Tour de France 2020 | Stage 4 (Sisteron – Orcières-Merlette, 160.5 km)

[Big Doopie]

If someone had lead out for Kuss, he probably could have won.

 

[ppanther92]

If someone had lead out for Kuss, he probably could have won.

He looked strong again but do you think he would have had the sprint?

 

[Lexman]

Jumbo looked pretty scary today. Bennett is still recovering, Dumoulin did 0 work for Roglic, and they still controlled everything.

Bennett might still be recovering but Gesink was lost rather rapidly.., anyway Ineos had only Bernal once WVA was done and Sep took over...

 

[Valv.Piti]

As they've frequently pointed out; good thing he's not a DS! His plan every day would just be "ATTAAAAAAAAAAAACK!" "But, Rolf... it's a TT..."

I suspect the guy is living in his own dream world. Its incredible how much cycling he watches and still thinks that these kind of stages will be an all out attack fiesta...

 

[BlueRoads]

9 of the 16 in the front group were Colombian or French.

Two of the top 2 were Slovenian. Even more impressive for a country of 2m inhabitants. I think Bogotá has about 8m, the core of Paris about 2.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Yes it was a terrible stage and everybody knew it would be. The stage finish yesterday was more interesting. The hours before the finish were as boring as cycling can be really.

Yeah, I actually prefer sprint finishes over these kind of finishes. The annual sprint up Mur de Huy is in my opinion much more boring than a flat sprint finish.

 

[HelloDolly]

Mas ?
Buchmann ?
Valverde ?
Barguil?
Higuita ?
Aru ?
Soler ?
Schachmann ?
Hermans?
Calmejane ?
Bilbao ?

And while im at it what has happened to Valgren ?


Seems to me Movistar and Bora may not have that great a Tour esp if Sagan loses Green

 

[RedheadDane]

And while i ma at it what has happened to Valgren ?

Last year he got Dimension Dataed...

 

[IndianCyclist]

Two of the top 2 were Slovenian. Even more impressive for a country of 2m inhabitants. I think Bogotá has about 8m, the core of Paris about 2.

I would say that Luxembourg still beats that statistic. Pop ~ 0.6 mil with 5 TDFs overall wins and 70 stage wins

 

[BlueRoads]

By the way, Roglic in yellow after this stage.

 

[Wvv]

By the way, Roglic in yellow after this stage.

He is as yellow today as he was the previous stages.

 

[topcat]

2 conclusions

1. Roglic did survive that crash
2. Alaphilippe is never gonna happen this year

1 conclusion:
QUINTANA

 

[Wvv]

Hermans?

Hard crash on day 1 and suffering since.

 

[topcat]

To add some fuel to the fire of the topic from earlier. Watching this stage I'd argue Van Aert is a lot more likely to become a TdF winner than Alaphilippe.

Leave Ala alone. He gave us the show of our lives last year and would this year but he doesn't seem to have the legs. He's probably a better gt rider than Porte and I can get behind his hype.

 

[BlueRoads]

He is as yellow today as he was the previous stages.

Yes, I'm quite sure he's going to keep it tomorrow as well. Probably throughout the race.

 

[oropa]

I suspect the Pyrenees will be a snoozefest and the Alps will be anyone but Jumbo doing a few hail mary's and praying for a miracle.

Sadly I think the 2 hardest stages are still only about the MTF.

Agreed... the way things stand at this point, I can´t see Jumbo thinking anything different than Roglic snatching a few seconds here and there and waiting it out for the TT... so far, so good

Also, the Pyrenees stages aren´t that hard on paper, and I don´t particularly see why JV or INEOS will want a fast pace, unless something out of the ordinary happens before the weekend

I was wondering if Jumbo would play the Dumo card on Thursday to try and expose INEOS on the penultimate climb, but I highly doubt it, I think they'll approach the finish with the same "blueprint" as today.

Maybe Movistar / Arkea / Bora / Astana should try and do something on Thursday?

 

[Rollthedice]

1 conclusion:
QUINTANA

"When I was dropping Froome like a sack of potatoes all around France some of these young dudes were still into ski jumping."

 

[Red Rick]

Agreed... the way things stand at this point, I can´t see Jumbo thinking anything different than Roglic snatching a few seconds here and there and waiting it out for the TT... so far, so good

Also, the Pyrenees stages aren´t that hard on paper, and I don´t particularly see why JV or INEOS will want a fast pace, unless something out of the ordinary happens before the weekend

I was wondering if Jumbo would play the Dumo card on Thursday to try and expose INEOS on the penultimate climb, but I highly doubt it, I think they'll approach the finish with the same "blueprint" as today.

Maybe Movistar / Arkea / Bora / Astana should try and do something on Thursday?

I actually don't think they'll just go for bonifications all the time. That's just not a big margin. I think the preferred move is to have Roglic rip it once and win solo if he's the strongest. Reason they didn't in the Dauphine is very simply cause it's the Dauphine and you don't want to give all your tricks away.

On stage 6, I'd consider it a great option to basically shred the peloton on the Lusette and then let Dumoulin over the top, but Dumoulin didn't give me a great impression yesterday. If the peloton is shredded enough honestly Roglic can just go solo on Lusette but I don't think they'll quite do that either. I think they'll play it conservatively and try to get a numbers advantage in the final 5km.

 

[Koronin]

Agreed... the way things stand at this point, I can´t see Jumbo thinking anything different than Roglic snatching a few seconds here and there and waiting it out for the TT... so far, so good

Also, the Pyrenees stages aren´t that hard on paper, and I don´t particularly see why JV or INEOS will want a fast pace, unless something out of the ordinary happens before the weekend

I was wondering if Jumbo would play the Dumo card on Thursday to try and expose INEOS on the penultimate climb, but I highly doubt it, I think they'll approach the finish with the same "blueprint" as today.

Maybe Movistar / Arkea / Bora / Astana should try and do something on Thursday?

I'm not convinced Movistar's riders have any form to do anything, plus they are still using SRAM. Soler said today that his form is well off because he wasn't supposed to be at the Tour and he's basically building form for the Giro. He also said that also Mas and Valverde have better form that he does, they are both still off a bit as well. from what he was saying it sounds like he's planning on trying to go stage hunting likely in week 3.

 

[cellardoor]

Agreed... the way things stand at this point, I can´t see Jumbo thinking anything different than Roglic snatching a few seconds here and there and waiting it out for the TT... so far, so good

Also, the Pyrenees stages aren´t that hard on paper, and I don´t particularly see why JV or INEOS will want a fast pace, unless something out of the ordinary happens before the weekend

I was wondering if Jumbo would play the Dumo card on Thursday to try and expose INEOS on the penultimate climb, but I highly doubt it, I think they'll approach the finish with the same "blueprint" as today.

Maybe Movistar / Arkea / Bora / Astana should try and do something on Thursday?

I rather doubt he's planning to wait for the TT considering he's known for having sub-par TTs at the end of GTs.

 

[oropa]

I actually don't think they'll just go for bonifications all the time. That's just not a big margin. I think the preferred move is to have Roglic rip it once and win solo if he's the strongest. Reason they didn't in the Dauphine is very simply cause it's the Dauphine and you don't want to give all your tricks away.

On stage 6, I'd consider it a great option to basically shred the peloton on the Lusette and then let Dumoulin over the top, but Dumoulin didn't give me a great impression yesterday. If the peloton is shredded enough honestly Roglic can just go solo on Lusette but I don't think they'll quite do that either. I think they'll play it conservatively and try to get a numbers advantage in the final 5km.

In my mind, that should be JV's preferred scenario. Assuming Tom is not in top form (which he does not seem to be), they will probably try to keep things reasonably civilized up the Lusette and deliver Roglic to his 1-1.5km "comfort zone" in Mont Aigoual

 

[oropa]

I rather doubt he's planning to wait for the TT considering he's known for having sub-par TTs at the end of GTs.

Hopefully you're right and we'll see more of Primoz than just accelerations in the "control zone"...

If I'm not wrong, he won every TT in Giro + Vuelta last year except for the final short one in Verona... also true that he had a much weaker team around him and his only real goal in the final TT was to dislodge Landa from the podium (which he achieved). Pure speculation, but I would expect an above-par performance from him if he has to defend a yellow jersey

 

[jaylew]

I'm not convinced Movistar's riders have any form to do anything, plus they are still using SRAM.

If they had the form they could be using Mavic Mektronik.

 

[gunara]

I'm satisfied, the design promised nothing more interesting, it's stage 4 of the ftickin Tour, and more importantly it's the 1st day I had live GT stage in nearly a year.
If only Quintana was a more predictable guy, I would have been more certain about this being a fun Tour, instead of guessing who will be the last passengers on JV mountain train.

 

[Red Rick]

It's not like Roglic' climbing was up to snuff at the end of that Giro tbh. IIRC he shipped a minute to Nibali on the final 2 climbs of stage 19 then dropped a grand total of 4 seconds to Nibali who made the stage top 10 that day.

The real question is the 2018 Tour ITT and IIRC he had a rock in his elbow from a crash in training and hadn't been able to train his ITT properly or something.