Giro Stage 9 - Spoiler thread

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  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,174
    I think that Cataldo should be a good help if he has fully recovered, together with the two Colombians. Siutsuo will be his usual machine-like self on the early climbs plus Pate, Knees and Zandio will do the donkey work as usual. Puccio is a bit of an unknown. The real unknown is whether they can work in an attacking way as the need to gain time rather than avoid losing time.
  • deejay
    deejay Posts: 3,138
    Crozza wrote:
    - Brailsford and Kerrison seem very cold, analytical.
    So with 3 riders in the GC top 9 are you sure which one is going to be the certain Team Sky nomination for team leader this time next week.
    Those other two were not sent back when Wiggo was a minute down. ???
    Organiser, National Championship 50 mile Time Trial 1972
  • danlikesbikes
    danlikesbikes Posts: 3,898
    deejay wrote:
    Crozza wrote:
    - Brailsford and Kerrison seem very cold, analytical.
    So with 3 riders in the GC top 9 are you sure which one is going to be the certain Team Sky nomination for team leader this time next week.
    Those other two were not sent back when Wiggo was a minute down. ???

    TBF think it was the right call not to send them back though, rather use up lower GC guys to bring Wiggo back. Makes sense on several levels more UCI points if they are in the GC, if Wiggo fails then they still have 2 strong climbers for the coming mountain stages.
    Pain hurts much less if its topped off with beating your mates to top of a climb.
  • thamacdaddy
    thamacdaddy Posts: 590
    Tomorrow is going to be great. We are going to know who is strong and maybe even if its a done deal. Those climbs could be a real tester. If wiggins cracks it's game over for him. If Nibali takes anymore time out of any of the others than that's perhaps job done.

    But if sky can use the columbians to pressure astana and lose some power from the team and wiggins can show some of that climbing ability he claims to have been improving even more over winter then perhaps it's game on. Right now it all looks comfortable for Astana but we all should remember how quickly things can change in a Tour, one bad day, one bad climb can make all the difference. We have yet to see Astana try and cover anything like high pressure and we have seen Nibali and Evans both distanced by Wiggins in the past (all be it on Tour type climbs).

    Is Scarponi the one waiting in the wings to make a big dig on a climb and put himself right back in it? For me just to see how some of these guys are climbing on the first mtn top finish (or cat level climb) is going to be great.

    Interesting or not perhaps but also saw vaughters responded to someone on twitter saying that Froome descends worse than wiggins and so he seems to need to wish for Rain at the tour.
  • Le Commentateur
    Le Commentateur Posts: 4,099
    Tomorrow will be a moment of truth for Garmin's chances. The others I can see finishing fairly close together but surely Nibali is going to go for it in the finale to extend that lead into something more comfortable.

    There's also this to bear in mind regarding the descents:
    Having ridden the Giro twice (as a domestique) I can tell you that it is a fast ride and that Italian riders in particular try very hard to do well. So descents, technical or not, are a free for all with riders passing you left and right and cutting you off. And god help you if you drop back to your team car to drop off a leader's jacket or similar and then have to pass other team cars during a descent just to join the group. Nothing more frightening than being squeezed between a cliff and a team car driven by a maniac DS who is talking on the radio and driving with one hand.
    Un uomo solo al commando
  • graeme_s-2
    graeme_s-2 Posts: 3,382
    Le Commentateur wrote:
    There's also this to bear in mind regarding the descents:
    Having ridden the Giro twice (as a domestique) I can tell you that it is a fast ride and that Italian riders in particular try very hard to do well. So descents, technical or not, are a free for all with riders passing you left and right and cutting you off. And god help you if you drop back to your team car to drop off a leader's jacket or similar and then have to pass other team cars during a descent just to join the group. Nothing more frightening than being squeezed between a cliff and a team car driven by a maniac DS who is talking on the radio and driving with one hand.
    Who said that? Or is it you who's ridden the Giro twice? :)

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