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

[May0maniac]

Re:

I had to laugh at Yates who's sucking wheels all Tour and today pushed his wheel over the line at the very last moment to win that meaningless sprint against Froome. Classic Orica.

Simon went with Dan Martin on stage 13, he tried to grab some time when he had the chance and he's usually an attacking rider, not a wheelsucker, but it looked almost as stupid as Froome sprinting against Dan Martin for the 12th place in the Olympic RR.
Matthews is actually becoming a teamplayer and a more attacking rider, Barguil takes pulls for him on the final part of sprint stages and he helps him on the harder stages, infiltrates breakaways and stole KoM points to support him.
Barguil seemed to be really happy when Matthews won the stage and they seem to respect eachother.
But I can see the dislike for the negative Orica racing that we often see, but recently they've been way better in gts, at least when Matt White wasn't their main DS.

 

[bob.a.feet]

Re: Re:

I had to laugh at Yates who's sucking wheels all Tour and today pushed his wheel over the line at the very last moment to win that meaningless sprint against Froome. Classic Orica.

Simon went with Dan Martin on stage 13, he tried to grab some time when he had the chance and he's usually an attacking rider, not a wheelsucker, but it looked almost as stupid as Froome sprinting against Dan Martin for the 12th place in the Olympic RR.
Matthews is actually becoming a teamplayer and a more attacking rider, Barguil takes pulls for him on the final part of sprint stages and he helps him on the harder stages, infiltrates breakaways and stole KoM points to support him.
Barguil seemed to be really happy when Matthews won the stage and they seem to respect eachother.
But I can see the dislike for the negative Orica racing that we often see, but recently they've been way better in gts, at least when Matt White wasn't their main DS.

Sunweb are really becoming a very strong, tactical team.

 

[Blanco]

Re: Re:

Oh if you think Bardet waited you're delusional. He was just not brave or smart enough, or both.

Or he was simply not strong enough today. Which is the right answer most of the times when half of the forum cries for attacks...

Well he should've told his team then. He mobilized the whole squad, yet he wasn't strong enough

 

[TMP402]

Re: Re:

I had to laugh at Yates who's sucking wheels all Tour and today pushed his wheel over the line at the very last moment to win that meaningless sprint against Froome. Classic Orica.

Simon went with Dan Martin on stage 13, he tried to grab some time when he had the chance and he's usually an attacking rider, not a wheelsucker, but it looked almost as stupid as Froome sprinting against Dan Martin for the 12th place in the Olympic RR.
Matthews is actually becoming a teamplayer and a more attacking rider, Barguil takes pulls for him on the final part of sprint stages and he helps him on the harder stages, infiltrates breakaways and stole KoM points to support him.
Barguil seemed to be really happy when Matthews won the stage and they seem to respect eachother.
But I can see the dislike for the negative Orica racing that we often see, but recently they've been way better in gts, at least when Matt White wasn't their main DS.

Yates even attacked on a climb today! The breakaway were at just under 10km to go if I recall correctly.

 

[Jelantik]

Re:

Bardet said that it was too far from the finish to attack!!

So you know what to expect in the last two mountain stages.

another dumb course design. If this is for Bardet, then stop putting so many flat after a difficult mountain. Today could've been epic if it ended uphill.

 

[armchairclimber]

Re: Re:

Oh if you think Bardet waited you're delusional. He was just not brave or smart enough, or both.

Or he was simply not strong enough today. Which is the right answer most of the times when half of the forum cries for attacks...

Well he should've told his team then. He mobilized the whole squad, yet he wasn't strong enough

Sport is funny like that. Sometimes things don't work out. It's July isn't it. Silly me.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Re: Re:

Bardet said that it was too far from the finish to attack!!

So you know what to expect in the last two mountain stages.

another dumb course design. If this is for Bardet, then stop putting so many flat after a difficult mountain. Today could've been epic if it ended uphill.

meh, it was perfectly designed, but the modern GC riders lacks balls to take advantage.

 

[Arked]

Re: Re:

Oh if you think Bardet waited you're delusional. He was just not brave or smart enough, or both.

Or he was simply not strong enough today. Which is the right answer most of the times when half of the forum cries for attacks...

Well he should've told his team then. He mobilized the whole squad, yet he wasn't strong enough

Sometimes you don't know how your legs will react till you try. Bardet tried and failed.

 

[Blanco]

Re: Re:

Oh if you think Bardet waited you're delusional. He was just not brave or smart enough, or both.

Or he was simply not strong enough today. Which is the right answer most of the times when half of the forum cries for attacks...

Well he should've told his team then. He mobilized the whole squad, yet he wasn't strong enough

Sport is funny like that. Sometimes things don't work out. It's July isn't it. Silly me.

It's hard for things to work out when you don't give your maximum, in July or any other month...

 

[Blanco]

Re: Re:

Oh if you think Bardet waited you're delusional. He was just not brave or smart enough, or both.

Or he was simply not strong enough today. Which is the right answer most of the times when half of the forum cries for attacks...

Well he should've told his team then. He mobilized the whole squad, yet he wasn't strong enough

Sometimes you don't know how your legs will react till you try. Bardet tried and failed.

And what a try it was

 

[armchairclimber]

Keyboard warriors are out in force tonight.

This was Bardet's home turf. He knows those roads better than pretty much everyone in the peloton and everyone on here. He really wanted to do something today and had a plan. It didn't happen today. You could conclude that he didn't feel he had it in his legs... or you might conclude that the most aggressive GC contender and fearless descender we've seen in years is a coward.

The fact that no-one else made an attack stick aside from Martin (for a few seconds) is fairly telling.

 

[perico]

Re: Re:

Bardet really showed that he is a man of honor and integrity. When Froome had the mechanical and was nearly a minute back, he could have blown the race to bits. But he didn't. It was the right thing to do. Showed his character.

Exactly. A lesser man would have gone full gas and won the Tour de France. But not, not Romain. He'd rather lose with his dignity intact.

(You are joking, right? Right? Just making sure.)

Seriously, though. I think he/AG2R WAS attacking but no one had the legs to distance Froome. Landa and Barguil are clearly the top climbers right now, and Froome seems to be energized by the talk about Landa being on better form. So Landa could drop back, wait for Froome, pace him back to the group and keep right on rolling.

For an attack to have worked it would have required coordination between riders of about 7 nationalities, which will NEVER happen.

Joking? No, I am not. Besides the ethical component, do you really think he wants to be the guy that finally beat Froome in the Tour simply because of a mechanical? I would hope his answer to this would be no.

Erm...oh well...never mind. There's mechanicals and then there's mechanicals. It's not black and white, and today's situation was one where it was fair game. At least to me and many others. Flat tires are part of racing, whereas, say, catching your handlebars on a bidon waved by a spectator or running into a moto that stops unexpectedly...

Obviously, we're just not going to agree here. But, just to give you some insight on my thought process, I don't feel taking advantage of the yellow jersey when he has a mechanical is the proper way to race. If you can't beat him on a level playing field, taking advantage of his mechanical just doesn't sit right with me.

But it would be perfectly ok to attack if it had been Aru or Bardet? One rider isn't supposed to have an advantage that others aren't afforded in the TDF. I don't remember anyone waiting on any of the cobbled stages in the past, or any other time the other favorites had problems. The guy wearing the yellow jersey shouldn't have opportunities his competition isn't afforded.

 

[Alexandre B.]

Re:

Keyboard warriors are out in force tonight.

This was Bardet's home turf. He knows those roads better than pretty much everyone in the peloton and everyone on here. He really wanted to do something today and had a plan. It didn't happen today. You could conclude that he didn't feel he had it in his legs... or you might conclude that the most aggressive GC contender and fearless descender we've seen in years is a coward.

The fact that no-one else made an attack stick aside from Martin (for a few seconds) is fairly telling.

And despite the fact that it wasn't a winning move, it provided the greatest defaillance of Nairo Quintana in his Tour history.

 

[Moviefan1203]

Re: Re:

Personally, I wouldn't do it. I'm a firm believer in not taking advantage of a rival with a mechanical. Let them back on, and then let the artillery fly. But I'm also not ignorant to the fact that the yellow jersey gets privileges other don't. Not saying it is right, but it certainly happens.

 

[hrotha]

Re:

Keyboard warriors are out in force tonight.

This was Bardet's home turf. He knows those roads better than pretty much everyone in the peloton and everyone on here. He really wanted to do something today and had a plan. It didn't happen today. You could conclude that he didn't feel he had it in his legs... or you might conclude that the most aggressive GC contender and fearless descender we've seen in years is a coward.

The fact that no-one else made an attack stick aside from Martin (for a few seconds) is fairly telling.

Hahahahaha

 

[DanielSong39]

Re: Re:

Personally, I wouldn't do it. I'm a firm believer in not taking advantage of a rival with a mechanical. Let them back on, and then let the artillery fly. But I'm also not ignorant to the fact that the yellow jersey gets privileges other don't. Not saying it is right, but it certainly happens.

I'm aware that some people have different opinions but after about the 3rd one people start getting suspicious.

Even if no foul play is involved there comes a point where Sky needs to build a better bike.

 

[RedheadDane]

Nobody took advantage of Froome. AG2R had already started the attack when he had the mechanical.
About the attack; sure, it didn't work out, but they tried. Better to have tried, and then finding it didn't work out, than not try at all. One thing's for sure; Froome isn't invincible. By this point the three years he won he was already minutes ahead, now he's 18 seconds ahead.

 

[red_flanders]

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?

Assumes he was strong enough to do so. I don't see any evidence this is the case.

All this critique of the tactics assumes these guys are strong enough. Back to the "why didn't they just ride faster" argument. They know it's on the line. They can't produce strength they don't have.

Beyond that, he simply would have been marked. These guys are not going to gang up on Froome the way people want them to. They can't assume it won't backfire. Froome was 25 seconds back with 34 k to go. I think people are getting what they want to happen in the race confused with good tactics and a reasonable assessment of some riders' strength.

 

[Moviefan1203]

Re: Re:

Personally, I wouldn't do it. I'm a firm believer in not taking advantage of a rival with a mechanical. Let them back on, and then let the artillery fly. But I'm also not ignorant to the fact that the yellow jersey gets privileges other don't. Not saying it is right, but it certainly happens.

I'm aware that some people have different opinions but after about the 3rd one people start getting suspicious.

Even if no foul play is involved there comes a point where Sky needs to build a better bike.

Sky certainly needs to have a long talk with Pinarello after the Tour.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re: Re:

Personally, I wouldn't do it. I'm a firm believer in not taking advantage of a rival with a mechanical. Let them back on, and then let the artillery fly. But I'm also not ignorant to the fact that the yellow jersey gets privileges other don't. Not saying it is right, but it certainly happens.

I'm aware that some people have different opinions but after about the 3rd one people start getting suspicious.

Even if no foul play is involved there comes a point where Sky needs to build a better bike.

Sky certainly needs to have a long talk with Pinarello after the Tour.

At least his bike didn't disintegrate...

 

[hrotha]

Re: Re:

Assumes he was strong enough to do so. I don't see any evidence this is the case.

All this critique of the tactics assumes these guys are strong enough. Back to the "why didn't they just ride faster" argument. They know it's on the line. They can't produce strength they don't have.

No one knows how strong they are relative to the other contenders if no one gives it a go. Bardet saying he believed it was too far from the finish line to give it a proper try kinda renders your point moot, though.

Frankly, I don't care how strong Bardet felt. He had to try regardless because this was his chance to win the Tour. But he can't have been that bad, considering he still accelerated and he was never dropped, so he could have taken the risk; he simply decided not to.

Riders always say they couldn't do more than they did. They're always at their limit - even when they're waltzing up the mountains with another 80 guys. At some point, "we're all so tired!!!11" doesn't cut it.

 

[Moviefan1203]

This is also the point of the Tour where riders really start riding to defend their GC position. They don't want to blow up and lose spots on GC.

 

[red_flanders]

They did give it a go. People were on the rivet. No one was going to break clear for any real time. Martin got away because they were all tired and he buried himself for 12 whole seconds. No way Bardet was strong enough to do that.

I am sure I want Froome to win less than anyone, but he's simply strongest. There is no magic tactic here. Wishful thinking.

 

[Netserk]

Where's Nibali when you need him?

 

[perico]

Re:

Where's Nibali when you need him?

This x10000