Vuelta 2018, Stage 16: Santillana del Mar > Torrelavega - 32 km - Individual time-trial, *Spoile

daniel_b

M.R.M. wrote:

Fly little flower! (My Man)

Hello from Mauritius btw. Haven't found a channel to watch it here.

Whereabouts are you?

There won't be any channels alas, the only way to watch would be with Eurosport player\ITV Player and a VPN thingy, oh and a semi decent internet connection of course
Not as rare a thing as they used to be!

andyp

The wheels have come off George Bennett's Vuelta haven't they? He lost over 8 minutes today.

m.r.m.

Daniel B wrote:

M.R.M. wrote:

Fly little flower! (My Man)

Hello from Mauritius btw. Haven't found a channel to watch it here.

Whereabouts are you?

There won't be any channels alas, the only way to watch would be with Eurosport player\ITV Player and a VPN thingy, oh and a semi decent internet connection of course
Not as rare a thing as they used to be!

Palmar near Belle Mare on the east coast.

Don't think it will be possible. Well I'll catch YouTube highlights and the threads here always help a lot!

bobmcstuff

andyp wrote:

The wheels have come off George Bennett's Vuelta haven't they? He lost over 8 minutes today.

Doesn't that kind of loss suggest he just cruised round?

ridgerider

bobmcstuff wrote:

andyp wrote:

The wheels have come off George Bennett's Vuelta haven't they? He lost over 8 minutes today.

Doesn't that kind of loss suggest he just cruised round?

He said he wasn't going to sulk, so hopefully he is saving himself to assist Stevo.

DeVlaeminck

Well done to Yates but Christ they may as well not interview him if he's not going to open up a bit.

daniel_b

M.R.M. wrote:

Daniel B wrote:

M.R.M. wrote:

Fly little flower! (My Man)

Hello from Mauritius btw. Haven't found a channel to watch it here.

Whereabouts are you?

There won't be any channels alas, the only way to watch would be with Eurosport player\ITV Player and a VPN thingy, oh and a semi decent internet connection of course
Not as rare a thing as they used to be!

Palmar near Belle Mare on the east coast.

Don't think it will be possible. Well I'll catch YouTube highlights and the threads here always help a lot!

Very nice, my folks live across on the West coast, in Flic en Flac. I've done a bit of cycling over there too, some nice roads, especially in the quieter areas.

Assuming you are in a hotel type affair, I strongly suspect you are correct!

ShutupJens

Ridgerider wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

andyp wrote:

The wheels have come off George Bennett's Vuelta haven't they? He lost over 8 minutes today.

Doesn't that kind of loss suggest he just cruised round?

He said he wasn't going to sulk, so hopefully he is saving himself to assist Stevo.

Makes sense to me, better off saving everything you've got today for the tough days ahead

RichN95.

If Yates has one more day in red he will have led Grand Tours for more days than any other British rider in history bar Chris Froome.

pinno

Pinno wrote:

What's the betting that Valverde puts 30 seconds into Quintana? Quite high I suspect and then perhaps team hierarchy would change by design.

inseine

Pinno wrote:

Pinno wrote:

What's the betting that Valverde puts 30 seconds into Quintana? Quite high I suspect and then perhaps team hierarchy would change by design.

Bah, it was 35

Pross

the article don wrote:

Kudos to Dennis, 50 seconds over everyone else on that length of TT is pretty spectacular

But then he knew he was going home for a rest afterwards. I know it's impossible to prevent but I'm not a fan of riders starting a GT with no intention of finishing it as it skews the results and is unfair on those in it for the long haul.

larkim

Agree with that. I know it's heresy, but in my preferred sport of athletics (!) there are rules about fair effort which mean, amongst other things, that if you enter heats you need to be prepared to commit at full effort to the finals and can't just withdraw because you don't fancy it (only has a practical effect if you're doubling up on events, e.g. 800m / 1500m, 100m / 200m etc). There isn't a direct parallel which how you'd implement that in a GT as requiring a doctors note to leave a GC would be daft, but it does feel odd having participants literally using the whole of a marquee event as just a training exercise.

ridgerider

So...howsabout a rider's GT stage victories only being recognised if they cross the finishing line on the last stage?

m.r.m.

I really like that. But what do you do about riders crashing out before or getting sick (basically the Richie Porte special )?

Pross

As I say I don't think there is a practical means to prevent it, maybe halve the amount of UCI points earned for stages if the rider fails to finish.

larkim

I could see that working - give the riders the choice of whether to voluntarily drop out, but have some clear up front consequences either points based or financial.

Sign off by UCI doc if leaving on medical grounds with a no-nonsense procedure that doesn't encourage fraudulent illnesses etc.

If you were going to be strict about having to finish (irrespective of whether they chose to leave or were ill / crashed) you could reallocate bonus seconds as if they weren't there, which might make some interesting dynamics from time to time - though arguably a bit artificial for some people's tastes I would expect, a bit like engine penalties in F1.

inseine

Valverde is stuck between whatever is the opposite of a rock and hard place. I'm sure he'd love a world title, probably more than another Vuelta, but he's not going to back off with a win in sight. Maybe why he still says that they are riding for Quintana.
Quite a few people were convinced that Sagan would have gone home after the first rest day.