Tour de France 2020 | Stage 6 (Le Teil - Mont Aigoual, 191 km)

[Red Rick]

Dumoulin had to rely on "friendlies" like Jungels and Mollema to save his ass in a similar finish at Gran Sasso, or he would have missed out on his only GT win.

Slight correction, it was Asiago.

 

[Leinster]

Slight correction, it was Asiago.

Cheeez.

 

[Salvarani]

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky

I wasn't expecting the big guns to go on lengthy solo escapades. But they had nothing to lose from riding a tempo to get rid of a few more of the hangers-on in that group. If they burn a helper or two and 10-15 people come in together? Fine. Not a problem. Instead you got a 50-man group ride as Ineos progressively slowed the tempo.

Again, compare the 2012 Giro, and how Scarponi and Basso were breathing through their noses when Hesjedal was struggling on week 1 mountains, but did nothing to distance him, and then he rode himself into form and when they did try something he was able to respond. People like Higuita, Mas and others were vulnerable today, but they might not be in a week or two's time if they ride themselves into form. Roglič is the strongest now. Just tell Gesink to go ride at 90% on the front for a bit to get rid of some of the chaff. That's all I'm asking for.

The mindset of "wait for the next stage" makes no sense when the decisive climb on the next mountain stage is Peyresourde, the single most used major climb in the Tour, and one that everybody knows like the back of their hand exactly when to attack, when to defend. And that Peyresourde is an easier climb than Lusette so saying you don't want to gain 20 seconds here to lose 10 minutes on Saturday... I mean, when was the last time anybody of relevance lost 10 minutes on freaking Peyresourde? In 2016 there were 15 riders coming in together a few seconds behind Froome. Kuss saying there's no point in trying to gain any time unless a stage finishes on the steepest MTF means we've got a week and a half to wait before Jumbo try anything other than maybe Wout van Aert upsetting the sprinters again. There is no bad place to gain time.

If they make a route so everybody peaks in week 3, everybody will spend two weeks riding around holding each others' hands and you may as well just hold a one week race. You know, like the 2011 Tour or 2019 Giro. If we're really unlucky, they don't even wake up from their stupor then, and we get something like the 2012 Giro. The route this year was intended to make it so riders didn't all just hold station until week 3 and give us a tedious hand-holding festival for the first 2/3 of the race. It seems, however, the riders are intent on making this a one-week race and will stop at nothing to give us one.

Did you read my other post before this one? It answers quite a bit.

Today would have been like fire a shot into dark hoping to hit something. It would have been a bad decision. A shot taken, that you cant reload.

It dont matter which route they make. They wont race it any different. Nobody can put in those efforts you speak of and still have enough left in the 3rd week. That everybody is "waiting" for the 3rd is both true and false. Because if you had a bad day, crashes and fell behind you probably dont have a chance. If everything has gone your way... you wanna be the one with the most left to give. Or at least have a shot left at something. Some of these guys are putting on their biggest poker face right now, today just wasnt the day to call that bluff. No matter how frustrating that may be for you.

I think a lot of yall are underestimating what it takes to just get up and ride the bike every day. In the heat, in the rain, in the wind and with everything surrounding the race. Meals, rest and recovery. Press, traveling and dealing with the pressure from fans. That an attack or a higher pace up a climb, on stage 6, is what decides the winner is nonsense. The +3000 km they have to ride has nothing to do with it? With, of course, deceiving moments. Today just not one of them.

The winner is who endurances it the best with the right circumstances and by making the best decisions. No room for errors.

We can agree to disagree, it is fine.

 

[Red Rick]

It's not like they're flying like Yates in the 2018 Giro or anything.

 

[Mayomaniac]

David Arroyo likes this

Contador liked it in 2008, just saying...
Yeah, today wasn't exactly a tactical masterclass from a few teams.
If I was a DS there'd only be the Vino option.
Ps: I always imaged that the guys who had to pull for an eternity early on as a part of the Sky/Ineos train would sing this song: it fits perfectly.

 

[Axel Hangleck]

To be honest, it's not a total surprise nothing is really happening. We're in strange times, who is actually confident that they have the form for 3 weeks? With the mountainous route and lack of racing in their legs, burn as few matches as possible.

 

[BertiewasbetterthanFroome]

There are also Pogi, Quintana, MAL and Landa, but with the later 3 I will wait until after stage 3

After which stage??

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Did you read my other post before this one? It answers quite a bit.

Today would have been like fire a shot into dark hoping to hit something. It would have been a bad decision. A shot taken, that you cant reload.

It dont matter which route they make. They wont race it any different. Nobody can put in those efforts you speak of and still have enough left in the 3rd week. That everybody is "waiting" for the 3rd is both true and false. Because if you had a bad day, crashes and fell behind you probably dont have a chance. If everything has gone your way... you wanna be the one with the most left to give. Or at least have a shot left at something. Some of these guys are putting on their biggest poker face right now, today just wasnt the day to call that bluff. No matter how frustrating that may be for you.

I think a lot of yall are underestimating what it takes to just get up and ride the bike every day. In the heat, in the rain, in the wind and with everything surrounding the race. Meals, rest and recovery. Press, traveling and dealing with the pressure from fans. That an attack or a higher pace up a climb, on stage 6, is what decides the winner is nonsense. The +3000 km they have to ride has nothing to do with? With, of course, deceiving moments. Today just not one of them.

The winner is who endurances it the best with the right circumstances and by making the best decisions. No room for errors.

We can agree to disagree, it is fine.

You are arguing that it should be a race of attrition.

I am arguing that you can't have any attrition if nobody tries to sort the wheat from the chaff. That was the problem with the 2012 Giro, as compared to the other examples I gave, the 2011 Tour (which was a literal race of attrition since half the field crashed out) and the 2019 Giro. Again, I'm not expecting them to go 100% all out and send Roglič in speculative solo moves 30km from the finish here like Fabio Aru. Tomorrow is a transitional stage, they can give some domestiques the day off. That's what domestiques can do, because they don't care about the GC. The more people are in contention, the more people you have to keep an eye out for in future stages, the more people you have to monitor and respond to in later stages. It costs nothing to get Robert Gesink to bury himself for 3-4km here, and get rid of some of the hangers-on in the group. Enric Mas crashed today, Sérgio Higuita had some issues and was dropped at one point, and Pinot's domestiques had some problems that could have left him isolated and have benefits in a few days' time given he's still recovering from an earlier crash, rather than letting him ride in with three domestiques in the group today unchallenged and untroubled. Distance them now, that's a couple of guys you don't need to worry about keeping an eye on later. It's not that they failed, it's that they didn't even try, and they justified not trying by saying that it's only worth trying on stages with steep MTFs. If it doesn't work, you can always give up. And if it doesn't, so what? You just then let Gesink come in with the rouleur helpers 20 minutes down tomorrow and he's fresh for stage 8. After all, it's only a 140km stage with three climbs. It's not Rifugio Gardeccia, you know. You mean to tell me that you think the Col de la Lusette is not a difficult enough climb for an in-form Primož Roglič to even think about dropping Mikaël Cherel and Ben Hermans, because he's too scared of the fricking Peyresourde in two days' time?!

 

[oropa]

Personally, I've come to expect the racing to be neglected by the GC guys during the first week. Everybody fancies their chances and believes they have a lot to lose. All the focus is placed on stopping things from happening as the backbone of the strategy... for those who remember, it's like Italian football in the '90s... it would've been the same without the ball and the goals...

But still... is everyone so sure of their GC guy that they are comfortable strolling up the Lusette at Castroviejo's pace...? really? As I've read on some of the posts, a top-10 (make it top-20) is just way overvalued... the incentives of the teams and the public are so far apart that it makes it hard to believe that anyone would watch this.

 

[Lequack]

Strange times, yesterday no breakaway, today no GC racing. The organisers might really cancel the race, not because of the virus, but because no one seems to want to race.

 

[Forever The Best]

304 APM Coefficient. They treated it worse than Montevergine di Mercogliano or stage 4's finish.
For example Abetone brought way more action in 2015 Giro. And the profile of the climb is this:

https://www.cyclingcols.com/profiles/AbetoneS.gif

 

[Gigs_98]

Did you read my other post before this one? It answers quite a bit.

Today would have been like fire a shot into dark hoping to hit something. It would have been a bad decision. A shot taken, that you cant reload.

It dont matter which route they make. They wont race it any different. Nobody can put in those efforts you speak of and still have enough left in the 3rd week. That everybody is "waiting" for the 3rd is both true and false. Because if you had a bad day, crashes and fell behind you probably dont have a chance. If everything has gone your way... you wanna be the one with the most left to give. Or at least have a shot left at something. Some of these guys are putting on their biggest poker face right now, today just wasnt the day to call that bluff. No matter how frustrating that may be for you.

I think a lot of yall are underestimating what it takes to just get up and ride the bike every day. In the heat, in the rain, in the wind and with everything surrounding the race. Meals, rest and recovery. Press, traveling and dealing with the pressure from fans. That an attack or a higher pace up a climb, on stage 6, is what decides the winner is nonsense. The +3000 km they have to ride has nothing to do with it? With, of course, deceiving moments. Today just not one of them.

The winner is who endurances it the best with the right circumstances and by making the best decisions. No room for errors.

We can agree to disagree, it is fine.

But it's not like we are asking of something unheard of. You make it sound like riders have never attacked in the first week and we want that to change. Riders 100% can race throughout 3 weeks and we've seen that countless times. The very calculatingly riding Froome of all people used to have a reputation for going for it as early as the possibility presented itself.

 

[BertiewasbetterthanFroome]

Because Kuss outright said after the stage that they felt they had nothing to gain and that if a stage doesn't finish atop the steepest mountain there's no reason for them to try to distance anybody.

Well sadly he has a bit of a point - but agreed I would have loved to have seen Landa Quintana et al set off some fireworks.. it's why we watch

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Personally, I've come to expect the racing to be neglected by the GC guys during the first week. Everybody fancies their chances and believes they have a lot to lose. All the focus is placed on stopping things from happening as the backbone of the strategy... for those who remember, it's like Italian football in the '90s... it would've been the same without the ball and the goals...

But still... is everyone so sure of their GC guy that they are comfortable strolling up the Lusette at Castroviejo's pace...? really? As I've read on some of the posts, a top-10 (make it top-20) is just way overvalued... the incentives of the teams and the public are so far apart that it makes it hard to believe that anyone would watch this.

This is a separate problem, I believe. The very point of stages like this and Orcières-Merlette are to separate the contenders from the pretenders, and one of the reasons for that is to make the race safer. If you don't force any reappraisals of goals, everybody is still trying to be at the front at all times, increasing the frequency of crashes, as everybody still has something to protect and a justification for fighting for the front of the bunch. You saw the demolition derby of the first half of 2011, with several A and B level contenders crashing out with a nervy péloton. For once, ASO have done their bit, but the riders... well, at least perhaps we can stop attacking every critique of routes saying "parcours is irrelevant, the riders make the race" now.

 

[Forever The Best]

Yes. With Turini, Quatre Chemins, Orcieres Merlette and Lusette-Aigoual ASO has given the opportunity for time gaps in the first 6 days. And I'm pretty sure the same boring riding will continue in Bales-Peyresourde or Soudet-Marie Blanque stages.

 

[Salvarani]

You are arguing that it should be a race of attrition.

I am arguing that you can't have any attrition if nobody tries to sort the wheat from the chaff. That was the problem with the 2012 Giro, as compared to the other examples I gave, the 2011 Tour (which was a literal race of attrition since half the field crashed out) and the 2019 Giro. Again, I'm not expecting them to go 100% all out and send Roglič in speculative solo moves 30km from the finish here like Fabio Aru. Tomorrow is a transitional stage, they can give some domestiques the day off. That's what domestiques can do, because they don't care about the GC. The more people are in contention, the more people you have to keep an eye out for in future stages, the more people you have to monitor and respond to in later stages. It costs nothing to get Robert Gesink to bury himself for 3-4km here, and get rid of some of the hangers-on in the group. Enric Mas crashed today, Sérgio Higuita had some issues and was dropped at one point, and Pinot's domestiques had some problems that could have left him isolated and have benefits in a few days' time given he's still recovering from an earlier crash, rather than letting him ride in with three domestiques in the group today unchallenged and untroubled. Distance them now, that's a couple of guys you don't need to worry about keeping an eye on later. It's not that they failed, it's that they didn't even try, and they justified not trying by saying that it's only worth trying on stages with steep MTFs. If it doesn't work, you can always give up. And if it doesn't, so what? You just then let Gesink come in with the rouleur helpers 20 minutes down tomorrow and he's fresh for stage 8. After all, it's only a 140km stage with three climbs. It's not Rifugio Gardeccia, you know. You mean to tell me that you think the Col de la Lusette is not a difficult enough climb for an in-form Primož Roglič to even think about dropping Mikaël Cherel and Ben Hermans, because he's too scared of the fricking Peyresourde in two days' time?!

But you are ignoring the fact that there are things happening internally, that we dont see. Who is to say that there wasnt attrition going on today? Just because nobody attacked? They are playing poker with each other! Waiting for the right moment to stack up and go all in. Yon win by gaining little by little. Staying in the game. Go big when opportunity arises, and you played your opponents. When tired and got nothing left raise. It is always a race of attrition.

Attacking today, would be like making a huge raise with a pair of 5s. Instead the pot is still rolling.

Im done with this discussion now, because we clearly dont see it the same way

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Well sadly he has a bit of a point - but agreed I would have loved to have seen Landa Quintana et al set off some fireworks.. it's why we watch

Ah, so that's why the Giro di Lombardia always finishes in a bunch sprint!

 

[Salvarani]

But it's not like we are asking of something unheard of. You make it sound like riders have never attacked in the first week and we want that to change. Riders 100% can race throughout 3 weeks and we've seen that countless times. The very calculatingly riding Froome of all people used to have a reputation for going for it as early as the possibility presented itself.

Of course you can race in the first week and I believe they have, but is about putting things into perspective also.

 

[Red Rick]

Contador liked it in 2008, just saying...
Yeah, today wasn't exactly a tactical masterclass from a few teams.
If I was a DS there'd only be the Vino option.
Ps: I always imaged that the guys who had to pull for an eternity early on as a part of the Sky/Ineos train would sing this song: it fits perfectly.

Talking about 2008, Sella really paid for his aggression in the end.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

But you are ignoring the fact that there are things happening internally, that we dont see. Who is to say that there wasnt attrition going on today? Just because nobody attacked? They are playing poker with each other! Waiting for the right moment to stack up and go all in. Yon win by gaining little by little. Staying in the game. Go big when opportunity arises, and you played your opponents. When tired and got nothing left raise. It is always a race of attrition.

Attacking today, would be like making a huge raise with a pair of 5s. Instead the pot is still rolling.

Im done with this discussion now, because we clearly dont see it the same way

What attrition is going on when one team is deliberately slowing the pace so that every major contender has half their team there with them?

For the Nth time, it's not that nobody attacked. They DROPPED the tempo to make sure the break got a bigger gap. Ineos might have played a smart game in making sure there were no time bonuses in play for Roglič. Jumbo sat back and let them. That's not attrition, that's bluffing to the point of self-sabotage. Again: they had literally nothing to lose toasting Robert freaking Gesink for a few kilometres to try to put some people like Higuita and Mas in trouble, or to isolate some rivals who would then have to do more work for themselves and potentially pay for it on Saturday. The only thing they would lose is that Gesink would have to rest up a bit tomorrow, on a stage they can afford to not give a flying one about. But Jumbo shouldn't give a flying one about Gesink's GC position, so it doesn't matter. They didn't even need him for the Teams Classification, in case Plugge has come down with a particularly virulent strain of Unzué Syndrome.

The only attrition this stage should produce is in the audience.

 

[Mayomaniac]

After which stage??

Pardon, stage 10.

 

[Forever The Best]

Yeah, attrition mostly happens when the races are ridden hard. Something that did not happen today.

 

[topcat]

Unfortunately the two teams who might have upped the tempo have problems. Bahrein and Astana (crashes). After yesterday, today was a step too far in the boredom stakes. Jumbo and Ineos were happy with the stalemate. At least yesterday, the forum was entertaining. Today all the life has been squeezed out of it.

 

[Rollthedice]

What attrition is going on when one team is deliberately slowing the pace so that every major contender has half their team there with them?

For the Nth time, it's not that nobody attacked. They DROPPED the tempo to make sure the break got a bigger gap. Ineos might have played a smart game in making sure there were no time bonuses in play for Roglič. Jumbo sat back and let them. That's not attrition, that's bluffing to the point of self-sabotage. Again: they had literally nothing to lose toasting Robert freaking Gesink for a few kilometres to try to put some people like Higuita and Mas in trouble, or to isolate some rivals who would then have to do more work for themselves and potentially pay for it on Saturday. The only thing they would lose is that Gesink would have to rest up a bit tomorrow, on a stage they can afford to not give a flying one about.

The only attrition this stage should produce is in the audience.

The big fish today was Bernal, it's amazing that Jumbo didn't realize that Ineos dictated a slow pace to protect their leader.

 

[oropa]

You are arguing that it should be a race of attrition.

I am arguing that you can't have any attrition if nobody tries to sort the wheat from the chaff. That was the problem with the 2012 Giro, as compared to the other examples I gave, the 2011 Tour (which was a literal race of attrition since half the field crashed out) and the 2019 Giro. Again, I'm not expecting them to go 100% all out and send Roglič in speculative solo moves 30km from the finish here like Fabio Aru. Tomorrow is a transitional stage, they can give some domestiques the day off. That's what domestiques can do, because they don't care about the GC. The more people are in contention, the more people you have to keep an eye out for in future stages, the more people you have to monitor and respond to in later stages. It costs nothing to get Robert Gesink to bury himself for 3-4km here, and get rid of some of the hangers-on in the group. Enric Mas crashed today, Sérgio Higuita had some issues and was dropped at one point, and Pinot's domestiques had some problems that could have left him isolated and have benefits in a few days' time given he's still recovering from an earlier crash, rather than letting him ride in with three domestiques in the group today unchallenged and untroubled. It's not that they failed, it's that they didn't even try, and they justified not trying by saying that it's only worth trying on stages with steep MTFs. If it doesn't work, you can always give up. And if it doesn't, so what? You just then let Gesink come in with the rouleur helpers 20 minutes down tomorrow and he's fresh for stage 8. After all, it's only a 140km stage with three climbs. It's not Rifugio Gardeccia, you know. You mean to tell me that you think the Col de la Lusette is not a difficult enough climb for an in-form Primož Roglič to even think about dropping Mikaël Cherel and Ben Hermans, because he's too scared of the fricking Peyresourde in two days' time?!

Totally agree that a war of attrition is necessarily fought in multiple days. I haven't really seen any fight so far, so this is pretty much a long recovery ride so far. Even the breakaways (except for today) have been pretty low-key, to be generous.

In my mind, JV wasted a few opportunities this week. They could have eliminated guys that can later be a problem (I'm thinking about Pinot, Mas, even Bernal) in their commitment to keeping Tom in contention... they must be very sure that Roglic can deliver in the third week.

What I don't get is... how are other guys (Nairo, MAL, Yates, Mas, Pogacar...) supposed to win (or fight for the podium) the TdF if they don't try something in this type of days? Do JV and INEOS really look that scary? I actually thought Astana was going to try something for MAL today, with Lutsenko in the front, they could have tried to light it up on the Lusette (guys like Luisle, Omar, Tejada could have really made people hurt and the climb was hard enough for a pure climber like MAL to create a gap in the last 5-6km) I mean, that would have been about 40' - 50' max effort, but apparently that was too much to ask