Giro Stage 7 - Spoiler Thread

alanjay

frenchfighter wrote:

.... couldbt write properly.

Oh the irony....

roypsb

frenchfighter wrote:

Giro definitely not over for Wiggins. Anything can happen.

Not that I think he has the panache or racing balls to deserve a win. There is zero class in winning a GT by crushing your opponents (oddly) in the TT then dieseling the mountains with your slaves up front doing the work. And the funny thing is Wiggins know the Giro has the romantic side.

Are they using radios or not? If they werent and Henao was in front of Wiggins before the crash he might still be up there.

Same old crap. Bore off. We've heard it all a million times.

Paul 8v

I really hope Wiggins can catch up some time in the time trial tomorrow, I was gutted for him that he fell and I can totally understand the sheepish run in, if he fell again that would have really ruined his day.

I think Nibali's fall was probably one of the most skilful I've seen, it didn't seem to phase him and he got straight back on the bunch.

If Wiggins catches him I'd love to see the two of them go head to head, it was getting close to it on the Trentino but there was the obvious bike parking incident that put paid to this.

I think the surprise contender here could be Evans, who I personally had discounted because he has done nothing for a while but he looked strong in the Trentino and has been there or there about in the Giro so far.

This is the first Giro I've seen as I've not had sky before and it looks like it will shape up to be pretty epic, at the moment it looks like there are at least 4 riders capable of winning.

Paul 8v

And guys, be nice to each other, this is a cycling forum not a football one. Most people are here because they are passionate for the sport.

jerry3571

Is this another situation like Frank Schrek when he wanted to ride the Tour and cried off the Giro after having to abandon after a lame crash??
I expect Froomey threw to TV handset out of the window when he saw Wiggo letting the Giro slip again after today's performance; especially with the added previous stages where Wiggo got sloppy.
Ryder H is not bad at the TT as well as Evans. Also Wiggo's TT is not in the same scale as Indurain's, in the past, where he would take out 2-3 minutes from the next biggest rivals. Hope Wiggo has brought his Mountain Legs as he's getting a good duffing over at the minute. :?

jerry3571

Paul 8v wrote:

And guys, be nice to each other, this is a cycling forum not a football one. Most people are here because they are passionate for the sport.

+1

Paul 8v

jerry3571 wrote:

Is this another situation like Frank Schrek when he wanted to ride the Tour and cried off the Giro after having to abandon after a lame crash??
I expect Froomey threw to TV handset out of the window when he saw Wiggo letting the Giro slip again after today's performance; especially with the added previous stages where Wiggo got sloppy.
Ryder H is not bad at the TT as well as Evans. Also Wiggo's TT is not in the same scale as Indurain's, in the past, where he would take out 2-3 minutes from the next biggest rivals. Hope Wiggo has brought his Mountain Legs as he's getting a good duffing over at the minute. :?

It seems to be the descents he is having trouble with, I'm hoping for a few dry days up in the mountains later on and he may start to get in the swing of things a bit more.

Tomorrow will be the real indicator, if he doesn't win then I would say it's curtains for his giro hopes.

RonB

After the TTT the result was all but guaranteed and after today's stage Wiggins demise is all but guaranteed (according to some common taters). Methinks the truth lies somewhere between these extremes, especially given the two weeks that remain. If today brings out a p*ssed off Wiggins ready to fight back, this could end up being a cracking race. I really hope so.

Tom Butcher

I'm with Frenchie on a Plan B - one or both of Uran and Henao should have been left up there for the GC. That doesn't mean abandoning Wiggins as leader just yet but for the sake of a couple of seconds off Wiggo's deficit why would you sacrifice a genuine GC contender.

As far as Wiggo goes that was an appalling bit of riding for a grand tour contender. We've slated the likes of Schleck for his descending in the past and today was as bad as anything either brother has served up. Enough of the WW stuff - yes of course descending on the limit has risks and can be frightening but if you can't put that out of your mind as a pro it's poor riding - and today Wiggins was shockingly poor. I don't think he'll finish top 3 now - he hasn't shown anything this season that suggests he can get that back, any wet descent and the likes of Nibali will know what to do - pro tour pundit aside I'm still hoping he can but he just hasn't seemed hungry this year.

No_Ta_Doctor

There's quite a lot of knee-jerking reaction on this thread. The fact is that the rain made it a lottery. Nibali was lucky, as someone else said, a touch later and he'd have been into the wall. Yes, you take risks to gain time, but there are limits, and Wiggins knows where his strengths are. We'll see what happens in the TT tomorrow.

Oh and please don't quote FF. I finally blocked his trolling a few days ago and the forum has been much more pleasant ever since.

Tom Butcher

Not a lottery - it just placed the emphasis on nerve and skill not power to weight. It's not always about the numbers.

knedlicky

I don’t know what those who thought the stage dull, or thought it was only enlivened by the rain, expected, but I think the stage was fine.

It was predictable that there would be a break which would go free, and that nothing else much would happen until they were into the last third of the 177 km.
This because there weren’t any points available for climbs or intermediate sprints until 53 km before the finish, and with the TT tomorrow, none of the GC contenders would have struck out earlier.

I also think the attacks would have come even without the rain. I thought they would be from Evans and Sanchez and maybe BMC did plan something because up to about 60 km before the finish, they were one of the few teams leading the peloton.
Sky were at the front occasionally too, perhaps to be ready for anticipated attacks. (They were still occasionally at the front up to 25 km before the finish, but by then trying to moderate the speed, not keep it up, maybe because by then it was realised Wiggins was having an off day, or maybe Uran was hurting – he apparently crashed about 40 kms out, when his front wheel touched the back wheel of another Sky rider).
Later on, Blanco led and they too appeared to have had ambitions for today.

After the race, the Astana DS actually said that they’d planned attacks today. Their plan was that Tangert would go forward and then Nibali would join him, which almost happened except Nibali had the crash shown on TV before reaching Tangert (Nibali apparently crashed twice, but I don’t know where/when the other crash was).

Most lead work was by Vini Fantini, who certainly showed they hoped for the stage, with the attacks by Taborre and Di Luca, and the earlier attempts to get Rabottini into the break.
And it was primarily Vini Fantini who broke up the peloton, the pace they set both up and down the first categorised climb reduced the peloton to about 70, and often these 70 strung out at that.

The rain in the last 40 mins (by then they'd crossed the second categorised climb) complicated things, but I think the end of the race would have been similar and similarly exciting even without the rain, just some placings would have been different with fewer crashes.

jerry3571

I'm amazed at the amount of bikes ending up in the hedge. Maybe Wiggins can take some pressure out of his tyres or even run on tyres which are better in the wet. It must be better to have more tyre on the road than save a few watts.

Tricky stuff. Must admit there was a clip of Wiggo tickling around a bend today and I was getting p1$$ed off and the guy behind Wiggo came a cropper and then the guy in front was picking himself off the floor so thought that Wiggo was doing ok. Shame to lose more time though. :?

rick_chasey

Hanson needs speaking to about those handlebars.

Impressive win though.

I am a bit of a believer that riders with good legs very rarely crash descending.

I remember a question to Boogerd asking what makes a good descender and he said broadly it is legs. Had a few anecdotes to back it up.

Nibs is offically a fearless descender. Not an outstanding one. There's a difference.

I'm also gutted im missing the final week (and the Tour) since im off to NYC for 3 months.

No_Ta_Doctor

Tom Butcher wrote:

Not a lottery - it just placed the emphasis on nerve and skill not power to weight. It's not always about the numbers.

There were riders on the asphalt all over the place. Some of them with reputations for nerve and skill.

thomthom

Rick Chasey wrote:

Hanson needs speaking to about those handlebars.

Impressive win though.

I am a bit of a believer that riders with good legs very rarely crash descending.

I remember a question to Boogerd asking what makes a good descender and he said broadly it is legs. Had a few anecdotes to back it up.

Nibs is offically a fearless descender. Not an outstanding one. There's a difference.

I'm also gutted im missing the final week (and the Tour) since im off to NYC for 3 months.

Of course he is. He's not the best descender in the peloton but he is still an outstanding one. Because you've seen him crash today doesn't make him otherwise. He has proved that enough times.

rick_chasey

When has he proved it?

Last time I saw him attack on a descent he crashed too.

I can't remember the last time he made significant time downhill and the more I think about it, the more I question where he got the rep.

knedlicky

Rick Chasey wrote:

Hanson needs speaking to about those handlebars.

Apparently he has them narrower than appropriate for his shoulder width so that when leading Greipel in a sprint he has a more streamlined form.

thomthom

Rick Chasey wrote:

When has he proved it?

Last time I saw him attack on a descent he crashed too.

I can't remember the last time he made significant time downhill and the more I think about it, the more I question where he got the rep.

You haven't watched enough Giro races then.

Le Commentateur

TakeTheHighRoad wrote:

What an epic day that was, reminded me at different points of the stage on the strade biache in 2010 and the stage Haussler won in the Tour in 2009.

I was thinking today's stage and the way it was won was just the kind that dear old Vinokourov would have gone for.

Anyway tomoz TT is nicely set up now. If Wiggins somehow pulls something amazing out of the bag it could be a fascinating duel between him & Nibali, rather like the Zülle/Pantani one in the first half of the 1997 Giro.

RichN95.

ThomThom wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

When has he proved it?

Last time I saw him attack on a descent he crashed too.

I can't remember the last time he made significant time downhill and the more I think about it, the more I question where he got the rep.

You haven't watched enough Giro races then.

Nibali is a daredevil with a lot of balls and he has a willingness to attack on descents. But he's not technically that great. He understeers, skids, with a few near misses - he wrestles his bike down the mountain. But sometimes it gets the job done. The really good descenders are so smooth that they don't even look like it's difficult - Savoldelli, Cancellara, Hushovd, EBH for example.

https://twitter.com/friebos/status/332875888309977088 (I reckon the mystery rider there is probably Cav)

In a similar vein, at the Tour prologue last year Sagan almost crashed on a hairpin bend but remarkably kept himself upright. Someone on here then held this up as proof that he was a bike handler par excellence. I pointed out that 197 riders got round the corner without incident, so who's the great bike handler?

thomthom

Rick, it's simply not true.. You pretty much contradicts every expert and ex-pros I listened to throughout July last year when they praised Nibali for his only weapon he had left against Team Sky - descending.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPXIdGy1iM0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqy6jFZzYd0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcuhO8EDQVY

This was the first thing that came up when I searched it.
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=14014

As I said - there ARE better descenders. But calling his technique on bike 'not that great' is such a wierd claim. You know.. Even Fabian has crashed as well on rainy descends. Tour 2007.

Off to bed now. Goodnight

Le Commentateur

Paul 8v wrote:

I think the surprise contender here could be Evans, who I personally had discounted because he has done nothing for a while but he looked strong in the Trentino and has been there or there about in the Giro so far.

He's riding it perfectly so far. Up there, keeping hidden, no dramas. Waiting for the final week with the big mounains.

tailwindhome

Is Nibali's descending ability another example of the EEC* phenomenon?





* Excitable Eurosport Commentator.

Tom Butcher

No tA Doctor wrote:

Tom Butcher wrote:

Not a lottery - it just placed the emphasis on nerve and skill not power to weight. It's not always about the numbers.

There were riders on the asphalt all over the place. Some of them with reputations for nerve and skill.

Yes - but they mostly ended up over a minute in front of Wiggins - as they mostly made time on him the other day when he backed off on a wet descent and lost out on being awarded the same time after a crash in the bunch because of it. Bottom line is the crash didn't lose Bradley 90 seconds today - his reaction to the crash did.

Tom Butcher

TailWindHome wrote:

Is Nibali's descending ability another example of the EEC* phenomenon?


* Excitable Eurosport Commentator.

No he's a fantastic descender - he's demonstrated that far more often than some of the names mentioned above as being better.

davep1

Rick Chasey wrote:

Hanson needs speaking to about those handlebars.

Impressive win though.

I am a bit of a believer that riders with good legs very rarely crash descending.

I remember a question to Boogerd asking what makes a good descender and he said broadly it is legs. Had a few anecdotes to back it up.

Nibs is offically a fearless descender. Not an outstanding one. There's a difference.

I'm also gutted im missing the final week (and the Tour) since im off to NYC for 3 months.

Rick, could you expand on that thing about "good legs"? To me that means he has a lot of strength in them, but it must mean something different, or more?

ddraver

Dave - If you re I'm form then everything seems to go right, if your not (font have the legs) then everything seems horrible. Eg, if you re recovering on a descent because you ve hone to deep on the climb then you won't be concentrating 100% on descending

ddraver

Epic phone fial.....

davep1

ddraver wrote:

Epic phone fial.....

Don't you love that?! Thanks ddraver, I was thinking it was a technique thing...