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Tour de France 2019 stage 8 Mâcon - Saint-Étienne 200 km

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Thomas has this in the bag, barring anything else. He came back from 30 seconds with no difficulty whatsoever even when the front of the race was full on. And he's likely to gain at least a minute on everyone else in the TT. Also Bernal won't be allowed to attack even if stronger, only if Ineos sees that Thomas has no chance to win will they let Bernal go.
 
Re:

MartinGT said:
How did Thomas get back on? Was he moyopaced or was the bunch hesitating?

It's called teamwork :)

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Everybody is crying when it happens with French riders at the Tour, but when MVP somehow catches up in Amstel it's a legendary ride.
In the end we can only speculate and you can't blame the riders, it's all a bit random and it can diminish a great ride.
In the end the amount of motobikes is still a big problem that the uci refuses to adress.
 
Broccolidwarf said:
Bolder said:
Cance > TheRest said:
Gigs_98 said:
What annoys me about Fuglsang is that I wouldn't actually be surprised if he could have followed the Alaphilippe attack, he just didn't immediately react. He let his team work all day, the ineos guys were isolated and he still didn't bother attacking although this was arguebly the stage that suited him best in the whole tour.
He lacks the explosiveness to go with a 200m sprint that Ala and Pinot pulled off. If he had attacked or set a high pave from the bottom of the climb, he could have likely avoided the attack from the two Frenchmen

^^This. They hit it at the perfect moment...it's a lot harder to jump on a 10 percent grade when you're not planning it vs. ramping it up to follow an attack on the flats. By the time the group had figured out what to do they Ala was already in virtual yellow.

Ineos crashed at an inopportune time, for sure. I don't think it was Thomas's fault, replay seemed to show Woods going down ahead of him. GT had to hustle up a climb which probably put him near the red. But I still don't think Ineos believes Pinot is a threat to win.

Well, let's wait for proper footage.

The story from several riders right now is, that they wanted to go, but dropped it when they saw the frenchmen streaming away behind the bike, and knew there was no way to close the gap.

Whether that is true or not, remains to be seen, I hope someone will post relevant footage.

The thing is, though, everyone and their mother knew Alaphillipe would attack. So either he should have stuck to him and tried to go with him, or he should have attacked earlier on the climb. Perhaps he just wasn't strong enough, no one would blame him, but if he did feel he was strong enough, he made a huge mistake.
 
Re: Re:

Vroome.exe said:
Logic-is-your-friend said:
gunara said:
Some wouldn't really like the picture result of camera zooming in on things moving at such speed and swerving that much, not too mention taken from another unstable moving thing.
Time for drone camera's is nearly upon us!
Insert that gif of drone almost taking out Marcel Hirscher.
I'm guessing you have no gifs of motorcycles causing (near-)fatal accidents in cycling at hand?

Drones don't have to hover directly over the riders. They can even fly next to the road, they can even fly much lower and further in front, because they can zoom further, since they are much more stable and not susceptible to bumps in the road and shaky cameramen, unlike a cameramotorbike.
Gigs_98 said:
I've been against camera drones ever since that moment. Unimaginable if a thing like this drops into the peloton
Imagine a motorbike causing a fatal accident in a peloton... oh, wait.
 
fantomas said:
Broccolidwarf said:
Bolder said:
Cance > TheRest said:
Gigs_98 said:
What annoys me about Fuglsang is that I wouldn't actually be surprised if he could have followed the Alaphilippe attack, he just didn't immediately react. He let his team work all day, the ineos guys were isolated and he still didn't bother attacking although this was arguebly the stage that suited him best in the whole tour.
He lacks the explosiveness to go with a 200m sprint that Ala and Pinot pulled off. If he had attacked or set a high pave from the bottom of the climb, he could have likely avoided the attack from the two Frenchmen

^^This. They hit it at the perfect moment...it's a lot harder to jump on a 10 percent grade when you're not planning it vs. ramping it up to follow an attack on the flats. By the time the group had figured out what to do they Ala was already in virtual yellow.

Ineos crashed at an inopportune time, for sure. I don't think it was Thomas's fault, replay seemed to show Woods going down ahead of him. GT had to hustle up a climb which probably put him near the red. But I still don't think Ineos believes Pinot is a threat to win.

Well, let's wait for proper footage.

The story from several riders right now is, that they wanted to go, but dropped it when they saw the frenchmen streaming away behind the bike, and knew there was no way to close the gap.

Whether that is true or not, remains to be seen, I hope someone will post relevant footage.

The thing is, though, everyone and their mother knew Alaphillipe would attack. So either he should have stuck to him and tried to go with him, or he should have attacked earlier on the climb. Perhaps he just wasn't strong enough, no one would blame him, but if he did feel he was strong enough, he made a huge mistake.

You don't just "stick" with a guy attacking from behind, it takes a couple of seconds to react, which he did.

That's why he talked about having been to close to the front after the stage :)
 
Re:

HelloDolly said:
I dont anyone is as strong as Allaphillipe now on those kind of climbs

He can push on and is very explosive. Even if filled with lactic acid he can still go for that short period of time, relatively. He can do those watts that is required and accelerate. The complete opposite from a diesel climber, but thats also why he suffers on the longer climbs in the high mountains. It is just a different game, but he is gonna win a lot of races if he can be at this level for some years. Some great wins hopefully.
 
Re:

Lequack said:
Thomas has this in the bag, barring anything else. He came back from 30 seconds with no difficulty whatsoever even when the front of the race was full on. And he's likely to gain at least a minute on everyone else in the TT. Also Bernal won't be allowed to attack even if stronger, only if Ineos sees that Thomas has no chance to win will they let Bernal go.

I’ve been wondering why Bernal has been racing so passively. I thought maybe he doesn’t have the legs but he’s just content to stay with the GC favorites—so maybe there’s truth to what you say (not allowed).
 
Re:

HelloDolly said:
Well I am not blaming the riders but motos are giving an unfair advantage
and it seems to be overlooked in the home country of the rider in question

ad yes the peloton were chasing on the descent ....Sunweb, Trek & Astana had more the one rider chase
Bauke Mollema said he had complained with the jury during the race because the motorbikes were drafting the peloton in the chase to the front 4 (2).

The riders that were complaining about Pinot and Alaphilippe getting help, should've tried to perhaps risk something themselves instead of just waiting, waiting, waiting in the bunch?
 
I'm a fan of Thomas. I mean De Gendt. This is the kind of stage we should see more often in the first half of the Tour. Of his three stage wins in the Tour this was the most dramatic. It proves that stage hunting is a specialty for strong riders, not a second price. This was no Doubting Thomas.

I'm no fan of Thomas. I mean Geraint. He's a poor bike handler with an unnatural style. When he crashed I didn't doubt one second that the other GC teams would wait like they have done since 2012 whenever this situation occurs. It's great that Pinot did something, but otherwise the GC riders were way too passive as always.

What the Tour needs is a GC rider with the personality of De Gendt.
 
Re:

Pantani_lives said:
I'm a fan of Thomas. I mean De Gendt. This is the kind of stage we should see more often in the first half of the Tour. Of his three stage wins in the Tour this was the most dramatic. It proves that stage hunting is a specialty for strong riders, not a second price. This was no Doubting Thomas.

I'm no fan of Thomas. I mean Geraint. He's a poor bike handler with an unnatural style. When he crashed I didn't doubt one second that the other GC teams would wait like they have done since 2012 whenever this situation occurs. It's great that Pinot did something, but otherwise the GC riders were way too passive as always.

What the Tour needs is a GC rider with the personality of De Gendt.

That's a lot of bait for one hook.
 
Broccolidwarf said:
fantomas said:
Broccolidwarf said:
Well, let's wait for proper footage.

The story from several riders right now is, that they wanted to go, but dropped it when they saw the frenchmen streaming away behind the bike, and knew there was no way to close the gap.

Whether that is true or not, remains to be seen, I hope someone will post relevant footage.

The thing is, though, everyone and their mother knew Alaphillipe would attack. So either he should have stuck to him and tried to go with him, or he should have attacked earlier on the climb. Perhaps he just wasn't strong enough, no one would blame him, but if he did feel he was strong enough, he made a huge mistake.

You don't just "stick" with a guy attacking from behind, it takes a couple of seconds to react, which he did.

That's why he talked about having been to close to the front after the stage :)

Exactly. I don't mean he should've stuck with Alaphillipe when he attacked, but before. At least if he didn't plan on grabbing the bull by the horns himself. He should've done like Pinot, or he should've attacked himself a bit earlier. That is, if he felt strong enough. He either made a stupid mistake, or he just wasn't confident enough.
 

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