Tour de France 2020 | Stage 8 (Gazeres-sur-Geronne - Loudenvielle

[Rollthedice]

Jumbo have already used quite a lot of gas in the first week especially riders like Wout and Kuss. Be interesting to see if Ineos get better later in the race but this race already has the signs of being a chaotic one which will only help riders like Pogacar and maybe even Landa.

Landa doesn't look too landani. On the other hand the 1000 year old condor is waiting to strike.

 

[TomLPC]

really ? looking the betting odds the marginal gains columbian is the favorite

• 4/6
  Primoz Roglic
• 10/3
  Tadej Pogacar
• 11/2
  Egan Bernal

Betfair

 

[topt]

Oh don't get me wrong. Not a Tommy D fan at all. I just think it is completely pointless to even put him to the front if the intention wasn't to gain time. Dumoulin might've survived 2-3km more hiding in bunch, losing far less and provide different tactical option to help Roglic later in the race. Now they just singlehanded burned the guy for nothing, and team captain saying after race that the plan was not to gain massively anyway. Nonsense.

TD is a domestique is this race, that is

 

[movingtarget]

Landa doesn't look too landani. On the other hand the 1000 year old condor is waiting to strike.

Ha ha either one would be good.

 

[topt]

• 4/6
  Primoz Roglic
• 10/3
  Tadej Pogacar
• 11/2
  Egan Bernal

Betfair

that would be right now, not during the stage

 

[bambino]

• 4/6
  Primoz Roglic
• 10/3
  Tadej Pogacar
• 11/2
  Egan Bernal

Betfair

Might have to go and put some bucks to the actual winner that seems not to be in this list.

 

[perico]

when did kuss crash? i must have missed that...

Jumbo-Visma's Sepp Kuss crashes in Tour de France 2020 Stage 5, rides away

American Jumbo-Visma cyclist has a minor crash in Stage 5 of the 2020 Tour de France but jumps back in the saddle and goes after the peloton.

www.nbcsports.com

 

[Hugo Koblet]

that would be right now, not during the stage

Roglic has been the bookies' favorite for a long time now. Since the cycling season restarted, actually.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Dumoulin himself said he didn't feel good so he told the team he was going to work because they are here to win the tour

I think that's clear.
Wether it was smart to work so soon or so hard? idk, it only makes sense if Roglic wanted to try something, but he didnt really?

 

[BlueRoads]

Roglic only rides against Pog at the Slovenian Nats and even then I'm not all that sure.

Maybe Guillaume is going to partner with Romain, and Rigoberto with Egan... Landa with Mas, Mollema with Dumoulin and Yates with... Hugh Carthy.

 

[Rollthedice]

Just realized that there were little or no posts from Gigs. That explains a lot about today's stage.

 

[BlueRoads]

Just realized that there were little or no posts from Gigs. That explains a lot about today's stage.

How nice of him to stay away from the TV.

 

[Leinster]

No, just imagining the scene in the Froome-Cound living rm watching the stage today

Froome knows damn well he would've been keeping Tibo company today.

 

[Red Rick]

Just realized that there were little or no posts from Gigs. That explains a lot about today's stage.

Didn't he miss yesterday as well?

Yesterday was exactly 4 years after Formigal

 

[Frankschleck]

Uran is gonna podium. This is throwback to 2018.

 

[Lequack]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1302161865750048769

View: https://twitter.com/cpacycling/status/1302161865750048769?s=20

 

[Red Rick]

Dumoulin himself said he didn't feel good so he told the team he was going to work because they are here to win the tour

I think that's clear.
Wether it was smart to work so soon or so hard? idk, it only makes sense if Roglic wanted to try something, but he didnt really?

200IQ move from Dumoulin to tire Roglic more so he can win the ITT.

No but this is what I expected tbh. Doesn't make sense for Jumbo to burn Dumoulin this early, but Roglic' remains a mystery to me.

 

[Ripper]

Dumoulin himself said he didn't feel good so he told the team he was going to work because they are here to win the tour

I think that's clear.
Wether it was smart to work so soon or so hard? idk, it only makes sense if Roglic wanted to try something, but he didnt really?

This is pretty much it. Roglic did't have enough today to make a difference. Likely the plan had been to build a gap by the last peak and then pad it on the descent. But not enough gas today. Such is life

 

[Mayomaniac]

200IQ move from Dumoulin to tire Roglic more so he can win the ITT.

No but this is what I expected tbh. Doesn't make sense for Jumbo to burn Dumoulin this early, but Roglic' remains a mystery to me.

The spirit of Rabofail lives on. Roglic really is Purito with a great TT, he also has the same ammout of panache.. Why not work with Quintana and Pogi when Bernal was distanced. Your team put in a ton of work and made the race hard, use that to gain time on a few other riders who could be a danger in the 3rd week...

 

[Gargamel35]

Let's talk a bit about Roglič here. This is a guy that almost got killed while ski jumping and discovered he likes the bike when he was in rehabilitation. This is also a guy that rode 2000 km in a year on a bike and called director of Adria Mobil bike race team that he did 2k this year and would to turn pro. Every director would laugh and put down the phone but this guy gave him a chance to train. Remember Roglič was 22 or 23 at the time. Later another team gave him a huge chance (Jumbo Visma) and the rest is history. Personaly, he hates to be on the spotlight. He doesn't like press, he doesn't like to be swarmed by everybody all the time. He loves to fly under the radar and just...win. One of the reasons he doesn't really want yellow jersey too soon.
And he's a guy that is VERY gratitude to JV for having him and he'll to EVERYTHING they want him do to the T. If they would tell him to burn the hill down today, he would if he could. But they don't want that just now. They are afraid to spend too much the first week (Giro 2019), they don't want him in the spotlight too much, because he looses focus and energy.

This TdF is only the third GT that JV is going for the win. Giro 2019 was the first, then Vuelta 2019 and not TdF 2020. Every time with Roglič. On Giro he came in too hot, had bunch of horrible problems and sickness and still managed 3rd place. In Vuelta they had a lot more control, better team, better Roglič in all three weeks and a win at the end. TdF 2020 is only third GT they are trying to win. It's a long one and most important GT of them all. So they don't want to go all in just now. Today many of their doms got dropped quick. They are not as strong as everybody thought, so they need to be careful. And they are. They control as much as possible and will attack when needed. I think the best is yet to come.

 

[movingtarget]

This is pretty much it. Roglic did't have enough today to make a difference. Likely the plan had been to build a gap by the last peak and then pad it on the descent. But not enough gas today. Such is life

Pogacar threw a spanner in the works.

 

[Red Rick]

The spirit of Rabofail lives on. Roglic really is Purito with a great TT, he also has the same ammout of panache.. Why not work with Quintana and Pogi when Bernal was distanced. Your team put in a ton of work and made the race hard, use that to gain time on a few other riders who could be a danger in the 3rd week...

I don't know. I think Roglic was one of the better climbers in that group but also not super comfortable and maybe afraid of running into a counter and blowing up.

 

[Carols]

If they're just gonna soft pedal today, I hope the tour gets cancelled. Let it be several positive Covid-tests at rest day, Tour get cancelled, all races rest of season gets cancelled, half the teams loses their sponsorship and many riders lose their job. If they just soft pedals every easy/medium mountain stages they dont deserve making a living out of cycling.

And they will probably say that yesterday was so hard so they had to take it easy today. It's easier to make firework in the mountains if everyone is tired, not when everyone is fresh.

Or you could just stop watching and spare us your wishing people get sick while we enjoy watching racing.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

That sounds like nonsense. Why wouldn't they want the yellow jersey? They are already riding the race as a team as though they are leading; what difference does it make if Roglic is in a slightly different shade of yellow?

It's also absolutely ridiculous. It's like a footballer deliberately missing a penalty saying "well, we were dominating the game, we just didn't want the stress of leading for too much so thought we'd try and score later". If you're the stronger rider you need to come out of it with some advantage, because you might not be the stronger rider tomorrow. Lots of riders (examples are people like Steven Kruijswijk, Ryder Hesjedal and others) get stronger as the race goes on and that's a characteristic of theirs that has to be taken into account by rivals.

I get that unless you have a superteam (and clearly today showed that Jumbo's team wasn't so super as imagined perhaps) you don't want to have to try to defend for 15 days for fear of something like Fuente Dé when J-Rod's team collapsed after controlling the race for two weeks, but... there are people like Carthy, Zakarin, Sicard, Molard, Elissonde who are within 20-25 mins that they could shop the jersey to on a transitional stage in week 2. On stages 10 and 11 they can let the break get 15 minutes up the road and tell the sprinters' teams "we're happy with this, if you want to sprint for the win today, you'll have to do it yourselves", and then if they do it... you've kept the jersey without spending any domestiques so it's no different to not having it. And if they don't, then who cares? You didn't care about the stage win anyway, and you might even get the jersey shipped off and not have to worry about it for a few days until the race hits the mountains again, and then you get it when you wanted it anyway.

And there's still a good chance they get it tomorrow anyway, so what do they gain?

 

[Simurgh]

Finally we got an exciting stage today! We definitely got some of the answers, we had hoped we would get on Aigoual. Dumoulin was a bit of an unknown, but today his mask was taken off. Buchmann most likely still hurting or feeling the consequences of not being able to train optimally because of that crash. Mas is still missing something. Martin and Porte of all people surprised me today! I freely admit that I haven't really rated Porte very highly (which shows in my post in the Pinot thread hahaha), but he did really well. I thought he was past it, and while I still think that podium is unlikely to say the least, a top-5 looks like a distant possibility. Jury's still out however, still not sure about his level over three weeks (not thinking about crashes/mechanicals) and whether he will have an off-day, which wouldn't be the first time. And The Philosopher Guillaume, man he looks willing and able to attack and stay with the very best. I was doubtful that his very impressive Dauphine would translate to the Tour, but so far, so good! Strange thing to say, but I favor his chances for top-5, well aware that declaring my support for him is like being cursed (sorry Contador and Pinot ). Perhaps I should support Roglic instead, because I am getting increasingly tired of him. Pogacar and Martin shall be my saving graces of this Tour.