TDF 2018, Stage 12: Bourg-Saint-Maurice Les Arcs > Alpe d'Huez 19/07/2018 - 175,5 km *Spoilers*

pblakeney

RoadPainter wrote:

tim000 wrote:

RoadPainter wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Guarantee you 95% of people by the side of the road and watching won't know what the hell the MPCC is.

Fair point!

Still think style of racing and refusal to acknowledge fans has a lot to do with it - it's a sky thing rather than a Froome thing.

yep , sky are boring :roll:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FNtR77x-XU

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... +breakaway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9USGFIF2UWc

:roll: If you don't think sky's usual mountain train is a bit dull, then I suggest you open your eyes. A few very opportunistic attacks that are really exciting racing don't undo the reputational damage from several years of dull but highly effective tactics.

That is not Sky's fault, or problem.
They are in the lead. It is up to others to attack.

rick_chasey

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

An interesting article by a Belgian journalist about the abuse of Sky he witnessed yesterday. (Google translate does a good job).

https://www.hln.be/sport/wielrennen/tou ... ~ae3480f0/

There is definitely a 'Flandrians are more sophisticated than their boorish Dutch neighbours, look how much better our cycling fans are than theirs' angle to that article too, I would add.

There is hypocrisy there, too. I've read Dutch fans leaping to Dumoulin's defence, when anyone points out the similarity in his transition to that of the guy who's transition they find "unbelievable": Geraint Thomas. They cite Tom's failed Vuelta 2015 bid as proof, while at the same time dismissing Thomas's 2015 TDF performance.

Erm I don’t doubt this but I don’t see how it’s related enough to be hypocritical?

You must know my position on the matter

tim000

PBlakeney wrote:

RoadPainter wrote:

tim000 wrote:

RoadPainter wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Guarantee you 95% of people by the side of the road and watching won't know what the hell the MPCC is.

Fair point!

Still think style of racing and refusal to acknowledge fans has a lot to do with it - it's a sky thing rather than a Froome thing.

yep , sky are boring :roll:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FNtR77x-XU

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... +breakaway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9USGFIF2UWc

:roll: If you don't think sky's usual mountain train is a bit dull, then I suggest you open your eyes. A few very opportunistic attacks that are really exciting racing don't undo the reputational damage from several years of dull but highly effective tactics.

That is not Sky's fault, or problem.
They are in the lead. It is up to others to attack.

dont all GC teams have a mountain train? it`s just that sky`s are better , so normally on the front . astana , moviestar and AG2R have both had trains sat on the front at some point in the race . they just dont do it as well .

larkim

Even if the other teams don't have the trains, surely Quintana, Dumoulin, Bardet etc can just let the Sky train pull them along so they get all of the benefit that Froome and Thomas do, just without spending teammates to achieve it. And yet then when it comes to the pinch point Froome and Thomas are just "better".

I get that having your team do it puts you in a position of control so you can attempt to choose the precise tempo and the precise start point of efforts etc. But the physiological impact on non-Sky team members is the same as on the Sky GC candidates, so once the race proper begins UNLESS it is being argued that the Sky approach is entirely defensive to prevent ANY attacks even fro within their team, all Sky are doing is putting all of the GC riders in the right place at the right time to attack. When Quintana et al fail to do that, its simply because they are not good enough!

Matthewfalle

Lucan wrote:

larkim wrote:

I don't warm to Nibali, but riding up to the top and practically catching the leading group with a cracked vertebrae deserves significant applause.

Why? He fell off, he got back on. He didn't know he had cracked a bone and may not have been in much pain.

It's like riding with a crack on your frame that you don't know about until someone looks at your bike later.

Kudos for the effort, but it may have had nothing to do with his injury.

seriously?

Matthewfalle

Lucan wrote:

larkim wrote:

I don't warm to Nibali, but riding up to the top and practically catching the leading group with a cracked vertebrae deserves significant applause.

Why? He fell off, he got back on. He didn't know he had cracked a bone and may not have been in much pain.

It's like riding with a crack on your frame that you don't know about until someone looks at your bike later.

Kudos for the effort, but it may have had nothing to do with his injury.

seriously?

above_the_cows

RichN95 wrote:

An interesting article by a Belgian journalist about the abuse of Sky he witnessed yesterday. (Google translate does a good job).

https://www.hln.be/sport/wielrennen/tou ... ~ae3480f0/

"Buikje over de broeksriem..."

Lol.

blazing_saddles

Rick Chasey wrote:

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

An interesting article by a Belgian journalist about the abuse of Sky he witnessed yesterday. (Google translate does a good job).

https://www.hln.be/sport/wielrennen/tou ... ~ae3480f0/

There is definitely a 'Flandrians are more sophisticated than their boorish Dutch neighbours, look how much better our cycling fans are than theirs' angle to that article too, I would add.

There is hypocrisy there, too. I've read Dutch fans leaping to Dumoulin's defence, when anyone points out the similarity in his transition to that of the guy who's transition they find "unbelievable": Geraint Thomas. They cite Tom's failed Vuelta 2015 bid as proof, while at the same time dismissing Thomas's 2015 TDF performance.

Erm I don’t doubt this but I don’t see how it’s related enough to be hypocritical?

You must know my position on the matter

Not you, Rick. I do know your position.

DeVlaeminck

larkim wrote:

Even if the other teams don't have the trains, surely Quintana, Dumoulin, Bardet etc can just let the Sky train pull them along so they get all of the benefit that Froome and Thomas do, just without spending teammates to achieve it. And yet then when it comes to the pinch point Froome and Thomas are just "better".

I get that having your team do it puts you in a position of control so you can attempt to choose the precise tempo and the precise start point of efforts etc. But the physiological impact on non-Sky team members is the same as on the Sky GC candidates, so once the race proper begins UNLESS it is being argued that the Sky approach is entirely defensive to prevent ANY attacks even fro within their team, all Sky are doing is putting all of the GC riders in the right place at the right time to attack. When Quintana et al fail to do that, its simply because they are not good enough!

But the right place to attack is not the same for all riders. So Sky can determine, to an extent, that on given day the racing between the GC men will kick off at 2 km to go or 20km to go. Was it the Vuelta or the Tour last year Froome was spent but Sky managed to keep the race controlled until very late on by riding tempo, Froome later admitted if the attacks had started earlier he'd have loat the race.

If you take Froome's Giro winning attack - that option would not have been open to Dumoulin because Froome would have had a team to help close it down.

norvernrob

Vino'sGhost wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

NorvernRob wrote:

mfin wrote:

Moaning about the booing isn't going to stop it.

I think everybody that's impartial (in addition to all the sky fan tw@ts) find it difficult to accept booing at Thomas as he's done nothing wrong. Yes, it's not nice, but it is what it is though, he wears a jersey with Sky written on it and Sky didn't have to be this disliked, they brought at least some amount of this dislike on themselves.

What’s Froome or any of the other Sky riders done wrong then to get all the booing? Apart from win lots?

Mostly that. Coupled with continued lack of French success because everyone else is doping. And the need for some for a surrogate for Armstrong. And the pre-race rhetoric from Hinault/Lappartient/Prudhomme didn't help.

nothing at all, the arrogance, jiffy bags, mysteriously disappearing medical records, doctors to ill temporarily to testify, AAF, dodgy TUE. theoretical explanations for MASSIVE amounts of Salbutamol. Explanations that conveniently cant be tested.

Nothing there at all.

It must be difficult for Thomas since he hasn't directly been involved in all this, other than he rides for Sky.

Nothing compared to other teams who have actually had riders banned for doping in the last few years, employ ex-dopers or are even run by unrepentant dopers. But that’s all fine yeah?

bobmcstuff

larkim wrote:

Lucan wrote:

larkim wrote:

I don't warm to Nibali, but riding up to the top and practically catching the leading group with a cracked vertebrae deserves significant applause.

Why? He fell off, he got back on. He didn't know he had cracked a bone and may not have been in much pain.

It's like riding with a crack on your frame that you don't know about until someone looks at your bike later.

Kudos for the effort, but it may have had nothing to do with his injury.

There's no pain associated with breaking a vertebrae? I'd expect any fall which was hard enough to hit the ground and crack a bone in your back was hard enough to make climbing up the last pitches of AdH painful.

Disclaimer - I've never broken a bone in my back nor ridden up AdH so my experiences may be limited!

I actually have fractured a vertebra in my back, compression fracture on D12, basically the most minor thing you can do to your back and still say you have broken it.

And let me tell you, it didn't half f*cking hurt.

I was skiing at the time, walked about 1.5km to a ski lift (couldn't ski cos it hurt), then couldn't bend enough to sit on a chairlift and had to be taken down by sled. Then they jacked me up on some sweet drugs so I was absolutely fine after that. 3 months in a back brace though.

I am sure Nibali will have been in quite a lot of pain.

lostboysaint

DeVlaeminck wrote:

larkim wrote:

Even if the other teams don't have the trains, surely Quintana, Dumoulin, Bardet etc can just let the Sky train pull them along so they get all of the benefit that Froome and Thomas do, just without spending teammates to achieve it. And yet then when it comes to the pinch point Froome and Thomas are just "better".

I get that having your team do it puts you in a position of control so you can attempt to choose the precise tempo and the precise start point of efforts etc. But the physiological impact on non-Sky team members is the same as on the Sky GC candidates, so once the race proper begins UNLESS it is being argued that the Sky approach is entirely defensive to prevent ANY attacks even fro within their team, all Sky are doing is putting all of the GC riders in the right place at the right time to attack. When Quintana et al fail to do that, its simply because they are not good enough!

But the right place to attack is not the same for all riders. So Sky can determine, to an extent, that on given day the racing between the GC men will kick off at 2 km to go or 20km to go. Was it the Vuelta or the Tour last year Froome was spent but Sky managed to keep the race controlled until very late on by riding tempo, Froome later admitted if the attacks had started earlier he'd have loat the race.

If you take Froome's Giro winning attack - that option would not have been open to Dumoulin because Froome would have had a team to help close it down.

And both of those incidents are Sky's fault because...?

knedlicky

larkim wrote:

I get that having your team do it puts you in a position of control so you can attempt to choose the precise tempo and the precise start point of efforts etc.

I think this makes a great deal of difference, psychologically as well as physically.

RichN95.

larkim wrote:

I get that having your team do it puts you in a position of control so you can attempt to choose the precise tempo and the precise start point of efforts etc.

While this true, the other teams do sod all to stop them. They dutifully sit in behind them and let last year's lantern rouge lead them over an HC climb.

tailwindhome

RichN95 wrote:

larkim wrote:

I get that having your team do it puts you in a position of control so you can attempt to choose the precise tempo and the precise start point of efforts etc.

While this true, the other teams do sod all to stop them. They dutifully sit in behind them and let last year's lantern rouge lead them over an HC climb.

Get someone stronger put them on the front from climb 1 with the instruction to go slightly faster. Not to open a gap, but enough to force the Sky train to go faster than the power output they want to go at.

Finding the rider strong enough to do it, who is enough of a 'name' to be followed instead of let go, but isn't a team leader is a problem

tim000

RichN95 wrote:

larkim wrote:

I get that having your team do it puts you in a position of control so you can attempt to choose the precise tempo and the precise start point of efforts etc.

While this true, the other teams do sod all to stop them. They dutifully sit in behind them and let last year's lantern rouge lead them over an HC climb.

this

pblakeney

TailWindHome wrote:

Finding the rider strong enough to do it, who is enough of a 'name' to be followed instead of let go, but isn't a team leader is a problem

Quintana needs to make up time. He is a team leader mostly in name only and with nothing to lose. Then again, I think that he has tried. And failed.

smithy21

And beyond all that your team leader needs to be able to do a world class (or close to it) time trial.

Only Tom D really fits the bill but you would need to strengthen the rest of the team around him.

hypster

And if Richie Porte had still been in at this point, I think we would have been witnessing a very different race.

RichN95.

As someone wrote on twitter: "If anyone showed a way to beat Sky it was Chris Froome on stage 19 of the Giro."

curium

The reason why Sky are hated so much is because they're winning!

It's pure envy.

If you look through that peloton you'll see all sorts of dodgy characters involved with teams, questionable practices and TUEs. Nobody gives a sh*t because they're aren't dominating the racing.

It's Lance all over again - all manner of doping by other teams and riders is overlooked because Lance won 7 in a row.

tailwindhome

RichN95 wrote:

As someone wrote on twitter: "If anyone showed a way to beat Sky it was Chris Froome on stage 19 of the Giro."

Being the strongest rider in the race with the strongest team is a huge tactical advantage.

onyourright

RichN95 wrote:

As someone wrote on twitter: "If anyone showed a way to beat Sky it was Chris Froome on stage 19 of the Giro."

Kruijswijk sort of tried that the other day. For a while it looked like it might even succeed. If it had been this Tour’s Dumoulin it probably would have worked, but then Dumoulin wouldn’t have got away.

ddraver

curium wrote:

The reason why Sky are hated so much is because they're winning!

It's pure envy.

If you look through that peloton you'll see all sorts of dodgy characters involved with teams, questionable practices and TUEs. Nobody gives a sh*t because they're aren't dominating the racing.

It's Lance all over again - all manner of doping by other teams and riders is overlooked because Lance won 7 in a row.

Most of them were Contador's biggest fans...

Remind me of his history again?

RichN95.

OnYourRight wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

As someone wrote on twitter: "If anyone showed a way to beat Sky it was Chris Froome on stage 19 of the Giro."

Kruijswijk sort of tried that the other day. For a while it looked like it might even succeed. If it had been this Tour’s Dumoulin it probably would have worked, but then Dumoulin wouldn’t have got away.

It looked similar but it wasn't. What I think he meant was using up all your entire team to ensure that everyone is in small groups and turn it into single combat.

topper_harley

hypster wrote:

And if Richie Porte had still been in at this point, I think we would have been witnessing a very different race.

And what has Porte ever showed in a grand tour that would have changed this race?

Porte is better sticking to the Tour down under, let the big boys fight it out for 3 weeks in the European summer

RichN95.

As for the booing, I am reminded of when I took a guided tour of the La Scala opera house. Our guide explained that often the crowd would boo performers even before the opera had finished. She said "Do you know why they do this? It's because the Milanese are horrible people". (She was from Florence).

RichN95.

Topper harley wrote:

hypster wrote:

And if Richie Porte had still been in at this point, I think we would have been witnessing a very different race.

And what has Porte ever showed in a grand tour that would have changed this race?

He's a rider that is willing to attack and can do it effectively. And he has a time trial to provide a threat. Sky said they saw him as their no.1 threat.

StillGoing

TailWindHome wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

larkim wrote:

I get that having your team do it puts you in a position of control so you can attempt to choose the precise tempo and the precise start point of efforts etc.

While this true, the other teams do sod all to stop them. They dutifully sit in behind them and let last year's lantern rouge lead them over an HC climb.

Get someone stronger put them on the front from climb 1 with the instruction to go slightly faster. Not to open a gap, but enough to force the Sky train to go faster than the power output they want to go at.

Finding the rider strong enough to do it, who is enough of a 'name' to be followed instead of let go, but isn't a team leader is a problem

That won't make any difference at all. Sky have their plan and to their merit, stick t it most of the time. Having someone go off the front slightly above their pace doesn't unsettle them. They happily stick to their pace and reel them in.

topper_harley

RichN95 wrote:

Topper harley wrote:

hypster wrote:

And if Richie Porte had still been in at this point, I think we would have been witnessing a very different race.

And what has Porte ever showed in a grand tour that would have changed this race?

He's a rider that is willing to attack and can do it effectively. And he has a time trial to provide a threat. Sky said they saw him as their no.1 threat.

again has he shown that in grand tours?


you can't say someone will change a race when he hasn't shown he can ever do that, a strong week racer doesn't make a good grand tour winner