 4.

It's not very satisfying to have something like stage 2 to have such a huge bearing on the general classification, and the same is true for a TTT, so if they somehow cancel each other, I'd be ecstatic.

I really like the new kind of TdF where the winner should be good at a lot of things, but of course the mountains will always be most important.

and what exactly do you have to be good at to perform well in ttt?

 

[murali]

The only thing i am sure about: Etixx will come 4th.
Movistar will do better than Etixx.

a 6-rider, bruised, battered Orica will surprise everyone.

i dont think the time gaps between top-5 is going to be much.

 

[HiroAntagonist]

Re: Re:

Seems like the brits once again gonne get themselfs a surprise hahahah

Can you please give me a single quote from your post that actually brought something valuable into discussion?

If I was a betting man I would put 20$ on Astana. I think they will be close.

BMC
Astana
Sky
Tinkoff

Pot meet kettle. You troll to no end. Anyway, on topic:

Bmc
ST
Astana
Sky

 

[murali]

i dont like this course at all. this is not technical enough. the difficulty looks mostly about one final climb.
I really wish Canc and Panzer were here.

 

[Tonton]

1. BMC
2. Astana
3. Tinkov
4. EQS
5. Sky
6. Lotto
7. Movistar
8. AG2R
...
12. FDJ

 

[Jancouver]

My wife asked me today if they b-box buy are also racing the TTT tomorrow

Obviously she was referring to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U31skOI80_A

 

[murali]

Re:

My wife asked me today if they b-box buy are also racing the TTT tomorrow

Obviously she was referring to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U31skOI80_A

lol!

sadly, tough to replicate. there are only 8 or 9 bends in the whole stretch ;-)

 

[movingtarget]

TJVG needs a clear win for BMC to have a shot at the podium. Sky will probably do a lot better or a lot worse than expected. Nibali needs a good performance from his team to stay in contact with his rivals.

 

[JackRabbitSlims]

bmc needs a clear win for tgvg to have a shot at the podium

 

[Jalgratas95]

Re: Re:

1-sky (Froome, porte, G, kennaugh, konig, poels, roche) incredible team for this terrain.
2-bmc at around 15s
3-etixx 25s(despite no Martin still à very strong team)

Tikoff around 50s (not a great team but Alberto might be able to tow them along if not around 1,30 min)

This is funny because Alberto is like the 5th best TTTer on that team.

On flat yes but on this terrain Contador is best in team and top 5 in world. Rogers is good flat, sagan ok but majka no, bennati flat ok poor hills, basso awful, kreuziger can be good can be bad for me depends on Alberto forme.

Last time I checked this TT didn't have HC category climbs. Rogers has no (should have no) problems with todays stage.

 

[Jagartrott]

Tinkoff would win today by some margin if they had 9 Sagans. But they do not and have too many weak links to win here.
Astana seem to be performing well below par in this Tour, so I don't expect too much of them.
Sky also hasn't impressed me, with the exception of Froome - and even he did fairly poorly in the opening TT.

 

[TheGreenMonkey]

Re:

Tinkoff should do well but they don't need any bad luck as the will probably be aiming to finish with only five, Contador, Sagan, Rogers, Kreuziger and Majka up the final climb. Perhaps Basso can hang on as well but he is so far from the rider he used to be I doubt it.

Sky has more riders who can climb well so should be okay as far as blowing up on the final climb (Rowe and Stannard surely will not make it, but the rest could), but whether they will be as quick over the rest of the course I don't know.

BMC look very strong but could lose time on the final climb as they don't have a team full of climbers.

Astana have a reasonably good team but doubt they can do that well.

 

[sultanofhyd]

Did you guys not watch the Giro TTT? Tinkoff almost won, Sky was ***. Tinkoff's tour team is much better on paper, they appear to be in much better form, Sagan seems to be in the form of his life and is very loyal to Contador. This TTT is much harder and more selective. It will be an upset if Tinkoff do not win this stage.

And yes, Tinkoff's Giro TTT matters because it's almost the same team, with the addition of Valgren, Sagan and Majka who are definitely stronger than Rovny, Paulinho and Juul-Jensen (okay, maybe Valgren and Juul-Jensen are at the same level).

 

[TheGreenMonkey]

Re:

Did you guys not watch the Giro TTT? Tinkoff almost won, Sky was ****. Tinkoff's tour team is much better on paper, they appear to be in much better form, Sagan seems to be in the form of his life and is very loyal to Contador. This TTT is much harder and more selective. It will be an upset if Tinkoff do not win this stage.

And yes, Tinkoff's Giro TTT matters because it's almost the same team, with the addition of Valgren, Sagan and Majka who are definitely stronger than Rovny, Paulinho and Juul-Jensen (okay, maybe Valgren and Juul-Jensen are at the same level).

There is also Bennati instead of Boaro.

The Giro TTT was completely flat, this is certainly not. Sky ,with Froome, Konig, Porte and Thomas especially, are well suited for this course and only have two riders from the Giro, Porte and Konig.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Did you guys not watch the Giro TTT? Tinkoff almost won, Sky was ****. Tinkoff's tour team is much better on paper, they appear to be in much better form, Sagan seems to be in the form of his life and is very loyal to Contador. This TTT is much harder and more selective. It will be an upset if Tinkoff do not win this stage.

And yes, Tinkoff's Giro TTT matters because it's almost the same team, with the addition of Valgren, Sagan and Majka who are definitely stronger than Rovny, Paulinho and Juul-Jensen (okay, maybe Valgren and Juul-Jensen are at the same level).

Yeah, if they don't finish top 3 I'll be shocked,as you said it's almost the same team just stronger and Kreuziger is in way better shape. However I think BMC will be even stronger.

 

[dacooley]

Re:

Did you guys not watch the Giro TTT? Tinkoff almost won, Sky was ****. Tinkoff's tour team is much better on paper, they appear to be in much better form, Sagan seems to be in the form of his life and is very loyal to Contador. This TTT is much harder and more selective. It will be an upset if Tinkoff do not win this stage.

And yes, Tinkoff's Giro TTT matters because it's almost the same team, with the addition of Valgren, Sagan and Majka who are definitely stronger than Rovny, Paulinho and Juul-Jensen (okay, maybe Valgren and Juul-Jensen are at the same level).

thats way harder than it may seem. all the top teams have a-squads. you can bet up to 21:1 on win for saxo. maximize your ev

 

[sunnyIce]

Yeah, I'm not sure what to make of Astana's claim to be resting for the TTT. I'm skeptical about it. I can understand if 1-2 riders can show up suddenly for the stage, but a whole team is less likely. It doesn't work that way.

In any case, I expect the finish results for the TTT to be quite similar to the team classifications standings. Reason being: we have had enough stages for the teams to demonstrate their level, and also, I see the TTT parcours as being a shortened, curated version of the tour (sans cobbles) so far to date. And so. It makes even more sense to me that the final standings will be quite similar to the team classifications.

 

[SergeDeM]

Ilike this TTT. Long enough to matter but late enough so that the GC won't be dominated for a few days by riders from the same team. I think the top 3 teams will be within a minute o each other, and I expect Movistar to be one of those. My biggest doubt is EQS. I wonder how the lack of TM will affect them psychologically, and I wonder if they're committed to Uran's GC chances.

 

[ILovecycling]

Re: Re:

Anybody with predictions for which 5 riders there'll be at the end for BMC, SKY, Tinkoff, Astana and Moviestar?

It would be hilarious to see Froome blow up his team mates on the last climb

Will try

Astana:
Nibali, Westra, Grivko, Kangert,Taaramae, (Fuglie)
Saxo:
Contador, Kreuziger, Sagan, Rogers, Majka, (Benna)
Sky:
Froome, Thomas, Poels, Kennaugh, Konig, (Porte)
Movistar:
Quintana, Valverde, Malori, Castroviejo, Izaguirre, (Dowsett)

the 6th guy could finish with them or will drop on the last hill

 

[Knutsen]

I'll guess some of the riders realy not are looking forward to this. Being the 5'th strongest rider up that last climb will be hellish. But will be interesting to watch..

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Any predictions for LottoNL? They had the strongest collective performance in the opening ITT but Kelderman and Ten Dam are injured now.
Still, with Gesink (11th), Van Emden (5th), Kruijswijk (5th in long giro ITT) and guys like Vanmarcke they should do better then they did in the Dauphine

 

[Velolover2]

Re:

I'll guess some of the riders realy not are looking forward to this. Being the 5'th strongest rider up that last climb will be hellish. But will be interesting to watch..

I was thinking the same. What is a team with only 4 climbers like Katusha going to do?

They will lose 2-3 minutes.

 

[Vino attacks everyone]

Re: Re:

Anybody with predictions for which 5 riders there'll be at the end for BMC, SKY, Tinkoff, Astana and Moviestar?

It would be hilarious to see Froome blow up his team mates on the last climb

Will try

Astana:
Nibali, Westra, Grivko, Kangert,Taaramae, (Fuglie)
Saxo:
Contador, Kreuziger, Sagan, Rogers, Majka, (Benna)
Sky:
Froome, Thomas, Poels, Kennaugh, Konig, (Porte)
Movistar:
Quintana, Valverde, Malori, Castroviejo, Izaguirre, (Dowsett)

the 6th guy could finish with them or will drop on the last hill

Astana would rather be: Nibali, Westra, Birdsong, Kangert, Taaramae. Grivko hasn't been all that great this year, and he will e used with Grudzev to destroy the first flat part, and let the more climbing strong part of the team do the rest. Scarponi is porbably the only somewhat useless part of that team, and even he isn't too shaby in a tt

 

[ILovecycling]

Re:

Any predictions for LottoNL? They had the strongest collective performance in the opening ITT but Kelderman and Ten Dam are injured now.
Still, with Gesink (11th), Van Emden (5th), Kruijswijk (5th in long giro ITT) and guys like Vanmarcke they should do better then they did in the Dauphine

Individually they did great in that opening tt, but it more depends how they trained team effort, TTT is very difficult (technically), so I doubt they have a chance for top5.
OTOH their goal should be to limit losses in order to Gesink have a crack to do something in GC, I would be very happy for him indeed.

 

[Flamin]

Re:

Any predictions for LottoNL? They had the strongest collective performance in the opening ITT but Kelderman and Ten Dam are injured now.
Still, with Gesink (11th), Van Emden (5th), Kruijswijk (5th in long giro ITT) and guys like Vanmarcke they should do better then they did in the Dauphine

8 to 10th place.