TDF 2018 - Rest Day 2 - ****SPOILERS****

bobmcstuff

Pross wrote:

Have there been fewer MTFs on this Tour than usual? It feels we’ve had lots of mountain stages but only 3 (4 with Mende) MTFs feels light. I’m not a fan of mountain stages that don’t finish at the top of a hill, it feels like an anti-climax.

MTFs are generally good for the final climb, but I think it can lead to very defensive racing up until the final climb.

I think there's a sweetspot, too big a gap after the climb and it gets closed down on the flat.

Big climbs in the stage with a smaller MTF seems like it can work well as it might encourage longer range attacks (like S19 of the Giro, the final climb wasn't enough to make huge differences on its own). But obviously that is very dependent on the GC situation.

kingstongraham

Surely if Bardet (or Froome) got away on the final climb tomorrow he'd fancy his chances of staying away till the finish.

mrfpb

Geraint to have mysterious mechanical issues and delhi belly on stage 17.

phreak

No tA Doctor wrote:

hanshotfirst wrote:

phreak wrote:

We're also assuming that Dumoulin has no after effects from the Giro. It's possible that both he and Froome will fade in the final week rather than Thomas.

I keep thinking about this too. Think both of them have more chance of carrying form over 2 GT's than Contador and Quintana who tried recently but can't help but think that the hammer is coming after one of them.

Also heard someone say that a couple of years ago when Thomas seemed to melt on one of the last days; he's claimed he sat up to save his legs for domestique duty and sacrifice his shot at the podium rather than having a huge crack. Could be all talk but he could have the best legs for 3 weeks? We'll soon see.

I think it's worth noting that this is the first Tour where Thomas has been built up as a potential leader, not just a luxury domestique and emergency plan B. They've been preparing him for a leadership role here for months as nobody knew if Froome would be riding. And he has always worked in the 2nd week mountains before this (though not to the grinding to a halt level we see from Kwiatkowski, Poels and Bernal). So better prepared and freed from domestique work I reckon he should be a little fresher than in the past.

Dumoulin has said he'd struggle to respond if Froome went early as he did on Finestre, so I wouldn't be 'that' surprised to see Sky push hard enough on the first climb to shed Dumoulin's domestiques, and then Froome go on the second climb. I can't see many of the other contenders offering to help Dumoulin chase as they'd want him to burn himself out so they can jump him later on. Meanwhile Thomas sits on the wheel and follows any counter attacks that go.

Lanterne_Rogue

phreak wrote:

Dumoulin has said he'd struggle to respond if Froome went early as he did on Finestre

Call me cynical, but I think this translates as Dumoulin thinking his best chance is that Froome goes early and both Thomas and Froome blow themselves up by trying to beat each other.

He might just be being honest, of course, but...

phreak

That presumes that Thomas would chase Froome if he went early though. That doesn't happen too often in cycling. Heck, I'm not sure even LeMond chased Hinault when he was playing silly buggers.

Lanterne_Rogue

phreak wrote:

That presumes that Thomas would chase Froome if he went early though. That doesn't happen too often in cycling. Heck, I'm not sure even LeMond chased Hinault when he was playing silly buggers.

I'm not saying he thinks it's likely, but if I were in his situation I'd be encouraging anything that might create a wedge in the Sky camp. Why wouldn't you? Worst case scenario is Froome takes the bait and goes on a rampage and you still come third.

Not convinced this is really Dumoulin's aim - or that Froome will try the same stunt - but it's a rest day and it's taking hours for my work laptop to download the file I need...

above_the_cows

No tA Doctor wrote:

Also up for discussion, the state of the col d'Aubisque - will it be ready for Friday, after the landslide?
This pic is from yesterday, taken by Peter Thompson, who is running the entire TdF route ahead of the peloton for mental health charities.



https://www.facebook.com/marathonsforth ... =3&theater

Did you say running? :shock:

phreak

underlayunderlay wrote:

phreak wrote:

That presumes that Thomas would chase Froome if he went early though. That doesn't happen too often in cycling. Heck, I'm not sure even LeMond chased Hinault when he was playing silly buggers.

I'm not saying he thinks it's likely, but if I were in his situation I'd be encouraging anything that might create a wedge in the Sky camp. Why wouldn't you? Worst case scenario is Froome takes the bait and goes on a rampage and you still come third.

Not convinced this is really Dumoulin's aim - or that Froome will try the same stunt - but it's a rest day and it's taking hours for my work laptop to download the file I need...

I'd say the worst case scenario is that no one chases Froome as they realise it's Dumoulin that he's threatening, so he has to chase himself, leaving him vulnerable to attacks from behind both on the day and in the final mountain stage. We're either saying Thomas will chase down a team mate or someone will help a rider that's ahead of them and has a much better TT. I wouldn't say either is that likely, especially as Thomas hasn't shown a single sign of disloyalty in his entire career.

No_Ta_Doctor

Above The Cows wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Also up for discussion, the state of the col d'Aubisque - will it be ready for Friday, after the landslide?
This pic is from yesterday, taken by Peter Thompson, who is running the entire TdF route ahead of the peloton for mental health charities.



https://www.facebook.com/marathonsforth ... =3&theater

Did you say running? :shock:

Yep. Basically trying to do a marathon or so every day. Yes, he got a few weeks headstart.

No_Ta_Doctor

This is the start area for stage 17. Could be pretty narrow once you factor in barriers and spectators etc

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.7935403 ... 312!8i6656

above_the_cows

I have to say, and this may be premature because we've got the Pairofknees still to come, but this route has been a bit bobbins. Not much to get excited about in the first week, then some cobbles, which was exciting, then some meh Alpine stages with only one MTF finish that killed all the sprinters... We have the gimmick stage, which could be all out wacky races or completely pointless and that's it...

Now I've said all that G will crack, Primož Roglič will launch a 120km solo attack and take 5 minutes and Romain Bardet will win the sprint on the Champs.

bobmcstuff

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/ ... int-thomas

Froome happy to sacrifice his chances for G, apparently

above_the_cows

No tA Doctor wrote:

Above The Cows wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Also up for discussion, the state of the col d'Aubisque - will it be ready for Friday, after the landslide?
This pic is from yesterday, taken by Peter Thompson, who is running the entire TdF route ahead of the peloton for mental health charities.



https://www.facebook.com/marathonsforth ... =3&theater

Did you say running? :shock:

Yep. Basically trying to do a marathon or so every day. Yes, he got a few weeks headstart.

Much respect to him!

above_the_cows

No tA Doctor wrote:

Pross wrote:

Have there been fewer MTFs on this Tour than usual? It feels we’ve had lots of mountain stages but only 3 (4 with Mende) MTFs feels light. I’m not a fan of mountain stages that don’t finish at the top of a hill, it feels like an anti-climax.

It follows the trend set last year. Again, it coincidentally makes the parcours more Bardet friendly.

But does it? There's all this talk about AG2R being great on the descents but they only ever seem to go on a raid around Chambéry where they know the descents.

DeadCalm

No tA Doctor wrote:

This is the start area for stage 17. Could be pretty narrow once you factor in barriers and spectators etc

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.7935403 ... 312!8i6656

Nice detective work. I'd say it would be a gamble to decide to wait for domestiques to get through what will presumably be something of a traffic jam.

above_the_cows

No tA Doctor wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

It's all a bit underwhelming after this year's Giro. There is one summit finish to come and that is on the 65km day.

Really? I think it's been a good race so far - best Alpe d'Huez race, great day on the cobbles, spectacular scenery, heartbreaking late catches, and the race is not decided. On the negative, there's almost no sprinters left, and there's been a few obligatory long dull days.

8 riders per team hasn't had any positive effect that I can see though.

There's been some discussion in Denmark that the 8 riders change has been part of the reason that all the sprinters are dead. Smaller ad less cohesive autobus in the mountains, as domestiques are kept working for longer and fewer riders in total.

That and they didn't have Bernie to drive the bus. Apparently he's really good at doing the maths, and of course holding Cav's hand.

DeVlaeminck

I think the Sky plan will be to launch Froome on the final couple of kms of the final climb tomorrow and try and get enough of a gap over the top and extend it on the descent which according to Inrng is "treacherous". He's got form for that kind of move and if you don't crash it's low risk in terms of losing time and in using energy.

Wednesday is uncharted territory but surely with that final climb which looks like a beast the priority will be avoiding a GC contender going up the road with the risk a tired Sky train will melt away given the pace the short stage will allow for leaving Froome and or Thomas to chase while Dumoulin/Roglic et al sit on. Once on the climb it comes down to who has the legs.

Friday depends on the GC of course but is that the day we see Froome become a domestique for Thomas ? I can't believe that they'd burn riders trying to set up a Giro style attack which is likely to end in glorious failure and leave Thomas without protection to boot. Unless Froome can get within 30 seconds on GC after the TT and they allow him to go for it over the Aubisque and descent I think he'll be on team duties today.

DeadCalm

bobmcstuff wrote:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jul/23/chris-froome-happy-sacrifice-fifth-tour-de-france-geraint-thomas

Froome happy to sacrifice his chances for G, apparently

Interesting.

Froome had said before the Tour he was aiming to come good in the third week, following his efforts in winning the Giro d’Italia in May, but, asked if he had identified places where he might attack and make up time on Thomas, he dismissed the question.

“All this talk of attacking or not attacking … we’re in an amazing position, we’re one and two,” he said. “It’s not up to us to be attacking. It’s for all the other riders in the peloton to make up time on us and dislodge us from the position we’re in.”

I'd say that Sky's best chance of winning the Tour is to ride defensively to protect Geraint's position but, obviously that diminishes Froom's chances. I still fancy that this is a smokescreen and we'll see Froome launch a long range attack either tomorrow or more likely on stage 17.

RonB

Rest Day 2 Caption competition anyone?

bobmcstuff

Does anyone else think the 65km stage might have been better right after the rest day?

TheBigBean

Above The Cows wrote:

Reminds me of Bolivia.

TheBigBean

bobmcstuff wrote:

Does anyone else think the 65km stage might have been better right after the rest day?

I think the opposite i.e. it would have been far better after a monster stage and before a rest day.

pblakeney

DeVlaeminck wrote:

I think the Sky plan will be to launch Froome on the final couple of kms of the final climb tomorrow and try and get enough of a gap over the top and extend it on the descent which according to Inrng is "treacherous"...

That's strange.
My notes from doing it two years ago have it as a wonderful surface and a superb descent. :?

DeVlaeminck

Well I think they describe the descents in general on that stage as treacherous so maybe that one is the exception? I've not done it - is it technical?

pblakeney

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Well I think they describe the descents in general on that stage as treacherous so maybe that one is the exception? I've not done it - is it technical?

I can't remember :oops: They have mostly become a blur over time, that's why I wrote down notes at the time.
A good descent for me will have a good surface, good visibility and sweeping bends rather than tight hairpins. One where you can get, and keep, a good rhythm at least.

No_Ta_Doctor

Bernal is 22nd on GC, Kwiatkowski 67th, Poels 69th. Maybe they try tomorrow to move up a group for the grid start on Wednesday? Certainly worth Bernal moving up two positions.

milton50

Above The Cows wrote:

I have to say, and this may be premature because we've got the Pairofknees still to come, but this route has been a bit bobbins. Not much to get excited about in the first week, then some cobbles, which was exciting, then some meh Alpine stages with only one MTF finish that killed all the sprinters... We have the gimmick stage, which could be all out wacky races or completely pointless and that's it...

Now I've said all that G will crack, Primož Roglič will launch a 120km solo attack and take 5 minutes and Romain Bardet will win the sprint on the Champs.

Been a bit flat hasn't it? Especially after what the Giro served up.

Unfortunately the guy most likely to challenge Sky in the mountains, Porte, crashed out just after we'd got through the long drawn out sprint stages. Then to cap it off Nibali, who would have been in the mix in the final week, got knocked off his bike.

The race is not over by a long way. But it's not been as good as it could have been.

kleinstroker

Can anybody explain why Quintana bothers to turn up? I may have said this before, but he seems utterly useless.

bobmcstuff

kleinstroker wrote:

Can anybody explain why Quintana bothers to turn up? I may have said this before, but he seems utterly useless.

I'd say more overhyped than useless, reliably getting top 10s in GTs is a skill most teams are very keen on and most riders wish they could achieve.

It's because he was made out to be the next climbing superstar, but as it turns out he isn't.