Tour de France 2017 Stage 15: Laissac-l'Église - LePuy

[Escarabajo]

I thought you werent supposed to take advantage if the yellow jersey has a mechanical problem?

Somebody has to work on his bike better. That's way too many mechanicals. And at the most unfortunate times.

If the Tour should pause whenever Froome has a mechanical there would be no racing.

 

[hrotha]

Even with the usual bogus waiting etiquette in force, the race was very clearly on before Froome got his mechanical. Of course nobody was going to wait.

 

[Escarabajo]

When Froome finished the stage today he looked to be the happiest man alive. I have never seen him so happy. Well maybe in the past years on the Champ Elysees. He must be thinking, I am so lucky to be racing against a bunch of morons.

 

[JRanton]

Reading through this thread has been amusing. Even more ludicrously stupid comments than usual!

 

[Jagartrott]

Re:

Dan Martin has just said in the interview that they were going really fast when Froome had his puncture and he doubts anyone else would have gotten back on.

Bardet/AG2R really had the hammer down, and for Froome/Nieve, a spent Kiry and an out of form Henao to gain 40s or so on them is pretty phenomenal. Not only that but Froome looked immediately comfortable after the massive effort of getting back on.

They had the hammer down with Naessen, but after that, it was up to the mighty Cyril Gautier to do some soft-pulling. What a waste of an opportunity. Cowardly 'racing'.

 

[red_flanders]

Always great to see the "why don't they just ride faster" crew every July.

Sometimes, you can't. Cooperation isn't that simple. Trust isn't granted. Long run ins complicate all the above.

Today shouldn't have been as exciting as it was. Enjoy it.

 

[Gloin22]

Re:

Always great to see the "why don't they just ride faster" crew every July.

Sometimes, you can't. Cooperation isn't that simple. Trust isn't granted. Long run ins complicate all the above.

Today shouldn't have been as exciting as it was. Enjoy it.

Aye, in most cases I would agree with you but then again what stopped Bardet just attacking and other GC contenders try to follow. Why pace with Gautier and Vuillermoz who are just not good enough to set super hard pace

 

[hrotha]

Re:

Always great to see the "why don't they just ride faster" crew every July.

Sometimes, you can't. Cooperation isn't that simple. Trust isn't granted. Long run ins complicate all the above.

Today shouldn't have been as exciting as it was. Enjoy it.

That's bollocks. Bardet was happy to let frickin' Gautier pace him through the key moment of the race. Of course they could ride faster, but it would have meant taking some risks.

 

[May0maniac]

Re:

When Froome finished the stage today he looked to be the happiest man alive. I have never seen him so happy. Well maybe in the past years on the Champ Elysees. He must be thinking, I am so lucky to be racing against a bunch of morons.

A bit like Contador in the 2008 Giro.

 

[May0maniac]

Ulissi's shape right now is a big surprise and he even played his cards well. Gallopin, probably the only guy in the group who had a shot at outsprinting him didn't really work, at least he still lost the sprint for 2nd place.
Mollema played it nice and Barguil is just in monster shape right now.
Aru wasn't really suffering, but to me it looked like he didn't have great legs today, for him it was about not loosing time and mostly damage control.
AG2R made a great move, but failed to pull the trigger at the right moment, hard to tell if Bardet should have gone on the attack when Froome was dropped.

 

[Forever The Best]

Re: Re:

When Froome finished the stage today he looked to be the happiest man alive. I have never seen him so happy. Well maybe in the past years on the Champ Elysees. He must be thinking, I am so lucky to be racing against a bunch of morons.

A bit like Contador in the 2008 Giro.

In stage 15, Contador was dropped by several riders on Giau but the others slowed down and let him back thinking that they would get enough time on the final climb of the day. On the final climb, Fedaia, Contador was feeling much better and did fine only losing around 30 seconds to Ricco and less than 10 seconds to Di Luca. They could've cracked Contador on Giau and made him lose the race.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Re:

Ulissi's shape right now is a big surprise and he even played his cards well. Gallopin, probably the only guy in the group who had a shot at outsprinting him didn't really work, at least he still lost the sprint for 2nd place.
Mollema played it nice and Barguil is just in monster shape right now.
Aru wasn't really suffering, but to me it looked like he didn't have great legs today, for him it was about not loosing time and mostly damage control.
AG2R made a great move, but failed to pull the trigger at the right moment, hard to tell if Bardet should have gone on the attack when Froome was dropped.

Gallopin says after the race he rode flat out, and that Mollema simply did a big number riding so hard alone.

 

[Escarabajo]

Re: Re:

Always great to see the "why don't they just ride faster" crew every July.

Sometimes, you can't. Cooperation isn't that simple. Trust isn't granted. Long run ins complicate all the above.

Today shouldn't have been as exciting as it was. Enjoy it.

Aye, in most cases I would agree with you but then again what stopped Bardet just attacking and other GC contenders try to follow. Why pace with Gautier and Vuillermoz who are just not good enough to set super hard pace

I agree with Gloin.

I usually defend conservative riding and defend riders because they just can't attack or are tired. And I understand what you are saying. But he had the numbers. He could have used the team more properly at least. He needed to put his teammates on the red. Even if he was weak. Let the team help you. After that I am sure the rest would have cooperated on an easier course to the finish.

 

[May0maniac]

Re: Re:

Ulissi's shape right now is a big surprise and he even played his cards well. Gallopin, probably the only guy in the group who had a shot at outsprinting him didn't really work, at least he still lost the sprint for 2nd place.
Mollema played it nice and Barguil is just in monster shape right now.
Aru wasn't really suffering, but to me it looked like he didn't have great legs today, for him it was about not loosing time and mostly damage control.
AG2R made a great move, but failed to pull the trigger at the right moment, hard to tell if Bardet should have gone on the attack when Froome was dropped.

Gallopin says after the race he rode flat out, and that Mollema simply did a big number riding so hard alone.

Ok, maybe it was just my impression, Ulissi also gave tons of credit to Mollema for going all out.

 

[Jagartrott]

They were going flat-out, but not in a smooth way.
The biggest mistake was letting the gap grow to 45-50 seconds. Because at that time they soft-pedalled, with no-one wanting to take responsability.

 

[armchairclimber]

Some daft contributions to this thread today. Cowardly racing? You can bet your backside that Bardet would have attacked if he thought he could make it stick over the final 30km. He had a dig and thought better of it. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. It's only a few days since he put an enormous shift in trying to gain time on his GC rivals only for them to TTT themselves back onto him. The long run in today invited the same outcome. Maybe he just didn't feel he had it in his legs. It's pretty twatty to start calling someone with Bardet's record for attacking a coward.

 

[IndianCyclist]

If one assumes that Bardet Attacks and takes Aru, Martin and Uran with him. Meintjes, Yates and Contador are dropped. Landa drops to save Froome. They link up with the dropped guys and then these dropped guys will pull with one single objective "get to the front group" whereas there is bound to be second thoughts in the front group. And after some time the gap will reduce. As an example in the breakaway, the 2nd group of 4 were not able to pull Mollema back because of differing attitudes.
Uran, Martin, Aru are not there to win the TDF they are there to see what they can do and so they donot have a proper team around them as the team has many objectives.

 

[red_flanders]

Re: Re:

Always great to see the "why don't they just ride faster" crew every July.

Sometimes, you can't. Cooperation isn't that simple. Trust isn't granted. Long run ins complicate all the above.

Today shouldn't have been as exciting as it was. Enjoy it.

Aye, in most cases I would agree with you but then again what stopped Bardet just attacking and other GC contenders try to follow. Why pace with Gautier and Vuillermoz who are just not good enough to set super hard pace

Because the pace was in fact hard, and they wanted the team intact over the top to consolidate and extend any advantage. No way was Bardet soloing to the finish. He would have been marked by every other favorite anyway. The pace was hard enough that Aru was having trouble hold it.

Fact is Froome and Landa caught up because they're the strongest. The course offered a limited opportunity and AG2R took a chance. It didn't pan out. Imagining all the favorites would or could all of a sudden just go full gas and collaborate simply isn't realistic. AG2R made it a great race today given the course and situation.

 

[red_flanders]

Re:

Some daft contributions to this thread today. Cowardly racing? You can bet your backside that Bardet would have attacked if he thought he could make it stick over the final 30km. He had a dig and thought better of it. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. It's only a few days since he put an enormous shift in trying to gain time on his GC rivals only for them to TTT themselves back onto him. The long run in today invited the same outcome. Maybe he just didn't feel he had it in his legs. It's pretty twatty to start calling someone with Bardet's record for attacking a coward.

Perfectly on point.

 

[hrotha]

Who's saying anything about Bardet soloing?

 

[red_flanders]

Re:

Who's saying anything about Bardet soloing?

Before I brought it up, I think no one. For my part I addressed two possibilities in response to the "why didn't Bardet just attack" (my paraphrasing) posts. If he attacked, he would have either succeeded alone, or have been marked by some number of the favorites, the latter which would have neutralized the advantage. If there's another likely outcome to an attack by Bardet 30k from the line I'd like to hear your take.

 

[hrotha]

Re: Re:

Who's saying anything about Bardet soloing?

No one. For my part I addressed two possibilities in response to the "why didn't Bardet just attack" (my paraphrasing) posts. If he attacked, he would have either succeeded alone, or have been marked by some number of the favorites, the latter which would have neutralized the advantage. If there's another likely outcome to an attack by Bardet 30k from the line I'd like to hear your take.

A possible outcome would be putting extra time on Froome by having his domestiques go all out for up to one kilometer instead of riding tempo, then attacking to make a selection in the group, which would increase the odds of finding allies with a common cause who would cooperate until the finish line (because they would benefit from putting time on Froome and Landa, not to mention any other contender who got dropped by Bardet's attack).

Was it guaranteed to succeed? Of course not. But even what I'm describing above wouldn't have been a crazy risk or anything. With a Tour possibly on the line, Bardet should totally have taken that risk. Where the hell is he going to find a more favourable race situation to exploit?

 

[Jagartrott]

Re:

Some daft contributions to this thread today. Cowardly racing? You can bet your backside that Bardet would have attacked if he thought he could make it stick over the final 30km. He had a dig and thought better of it. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. It's only a few days since he put an enormous shift in trying to gain time on his GC rivals only for them to TTT themselves back onto him. The long run in today invited the same outcome. Maybe he just didn't feel he had it in his legs. It's pretty twatty to start calling someone with Bardet's record for attacking a coward.

Thank you for describing what 'cowardly racing' actually means: you play it safe, because you don't know if you will succeed if you try (or even end up losing time). Gilbert wouldn't have won RVV, Mollema wouldn't have won today, etc. ad infinitum.

And what Hrotha said: Uran, Aru and some others would've had everything to win from working with Bardet.

 

[IndianCyclist]

Izoard is the only stage left for the climbers to take time on Froome but they may make a max of 30 s while Froome is going to put a minute into them in the TT

 

[roundabout]

With 5 non-Sky riders within 2 minutes of the lead, I am surprised that it's Bardet who is getting most of the flak. The route required cooperation and anyone else could also have taken the initiative. But perhaps there wasn't quite enough time to get organized.