Tour de France 2017. stage 1: Düsseldorf, 14 km itt

[bob.a.feet]

Re:

Latour will be the revelation of this Tour.
And Aru will win it.

I hope you're not joking because I don't want to be the only one that thinks Aru might win it

 

[Bolder]

Re: Re:

Latour will be the revelation of this Tour.
And Aru will win it.

I hope you're not joking because I don't want to be the only one that thinks Aru might win it

Well, I WANT Aru to win it. I'll be cheering him on, and I picked him in the "Who Will Win the TdF" thread. So that's 3 of us...

As for the stage, CF clearly wants this one, and his ride showed it. Hardly a conservative ride.

He's got a nice cushion that will force the other contenders to attack him. And Sky look even stronger with Valverde's mishap. Also, nice job Taylor Phinney!

 

[Cookster15]

Re: Re:

Latour will be the revelation of this Tour.
And Aru will win it.

I hope you're not joking because I don't want to be the only one that thinks Aru might win it

Well, I WANT Aru to win it. I'll be cheering him on, and I picked him in the "Who Will Win the TdF" thread. So that's 3 of us...

As for the stage, CF clearly wants this one, and his ride showed it. Hardly a conservative ride.

He's got a nice cushion that will force the other contenders to attack him. And Sky look even stronger with Valverde's mishap. Also, nice job Taylor Phinney!

Yes Froome showed intent well done to him. But Aru finished way down, worse than a timid Porte. Not a good early sign.

 

[PlanZ]

Re:

Multiple Skybots in the top 10 of a time trial, Froome already 30 seconds ahead of his rivals. We might be in for an utterly boring control fest.

A poorly parked police motorbike could change all that.
It's a little early to start the glooming.

 

[dacooley]

it's heart-breaking. (((have really no clue why he crashed soo bloody hard. presumably, its the first tour since at least 2008 when alejandro really hoped to win the tour and took too much risk. heal asap, grande campione. cycling fans want you to continue bombing the big races the way you did throughout the whole spring.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re: Re:

Multiple Skybots in the top 10 of a time trial, Froome already 30 seconds ahead of his rivals. We might be in for an utterly boring control fest.

A poorly parked police motorbike could change all that.
It's a little early to start the glooming.

I'd rather see a Sky-walkover than a Giro incident honestly. Im prepared for the first, so It won't feel as bad as last year when I had real expectations Quintana could challenge Froome.

 

[Cervelo77]

Not ideal from an entertainment perspective to see Froome with a solid lead over his GC rivals, but it's early, and the big gaps this year should come in the mountains. Porte might be kicking himself in a few weeks when he looks at the final time gaps, but I also get his reluctance to take any risks and blow the whole tour on day 1. The trouble with Porte is he has never made the podium, so he might be excited just for that prospect, whereas Froome is looking for P1 or bust. If the GC guys can survive the climb to PdBF without getting blown away by Sky, we might still have a race. And hell, we have Contador to stir the drink, even if his best days are behind him.

 

[Krokro]

Anyone noticed the stellar time from Buchmann? Good start for white jersey's fight!

 

[arvc40]

Re:

Delighted for Thomas after the bad luck in the Giro and a fully deserved yellow.

Looks like Froome took a few risks and it paid off with a slightly bigger advantage over some of his rivals than we'd have imagined. Gaps not that big though and it's far from Tour over, the strongest uphill will still have the best chance to win this bike race.

Indeed...

 

[Broccolidwarf]

Re: Re:

Latour will be the revelation of this Tour.
And Aru will win it.

I hope you're not joking because I don't want to be the only one that thinks Aru might win it

Well, I WANT Aru to win it. I'll be cheering him on, and I picked him in the "Who Will Win the TdF" thread. So that's 3 of us...

As for the stage, CF clearly wants this one, and his ride showed it. Hardly a conservative ride.

He's got a nice cushion that will force the other contenders to attack him. And Sky look even stronger with Valverde's mishap. Also, nice job Taylor Phinney!

Both Aru and Fuglsang have a tendency to fade week 3..... if they dont, they will be the pair to mess with an even more dominant Sky team, now that Valverde is out.

I think they will try to dublicate what they did in Dauphine, where Aru goes out early, and Fuglsang rides more defensive.

Btw, Fuglsang said to danish television, that he rode it very conservatively, because a crash was not worth the few extra seconds...... so I suspect that has been a team order, for Aru as well

Yates looked good today... I hope Chavez is on form too, cause then they too can cause a lot of trouble for Sky in the mountains.

Porte, clearly very conservative today - borderline scared...... would be interesting to see him cope with a steep downhill in the rain, later in the race..... especially the way Froome and Fuglsang outclassed him downhill in Dauphine.

As for Phinney - called it yesterday

 

[Alexandre B.]

Paddy Bevin also fell in the "Valverde corner": https://twitter.com/AshConing/status/881247743720796160

 

[HelloDolly]

Re:

Paddy Bevin also fell in the "Valverde corner": https://twitter.com/AshConing/status/881247743720796160

Two dangerous corners which brought down AFAIK

Groenewegen
Bennett
Roglic
Roche
Gallopin
Bevin
Valverde
Izagirre

 

[Vasilis]

Re: Re:

Paddy Bevin also fell in the "Valverde corner": https://twitter.com/AshConing/status/881247743720796160

Two dangerous corners which brought down AFAIK

Groenewegen
Bennett
Roglic
Roche
Gallopin
Bevin
Valverde
Izagirre

Durbridge also crashed.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re:

Paddy Bevin also fell in the "Valverde corner": https://twitter.com/AshConing/status/881247743720796160

That looked horrible. Glad he was able to continue.

 

[Ruby United]

Remember when rain was SKY's only weakness?

 

[jmdirt]

Re: Re:

2018 TDF TT heavy route Dumoulin vs Froome is what i want to see

Considering Sky will have about 5 climbers who can drop Dumoulin, I don't think anybody would want to see that.

I wonder what would happen if Froome needed a toilet break ?........mmmmmm

The professional peloton has always been a cut-throat environment but Tom Dumoulin discovered that even toilet breaks are no longer sacred when an urgent need to empty his bowel was seen by his rivals as an opportunity to gain some time. 
As Dumoulin dropped his shorts with only the post of a road sign for privacy, the other general classification contenders continued to put the hammer down




This prompted Froome and his Team Sky colleagues to wonder how they might deal with such an eventuality should it arise at the Tour, which begins here on Saturday with a 14km time trial in Dusseldorf.
'It's an interesting one,' said Froome during an interview near his Monaco home. 'I wouldn't have done what he (Dumoulin) did. He still won the race so chapeau (hats off) for that. But I don't think I'd have stopped and wasted a minute by the side of the road. I would have just gone in my shorts.'

Back in the '90s it was fashionable for us pro dirt guys to make composite teams and race stage races for training. One year at Cascade CC (OR, USA) I was behind one of the Ausies (O'neil, Vogals?) and I assumed that he farted due to the horrendous smell. After several minutes, I decided that it couldn't be a fart because the smell was getting worse. I slipped out of rotation to change who I was following, and after the race asked if he had sh*t himself: "ya mate, I wasn't 'bout to lose the Fn group".

 

[woodburn]

Re:

Porte was in the BMC car behind Roche when he crashed. Admits it spooked him.

This is why he won't win the tour. At some point even if he has the legs, he is going to drop time because of tactical mistakes.

 

[TMP402]

Who knew Brits could perform in the rain?

 

[IndianCyclist]

Re: Re:

Porte was in the BMC car behind Roche when he crashed. Admits it spooked him.

This is why he won't win the tour. At some point even if he has the legs, he is going to drop time because of tactical mistakes.

Kung was a better man to follow but he started after Porte. Unlike Cadel, Porte tactical sense is not good

 

[France_En_Marche]

Froome led Porte by 14 seconds at the intermediate time check. Nearly all the crashes happened in the first sector.

Froome put a further 21 seconds into Porte in the second sector. The second sector was less technical and shorter.

Even in the dry I think the margin would have been similar.

I can't believe Porte was favoured to beat Froome in this TT.

 

[lbennie]

Do they need tactical sense these days? don't they just do whatever the DS says?

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

Anyone else noticed that no rider from UAE and Bahrein were shown on TV coverage? Also Wanty, but at least Meintjes and Ion deserved some mention.

The coverage and timing was disappointing. Even Thomas the stage winner was not shown until the finish.

 

[avanti]

Re: Re:

Paddy Bevin also fell in the "Valverde corner": https://twitter.com/AshConing/status/881247743720796160

Two dangerous corners which brought down AFAIK

Groenewegen
Bennett
Roglic
Roche
Gallopin
Bevin
Valverde
Izagirre

I wish race organizers could find fairly straight out and back courses for TTs. I used to race such courses, often in the rain, and never saw any crashes.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Re:

I'm clutching at straws here, but maybe Froome knows his form isn't what it's been and he felt he had to take seconds anywhere he could????

This is possible.

And I sincerely hope that it is the case.

 

[Pirazziattacks]

On days like that Sky's preparation really stands out (the extra resources really help there of course). Porte and co did what normally would've been the smart thing in making sure they got through unscathed, but Froome + the rest of Sky went full gas and put everyone else on the back foot straight away. It's very hard to see anyone beating Froome + possibly the strongest Sky team yet, even more so now that Froome's previous weaknesses (descending and bike handling) are now strengths.