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Vuelta a España 2019 stage 7: Onda > Mas de la Costa 183.2km

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As I said before the start, I hope NQ is not gonna sacrifice going for the win to get Vv a top ten and a couple of stage wins. NQ looked good today dragging them up, also Roglic pulling for a while whilst keeping Vv in check, didn't see any of the others. Good win for Vv. How much time is he gonna lose to Roglic in the ITT? Out of sight?
 
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As I said before the start, I hope NQ is not gonna sacrifice going for the win to get Vv a top ten and a couple of stage wins. NQ looked good today dragging them up, also Roglic pulling for a while whilst keeping Vv in check, didn't see any of the others. Good win for Vv. How much time is he gonna lose to Roglic in the ITT? Out of sight?

Valverde should be able to limit his losses in the ITT to Roglic better than Lopez and Quintana as he's a better time trialist when he's on for it. NQ did look better today than he did on stage 5.
So far Kuss is looking good to be able to help Roglic.
 
I am not trying to stifle debate . .I don’t see any real debate on the matter except from Libertine Sequros.
The fact is strength in cycling is a moving variable measure. The same group of riders that are ‘strong’ this year could be ‘weak’ next year. iF Froome & Dumoulin and Pinot and S Yates were in the race and had no form would tbat be a strong field ?? No?
If this were 2015/16 you guys would be lauding how Chaves is a very strong rider as if you had discovered him. So Chaves isn’t strong now
If this were 2015 you would all be lauding Aru as the next greatest rider .So Aru isn’t strong now ?
They are now consigned to the ‘dull poor strength” category .
They are the same riders but lack form but you talk as if strength was a fixed variable.
We all know form is variable . Andy Schleck in 2011 v Andy Schleck in 2014 are 2 different creatures
. Just like you always seem to jump on every bandwagon of a new young rider until he is discarded from the next ‘new’ toy

This field is strong and that field is weak …what does that even mean
This Vuelta started with several GT winners and GT podium riders
We see today the top 4 beat the times of Froome & Contador on this climb in 2016 .Yet it’s a ‘weak’ field.

The strongest for any rider is at the height of their powers ..which is relative and not an exact measure …ie is a full strength Froome better than a full strength Contador. Several years and pages later no one can solve that. Is a top Pinot better than a top Roglic

IF you can debate strength and riders and teams with independent measurement fine…but moaning and with no credible evidence is just an annoyance .
 
Eurosport team making fun of Teuns for losing the jersey :)

EDPX6MKXUAAYq1E.jpg:large
 
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I am not trying to stifle debate . .I don’t see any real debate on the matter except from Libertine Sequros.
The fact is strength in cycling is a moving variable measure. The same group of riders that are ‘strong’ this year could be ‘weak’ next year. iF Froome & Dumoulin and Pinot and S Yates were in the race and had no form would tbat be a strong field ?? No?
If this were 2015/16 you guys would be lauding how Chaves is a very strong rider as if you had discovered him. So Chaves isn’t strong now
If this were 2015 you would all be lauding Aru as the next greatest rider .So Aru isn’t strong now ?
They are now consigned to the ‘dull poor strength” category .
They are the same riders but lack form but you talk as if strength was a fixed variable.
We all know form is variable . Andy Schleck in 2011 v Andy Schleck in 2014 are 2 different creatures
. Just like you always seem to jump on every bandwagon of a new young rider until he is discarded from the next ‘new’ toy

This field is strong and that field is weak …what does that even mean
This Vuelta started with several GT winners and GT podium riders
We see today the top 4 beat the times of Froome & Contador on this climb in 2016 .Yet it’s a ‘weak’ field.

The strongest for any rider is at the height of their powers ..which is relative and not an exact measure …ie is a full strength Froome better than a full strength Contador. Several years and pages later no one can solve that. Is a top Pinot better than a top Roglic

IF you can debate strength and riders and teams with independent measurement fine…but moaning and with no credible evidence is just an annoyance .


You also have to take into account a rider's abilities as well. Valverde at the Vuelta is going to be better than Valverde at the Tour even if he has the same form due to la Vuelta suiting his abilities better.
 
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Yeah the 2017 Giro was a *** horrendous race alright.

Total garbage compared to 4 dudes holding hands until the the final 200m.

Come off it, it has happened once, and we're on stage 7. A lot of things happened on stage 2 and 5.

The Alto Mas de la Costa is too steep to be attacking territory, the last time they used it, 4 riders also came in together.
 
So who missing..Dumoulin ? He would not have won today and would have waited for the IT and hung on in the mountains
Froome? or Thomas ? They would make it more exciting?

The 4 riders at the top today broke the record set Froome, Contador & Chaves in 2016
There is the World Champion, Roglic who has been marvelous this year , Quintana & Lopez both excellent world top climbers...a good mix

For the love of God enjoy the racing and stop moaning
No matter what happens, who is in the filed, what the stage is like,what the parcours are like, who is in the lead , who wins ...its moan moan moan

These guys go out everyday and risk life and limb and do what is on the very of human endurance and do it so well and the 'fans' on here just moan

a bunch of keyboard *
I agree with you to a certain extent but I find it more annoying when people go overboard moaning about other people moaning. Sure a few people have mentioned the field being a bit light but most of those people have also said the racing will likely be good. I always love the Vuelta and I'm super excited about this edition but I can still think the field is a little soft. You've made this a much bigger deal than it should be.
 
Great race so far with more than decent action on stages 2, 5 and 7, the ones you realistically could think something would be happening. Two dull sprint stages, one nice TTT and a classic Vuelta-break stage. Thats more than you can ask for in week 1, really. Unfortunately a lot of crashes which make the GC seem very thin, but don't fool yourself: the level is very high in the top. And even.
 
I agree with you to a certain extent but I find it more annoying when people go overboard moaning about other people moaning. Sure a few people have mentioned the field being a bit light but most of those people have also said the racing will likely be good. I always love the Vuelta and I'm super excited about this edition but I can still think the field is a little soft. You've made this a much bigger deal than it should be.

I am making a point and have not for every GT brought up how the field is weak or the race is unexciting .I said before the race started that I look forward to it and felt it would be great ...and I think it is
You dont seem to understand the difference between making a point and just moaning with no real point
But hey its seems in your world I am going over baord by pointing this out ...So much for the ability to tackle an issue or indeed ask for evidence
But nothing about your moaning about me moaning then ?? That is ok ?
Cos you sure as hell are...oh the irony
 
How strong was the 2012 field behind the top 4? Strength of field is always a difficult one to judge at this stage.

For example, the 2011 Vuelta featured defending champion Vincenzo Nibali, an Igor Antón out to avenge having lost the Vuelta through crashing out the previous year, when many (myself included) believed him to be the favourite, a Joaquím Rodríguez who had only lost out the previous year due to a disastrous TT but was rested and ready and targeting the race, a Michele Scarponi who had podiumed the Giro (was not yet the winner officially), a Van den Broeck who'd narrowly missed the podium in the 2010 Tour, salvaging his season after crashing out of the 2011 one, a two time former winner of the race (at the time) in Denis Menchov, the 2008 Tour winner and somebody who'd podiumed the race multiple times in Carlos Sastre, a Janez Brajkovič that some people still thought would become a star... but all of them either underperformed or turned out to be false hopes.

The 2011 Tour, on the other hand, was lauded by many thanks to its epic finale that meant people forgot that the first two weeks were a pile of steaming manure - and the excitement generated by Schleck, Contador, Evans and Voeckler plus supporting case in the final few days meant people didn't miss the many who crashed out and DNFed so much - van den Broeck, Vinokourov, Wiggins, Brajkovič, Horner, Klöden, Intxausti, Gadret and Poels all involved (on the other hand, the loss of Amets Txurruka in the early part of the race was immediately felt and perhaps explains why week 2 of that race was among the worst raced of all time).

Just listing the number of riders on the startlist with big reputations only takes us so far. At the Vuelta, especially in years where the Worlds is hilly, we've seen plenty of people use 'Worlds warmup' as a ready 'out' for if their form isn't there - take for example Damiano Cunego in 2009. He won on the Alto de Aitana, and looked strong, was in the top 10 overall, but when he had a bad day in the queen stage, he simply let go, came in with the autobus, so he could get in the break a day later, won the stage from that then quit the race, having 'achieved all he needed'. Realistically, he had gone with the GC in mind, but once he realised he wouldn't be able to fight for that, it was better to abandon all GC hope, get another stage win and then prepare for Mendrisio than to fight on, tire himself out and finish 8th. Big guns being eliminated early is always something that happens at Grand Tours (take Dumoulin at the Giro and those 2011 Tour riders as a good example, but we've also seen Nibali DQed from the Vuelta for the team car trying to move him from group to group, Froome and Contador at the 2014 Tour, Valverde breaking his leg in 2017, Quintana losing red and dropping out the next day in 2014 and so on), and is more common at the Vuelta due to its late-season position.

And that 2011 Vuelta that seemed so weak at the time, its podium doesn't seem so weak now that Froome and Wiggins are both Tour winners and Froome has gone on to win 6 GTs (on the road - 7 once that Vuelta is incorporated).

Yes the 2011 Tour was a strange one. The way the Schlecks rode in the Pyrenees in week two you would have been mistaken for thinking that the final TT was already completed. Riding to have both brothers on the podium instead of one on the top step cost them badly. Evans was very strong in the final week but the tactics by the Schleck brothers were amateurish. They went into the race think ing Contador was their only real rival even after doing the Giro when Evans was lurking near the top of the GC for the entire race. As you say the third week saved the race entertainment wise.
 
Come off it, it has happened once, and we're on stage 7. A lot of things happened on stage 2 and 5.

The Alto Mas de la Costa is too steep to be attacking territory, the last time they used it, 4 riders also came in together.
Totally agree. I also appreciate almost zero riders appeared to be consulting power meters...they didn't have enough energy to look down and see the news: No More Power here. The Vuelta seems to have more attacking and chaos as a rule and this has been great so far; aside from the crash carnage.
 
On the Vuelta website and on PCS, Madrazo KOM points total fell by 4 between stage 6 and stage 7. Is this a website error, a previous calculation error or a penalty?
he got a penalty for "Sheltering behind or taking advantage of the slipstream of a vehicule" twice. 2 Minutes in GC, 4 pt in the mountain classification, 10pt in the points classification and 500 CHF fine
 
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Yes the 2011 Tour was a strange one. The way the Schlecks rode in the Pyrenees in week two you would have been mistaken for thinking that the final TT was already completed. Riding to have both brothers on the podium instead of one on the top step cost them badly. Evans was very strong in the final week but the tactics by the Schleck brothers were amateurish. They went into the race think ing Contador was their only real rival even after doing the Giro when Evans was lurking near the top of the GC for the entire race. As you say the third week saved the race entertainment wise.

Evans didn't do the Giro in 2011. And neither did the Schlecks, and even if they'd started they wouldn't have finished, because of what happened…
 
Eurosport team making fun of Teuns for losing the jersey :)

EDPX6MKXUAAYq1E.jpg:large
Grossly unfair to them: they did no such thing.

Stephens had just asked a question, he and Chennaoui both put their mics in front of him for an answer at once, both withdrew them simultaneously. Had a giggle about that. Laughing at their own error (embarrassment reaction after making a mistake); by no stretch of the imagination were they ridiculing Teuns.
 
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Grossly unfair to them: they did no such thing.

Stephens had just asked a question, he and Chennaoui both put their mics in front of him for an answer at once, both withdrew them simultaneously. Had a giggle about that. Laughing at their own error (embarrassment reaction after making a mistake); by no stretch of the imagination were they ridiculing Teuns.

I guess my sarcasm wasn't obvious. :D
 
Evans didn't do the Giro in 2011. And neither did the Schlecks, and even if they'd started they wouldn't have finished, because of what happened…
You've parsed it wrongly. It was meant to be read as:

"thinking that Contador was their only real rival even after doing the Giro" "when Evans was lurking near the top of the GC the entire race".

The comment on the Giro was meant to reference Contador, rather than Evans.
 
Aug 30, 2019
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Quintana was the strongest today to me. I'm a bit disappointed with roglic, he could attack valverde when he was in trouble but he didn't and waited to beat him in a uphill sprint... And it's impossible to beat valverde in a uphill sprint.

Roglic is fighting for the GC ans Valverde is fighting for stages and a podium presence unless his team strategy (whatever that is, even if it exists at all) fails...
 

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