Vuelta 2018 stage 15:Ribera del Arriba - Lagos de Covadonga

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

It kind of feels Quintana is banking for Yates having that 1/2 bad days in the 3rd week.

He might be right.

exactly my thoughts - He's likely betting everything on the 17th & penultimate stages, BUT If Yates fades, the problem for Quintana is Superman Lopez, who seems to be stronger, so that gamble is not fully thought out well IMO...

I'd add at this point Quintana has another problem and that is his own teammate. Valverde isn't going to just give Quintana time on him.

I find it hard to believe that Quintana would just let Yates/Valverde take time on him if he's feeling good. That doesn't make any sense. He's just a bit off the pace this year, and has to race with perfect tactics. I don't think he did that yesterday. Also, Valverde isn't really a teammate at this point. If he cracks, he'll go stage hunting rather than work for Quintana. But maybe he's earned that status.

But, 3 hard stages and a TT to go, so much remains unknown.

I don't think Quintana can attack. If he can he would have tried more often up till now.

I also don't think Quintana can attack. I think he's at his limit.

Well Quintana went into this race knowing he has 6 teammates to help him. He knew from the start Valverde was racing his own race for whatever he wanted, be that stages or GC or both. At 38 years old, with over 100 wins, and a bunch of records, plus coming back from could have been a career ending injury, he's earned that right, esp in his home Grand Tour.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

What is Porte doing in this race btw?

According to himself he is having fun with the spectators from the grupetto

Seewhere Steve de J says an upright Porte can get a Tour podium ..I see that man has grasped the enormity of the job in front of him

Well if he can get through a Grand Tour, even if it's in the grupetto, it would be a very good start.

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

What is Porte doing in this race btw?

According to himself he is having fun with the spectators from the grupetto

Seewhere Steve de J says an upright Porte can get a Tour podium ..I see that man has grasped the enormity of the job in front of him

Well if he can get through a Grand Tour, even if it's in the grupetto, it would be a very good start.

"Finishing 132nd in the Vuelta at age 33, obvious future Tour winner"

 

[Amazinmets87]

Has he no form at all? You'd think he'd be jumping in the breaks

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

What is Porte doing in this race btw?

According to himself he is having fun with the spectators from the grupetto

Seewhere Steve de J says an upright Porte can get a Tour podium ..I see that man has grasped the enormity of the job in front of him

Well if he can get through a Grand Tour, even if it's in the grupetto, it would be a very good start.

"Finishing 132nd in the Vuelta at age 33, obvious future Tour winner"

LOL, but you have to finish before you can win. However, I also doubt he has any kind halfway decent form either.

 

[yaco]

My suspicion is Porte has spat the dummy because he was forced to ride the Vuelta - There is no way his form can be that bad.

 

[Blanco]

Re:

Kelderman has the excuse he has ridden 0 races since his injury in the Dutch national champs.

He thought he could do really well on the account of being fresh and training hard. But he is clearly lacking race rythm

so did you, if I remember correctly..

 

[Blanco]

Re:

It's so disguisting. Unfortunately Quintana doesn't deserve to win it. My hopes are focused around Simon.
Yes, it's 2nd class GT but still, what a shame would be if valverde would win it.

Froome spent quite time trying to win it

 

[Alexandre B.]

The best chance for Valverde right now are Yates, Lopez and Quintana neutralizing each other.

 

[May0maniac]

Cataldo was impressive today, he did a great job for MAL, I'd select him for the WC instead of Aru.
My team would be:
Nibali
Pozzovivo
Delfino
Caruso
Moscon
Brambilla
Cataldo
Felline/Visconti/Ulissi/Formolo

Aru as a commentator for Italian TV.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Re: Re:

Kelderman has the excuse he has ridden 0 races since his injury in the Dutch national champs.

He thought he could do really well on the account of being fresh and training hard. But he is clearly lacking race rythm

so did you, if I remember correctly..

Yeah, and he did look good in the first few uphill finishes. But I guess the lack of rythm is catching up

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

A great win by Pinot. It’s a pity he’s not in real GC contention.

Entertaining stuff from Yates and Lopez. Often when it’s clear there’s not much between the best climbers, things settle down into a somewhat turgid group ride, but those two kept attacking each other and Quintana, over and over again. As for Quintana, the way he responded to those attacks makes it hard to believe that he just didn’t have the capacity to be aggressive. Maybe he thinks he can put Yates away in the third week and Superman will die in the ITT, maybe he’s too defensive for his own good, maybe he truly was dead.

 

[El Pistolero]

If you lack race rhythm you should go for stage hunting and not GC anyway... unless you're as talented as Contador.

 

[Koronin]

Re:

A great win by Pinot. It’s a pity he’s not in real GC contention.

Entertaining stuff from Yates and Lopez. Often when it’s clear there’s not much between the best climbers, things settle down into a somewhat turgid group ride, but those two kept attacking each other and Quintana, over and over again. As for Quintana, the way he responded to those attacks makes it hard to believe that he just didn’t have the capacity to be aggressive. Maybe he thinks he can put Yates away in the third week and Superman will die in the ITT, maybe he’s too defensive for his own good, maybe he truly was dead.

That's leaving out Valverde who is still in the middle of this and a better TTer than Quintana. Also of the 3 climbing stages left only 1 is not very good for Valverde and we already saw in week 2 his not good stage he didn't shed that much time.

 

[Rollthedice]

Re:

Cataldo was impressive today, he did a great job for MAL, I'd select him for the WC instead of Aru.
My team would be:
Nibali
Pozzovivo
Delfino
Caruso
Moscon
Brambilla
Cataldo
Felline/Visconti/Ulissi/Formolo

Aru as a commentator for Italian TV.

Well, Cassano is in Spain, I also would select Cataldo. The rest would be Nibs, Pozzo, Delfino, Caruso, Moscon, De Marchi and Formolo.

 

[May0maniac]

Re: Re:

Cataldo was impressive today, he did a great job for MAL, I'd select him for the WC instead of Aru.
My team would be:
Nibali
Pozzovivo
Delfino
Caruso
Moscon
Brambilla
Cataldo
Felline/Visconti/Ulissi/Formolo

Aru as a commentator for Italian TV.

Well, Cassano is in Spain, I also would select Cataldo. The rest would be Nibs, Pozzo, Delfino, Caruso, Moscon, De Marchi and Formolo.

I forgot about De Marchi, he deserves a spot and Cassani likes him.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Re:

A great win by Pinot. It’s a pity he’s not in real GC contention.

Entertaining stuff from Yates and Lopez. Often when it’s clear there’s not much between the best climbers, things settle down into a somewhat turgid group ride, but those two kept attacking each other and Quintana, over and over again. As for Quintana, the way he responded to those attacks makes it hard to believe that he just didn’t have the capacity to be aggressive. Maybe he thinks he can put Yates away in the third week and Superman will die in the ITT, maybe he’s too defensive for his own good, maybe he truly was dead.

That's leaving out Valverde who is still in the middle of this and a better TTer than Quintana. Also of the 3 climbing stages left only 1 is not very good for Valverde and we already saw in week 2 his not good stage he didn't shed that much time.

They may be wrong, but I don’t think any of Quintana, Lopez or Yates perceive Valverde as a first tier rival. They will be aware that Kruijswijk dragged him back after he was dropped today.

 

[search]

Re:

If you lack race rhythm you should go for stage hunting and not GC anyway... unless you're as talented as Contador.

Horner won the Vuelta with 6 race days in 5 months, so there is a possibility.

But I agree that degrading the full team to dom duties for a very vague GC chance was not particularly clever. And the breakaway stages are more or less over now, so that's probably it with any chances for good stage results for Sunweb as well - unless Walscheid can deliver a good sprint

 

[Escarabajo]

That's a bit unfair with Kelderman. I thought with his initial results that he was very well prepared for GC. I guess he fooled everyone and nobody knew how his performance would be.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Thats the way Sunweb think for better and for worse. Its all in for one rider basically, hence Barguil was thrown out of the race in 2017. A tactic that I pretty much always will disagree on unless you have Dumoulin or Froome, you should always try something else during the 3 weeks.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Re:

Thats the way Sunweb think for better and for worse. Its all in for one rider basically, hence Barguil was thrown out of the race in 2017. A tactic that I pretty much always will disagree on unless you have Dumoulin or Froome, you should always try something else during the 3 weeks.

No, that was the right decision. Certainly in hindsight, Kelderman wasn't far off podium and lost some time in that stage. Which could have been less if Barguil wasn't an ass. Totally the right decision back then

 

[search]

yeah, I think last year it was the right decision - this year not so. Although it probably didn't make too much of a difference with the mostly very young team and Teunissen far from 100% anyway after his collorbone injury. Maybe Geschke could have won from a breakaway, but that's about it.

 

[El Pistolero]

Re: Re:

If you lack race rhythm you should go for stage hunting and not GC anyway... unless you're as talented as Contador.

Horner won the Vuelta with 6 race days in 5 months, so there is a possibility.

But I agree that degrading the full team to dom duties for a very vague GC chance was not particularly clever. And the breakaway stages are more or less over now, so that's probably it with any chances for good stage results for Sunweb as well - unless Walscheid can deliver a good sprint

Well, I think Kelderman is more ethical than Horner, that's all I will say here.

 

[Kwibus]

Re:

That's a bit unfair with Kelderman. I thought with his initial results that he was very well prepared for GC. I guess he fooled everyone and nobody knew how his performance would be.

Kelderman felt good starting the Vuelta.
Maybe it's not lack of racing, maybe he just isn't good enough this year. Whatever it can be.

Kelderman was 4th last year and they had plenty of reason to try to ride GC with him. Certainly there were some uncertainties regarding his form or how his health would hold up. His numbers pre Vuelta were really good though so it's indeed more then logical they tried to ride GC with Kelderman.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Re: Re:

To me it looks like there is no clear communication within Movistar. Both, Valverde and Quintana don't ride against each other, yet they don't ride to maximise the chance for one of them winning. When Valverde is in the group he rides from the front, when he is dropped Quintana looks uncertain about wether he should ride on. One of them should ride for the other or it will be very difficult for them.. Maybe one of them has to lose a lot of time for the other one to be the clear leader.

They are racing two different races. Quintana is racing basically with the support of the team except for Valverde. Valverde is racing his own race with no support.

Carapaz's support for Valverde while leaving Quintana behind yesterday makes that difficult to sustain.