Tour de France - Stage 9, 168.5km - Saint-Girons / Bagnères-de-Bigorre, July 7th

[Don't be late Pedro]

JTL required

He is too focused on winning 5 back to back LBLs.

 

[wwabbit]

Boy how wrong he was after today. Not only he lost his position, he coughed almost 11 minutes. Top form ey Porte? How come you cough so much time with rider who you called chasing his form?

I'm pretty sure you are an intelligent guy. Just letting you know that asking stupid questions like this can make someone who doesn't know better think otherwise.

 

[classicomano]

Im so glad to see Wout Poels is back where he belongs after everything hes gone through. He broke down emotionally in his post race interview, gave me a lump in my throat.

 

[Vino's Mum]

You could tell in the Dauphine that Kiryienka and Lopez weren't right. And then combine that with the injury to Thomas and Kennaugh (today) with Porte's implosion and this is the result.

Yup. Bringing another diesel or two in place of Henao and/or Uran isn't looking too smart just now either.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Get used to it.


JTL has to be the only rider who has been absolutely terrible since joining Sky.

Thomas Löfkvist's career has seemed to have gone in the wrong direction since joining Sky. Augustyn too, considering he was the younger and more talented African climber on Barloworld back in 2008, though he has a bad injury history. Gerrans has done better since leaving as well.

 

[pastronef]

WOW! JUST WOW!

IT IS WONDERFULL!

Garmin has ridden a great stage, everybody did a great job.
I was shouting at the tv!

great work Dan!

 

[Ruby United]

Eh? But none of the early stages next week are suitable for him.
He will need to wait until Sunday next week.

I think he meant that Contadors overall stamina/recovery in 3 week races is very good as we saw in the Vuelta last year.

 

[Bakhjulet]

Maybe the big effort yesterday resulted in some stiff legs this morning, resulting in him missing the autobus and having to ride much of the stage by himself? Was reading Nico Roche's book and in that he mentions the alpe d'huez stage in 2011 where he was the 6th guy to lose contact with the peloton. That was after a couple of days in breaks but he said he felt fine later in the stage, just couldnt push it hard at first.

I thought Kiri was with the sky train at the bottom of Peyresourde? That's way I said he must have cracked totally, but maybe I saw wrong and he actually dropped much earlier.

 

[Vino attacks everyone]

WOW! JUST WOW!

IT IS WONDERFULL!

Garmin has ridden a great stage, everybody did a great job.
I was shouting at the tv!

great work Dan!

Ye ye, rub it in will you

 

[JRanton]

I thought Kiri was with the sky train at the bottom of Peyresourde? That's way I said he must have cracked totally, but maybe I saw wrong and he actually dropped much earlier.

You're right he was there with Thomas, EBH, Kennaugh and Porte. So he must have either completely exploded or crashed on a descent?.

 

[Frosty]

I thought Kiri was with the sky train at the bottom of Peyresourde? That's way I said he must have cracked totally, but maybe I saw wrong and he actually dropped much earlier.

Ok, i stand corrected I too thought he was in the sky train earlier but seeing how far behind he was i thought maybe i had been wrong.

I guess he can blame Richie Porte then because of the effort he had to put in trying to bring the lead groups back.

 

[airstream]

Where is cineteq? After another unguessed prediction on Ax-3 outcome, he assured yesterday Contador & Valverde are smartest riders in the peloton.

 

[Vino attacks everyone]

Where is cineteq? After another unguessed prediction on Ax-3 outcome, he assured yesterday Contador & Valverde are smartest riders in the peloton.

Tactical sense an IQ is NOT the same thing

 

[burning]

Where is cineteq? After another unguessed prediction on Ax-3 outcome, he assured yesterday Contador & Valverde are smartest riders in the peloton.

I'm pretty sure that Contador had no legs to do anything
Valverde never attacks unless he sees finish line, he's indeed the smartest rider

 

[arvc40]

Great win for Dan Martin

 

[airstream]

The only proper multi mountain stage is last Friday. They completely blew their biggest chance with no gain

Alright, probably I don't understand anything. What did they have to do at Ancizan? Let's discuss.

Valverde's goal is a podium, win for him is such a huge dream he fear to think of himself. Contador saves himself for the Alps. No one of captains wants to sacrifice himself completely to make a risky moves. Even if some of them attacked and gathered, the bigger group would have had an advantage on the descent.

Valverde never make risky decisions in GTs. Yesterday's stage was his strongest one in his career IMO. Have anyone expected him to attack today???

 

[jens_attacks]

omg that start of the stage. i really thought that this will be the best stage of the last 20 years even better than landis stage. garmin deserves all my appreciation, chaos it was! and they even got the stage win hehe disappointed by saxo and movistar.
but just like i told you yesterday, the tour is not over. in my opinion there is a chance some riders chose to tremendously peak in the alpes. froomey will be in trouble there maybe even on mont ventoux...

i like froomey a lot and his warrior qualities but i want to see a battle until the final day, semnoz or whatever

 

[jens_attacks]

in terms of climbing speeds....well they paid a huge price later to the absolute monster start of the stage, first 3 hours done at incredible speed. i will check it later but yes i think those were the fastest ascents of portet d'aspet and mente. they were flying!

later, they were tired and not exactly aggresive, probably they knew there was headwind on the final 15 kms ? slow ascents but crazy stage average speed
i have here pretty much all the historical ascents of peyresourde, azet and ancizan...
http://climbing-records.blogspot.com/2013/07/calm-finale-after-ballistic-start-on.html

 

[winkybiker]

Why?

It looks to be very tough climb (last 2km looks like brutal). Can´t see how it could be worse than 2nd category.

It is actually pretty easy from the St Girons side. Slowly increasing grade. The last 2km is steeper, but still pretty reasonable. The other direction is a more challenging proposition.

 

[Frosty]

The start reminded me of the first Tourmalet stage from 2010 which saw a lot of attacking on the Peyresourde and Aspin before a regrouping on the way to the Tourmalet.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/tour-de-france-2010/stage-16


Full list of withdrawals today

174 DENNIS Rohan GRS DNS
126 GUTIERREZ José Ivan MOV withdrawal
95 NOVAL GONZALEZ Benjamin TST withdrawal
38 SCHÄR Michael BMC DNS
4 KIRYIENKA Vasili SKY outside the time limit

 

[Eyeballs Out]

The bus made it with 10 mins to spare

 

[Koba80]

no, Kiri, say it ain't so...

 

[l.Harm]

I still don't get why Sky had to pull from the beginning...

 

[Kwibus]

Im so glad to see Wout Poels is back where he belongs after everything hes gone through. He broke down emotionally in his post race interview, gave me a lump in my throat.

Just watched the interview. Goosebumbs.

Thrilled for the guy. The doctors never thought he could be back at top level and today he finished 7th on a mountain stage in the TDF. When that realisation came he just stopped talking and got tears in his eyes and the interview was over.

 

[Escarabajo]

Honestly, none of them have been right since April. They were "ok" in L-B-L and of course there was Siutsou's great win in Trentino, but apart from that they have looked very ordinary. JTL required

Should have picked Bernie!

They had Uran on deck.