skidmark said:Just reading through this thread now - I definitely was right there with most of the sentiment in yelling at my screen up the last climb(s) for people to do something; in a results-oriented way, the ending was very satisfying, but in a real-time viewing way, that shouldn't wash away the fact that if the same thing had happened but Froome hadn't cracked, it would have been unequivocally awful (in the 'it's predictable' sense, not saying anything personal about the guy) to watch him win after his mountain sprint train set him up.
That said, I don't know if I can fault the tactics of the riders. Yes, froome lost a lot of time in a short time, and the most basic deduction would suggest that he might have lost more in a longer, but I can think of three distinct reasons for what happened at the end:
1. He got dropped from the change of pace as he often does in, say, the Vuelta, and simply didn't have time to yo-yo his way back up. If this was the case, they were right to wait until the end, rather than attacking earlier. Don't give him time to recover.
2. He got dropped because he's not in top form (which kinda overlaps with #1, I guess - if he's in top form he doesn't get dropped even temporarily). If this was the case, it wasn't necessarily right, but was probably fine, to wait until the end. The Peyresourde is a pretty soft climb, so there's nowhere to really go without the Sky train pegging you back anyway, and in my opinion the risk is higher than the reward. Let's say Bardet attacks with 5k to go on the Peyresourde - he might get 30 seconds, and then be more tired by the time they get to Peyragudes, so he could either not increase that, or get caught and dropped, or whatever. There are other big climbs to go, and the Izoard in particular is one where alot of time could be bled. If he's simply not as good at climbing as the rest, they can take advantage in the future, and will be emboldened by this result. Of course maybe, just maybe, if someone had attacked on the Peyresourde it would've blown it apart and he would have lost minutes, but not likely with Nieve and Landa on a pretty shallow climb where drafting helps. The spent energy vs. gained time cost-benefit analysis is in the eye of the beholder, but in my eyes it comes out negative for attacking earlier.
3. He had a jour sans. If that's the case, then yeah, they wasted it, and could have gotten more.
So I dunno, on the balance of things, I don't think it was idiotic to play the waiting game.
4. He's 32 years old and at the natural age most riders start their decline. He's still probably the strongest overall rider but is no longer explosive enough to follow accelerations of a rider like Aru like he once could.