TDF 2018, Stage 17: Bagnères-de-Luchon > Saint-Lary-Soulan Col du Portet 25/07/2018 - 65 km *Spo

m.r.m.

Anyone have a recommendation for a bar (sports bar) to watch the stage in the Bruges area?

twotyred

Sky's greatest strength is their team so they will get organised and ride hard as a team. They know how fast it will be physiologically possible to ride the stage, they know no other team or rider is likely to be able to ride it faster than them as long as they are on their normal game. They will just ride as hard as they can until halfway up the last climb then let Thomas and Froome fight it out,

RichN95.

M.R.M. wrote:

Anyone have a recommendation for a bar (sports bar) to watch the stage in the Bruges area?

When I was there I watched the Six Nations in a bar called Cafe Pick near the main square. That was pretty good - lots of screens, plenty of beer selection. It's a normal bar though, not particularly a sports bar.

m.r.m.

Thanks Rich. I'll check it out!

richard_t._biscuit

RichN95 wrote:

Korhag wrote:

What intervals are the riders in each 'grid group' being set off at?

That's the key thing. We don't really know. Probably nothing really.

I'm reminded of the Olympic Mountain Bike race where they said Sagan's position at the back of the grid would stop his chances. And then he popped up at the front after about 200m.

It's somewhat moot but to be fair it took him quite a bit longer than that, and then he only managed it by being all Sagan-y on the opening circuit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THCzDdSz18A

phreak

Blazing Saddles wrote:

hypster wrote:

I really think it could all go tits-up for Sky tomorrow. If Froome attacks trying to put time into Dumoulin and Thomas cracks but Dumoulin reels Froome in. Thomas could lose substantial time and Dumoulin could then take Froome (and Thomas) in the TT.

Or Sky will try to whittle the GC group down until Dumoulin is pretty much isolated.
Then Froome will attack and Geraint will do as he has done and sit on Dumoulin's wheel and not crack.
Time comes and he drops Tom too.

It's all guesswork. Could well be none of the above.

I am more mystified as to what Ag2r were playing at with Latour.
He could ship major time tomorrow, after today's big effort.

This. If they wanted to, they could try and replicate Finestre in its entirety. The stage is roughly the same length as their move in the Giro. 3 mountains to cross. Get rid of the domestiques on the first, Froome goes on the second, TD has to chase and Thomas attacks on the 3rd.

rick_chasey

Final two climbs are pretty rampy.

Froome’s gotta go if he’s gonna win.

inseine

I imagine that whatever happens, Barguil and Alaphilippe will be off like the clappers for the first mountain points after 15K, knowing they wont be there for the final climb. I think Nieve or the likes will go too, leaving Sky trying to control the GC group for as long as possible.

inseine

Rick Chasey wrote:

Final two climbs are pretty rampy.

Froome’s gotta go if he’s gonna win.

More and more I get the feeling that Sky are really trying for a Thomas win, but they need for Froome to distance Dumoulin just in case. Not sure how fussed Froome is about 2nd or 3rd.

rick_chasey

Would be very surprised if anyone gets away early on.

ddraver

The question for the GC riders is do they go hard froom the gun, a la CX/XCO, and 'get the hole shot' or - more likley IMO - do they watch each other? Bardet and Roglic maybe the most likely to go but, to go all Carlton, GTs track background may help him out in terms of "instant efforts".

I suspect the GC domestiques sprinting up through the field to 'help' might cause more carnage than anything at the front.

milton50

Rick Chasey wrote:

Would be very surprised if anyone gets away early on.

Agreed

above_the_cows

This crazy stage and its late start has messed with my holiday timings. I want to be back on my very comfortable holiday sofa for the start, obvs, but can't go on my ride too early because I have to meet Mr Cows for lunch in the village after the climb and if I leave now, places won't be serving lunch yet when I get to the village after the climb. This is a logistical challenge the likes of Stage 19 of the Giro. I need a spreadsheet and powerpoint presentation.

blazing_saddles

Time cut is set at 25% for today.
So, that's somewhere around the 35 minute mark.

davidof

Blazing Saddles wrote:

On the ski slopes, while Jordi Mir had a brief national career in the 1990s, the baton passed to the Delerue family with Xavier and Paul-Henri, both snowboard Olympic or world medallists.

Delarue

rick_chasey

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Time cut is set at 25% for today.
So, that's somewhere around the 35 minute mark.

Saaavage

davidof

Blazing Saddles wrote:

OnYourRight wrote:

I heard there was new tarmac somewhere, but does anyone know if a portion of gravel road remains?

I believe just the last few hundred metres have been left as gravel.

oh, that's no good then, another Boring TDF grind on perfect road surfaces like the climb to the Glieres which was entirely resurfaced. They need to get the Giro organizers in to help them plan the courses.

The big highlight of this stage was supposed to be the Sestrieres like finish.

ddraver

davidof wrote:

Blazing Saddles wrote:

On the ski slopes, while Jordi Mir had a brief national career in the 1990s, the baton passed to the Delerue family with Xavier and Paul-Henri, both snowboard Olympic or world medallists.

Delarue

Xavier lives in verbier now (where I spend my winters). He seems like a lovely guy.

However, at the top of the main lift there is a huge picture of his face (part of a North Face advert) and he has a major bogey hanging out of his right nostril...Once you ve seen it you can never unsee it. It's about a foot long!

davidof

ddraver wrote:

davidof wrote:

Blazing Saddles wrote:

On the ski slopes, while Jordi Mir had a brief national career in the 1990s, the baton passed to the Delerue family with Xavier and Paul-Henri, both snowboard Olympic or world medallists.

Delarue

Xavier lives in verbier now (where I spend my winters). He seems like a lovely guy.

However, at the top of the main lift there is a huge picture of his face (part of a North Face advert) and he has a major bogey hanging out of his right nostril...Once you ve seen it you can never unsee it. It's about a foot long!

ouch, haven't they got photoshop in Switzerland !

larkim

Just imagining that the various DS’s are just like posters on this thread, at the very least there’ll be some jeopardy in their minds about how this might play out. I honestly doubt the start line formation will make much / any difference, and I reckon the fresh legs onto the climb will probably be gone after 5km of climbing anyway, but at least it should be a straightforward race to the finish. Would like to hope we see some GC detonations / implosions / explosions but usually such anticipation results in neutralisation. Fingers crossed eh?

ddraver

davidof wrote:

ouch, haven't they got photoshop in Switzerland !

I'm not sure if it's deliberate as it's a "post shredding a gnarly line" type shot. However I suspect that actually it didnt look like much on a computer screen. However blown up so your face is 6ft long...

bobmcstuff

The bookies chainrings rating:

Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas
Landa, Dumoulin, Bardet, Quintana, Roglic
Kruijswijk, Majka, Nieve, Yates, Martin

This compares to the Inrng ratings:

Tom Dumoulin, Chris Froome, Dan Martin
Geraint Thomas, Mikel Landa
Bardet, Roglič, Nieve, Kruijswijk, Quintana

I think Inrng might be uunderrating Thomas slightly, given how fast he finished on the Alpe. But then again, Col du Portet is pretty severe, and he would probably need to come in with a group to repeat that trick.

Most obvious difference there is Dan Martin, who's a 3 star favourite on Inrng but has quite long odds, you can get 33/1 for him. Possibly worth a punt.

tgotb

ddraver wrote:

The question for the GC riders is do they go hard froom the gun, a la CX/XCO, and 'get the hole shot' or - more likley IMO - do they watch each other?

Was thinking about this last night - thing is, there's no "hole", so the hole shot's not so attractive.

I reckon Thomas/Froome to the front, riding as fast as they need to to stop anyone near the top of the GC getting away but no faster, do that for a few minutes until the remainder of Team Sky get to the front, and back to business as usual, albeit at a higher pace than for a 200k stage.

An early lone breakaway seems a pretty risky move for anyone concerned about their GC position; lots of fresh legs to chase, and potentially quite significant losses if you blow up. Far more attractive for someone further down the GC with nothing to lose - maybe Martin? He was conspicuously absent from any of yesterday's action...

poweredbyidris

Above The Cows wrote:

This crazy stage and its late start has messed with my holiday timings. I want to be back on my very comfortable holiday sofa for the start, obvs, but can't go on my ride too early because I have to meet Mr Cows for lunch in the village after the climb and if I leave now, places won't be serving lunch yet when I get to the village after the climb. This is a logistical challenge the likes of Stage 19 of the Giro. I need a spreadsheet and powerpoint presentation.

Excellent humblebragging

Have a smashing day AtC

ocdupalais

In his post victory chat yesterday, Alaphilippe referred to Simon Yates; in his parting comment on Eurosport, Jonathan Edwards referred to Simon Yates... and now I notice BetFair have Simon Yates at 25-1 for today’s stage...
It’s not been a kind couple of weeks for Adam, has it?

DeadCalm

ddraver wrote:

I suspect the GC domestiques sprinting up through the field to 'help' might cause more carnage than anything at the front.

Exactly this.

tgotb

OCDuPalais wrote:

BetFair have Simon Yates at 25-1 for today’s stage...

I'm not a betting man - is there a way of shorting the odds (ie betting against Simon Yates winning today's stage)? At those odds it should give a nice risk-free 4% return...

tailwindhome

TGOTB wrote:

ddraver wrote:

The question for the GC riders is do they go hard froom the gun, a la CX/XCO, and 'get the hole shot' or - more likley IMO - do they watch each other?

Was thinking about this last night - thing is, there's no "hole", so the hole shot's not so attractive..

No idea what you're talking about but I know I'm not googling it.

kingstongraham

Think Dan Lloyd probably spot on - Sky on the front within 600m, Poels does first climb, Kwiatkowski does 2nd, Bernal does first 8km of final climb. Froome wins stage.

I don't think there's an attack will stay away with that after it.

No_Ta_Doctor

It's vaguely possible Movistar might try and put Valverde up the road early as a springboard I guess. But there will be too many protecting GC positions for any real attacks to go from the gun. Best hope for the race is some playing silly buggers at the start that makes it hard for Sky to get domestiques up quickly, it's feasible that they could take Rowe and Catroviejo out of the picture.