Vuelta 2017 stage 19 Caso (Parque de Redes) - Gijón 149.7 km

[CyclingDaddy55]

Re: Re:

The sky dominance of the last 2 grand tours has been frightening. Stage after stage on the climbs riding on the front with 5/6 riders

They will disappear tomorrow on a real climb

lol The only guys remaining in the end to climb will be the GC contenders, most of them or perhaps I should say the few of them. Up till the end, Froome will probably have a combination of Moscon, Nieve and Poels, at least a couple of them. It will come down to the purest leaders. Gonna be one heck of a finish.

 

[Ruby United]

Re: Re:

i understand Sunweb's need to protect the podium, but I'm going to miss Contie's panache and attacking style when he's gone, and would enjoy him to reap some benefits. if only to show up and coming riders you don't have to be a robot.

There are plenty of attackers coming up, so someone will fill the shoes

Aru, Chaves, Lopez, Landa and Yates x2, are some of the young up and coming riders, that generally attack early..... and we'll still have the likes of Dan Martin, Pinot and other early aggressors around, for a few more years.

I'm not worried - but yeah, I will miss Bertie, he was/is a great rider.

Landa, Aru and Pinot are the same age (in fact, of the three, Landa is oldest), so I'm not sure why you included Pinot in the second list with Dan Martin. (Perhaps you forgot because Pinot peaked earlier in his career.)

 

[Climber123]

Superman Lopez... Obviously

 

[Broccolidwarf]

Re: Re:

i would love to see teams reduced to like 6 riders.

Then you might as well not have teams at all..... and most teams will consist completely of all-rounders (Poels/Kwiat types), because there is no longer room for specialists.

Yeah because a team of 6 is the same as no team

I think that a 6 man team is foolish, but at the same time of course it is still a useful team.
One of the main problems with a 6 man team is that nearly all stages will end in a breakaway, perhaps even including sprinting stages. A relatively large breakaway will be too hard to pull back. You will end up, perhaps, with 15 stages where the break have a meaningless sprint for victory where no-one really cares - or remembers - who wins.

Sprinters will also have a nightmare as their teams not only will struggle to reel in the breakaway but, if the sprinter has a climber in the team, the team won't commit any riders for the sprinter. Think about Cavendish in the Sky 2012 squad who had Bernie Eisel and EBH for support. Though Sky didn't commit to bringing back the breaks usually (something which upset Cavendish), those two support riders were crucial for Cav. If Sky had had a 6 man team Eisel wouldn't have been brought with and EBH, even if he still made the team, wouldn't have been allowed to help Cav. This is quite an extreme example, obviously, as Sky's team that year was ridiculously strong, but the example is true for many teams in recent times, such as Sagan when he raced for Liquigas.

There are other factors too which must be considered, such as the fact that teams would drop a lot of their good sprinters and choose more rounded domestiques who can help in the mountains (as Brocco pointed out) and the fact that if a team loses 3 riders or more they will be left with virtually no riders (which is quite easy in a 3 week GT - Dimension Data, Sunweb and AG2R have already lost 4 this Vuelta and BMC, Movistar and Katusha have lost 3).

So overall, it would be ridiculous to have only 6 riders in a team for a GT. However, I am quite excited to see a GT with 8 riders in each team (though I doubt it will be so different from 9 riders).

Who cares about sprinters? If they want to sprint they should go to track

Those who have good sprinters (teams/nations/fans) - obviously

 

[Broccolidwarf]

Re: Re:

i understand Sunweb's need to protect the podium, but I'm going to miss Contie's panache and attacking style when he's gone, and would enjoy him to reap some benefits. if only to show up and coming riders you don't have to be a robot.

There are plenty of attackers coming up, so someone will fill the shoes

Aru, Chaves, Lopez, Landa and Yates x2, are some of the young up and coming riders, that generally attack early..... and we'll still have the likes of Dan Martin, Pinot and other early aggressors around, for a few more years.

I'm not worried - but yeah, I will miss Bertie, he was/is a great rider.

Landa, Aru and Pinot are the same age (in fact, of the three, Landa is oldest), so I'm not sure why you included Pinot in the second list with Dan Martin. (Perhaps you forgot because Pinot peaked earlier in his career.)

Didn't look up the ages.... probably because Pinot has been around forever - it seems like

My bad

 

[Ruby United]

Re: Re:

i would love to see teams reduced to like 6 riders.

Then you might as well not have teams at all..... and most teams will consist completely of all-rounders (Poels/Kwiat types), because there is no longer room for specialists.

Yeah because a team of 6 is the same as no team

I think that a 6 man team is foolish, but at the same time of course it is still a useful team.
One of the main problems with a 6 man team is that nearly all stages will end in a breakaway, perhaps even including sprinting stages. A relatively large breakaway will be too hard to pull back. You will end up, perhaps, with 15 stages where the break have a meaningless sprint for victory where no-one really cares - or remembers - who wins.

Sprinters will also have a nightmare as their teams not only will struggle to reel in the breakaway but, if the sprinter has a climber in the team, the team won't commit any riders for the sprinter. Think about Cavendish in the Sky 2012 squad who had Bernie Eisel and EBH for support. Though Sky didn't commit to bringing back the breaks usually (something which upset Cavendish), those two support riders were crucial for Cav. If Sky had had a 6 man team Eisel wouldn't have been brought with and EBH, even if he still made the team, wouldn't have been allowed to help Cav. This is quite an extreme example, obviously, as Sky's team that year was ridiculously strong, but the example is true for many teams in recent times, such as Sagan when he raced for Liquigas.

There are other factors too which must be considered, such as the fact that teams would drop a lot of their good sprinters and choose more rounded domestiques who can help in the mountains (as Brocco pointed out) and the fact that if a team loses 3 riders or more they will be left with virtually no riders (which is quite easy in a 3 week GT - Dimension Data, Sunweb and AG2R have already lost 4 this Vuelta and BMC, Movistar and Katusha have lost 3).

So overall, it would be ridiculous to have only 6 riders in a team for a GT. However, I am quite excited to see a GT with 8 riders in each team (though I doubt it will be so different from 9 riders).

Who cares about sprinters? If they want to sprint they should go to track

Who cares about cobbled riders, puncheurs and climbers? If they want to ride they should go to mountain biking or cyclo-cross.

 

[Broccolidwarf]

Re: Re:

i understand Sunweb's need to protect the podium, but I'm going to miss Contie's panache and attacking style when he's gone, and would enjoy him to reap some benefits. if only to show up and coming riders you don't have to be a robot.

There are plenty of attackers coming up, so someone will fill the shoes

Aru, Chaves, Lopez, Landa and Yates x2, are some of the young up and coming riders, that generally attack early..... and we'll still have the likes of Dan Martin, Pinot and other early aggressors around, for a few more years.

I'm not worried - but yeah, I will miss Bertie, he was/is a great rider.

Adam Yates? Nope.
And as much as I like Aru, he waited the whole way on the Peyragudes and Puy en Velay stage just like the others.
Also I think Simon Yates shouldn't concentrate on GTs unless he finds an extremely suitable route with many hilly stages and almost no real mountain stages.

As far as I remember the tour, Aru only started riding defensively, when Fuglsang got his injury and then quit.

Upto then, the team seemed to send out Aru early and let Fuglsang fill the defensive role.

Obviously "early" doesn't mean 3 mountains out, but no serious GT contender does that,. including bertie, unless he is already pretty much out of contention.

 

[portugal11]

Re: Re:

i understand Sunweb's need to protect the podium, but I'm going to miss Contie's panache and attacking style when he's gone, and would enjoy him to reap some benefits. if only to show up and coming riders you don't have to be a robot.

There are plenty of attackers coming up, so someone will fill the shoes

Aru, Chaves, Lopez, Landa and Yates x2, are some of the young up and coming riders, that generally attack early..... and we'll still have the likes of Dan Martin, Pinot and other early aggressors around, for a few more years.

I'm not worried - but yeah, I will miss Bertie, he was/is a great rider.

None of them are as fearless and brave as Alberto

Not even close. Yates?? Oh god, adam is a wheelsucker even worse than mollema

 

[Broccolidwarf]

Re: Re:

i understand Sunweb's need to protect the podium, but I'm going to miss Contie's panache and attacking style when he's gone, and would enjoy him to reap some benefits. if only to show up and coming riders you don't have to be a robot.

There are plenty of attackers coming up, so someone will fill the shoes

Aru, Chaves, Lopez, Landa and Yates x2, are some of the young up and coming riders, that generally attack early..... and we'll still have the likes of Dan Martin, Pinot and other early aggressors around, for a few more years.

I'm not worried - but yeah, I will miss Bertie, he was/is a great rider.

None of them are as fearless and brave as Alberto

Not even close. Yates?? Oh god, adam is a wheelsucker even worse than mollema

Honestly can't tell them apart, so just bunched them up - so ok, Simon then

UAE should sign Mollema and Adam Yates - just to perfect the riding style :idea:

 

[carton]

Great rides by De Gendt, Garcia, Roche, Pantano and Contador, for different reasons. Congrats to de Beast.

Contador took the "free" option and put on a show, he might pay for ir tommorow but not in the same way as if he tried to go early tommorow just as all the meat goes onto the barbecue.

 

[Ruby United]

Re: Re:

i understand Sunweb's need to protect the podium, but I'm going to miss Contie's panache and attacking style when he's gone, and would enjoy him to reap some benefits. if only to show up and coming riders you don't have to be a robot.

There are plenty of attackers coming up, so someone will fill the shoes

Aru, Chaves, Lopez, Landa and Yates x2, are some of the young up and coming riders, that generally attack early..... and we'll still have the likes of Dan Martin, Pinot and other early aggressors around, for a few more years.

I'm not worried - but yeah, I will miss Bertie, he was/is a great rider.

None of them are as fearless and brave as Alberto

Not even close. Yates?? Oh god, adam is a wheelsucker even worse than mollema

Honestly can't tell them apart, so just bunched them up - so ok, Simon then

UAE should sign Mollema and Adam Yates - just to perfect the riding style :idea:

Funny you mentioned that as they just signed Dan Martin and are about to sign Fabio Aru, two of the more aggressive GC riders out there.

Oh yeah, and Meinjtes is leaving.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re: Re:

As far as GT stage wins goes, this was a rather low standard by De Gendt standards.

You mean because it's not on the Ventoux or the Stelvio?

Yeah, exactly. I mean, come one; Stelvio, Mount Ventoux, Gijon... last one is not quite the same.
Though I guess trying to win on Angliru tomorrow might be a bit tricky.

i would love to see teams reduced to like 6 riders.

Then you might as well not have teams at all..... and most teams will consist completely of all-rounders (Poels/Kwiat types), because there is no longer room for specialists.

Yeah because a team of 6 is the same as no team

If a team is unlucky enough it could very quickly become that. Need a few extras so you can lose some.

 

[Broccolidwarf]

Re: Re:

i understand Sunweb's need to protect the podium, but I'm going to miss Contie's panache and attacking style when he's gone, and would enjoy him to reap some benefits. if only to show up and coming riders you don't have to be a robot.

There are plenty of attackers coming up, so someone will fill the shoes

Aru, Chaves, Lopez, Landa and Yates x2, are some of the young up and coming riders, that generally attack early..... and we'll still have the likes of Dan Martin, Pinot and other early aggressors around, for a few more years.

I'm not worried - but yeah, I will miss Bertie, he was/is a great rider.

None of them are as fearless and brave as Alberto [/quote]
Not even close. Yates?? Oh god, adam is a wheelsucker even worse than mollema[/quote]

Honestly can't tell them apart, so just bunched them up - so ok, Simon then

UAE should sign Mollema and Adam Yates - just to perfect the riding style :idea:[/quote]

Funny you mentioned that as they just signed Dan Martin and are about to sign Fabio Aru, two of the more aggressive GC riders out there.

Oh yeah, and Meinjtes is leaving.[/quote]

It was a joke buddy

 

[Põhja Konn]

Re: Vuelta 2017 stage 19 Caso (Parque de Redes) - Gijón 149.

Sunweb had every reason to chase Contador, who is Keldermans direct rival for podium. Athough its clear that Contador isn't riding with podium as a singular target on his mind. If that was the case he would have saved himself today and went all in on Angliru. With the form he is showing these last days, taking enough time on Kelderman and Zakarin on Angliru would have been more than realistic without todays exertions. He seems to be just enjoying himself at the moment and probably tries to play a role of a wild card in the fight for the red too.

With Sky actively contributing to the chase, it comes down to the obscene amount of excessive strenght they have. A normal team in a situation like that would likely sit back initially and only join in the chase in case Subweb doms are unable to bring down the gap themselves. But Sky as they are now, don't have to worry about things as trivial as spending unnecessary energy.

 

[lenric]

Does Flecha have to start every post-stage with the same phrases?

 

[Ruby United]

Re: Re:

i understand Sunweb's need to protect the podium, but I'm going to miss Contie's panache and attacking style when he's gone, and would enjoy him to reap some benefits. if only to show up and coming riders you don't have to be a robot.

There are plenty of attackers coming up, so someone will fill the shoes

Aru, Chaves, Lopez, Landa and Yates x2, are some of the young up and coming riders, that generally attack early..... and we'll still have the likes of Dan Martin, Pinot and other early aggressors around, for a few more years.

I'm not worried - but yeah, I will miss Bertie, he was/is a great rider.

None of them are as fearless and brave as Alberto

Not even close. Yates?? Oh god, adam is a wheelsucker even worse than mollema

Honestly can't tell them apart, so just bunched them up - so ok, Simon then

UAE should sign Mollema and Adam Yates - just to perfect the riding style :idea:

Funny you mentioned that as they just signed Dan Martin and are about to sign Fabio Aru, two of the more aggressive GC riders out there.

Oh yeah, and Meinjtes is leaving.

It was a joke buddy

I realized that. The implication from your joke was that since UAE are a very defensive, boring team Mollema and Yates should join them. I was pointing out that your joke is a bit ironic and doesn't really make sense as the real problem - namely Meintjes - is leaving and two of the more aggressive GC riders are joining.

 

[Carstenbf]

Re:

What was Astana doing on the front of the peloton ? And Jumbo Lotto had four in the break. Roche should have saved himself after his first attack and gone for a long sprint. May not have worked anyway. De Gendt is strong and hasn't got a bad sprint.

This came up a couple of times in the thread. Team competetion most likely. Movistar had 2 guys in break. Also Roche would eventually start threatening GC top10 positions at the tempo Sky was setting.

 

[perico]

Re:

Does Flecha have to start every post-stage with the same phrases?

It's a Eurosport symptom... signed Sean "Yes well" Kelly

 

[benzwire]

Re: Re:

Does Flecha have to start every post-stage with the same phrases?

It's a Eurosport symptom... signed Sean "Yes well" Kelly

So true. LOL!

 

[Robert5091]

Shame Bertie didn't pick up some time - more to do tomorrow. Sky do really like to control everything.

 

[Frankschleck]

Re: Re:

i would love to see teams reduced to like 6 riders.

Then you might as well not have teams at all..... and most teams will consist completely of all-rounders (Poels/Kwiat types), because there is no longer room for specialists.

Yeah because a team of 6 is the same as no team

I think that a 6 man team is foolish, but at the same time of course it is still a useful team.
One of the main problems with a 6 man team is that nearly all stages will end in a breakaway, perhaps even including sprinting stages. A relatively large breakaway will be too hard to pull back. You will end up, perhaps, with 15 stages where the break have a meaningless sprint for victory where no-one really cares - or remembers - who wins.

Sprinters will also have a nightmare as their teams not only will struggle to reel in the breakaway but, if the sprinter has a climber in the team, the team won't commit any riders for the sprinter. Think about Cavendish in the Sky 2012 squad who had Bernie Eisel and EBH for support. Though Sky didn't commit to bringing back the breaks usually (something which upset Cavendish), those two support riders were crucial for Cav. If Sky had had a 6 man team Eisel wouldn't have been brought with and EBH, even if he still made the team, wouldn't have been allowed to help Cav. This is quite an extreme example, obviously, as Sky's team that year was ridiculously strong, but the example is true for many teams in recent times, such as Sagan when he raced for Liquigas.

There are other factors too which must be considered, such as the fact that teams would drop a lot of their good sprinters and choose more rounded domestiques who can help in the mountains (as Brocco pointed out) and the fact that if a team loses 3 riders or more they will be left with virtually no riders (which is quite easy in a 3 week GT - Dimension Data, Sunweb and AG2R have already lost 4 this Vuelta and BMC, Movistar and Katusha have lost 3).

So overall, it would be ridiculous to have only 6 riders in a team for a GT. However, I am quite excited to see a GT with 8 riders in each team (though I doubt it will be so different from 9 riders).

Who cares about sprinters? If they want to sprint they should go to track

Don't be stupid, sprint are part of a race and road race cycling. It can be boring stages, but should of course still be part of it. Thats the same as saying, that if they wnat to climb or time trial, they should go to moutain bike or track. A lot of people care about sprints, and ofcourse are part of it.