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Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana 2017 (01.02. - 05.02.)

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Oct 23, 2011
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Hmmm LottoJumbo not as good as I'd hoped. Still first so far, but not that far ahead of FDJ; I think some other teams will beat their time easily.
 
Re:

DNP-Old said:
That's race over after just one stage basically.

I dunno. It's early season, so climbing form will be pretty variable. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that Poels or even one of the other Sky riders could put 21 seconds into Roche if Roche's climbing legs aren't there yet. It's not much of a MTF but it's steep enough that if someone blows up they could lose a chunk of time. The race is over for everyone else though.
 
Re: Re:

Zinoviev Letter said:
DNP-Old said:
That's race over after just one stage basically.

I dunno. It's early season, so climbing form will be pretty variable. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that Poels or even one of the other Sky riders could put 21 seconds into Roche if Roche's climbing legs aren't there yet. It's not much of a MTF but it's steep enough that if someone blows up they could lose a chunk of time. The race is over for everyone else though.
Correct, but that's what I was referring to. At the absolute best, this GC race is a two team horse race, while this could have been much better. Not even certain we get a BMC/SKY fight, since the former has several options to play with too. A short ITT would have done good me thinks. Several good climbers have nothing to race for anymore, other than a stage win.
 
Re: Re:

Zinoviev Letter said:
DNP-Old said:
That's race over after just one stage basically.

I dunno. It's early season, so climbing form will be pretty variable. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that Poels or even one of the other Sky riders could put 21 seconds into Roche if Roche's climbing legs aren't there yet. It's not much of a MTF but it's steep enough that if someone blows up they could lose a chunk of time. The race is over for everyone else though.
Roche can win this race if he's in great shape. Wasn't it Mathias Frank who won on this ascent (Mas de la Costa) in the Vuelta? Clearly, weight isn't everything even though it's a steep climb.
 
Re: Re:

Cance > TheRest said:
Zinoviev Letter said:
DNP-Old said:
That's race over after just one stage basically.

I dunno. It's early season, so climbing form will be pretty variable. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that Poels or even one of the other Sky riders could put 21 seconds into Roche if Roche's climbing legs aren't there yet. It's not much of a MTF but it's steep enough that if someone blows up they could lose a chunk of time. The race is over for everyone else though.
Roche can win this race if he's in great shape. Wasn't it Mathias Frank who won on this ascent (Mas de la Costa) in the Vuelta? Clearly, weight isn't everything even though it's a steep climb.

He should be the favourite from here. My point was that he's not so strong a favourite as saying that the race is over already implies. This time of year, nobody knows who is climbing well until they actually start doing it. A 21 second deficit can be overcome if one of the Sky guys who can climb has better early season form. A minute for the other teams though? No chance.
 

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