Tour de France 2020 | Stage 1 (Nice - Nice, 156 km)

[Gigs_98]

Any GT... to win. You gotta be consistent. And choose 1-2 times when your feeling great to attack. To make a real attack. You only get a couple of chances, maybe.

If you attacking on every stage... those accelerations adds up over 3 weeks. Most fail riding that way.

You don't need to be consistent to win a stage though. If Gilbert attacks, wins today and abandons tomorrow this Tour would genuinely be a success for him.

 

[Red Rick]

I might have been wrong about no attacks. Now that the race is pretty much neutralized Quintana might very well go for it on the descent

Nairo missed out on the intermediate sprint has to score those juicy points for green some other way

 

[Breezy1985]

Any more news on Sivakok?

 

[ice&fire]

Neutralisation should have nothing to do with the riders, only the race organisers. Astana might do something on the descent.

Drop Lopez?

 

[TomLPC]

Astana having bit of a pop at least, thank god

 

[Gigs_98]

Thank god Astana
Edit: aged like fine milk

 

[DenisMenchov]

Astana really wants to race

 

[happytramp]

Ewan is going even slower than this judging by the live time gaps

I wonder if he's just sat up or is actually injured.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Astana drilling it?

 

[Ted Striker]

Lol Astana

 

[huangho]

At this pace Ewan and Sivakov are going to close the gap...

 

[Rollthedice]

Vino's boys.

 

[SafeBet]

Great tactics by Astana.

 

[DenisMenchov]

And there he goes

 

[TomLPC]

Izag chute, that looked pretty ugly, wish him well

Edit: not lopez

 

[wheresmybrakes]

Kirby can be a knob but he just made me spit my coffee saying Amador is like a bouncing bomb the amount of times he's hit the deck.

 

[Salvarani]

You don't need to be consistent to win a stage though. If Gilbert attacks, wins today and abandons tomorrow this Tour would genuinely be a success for him.

Yeah, if you want to win a stage and not racing for GC. Great opportunity right now.

Sorry, my post was kind of aimed at the GC guys.

Other riders can go hard a couple of days. And have some ”off days” at the same time.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

Not a good idea Astana

 

[woodburn]

Superman went flying. Yikes.

 

[perico]

Holy s—t that was stupid

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Well, I like some drama but I really hate guys crashing when it's not their fault.

You can crash at any time due to circumstances beyond your control, if others in the bunch crash.

This isn't oil on the road like Spa or Aia in 2010, or tacks like Peguère in 2012. This is rain. Oil, thumbtacks and their like are things that teams should not have to take into account in their preparations and plans because they aren't part of a bike race. Weather, on the other hand, is. It happens. And the onus should be on the organisers to resolve it, like Martello 2014 or Tignes last year. If the péloton has decided that the fresh rain is causing too much surface water and it's not safe to descend at race pace, then fine - so long as they race when they hit the bottom and the danger is not there any more. If they decide that precarious downhills with ravines with heavy surface water is too dangerous to race, then that's fine. That makes a lot of sense. But if they then decide that flat roads are too dangerous to race if they're wet, we may as well cancel half the calendar.

 

[Red Rick]

Vino's boys.

Lopez proceeds to facepalm a traffic sign

 

[Salvarani]

Lopez. Ouch

 

[Savant12]

Astana getting their just rewards.

 

[Rollthedice]

This is insane. Astana sort of attacks on the descent forgotting they have Lopez who obviously crashes.