Vuelta 2019, Stage 20: Arenas de San Pedro - Plataforma de Gredos > 190.4 km

[Tricycle Rider]

Okay, can't blame them . I just love Bianchi aqua.

The Bianchi Celeste is by far my favorite bike color, guess we'll have to suffer through Roglic's red bicycle tomorrow. (Only once have I seen a Celeste in my city, I just about crapped my pants with glee as it passed by.)

On another note - like others have said upthread I'm very excited by Pogacar and all these other young riders that have cropped up this year, there's a reason to be excited about the future of cycling.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Must... resist... making Dutch... "beer"... joke.... AAAaaAaaargh.

I'm kidding guys, there are plenty of great Dutch beers (though Heineken isn't one of them).

 

[Blanco]

Been thinking about this for 2 hours. I have no clue. He clearly got a gap.

I don't know either. Maybe he was expecting Quintana to go with him...

 

[Lequack]

Podcast: Post-Stage 20 Analysis with Ned and David (33:22 English) — itv
http://www.steephill.tv/players/720...preaker.com/v2/episodes/19101960/play&yr=2019

Stage 20 Post Race Show w/ L Birnie, D Friebe (47:47 English) — cyclingpodcast

Stage 20 | Arenas de San Pedro – Plataforma de Gredos | Vuelta a España 2019

The penultimate stage and last in the mountains of the Vuelta a España saw a fierce battle among the main contenders with 20-year-old Tadej Pogacar winning his third stage to move up to third overall.

audioboom.com

 

[RedheadDane]

The Bianchi Celeste is by far my favorite bike color, guess we'll have to suffer through Roglic's red bicycle tomorrow. (Only once have I seen a Celeste in my city, I just about crapped my pants with glee as it passed by.)

I just think it's awesome that he waited until the last stage. I don't like the concept of getting all decked out in jersey colours just because you happens to have a jersey for maybe one day.

 

[Pantani_lives]

James knocks himself out of the top 10.

 

[Valv.Piti]

and yet for all the talk of a super high level, Lopez only gained a bit over 2 minutes on Majka in the road stages, so overall he wasn't that great

Quintana got 5 minutes over the rest on a stage where 99 times out of a 100, most favorites finish together or at least limit their losses

and the extremely high level of Valverde resulted in him beating a U-21 rider by 20 seconds

The Vuelta was occasionally entertaining, but it's difficult to say how much actual quality was there

Oh please, you can do this exercise for any GT.

 

[Red Rick]

Oh please, you can do this exercise for any GT.

GTs usually favour the consistent, no?

I'd say this year the GTs are simply harder to compare than most other years.

That being said, I am over MAL as a potential winner. He's just not that good. He'll have days where he's the best climber of the favorites and fail to gain time anyway and when he's bad he loses time to all the favorites, not to mention his awful TTs.

 

[geisterhome]

Agree. Pretty weak Vuelta and Roglic got it with relative ease. Valverde can't really make difference anywhere, Quintana was just lost and Tour in his legs and Pogacar is good, but not exactly Bernal of this world in terms of top consistency. And MAL just keeps on figuring out the ways to not be even close the winner of GT.

Yes, I would say Valverde was in similar shape as in the TdF, Quintana in slightly worse shape. Both barely made it into the top ten at the Tour and here they are 2nd and 4th. And this year's Tour wasn't the most amazing competition either, especially after Pinot didn't make it to Paris. Also after Majka on 6th place, it is really getting wild, none of the guys after him had anything remotely to do with the fight for the podium at any point of the race, each of them benefitted from breakaways where they gained massive amounts of time. I'd say in your average GT those riders would have a hard time to crack the top 20.