The Dauphiné route wasn't rubbish. It was actually pretty decent.
The Paris-Nice route - THAT was rubbish.
Wiggins yesterday impressed me. I didn't think he had that in him. He just ground people down like he was Ivan Basso or something. No need to attack, just ride them off your wheel. Very good showing.
But to say that he is now the absolute favourite for the Vuelta may be a misnomer - remember that Nibali had spent energy in an attack earlier on, and despite the brilliant performance Wiggins still put:
7" into Nibali
8" into Menchov
15" into van den Broeck
37" into Nieve
37" into Monfort
46" into Bruseghin
46" into Rodríguez
1'23" into Brajkovic
1'46" into Antón
1'46" into Scarponi
With the possible exceptions of the last 3, that really isn't all that much, when you consider what is to come, and that he is still nearly a minute behind Nibali on the GC.
I remember saying about Wiggins' chances that I thought he could do well, if he limited his losses in the uphill finishes in the first week, because I felt that La Covatilla and La Manzaneda suited him. I didn't expect him to be putting time into people, but ultimately this was a one-climb stage and as a result the gaps aren't so great. What could or would have happened if it was a multi-climb stage is up for debate; given the form people were in yesterday it seems Wiggins may have been able to take more time. But some riders like Bruseghin need a bit more climbing to get their diesels warmed up; the 2009 Tour route had a few one-climb-stages where Wiggins was very impressive but the only real multi-climb stage saw him lose 3 minutes. It's hard to say because the camera didn't show much of what was going on behind in the latter stages, but clearly the Taaramäe/Menchov/Zubeldia/Kessiakoff/Poels group caught some of the time back in the last kilometre as Wiggins continued to pull.
The ITT today represents Wiggins' best chance at building up a lead. La Manzaneda suits him pretty well as well, but it falls after the rest day so I would expect the other riders to be relatively fresh and harder to drop in that style. However Wiggins did not waste energy chasing down needless attacks like Scarponi did, and rode a very sensible climb. If his tactic is going to be to simply pretend nobody else is there and grind his way up the climb, he's probably got a good chance of limiting his losses fairly competently on Farrapona and Anglirú - the question then will be, who's the one that takes the bull by the horns? Nibali was 3rd to Monte Zoncolán, and J-Rod was 3rd to Anglirú in service of Valverde in 2008. We've never really seen Wiggins in form on a climb of this calibre (it would be unfair to judge him on the 2010 Giro Zoncolán stage).
Everyone was moaning about the surfeit of flat finishes.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram