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Vuelta a España 2019 stage 17: Aranda de Duero - Guadalajara > 219.6 km

Page 14 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Tomorrow Astana will be cooked, Movistar will be cooked, UAE will be fresh and JV will be fresh... Not looking good for Bala, NQ and MAL...

Unless they make UAE and JV work hard tomorrow from the first climb with an early ambush, but seems unlikely to me...
 
Tomorrow Astana will be cooked, Movistar will be cooked, UAE will be fresh and JV will be fresh... Not looking good for Bala, NQ and MAL...

Unless they make UAE and JV work hard tomorrow from the first climb with an early ambush, but seems unlikely to me...

Huh? I disagree a lot with some people here but even I wouldn't make that claim. Both JV and UAE had to work hard. I think they could have been made to work harder, but they'll have a lot of tired legs tonight.


Conversely Movistar and Astana did their work in the chasing group mainly when there was a tailwind. Almost certain they'll be feeling a lot fresher.
 
They did about the minimum work they could get away with in the front group. They still needed to make the other teams ride. That's also why they wouldn't call back their riders.

I'm not saying they'll actively try and destroy Quintana's chances no matter what, maybe my first post in this discussion was a little hyperbolic. I'm saying that they don't care about Quintana. They'll take his finish whatever it is, but they're riding for Valverde. They want Valverde on that podium in the WC jersey at the end of the race. If you're dropping guys with a tailwind they ain't going to be contributing to any chase. Movi took a minute out of the break and suddenly Astana were interested. There are much better ways they could have helped Quintana. They could have disrupted the chase, let gaps appear and forced others to close them and generally just sat on wheels and made themselves annoying to everyone there.
You just can't see it, or you don't want to.
They wanted to drop Roglic for good, and with some 40-50 km to the end I actually think Quintana would benefit the most from that, and he would be in red at the end.
 
Movistar worked for like 5 min, but it was still tough on guys like Soler and Valverde in the chase. And little Q, who doesnt have great legs, will be feeling this tomorrow I fear, unfortunately.
I don't think Valverde or Quintana will be feeling this any more than Pogacar or Roglic, in comparison to the fatigue you would expect them to have after a stage. None of them did much, if any work. I think I saw Quintana roll through a couple of times when the pace was lower, the rest were in the wheels.
 
But what do you think would happen if Soler/Valverde and Lopez with his men started attacking simultaneously, after he was left isolated?
With that tailwind, pretty much nothing. Lopez ain't attacking on a flat stage just to blow a gasket and possibly lose his top 5 , even his top 10, when he has basically a full team of doms around him and I don't think there's any chance Soler and Valverde are dropping Roglic, they'd just put more hurt into their own legs for tomorrow.

Into a headwind, that's a different ball game.
 
With that tailwind, pretty much nothing. Lopez ain't attacking on a flat stage just to blow a gasket and possibly lose his top 5 , even his top 10, when he has basically a full team of doms around him and I don't think there's any chance Soler and Valverde are dropping Roglic, they'd just put more hurt into their own legs for tomorrow.

Into a headwind, that's a different ball game.
What? How is it easier to attack with a headwind???
 
What? How is it easier to attack with a headwind???
It's not, it's harder to close gaps and follow wheels. I'd have less problems with Movistar's tactics today if it had been a headwind. They'd have had more chance to shell Rog after they got rid of the JV riders and they could have made him have to chase things in the wind for the last 40-50km. If that had happened I would have agreed they were racing for Quintana.
 
TV2 almost making it out to be a disaster for Movistar in spite of Quintana gaining 5.30 minutes today and taking every opportunity to downplay them. Apart from Quintana who they apprantly love because a) he doesnt get support on Movistar and b) Movistar is Valverde's team and Valverde himself is actively working against Nairo. Thankfully, that rhetoric isnt the dominant on this forum.

Its really a sad, sad state. More often than not, wrong analysis and an extreme amount of time used on dissecting every move of Quintana/Valverde and what it means between the two of them instead of actually commenting on the stage. Not one time was it even questioned that Astana acted as Roglic's usefull idiots because it was much, much easier to critisize a tactic that you cannot even understand.

Why is it that I am not just watching Eurosport??
 
With that tailwind, pretty much nothing. Lopez ain't attacking on a flat stage just to blow a gasket and possibly lose his top 5 , even his top 10, when he has basically a full team of doms around him and I don't think there's any chance Soler and Valverde are dropping Roglic, they'd just put more hurt into their own legs for tomorrow.

Into a headwind, that's a different ball game.
The point is the following. If Astana stopped working, even though Quintana is no danger to anyone, He could have been in red by far today unless Roglic and Pogacar worked real hard together. Otherwise Quintana walks to the red Jersey. The worse that would have happened is the same but with a completely worn out Roglic and Pogacar. There is no way in the universe that Roglic and Pogacar alone would have been any challenge to DCQ/MOVI/Sunweb working together at the front.
 
Well if Poga worked, surely Lopez would have needed to work as well. If Astana stopped, I think only Rogla would have worked in front and that would have been GG from that point on after dropping his domestiques on the climb. Sure, would have been a big gamble for Astana and it would have looked weird when they were 5, but after a while they could maybe have attacked him along with Poga and Valv/Soler. There were many opportunities, but sadly they played it very conservative. Which I understand to some degree, but it would just have been a much, much more interesting stage this way around. That could have put the Vuelta in completely jeopardy and if they somehow cracked Roglic, who knows. We will never know because they took this approach and as I said before, acted as usefull fools and 100% dedicated helpers for Roglic. Unfortunately...
 

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