You really expect Schleck to make up that much time in the mountains (and more since he is the worst time trialler of all possible contenders) on not one, but three riders?
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shleck , nibali and anton to reach the top together. and nibali will win.
second group with tondo, sastre, purito, menchov, roche and a couple of caisse guys.
as always i am forgetting a bunch of guys so meh . . .
second group with tondo, sastre, purito, menchov, roche and a couple of caisse guys.
as always i am forgetting a bunch of guys so meh . . .
I like what i saw from xaceba today. Mosquera likes the steeper slopes.
In 08 he was beaten by Contador, valverde and sastre.
in 09 he was beaten by valverde, samu , cuddles and basso
None of those are here.
As good as anton and nibali are, they arent the same class just yet. Menchov and purito did the tour. Schleck doesnt look like it. If mosquera can put it together in the mountains, hes got a good chance as anyone
Official prediction: Mosquerra to do it (if the gc candidates go for it)
In 08 he was beaten by Contador, valverde and sastre.
in 09 he was beaten by valverde, samu , cuddles and basso
None of those are here.
As good as anton and nibali are, they arent the same class just yet. Menchov and purito did the tour. Schleck doesnt look like it. If mosquera can put it together in the mountains, hes got a good chance as anyone
Official prediction: Mosquerra to do it (if the gc candidates go for it)
paperbackwriter said:Purito has a house in this area, so he probably trains quite often there. I don't expect him to be dropped by all most serious GC contenders tomorrow.
Anyway, Frank Schleck for the win. Looks quite good, is pressed to attack and if I was him, I'd be super angry at the moment- which may mean extra motivation.
And US Open finals don't clash with Vuelta stages this time I think
if cleisters plays its saturday night at about 11 pm central european.
Sunday mens final will be about 8pm. Neither of those clash with the vuelta, unless they are just showing repeat of the final all next day
Sorry for being imprecise, I only meant stage win, I don't expect him to win this Vuelta. (Though I don't think he's the worst time trialler of all GC contenders, few are equally... average.)Arnout said:
I'd still say tomorrow Purito won't lose any time to GC contenders (well, time bonuses excluded), but maybe it's wishful thinking.
This is the best chance for the heavier guys to do some damage at a mtf, Bruseghin didnt lose much at the short and very steep climb at stage 8 so he could very well challenge the featherweights here.
Arnout said:
Look Shleck is no master against the clock, but several other contenders are worse. Also, F. Shleck has made improvements in the ITT this year, as he demonstrated by winning the TdSuisse
Look at Joaqin Rodriquez for example... possibly one of the worst time trialists ever (as far as GC riders go)
royalpig180 said:
What was puritos time in the tdf tt? and hes never really had to go for it. Maybe, like schlecklet, he will be able to put in a decent performance when he has the red to look at and motivate him (in schleks case he wore yellow armbands)
I know nothing, but this looks like a great stage to me. With the last 70 KM mostly uphill, it looks like a successful attack could gain much time. Or will the leaders all stay together and wait for a later stage? I hope the snooker doesn't delay the broadcast.
The Hitch said:
He was 154th, 10:17 back from the winner, in the final TT, where I'd say he had to 'go for it' to save his placing. Granted, the top contenders were affected by the wind shift, but check out his time compared with some others:
1 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team Saxo Bank 1:00:56
11 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 0:03:51
35 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 0:05:43
44 Andy Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 0:06:14
48 Carlos Sastre (Spa) Cervelo Test Team 0:06:30
67 Lance Armstrong (USA) Team Radioshack 0:07:05
109 Robert Gesink (Ned) Rabobank 0:08:33
145 Ivan Basso (Ita) Liquigas-Doimo 0:09:51
154 Joaquin Rodriguez (Spa) Team Katusha 0:10:17
He got beaten by almost 2 minutes by Gesink, an average TTer who by his own admission had a disastrous TT. I'd say an average Frank S TT would fall somewhere in between Sastre and Armstrong on that scale. Hell, he even got beat by the sick Basso who had nothing to race for but pride. I just think he's not a very good TTer. Worst GC TTer in recent memory is accurate, based on that.
Oh well, at least he beat 16 other guys. Including:
166 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team 0:10:57
Can I just verify that this is the Stage 11 thread? And not the Luxembourg-Denmark ****ing thread. BBC-SkyTV ****ing thread. Basque-Nevarra ****ing thread. UN ****ing thread (no other party needed), Barca FC ****ing thread....
I know you gave it a header and all Hitch, but today that doesn't seem to be much of an indicator, as there is some serious OT(T) Liquid Aggro sloshing around today across most front page threads, for some reason.
I know you gave it a header and all Hitch, but today that doesn't seem to be much of an indicator, as there is some serious OT(T) Liquid Aggro sloshing around today across most front page threads, for some reason.
Francois the Postman said:
In my defence
BBC-SkyTV - Sky green thread
UN - Sky green thread
Barca FC - Sky green thread
Basque-Nevarra - not my battle
Luxembourg-Denmark - not my battle
All digressions were in the Sky green thread which got hijacked pretty early (as happens once in a while) and so a lot of issues were covered. The other threads have remained unpolluted ( by myself anyway)
El Pistolero said:
I'm a Clijsters fan. She doesn't play her semi-final against Venus until after a mens' doubles match on Friday afternoon, so there's no conflict there. The Women's final is Saturday night, so that's not an issue. There shouldn't be any overlap between events on Sunday, so it's just a question of whether or not your provider carries the first men's semi on Saturday.
Oh - I'd like to see 3 or 4 GC guys battle it out on the climb. I hope Nibali will be one, and I've learned to expect Anton to be another one. Purito will give everything he has.
If a breakaway doesn't suceed then my moneys on Rodriguez and Nibali for the stage win.But i would like to see N.Roche win this stage...........
blaxland said:
Unfortunately there can be only 1 stage winner...
I'm gonna go with Nibali myself, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Frank Shleck up there as well since this climb will better suit him than what we've seen so far.
Mosquera should attack. He is already down 75-80 seconds and he will get minutes from Nibali in the ITT.
Frank Schleck will be missing Andy and Stuey, that can't help.
I'll go with Nibali again, I think he's due for one.
I'll go with Nibali again, I think he's due for one.
I just had a look at the weather for the stage and it looks like strong crosswinds most of the way!?
Crosswinds indeed. That might be interesting. I just have no idea how strong the wind is?
What's bad though is that the climb is all headwind which isn't good at all. Certainly if it's a strong wind then we could see the GC favourites hiding behind their teammates. What's also interesting is the possibility of rain in combination with ' just 9 celsius ' . Ok it's not that cold, but together with rain....
I really can't make my mind up who will win this stage.
About the current top3 in the GC:
-I don't know Anton well since this is probably the first year i've been this into cycling. Before it was mostly TdF so I don't know much about him, but from what i've heard he's a rider that cracks sometimes. So you can't really bet on the guy, but so far he's been really strong.
-Nibali showed in the Giro he's a good climber and that there are days he climbs with the best, but also days he gives away some minutes.
-Purito was allready very strong in the TdF and has been strong the entire year pretty much. How long can he keep this up? I'm afraid this Vuelta will be too long for him.
Then there is a long list of other contenders that could surprise or crack. I'm happy I don't have to put money on this stage
What's bad though is that the climb is all headwind which isn't good at all. Certainly if it's a strong wind then we could see the GC favourites hiding behind their teammates. What's also interesting is the possibility of rain in combination with ' just 9 celsius ' . Ok it's not that cold, but together with rain....
I really can't make my mind up who will win this stage.
About the current top3 in the GC:
-I don't know Anton well since this is probably the first year i've been this into cycling. Before it was mostly TdF so I don't know much about him, but from what i've heard he's a rider that cracks sometimes. So you can't really bet on the guy, but so far he's been really strong.
-Nibali showed in the Giro he's a good climber and that there are days he climbs with the best, but also days he gives away some minutes.
-Purito was allready very strong in the TdF and has been strong the entire year pretty much. How long can he keep this up? I'm afraid this Vuelta will be too long for him.
Then there is a long list of other contenders that could surprise or crack. I'm happy I don't have to put money on this stage
To be fair to Nibbles, the day he lost minutes was Zoncolán, and he'd been out in the solo escape on the descent of Monte Grappa the day before. As a result of this, Scarponi and Evans had to chase him down, tiring them out and allowing Basso to get a free ride, so Basso was able to beat them on Zoncolán.
And with regards Antón, this is the first full look we've had at him as a GT contender; he was in a good spot in 2008 before crashing en route to Angliru, and had been the only person able to respond to Contador and Valverde's attacks in the first set of mountains, so he has that pedigree. His 2009 isn't really representative because he lost a lot of his offseason due to injury, so he's still a little bit of an unknown over three weeks.
I'm concerned for Mosquera in this for two reasons. 1- crosswinds may play havoc with his notoriously poor bike handling skills, and 2- he's the kind of guy who prefers a multiple-mountain stage that saps the leg strength of opponents to a single-climb stage. On the other hand, that doesn't mean I don't expect him to be the one to initiate hostilities.
One of the best races this year was the race to Alto del Morredero in the Vuelta a Castilla y León, where Mosquera launched hostilities the second the road got uphill with a big dig, and only Contador and Antón could go with him, then Soler bridged to them a couple of km later. I hope for more of that!
And with regards Antón, this is the first full look we've had at him as a GT contender; he was in a good spot in 2008 before crashing en route to Angliru, and had been the only person able to respond to Contador and Valverde's attacks in the first set of mountains, so he has that pedigree. His 2009 isn't really representative because he lost a lot of his offseason due to injury, so he's still a little bit of an unknown over three weeks.
I'm concerned for Mosquera in this for two reasons. 1- crosswinds may play havoc with his notoriously poor bike handling skills, and 2- he's the kind of guy who prefers a multiple-mountain stage that saps the leg strength of opponents to a single-climb stage. On the other hand, that doesn't mean I don't expect him to be the one to initiate hostilities.
One of the best races this year was the race to Alto del Morredero in the Vuelta a Castilla y León, where Mosquera launched hostilities the second the road got uphill with a big dig, and only Contador and Antón could go with him, then Soler bridged to them a couple of km later. I hope for more of that!
Indeed, Mosquera has been a bit too quiet and already lost some time unfortunately, just like last year, on Xorret de Cati.
I hope he can show he has the form
I hope he can show he has the form
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