The Pre-Tour de France thread v2.0

blazing_saddles

kingstongraham said:

You can be among the top 10 and still lose a lot of time. I don't think him losing 2 minutes over 58km of TT is controversial.

Considering both TTs are effectively pan flat, I'd say you were being a tad conservative.
Given how the mountain stages are stacked up, Carapaz would need to gain in excess of two minutes on the two Pyrenean stages.

RichN95.

pblakeney said:

Wasn't Carapaz brought into the debate as it was stated to be a 3 horse race, which didn't include him? I'm thinking it is a 4 horse race until Ineos decide who is #1.
I think has has to beat Thomas, then Roglic, then Pogacar.

It's a three horse race, but one of the horses is actually two horses.

Pross

pblakeney said:

Wasn't Carapaz brought into the debate as it was stated to be a 3 horse race, which didn't include him? I'm thinking it is a 4 horse race until Ineos decide who is #1.
I think has has to beat Thomas, then Roglic, then Pogacar.

I think it's a 4 horse race until the end unless one of them loses substantial time. Ineos's best strategy to beat Pogacar is probably to keep two options for as long as possible. They have gone to the end of a Tour with two options on a few occasions and if the squad is firing fully (and doesn't pick up injuries) it looks strong enough that neither Thomas or Carapaz should need to perform domestique duties.

pblakeney

FWIW I think Thomas could lose 2 minutes in the mountains and/or crashing, and Carapaz could lose 2 minutes in the TT. I see Roglic being his boring self so it comes to Pogacar to either blow everyone away in the mountains, or fade away.

rick_chasey

OK so how do you beat Pog?

His weakness is his team, right?

RichN95.

rick_chasey said:

OK so how do you beat Pog?

His weakness is his team, right?

I think there's also a slight weakness on the steeper climbs. I'm not sure there's many in this Tour though.

neonriver

rick_chasey said:

OK so how do you beat Pog?

His weakness is his team, right?

Interesting that no first time winner has repeated since 2000 (or 92 according to record books)

ddraver

This might be wishful thinking for a good race, but I don't think he's going to have it as 'easy' as last year. All the focus was on Rog & Jumbo - even more so given how dominant they were for 19 stages - but no one is going to let Pog out of their sights this time

kingstongraham

Hirschi, Formolo, Majka, de la Cruz, Polanc and McNulty isn't a disastrous set, especially as Jumbo Visma's domestiques haven't shown any recent form. It's going to be up to Ineos to burn them off, but I don't know if the stages are there to beat Pogacar that way.

tailwindhome

Can the best team beat the best rider?

It's an interesting proposition

TheBigBean

tailwindhome said:

Can the best team beat the best rider?

It's an interesting proposition

No. Good teams are overrated.

mrb123

tailwindhome said:

Can the best team beat the best rider?

It's an interesting proposition

One that was addressed quite well last year!

shirley_basso

How has pogacar fared this season? I've not really followed his form

rick_chasey

shirley_basso said:

How has pogacar fared this season? I've not really followed his form

Won Tireno, won LBL, 3rd overall basque.

Not bad...

mididoctors

yorkshireraw said:

rick_chasey said:

blazing_saddles said:

Pross said:

blazing_saddles said:

Sounds about right to me:

CARAPAZ Richard
CASTROVIEJO NICOLAS Jonathan
DENNIS Rohan
GEOGHEGAN HART Tao
KWIATKOWSKI Michal
PORTE Richie
ROWE Luke
THOMAS Geraint
Reserve.
DE PLUS Laurens

Thought Van Baarle would be in there. He's did a good job in 2019 and looked OK last year but lost his leader and role early.

OK, so here's the obvious hypothetical: who would you leave out to put Van Baarle in?

Dennis? Though I'll freely admit I've not watched the races he's supposed to have been good in.

De Plus has announced he's taking a break after overtraining hasn't he?

I'd have thought it would be 2 out of Dennis, Rowe & Van Baarle for the 'ride on the front' slots.

Would have thought they wouldn't need Castroviejo to ride the Tour off the back of the Giro, given their resources.

Swap out castroviejo with dunbar ?

mididoctors

RichN95. said:

rick_chasey said:

OK so how do you beat Pog?

His weakness is his team, right?

I think there's also a slight weakness on the steeper climbs. I'm not sure there's many in this Tour though.

High altitude climbs too

RichN95.

mididoctors said:

RichN95. said:

rick_chasey said:

OK so how do you beat Pog?

His weakness is his team, right?

I think there's also a slight weakness on the steeper climbs. I'm not sure there's many in this Tour though.

High altitude climbs too

I may be getting the two confused to be fair

No_Ta_Doctor

mrb123 said:

tailwindhome said:

Can the best team beat the best rider?

It's an interesting proposition

One that was addressed quite well last year!

Not really, Jumbo had a big yellow train but no counter threat. Pogacar only needed to deal with Roglic, not chase other riders. Roglic's main use of the train was to keep the race together to try and nick some bonus seconds, not to deal with multiple attacks.

Ineos start the race with 4 genuine threats. They'll let Roglic and Pogacar chase Tao, Porte and Carapaz while Thomas sits in the wheels. Ineos don't need a train to do that. Eventually two of the four will drop time and end up as domestiques, and turned into a train if needed. They've got the flatland firepower to deal with the rest of the race. They've also become far more astute at letting the breaks go recently, forcing others to work (for a stage win, top 10gc position etc).

I reckon this could be a really fun tour.

Pross

rick_chasey said:

shirley_basso said:

How has pogacar fared this season? I've not really followed his form

Won Tireno, won LBL, 3rd overall basque.

Not bad...

Tour of Slovenia last week too (opposition slightly limited but not rubbish). Currently ranked number 1 as well.

rick_chasey

He seems to be one of those riders who is always in the hunt for overall regardless of time of year or the race.

phreak

No_Ta_Doctor said:

mrb123 said:

tailwindhome said:

Can the best team beat the best rider?

It's an interesting proposition

One that was addressed quite well last year!

Not really, Jumbo had a big yellow train but no counter threat. Pogacar only needed to deal with Roglic, not chase other riders. Roglic's main use of the train was to keep the race together to try and nick some bonus seconds, not to deal with multiple attacks.

Ineos start the race with 4 genuine threats. They'll let Roglic and Pogacar chase Tao, Porte and Carapaz while Thomas sits in the wheels. Ineos don't need a train to do that. Eventually two of the four will drop time and end up as domestiques, and turned into a train if needed. They've got the flatland firepower to deal with the rest of the race. They've also become far more astute at letting the breaks go recently, forcing others to work (for a stage win, top 10gc position etc).

I reckon this could be a really fun tour.

I guess the train is there to burn off the domestiques of Jumbo and UAE so that you have just Pogacar and Roglic up against potentially TGH, Porte, Carapaz and Thomas. Whether that's likely, however.

phreak

rick_chasey said:

shirley_basso said:

How has pogacar fared this season? I've not really followed his form

Won Tireno, won LBL, 3rd overall basque.

Not bad...

His Tirreno win was probably overshadowed a little bit by MvdP's stage-winning move from way out, but he put the best part of 2 minutes into Bernal that day. That was the day after winning the stage and putting a minute into Bernal, Thomas et al. On GC he was over 4 minutes ahead of any his likely rivals in the Tour. Hugely impressive, especially given that Bernal, Landa, Yates et al were all preparing for the Giro so would have been in decent form.

rick_chasey

He's an absolute machine.

You can tell with the top top guys because they do really well in disciplines their body is ill suited to.

In this instance, Pog can murder most people in a TT and he's built like a goat.

tailwindhome

It's my belief that Pog is the generational talent, the 5 Tour winner.

rick_chasey

tailwindhome said:

It's my belief that Pog is the generational talent, the 5 Tour winner.

Yeah though I thought that about Bernal.

Pog feels a bit different.

rick_chasey

He could be the first rider since Andy Schleck to win LBL and the Tour in the same year

RichN95.

Delete

mididoctors

phreak said:

rick_chasey said:

shirley_basso said:

How has pogacar fared this season? I've not really followed his form

Won Tireno, won LBL, 3rd overall basque.

Not bad...

His Tirreno win was probably overshadowed a little bit by MvdP's stage-winning move from way out, but he put the best part of 2 minutes into Bernal that day. That was the day after winning the stage and putting a minute into Bernal, Thomas et al. On GC he was over 4 minutes ahead of any his likely rivals in the Tour. Hugely impressive, especially given that Bernal, Landa, Yates et al were all preparing for the Giro so would have been in decent form.

Podagar rode a hell of a race that day ... MvdP only just held him off

tailwindhome

@RichN95.
You're normally all over the betting

Odds on Cav winning a stage?

blazing_saddles

Apparently UAE now have two Tadej Pogacars on their books.
Version 2.0 is Spanish:

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/theres-a-new-wonderkid-on-the-scene-joining-uae-team-emirates-and-the-spanish-are-going-mad-over-him