Tour de Suisse (2.UWT), 9-17 June 2018

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

All in all, only one conclusion can be drawn from this race:

Hahaha

Seriously tho, the time trial this year won't matter that much: its short, its hilly and on the 20th day. But no doubt about that Valverde is better than those two pure climbers in that discipline, but also generally the first week where they easily could lose the whole race.

 

[search]

Re: Re:

Horrible from Landa and quite bad from Quintana.

Another discipline (with cobbles, wind, sprinting, positioning and hilly finishes as others) where Valverde will be much, much better than his two co-captains.

But to be fair, Quintana did impress two days ago.

Valverde, though, hasn't yet met someone stronger than him in a mountain stage this year, and I don't see why he shouldn't have his normal level in the Tour.

Just don't make him work for the two others, that's all I'm asking.

He won't work till the mountains, and even then he'll go on attack I reckon, to put the pressure on Sky and whoever... He'll work for the other two only if he lose serious amount of time. He'll ride without any kind of pressure, and imo something special might happen because of that.

He won't unless he chooses to. The team basically lets him do what he wants anyway. He's the one going into the Tour with no pressure and no responsibility and the ability to race the Tour however he wishes to. Thing is, Sky made the comment two years ago that unless he loses 20 plus minutes they can't let him go otherwise he'll end up winning the whole thing. Also remember even if he does do some work he won't put himself into the red. He won't do that when riding for himself or for anyone else.

I don't really know what you mean when you're talking about going into the red.

Of course he will do that, if you're talking about watt zones, otherwise he would be completely useless.

When you ride a mountain with the best you need to be giving your all.

well, Szmyd for example was a perfect example of a mountain domestique, he was with the best almost until the end, but after a last big dig he used to be so done that he lost 5+ minutes in the final 1 or 2k. I don't think we will ever see Valverde going so deep for a team mate

 

[GuyIncognito]

Losing minutes in the final ks is quite common, it's not exclusive to Szmyd. It's simply common practice to save every little bit of your energy for another day.

 

[Red Rick]

Sneaky good result for Sivakov.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

Horrible from Landa and quite bad from Quintana.

Another discipline (with cobbles, wind, sprinting, positioning and hilly finishes as others) where Valverde will be much, much better than his two co-captains.

But to be fair, Quintana did impress two days ago.

Valverde, though, hasn't yet met someone stronger than him in a mountain stage this year, and I don't see why he shouldn't have his normal level in the Tour.

Just don't make him work for the two others, that's all I'm asking.

He won't work till the mountains, and even then he'll go on attack I reckon, to put the pressure on Sky and whoever... He'll work for the other two only if he lose serious amount of time. He'll ride without any kind of pressure, and imo something special might happen because of that.

He won't unless he chooses to. The team basically lets him do what he wants anyway. He's the one going into the Tour with no pressure and no responsibility and the ability to race the Tour however he wishes to. Thing is, Sky made the comment two years ago that unless he loses 20 plus minutes they can't let him go otherwise he'll end up winning the whole thing. Also remember even if he does do some work he won't put himself into the red. He won't do that when riding for himself or for anyone else.

I don't really know what you mean when you're talking about going into the red.

Of course he will do that, if you're talking about watt zones, otherwise he would be completely useless.

When you ride a mountain with the best you need to be giving your all.

well, Szmyd for example was a perfect example of a mountain domestique, he was with the best almost until the end, but after a last big dig he used to be so done that he lost 5+ minutes in the final 1 or 2k. I don't think we will ever see Valverde going so deep for a team mate

This. He will ride to and at his limit, but he will not go beyond that for anyone, not even to help a teammate. This week at what was Route de Sud, Fernandez put in a huge pull and went into the red then dropped off and feel way back loosing around 5 plus minutes because he had nothing left. You'll never see Valverde do that. He'll never go deep enough that he'll drop off and loose that kind of time on the final climb. He'll ride at his limit, but will not go beyond that like domestiques many times do for their leader.

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Re:

Horrible from Landa and quite bad from Quintana.

Another discipline (with cobbles, wind, sprinting, positioning and hilly finishes as others) where Valverde will be much, much better than his two co-captains.

But to be fair, Quintana did impress two days ago.

Valverde, though, hasn't yet met someone stronger than him in a mountain stage this year, and I don't see why he shouldn't have his normal level in the Tour.

Just don't make him work for the two others, that's all I'm asking.

He won't work till the mountains, and even then he'll go on attack I reckon, to put the pressure on Sky and whoever... He'll work for the other two only if he lose serious amount of time. He'll ride without any kind of pressure, and imo something special might happen because of that.

He won't unless he chooses to. The team basically lets him do what he wants anyway. He's the one going into the Tour with no pressure and no responsibility and the ability to race the Tour however he wishes to. Thing is, Sky made the comment two years ago that unless he loses 20 plus minutes they can't let him go otherwise he'll end up winning the whole thing. Also remember even if he does do some work he won't put himself into the red. He won't do that when riding for himself or for anyone else.

I don't really know what you mean when you're talking about going into the red.

Of course he will do that, if you're talking about watt zones, otherwise he would be completely useless.

When you ride a mountain with the best you need to be giving your all.

well, Szmyd for example was a perfect example of a mountain domestique, he was with the best almost until the end, but after a last big dig he used to be so done that he lost 5+ minutes in the final 1 or 2k. I don't think we will ever see Valverde going so deep for a team mate

Szmyd was a special case, he was a droid. I don't think there has been one as good since he retired.