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Tour de France 2020 | Stage 13 (Châtel-Guyon - Puy Mary, 191.5 km)

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Yes. Basically by not falling off his bike like Bardet and Mollema :D I did not know what exactly Valverde should stay at his side for, now I know.

Well not falling off your bike is usually helps. I said somewhere else, Valverde has decided his role is that of guide, helper, protector, coach and teacher for Mas for this Tour. Along with trying to find some form for the races after the Tour. Soler is also looking for form for the races after the Tour. He appears to be getting better as well.
 
Well, maybe someone here has some data and can help to decide how close this is to truth or lying. Maybe he's not even referring to general climbing levels but to climbs and circumstances like today.
Of course we can say he lost time on Porte, Landa and Lopez, too, but then he was still a bit better than Quintana.
Bernal was 2 seconds better than Quintana. Bernal cracked. I think Bernal was talking about the Peyresourde stage which was ridden at an insane pace.
 
7.3 for 7 minutes 21 isn't that high and it's far less impressive than the Peyresourde. I'm pretty sure Contador did 7.3 in one of his last seasons, I think it was Alto de Malhao 2016 or something.

6.7 for 8 minutes is just not very high.

Perhaps Bernal's head is still calibrated at Vuelta Colombia where 6.7W/kg is high at 3200m altitude.
2 kilometres efforts are just hard to judge.
Long aerobic efforts are better for comparisons.
 
Tbf the stages look better with fewer domestiques working at the end

indeed.

now if they cut teams to 7 but did not increase the number of teams, you would have even more excitement and fewer crashes in the first week.

then have three or four stages like today (at the expense of 2 flat stages and one high mountain stage).

then add a flat TT somewhere in the first two weeks, to make the climbers have to attack (or try to) from further out... (and these attacks would be more likely to happen/succeed because competitors would not be surrounded by teammates doing the chasing for them).

now, then you would actually have an exciting race.

but, hey, what do i know... ;-)
 
Interesting quotes from Bernal

I looked at my numbers from today's stage and they were almost my best ever. The rest simply went faster.

That's the second time I've heard a rider say they were equal to or out-performing previous Tours. Those Slovenians are next-leveling it somehow.


Bardet also said something similar a few days ago. The second quote is a clear dig at the Slovenians. Maybe he meant: What are they on? :p

right... but he was dropped by landa, lopez and 35 year-old LRP as well.

and uran came back on him, so...
 
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right... but he was dropped by landa, lopez and 35 year-old LRP as well.

and uran came back on him, so...

Obviously he couldn't have peak numbers in last 2 km, he was clearly exhausted and was slower by 5-10% than the Slovenians. Maybe he meant the previous climb or it was just bull**it to excuse his performance. Still very conspicuous quotes.
 
7.3 for 7 minutes 21 isn't that high and it's far less impressive than the Peyresourde. I'm pretty sure Contador did 7.3 in one of his last seasons, I think it was Alto de Malhao 2016 or something.

6.7 for 8 minutes is just not very high.

Perhaps Bernal's head is still calibrated at Vuelta Colombia where 6.7W/kg is high at 3200m altitude.
Contador did 7.14 W/kg on Malhao in 2016. But this is different. Pas de Peyrol is 1000 meter higher. Furthermore they already had a 11 minute effort of 6.6 W/kg at Neronne.

If you take out Willunga Hill, I have only a counted a few performances higher today for +7 minute efforts:
Chaves: Ermita Santa Lucia 2017 7.42 W/kg
Perez: Navacerrada 2004 7.4 W/kg
Pantani: Croix Neuve 1995 7.34 W/kg
(light riders have slightly higher W/kg when climbing the same speed as heavier climbers)

6.87 W/kg for Bernal is ok. He produced already 7.04 W/kg at Croix Neuve in 2018 and 6.95 W/kg at Superga 2019. But both performances are under more favourable conditions.
 
Contador did 7.14 W/kg on Malhao in 2016. But this is different. Pas de Peyrol is 1000 meter higher. Furthermore they already had a 11 minute effort of 6.6 W/kg at Neronne.

If you take out Willunga Hill, I have only a counted a few performances higher today for +7 minute efforts:
Chaves: Ermita Santa Lucia 2017 7.42 W/kg
Perez: Navacerrada 2004 7.4 W/kg
Pantani: Croix Neuve 1995 7.34 W/kg
(light riders have slightly higher W/kg when climbing the same speed as heavier climbers)

6.87 W/kg for Bernal is ok. He produced already 7.04 W/kg at Croix Neuve in 2018 and 6.95 W/kg at Superga 2019. But both performances are under more favourable conditions.

Wow, so we enter Pantani/Perez territory here :eek: 7.3 W/kg is a great number for 7 minute effort (despite being partially anaerobic). I'm curious to see the numbers from Grand Colombier, Meribel (esp. last part) and Planche de Beilles Filles (this can be extremely fast if they ride conservatively the first part of the TT).
 
Well against that, it must be said that while Bora did everything right, EF did everything righter. Bora had 2 in the break, EF had 3. Bora sent their strongest guy (Schachmann) up the road, but EF already had their weaker guy (Powless) up the road with their strongest (Martinez) sitting on, and Carthy there as a spare/bottle grabber. Kamna sat on Martinez's wheel, but Martinez had confidence in his strength and didn't hang about.
There's one thing I don't get though is why Powless and Carthy didn't drop back to help Uran? Once it was clear Martinez was up the road? I mean, Powless even slogged over the line 15 seconds ahead of Uran.
 
Realistically though, that didnt have any impact in the race as he won quite convincingly. Only thing it did was to have people talk lots about it in what was otherwise the dullest Tour I can remember (that says a lot with Tours like 2009 and 2017 in mind).

Not only have they had the strongest rider, but also by far the strongest team. At that point it isnt really that hard to get perceived as a tactical mastermind as their DS when all they in reality was doing was riding faster than their opponents. It aint rocket science lol

Its the biggest of many reasons why I hate Sky. Brailsford is made out to be this philosopher genius with is mastermind philosophy with a catchy name a bit like Guardiola in the soccer when the truth is the master tactic is just to have more money than the other teams. Same goes for the UK Olympics team it was the pumping in of money that brought them to the top
 
Its the biggest of many reasons why I hate Sky. Brailsford is made out to be this philosopher genius with is mastermind philosophy with a catchy name a bit like Guardiola in the soccer when the truth is the master tactic is just to have more money than the other teams. Same goes for the UK Olympics team it was the pumping in of money that brought them to the top

To be fair, while their solitary tactic depended on having loads of money to work, there are many teams that have spent loads of money without having great success. They used the money wisely, buying in an endless line of guys with specific, often undervalued, skill sets to make up the wagons on the train. And they managed to turn a line of not very likely riders into riders strong enough to benefit from being on the end of the train.
 
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