cineteq said:Are you serious????
Schleck,Klöden,Horner,Monfort,Zubeldia,Popovych and Cancellara. I can't see them fail at a particular stage with these riders.
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cineteq said:Are you serious????
On paper looks ok, but then you've been oblivious to the saga that's been going on.K-0tic said:Schleck,Klöden,Horner,Monfort,Zubeldia,Popovych and Cancellara. I can't see them fail at a particular stage with these riders.
cineteq said:On paper looks ok, but then you've been oblivious to the saga that's been going on.
Froome19 said:I agree more with your first point.
Generally you find that the teams who win the team classification it is because of every stage where they get riders in the breaks.
The reason garmin won last year was not primarily down to Danielson, Hesjedal etc riding consistently in the mountains but rather it was because they managed to get Hushovd, Hesjedal, Hushovd etc in to breaks which stayed away and these gained them time which would be equal to however much they may lose on a mountain stage.
Sky this year and also Movistar imo have at least 3 riders who can do well in the mountains so they should be the favorite, but they wont be getting riders in breaks as they will mostly working for Cav/Wiggins and so they could lose out possibly, yet that is only if they are up against a team like Movistar or Astana who may additionally be sending the riders up the road. Once again this is especially relevant this year when a lot of stages are possible breakaway stages and the mountains are rather limited.
Libertine Seguros said:Its mostly about having guys in the breakaways and then somebody or two who can come in limiting their losses.
I'm just thinking, there may not be that many people so far done the break gets given more than a handful of minutes given the lack of super selective stages in the first half of the race; there will be stages that create gaps, but not the kind that leave people so far down the break gets allowed to go half an hour up the road like how Xacobeo-Galicía won the 2009 Vuelta teams classification by having 2 guys in the break Caisse let go 25 minutes in the stage Boom won and 2 more in the break that went 15 minutes in the stage Deignan won.
Therefore I'm thinking the gaps the breakaway wins stages by in the middle of the race will be smaller gaps, which will enable Sky with their strength in depth and UK Postal style from the Dauphiné to gain much of that time back in the TTs and mountain stages.
Fetisoff said:Radioshack is probably going to have 3 guys in top-20 overall at the very worst and do well in time trials, so they're gonna take this meaningless competition
Gloin22 said:So will Sky.
Wiggins-Froome-Porte and will do as well in Time-Trials.
It's going be quite close imo. Rabo stands fair chance too
Fetisoff said:Yeah, only difference is Shack don't have a Cavendish to work for, so I give them the slight edge
maxmartin said:What's up with richie porte?
top form in D to make the selection, non-factor in the tour?
or just save the energy to do the work in the mountain?
Froome19 said:Probably the latter, he has been following a similar build up to Wiggins and should be on around the same form - top form.