101st Giro d'Italia, May4th-27th 2018. Stage 1: ITT 9.7kms *Spoilers*

tim000

Blazing Saddles wrote:

They will be flooded with new subscriptions if Rob Hatch is on the player and Buffoon Boy on tv.

cunning marketing ploy . :shock:

mididoctors

never mind Kirby, Jonathon Edwards irks me something rotten.

The_Boy

Blazing Saddles wrote:

The_Boy wrote:

Poor from pinot and Froome. Nice rides by Yates and pozzo. Nightmares for aru and Lopez.

I'm sure Sunweb will be happy to let someone else take pink at some point soon.

I'd say given their respective time trialing pedigrees that Froome's performance was by far the worst.

Without a shadow of a doubt. However, given that all were being touted as possible challengers, there ought to be at least 4 disappointed riders listed there, imo.

(Obvious caveats are obvious. Let's see what happens over the coming weeks)

TheBigBean

Before all the talk of bans and inhalers, the assumption was Froome would arrive undercooked with a view to winning both the Giro and the tour, so today's performance might be vaugely planned.

rick_chasey

TheBigBean wrote:

Before all the talk of bans and inhalers, the assumption was Froome would arrive undercooked with a view to winning both the Giro and the tour, so today's performance might be vaugely planned.

40 seconds over 10km????

RichN95.

Rick Chasey wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

Before all the talk of bans and inhalers, the assumption was Froome would arrive undercooked with a view to winning both the Giro and the tour, so today's performance might be vaugely planned.

40 seconds over 10km????

I think, on the basis of the twisty technical course, he would have budgeted for a 20s loss without the crash. A bad day for sure, but he's often sucked a opening TTs - for example 50s back on the winner in 37th place in the 2015 Tour opening TT.

A bonus for him is Poels did a similar time, so looks to be getting back to form.

rick_chasey

That’s a rather heavy gloss.

We’d all be saying he’d spanked everyone had he put 40 seconds into Dumoulin in a 50km TT.

RichN95.

Rick Chasey wrote:

That’s a rather heavy gloss.

We’d all be saying he’d spanked everyone had he put 40 seconds into Dumoulin in a 50km TT.

When has Froome ever done a good short TT? Once or twice at best. It's like being surprised that Tony Martin doesn't do them well too. Froome was 50/1 for this TT with the bookies (I know because I risked a quid).

I don't rate Dumoulin's climbing when the heat is really on. I think Dumoulin needs two minutes over Froome and others in TTs. And they'll be more inclined to work with Froome now.

But don't get me wrong - today was a big win for Dumoulin.

m.r.m.

I'd expect the psychology of crashing to have played the biggest part. Being that close to having to abandon probably makes him just edge off a tiny bit and that would add up. I have a hard time believing his shape is that bad. Remember all the big training kilometres over the winter we discussed here when we theorised maybe he is trying to simulate the Vuelta workload?

I think the stories of his demise are premature.

ShutupJens

Agree with MRM, you would have to be double stupid to not hold back a little bit after wiping out on a corner like that. That being said Froome hasn't been particularly convincing for about a year now

TheBigBean

I'm not sure prologues are all that indicative of grand tour form especially for someone going for a double.

awavey

look I agree grand tours arent decided on the 1st day in a less than 10k time trial/prologue and we probably are reading too much into the result for Froome...but I dont recall from any preview I read the stage wasnt suited to him length wise, or that he would need to minimise time lost to rivals from it.

whilst I wouldnt have expected him to win the stage outright, its still a TT, Froome may not be the ultimate best in the world at them, but he doesnt suck badly at them either, top 10 should have been the target you would have thought, so to finish 21st with a distinct time gap, its not like there was a cluster of riders all within a second of one another, it wasnt a good start put it that way.

rick_chasey

TheBigBean wrote:

I'm not sure prologues are all that indicative of grand tour form especially for someone going for a double.

I hold the opposite view.

rick_chasey

Let’s measure it this way.


40 seconds is a roadside sh!t.

Maybe not a wipe.

burnthesheep

I watched that recon crash in slo mo. I’m no expert, but do TT and race. It looks like he approached that corner way way on the inside and missed the apex way early.

In my novice opinion.

cygnet

ShutupJens wrote:

That being said Froome hasn't been particularly convincing for about a year now

Winning the last two* GT's is not particularly convincing? Tough crowd.

*subject to validation.

m.r.m.

Rick Chasey wrote:

Let’s measure it this way.


40 seconds is a roadside sh!t.

Maybe not a wipe.

How do you know exactly? Typical Saturday night?