TJV *spoilers*

zest28

Their 58kg climber is the strongest in ITT (it looks he gifted WvA the win in the end and he destroyed Ganna and Pogacar)

Their 78kg sprinter climbs faster than 60kg climbers.

Anyone find these performances quite strange? Pogacar has been accused of things, but this is even more crazy.

TJV runs a good program.

webboo

I thought you said they were all crap and couldn’t hold a candle to some triathlete.

kingstongraham

I always thought they won because they rode Bianchi. Now I'm very confused.

gsk82

webboo said:

I thought you said they were all censored and couldn’t hold a candle to some triathlete.

That was before their pre Tour trip to the juice bar obviously.

phreak

Hard to see much dissent as they're buying up independent voices

https://twitter.com/LanterneRougeYT/status/1550870713556504576

rozzer32

I think WvA will be a GC contender for the vuelta. Someone has turned back the clock to 1995.

rick_chasey

So you’ve got Vingers, WvA who was a well known superstar for a long time and what, Benoot who has been touted as a future LBL/ToF winner for years and won Strade bianche long before he joined Jumbo, and Laporte who has been saying how backward his Cofidis were vs Jumbo.

Kuss has been well known as a pure climber and a good one for a while.

The others who crashed out were also known entities.

I don’t think anyone massively surpassed expectation individually except for Laporte.

WvA was remarkable but this is a follow on from the previous Tours.

RichN95.

rick_chasey said:

WvA was remarkable but this is a follow on from the previous Tours.

I would say this was a different kind of remarkable. He was on it every single day. Either in the break, TTing, sprinting, attacking or leading of HC mountains. And there hasn't been a hint of fatigue. He could ride around in front of the TdF Femmes giving the cameraman a backy and he would still be fresh.

rick_chasey

You’ll get no disagreement from me about that.

I guess I mean if any rider was going to do that it was gonna be him.

He should seriously consider doing a Thomas and having a tilt at the tour.

He clearly has the engine and the recovery for a GT.

No_Ta_Doctor

RichN95. said:

rick_chasey said:

WvA was remarkable but this is a follow on from the previous Tours.

I would say this was a different kind of remarkable. He was on it every single day. Either in the break, TTing, sprinting, attacking or leading of HC mountains. And there hasn't been a hint of fatigue. He could ride around in front of the TdF Femmes giving the cameraman a backy and he would still be fresh.

It's noticeable that pretty much the whole team still look pretty fresh - Vingegaard obviously, but also Laporte. They've definitely got an edge somehow (if I knew exactly how I'd be drawing a seven figure salary from Ineos next season)

Wout though, I get the impression that when he makes it look easy it's because for him, it is. Stuff that would cost others a full effort is 90% for him, or full on but for half the time. He's doing loads, but he's putting others on their limit while staying within his.

RichN95.

rick_chasey said:

You’ll get no disagreement from me about that.

I guess I mean if any rider was going to do that it was gonna be him.

He should seriously consider doing a Thomas and having a tilt at the tour.

He clearly has the engine and the recovery for a GT.

Why limit is to just one? With his recovery he could do all three and all the classics. I haven't seen anyone like him since Jalabert.

By contrast his shadow MVDP frequently pays for over exertion and has to pick and choose his targets

ddraver

It's an interesting one. TJV are the only team who have come to the tour this year with an attitude to try and win. Team UAE barely did, Pog did (and for one day McNulty joined in).

Gee never thought he had a chance of winning from the moment he absentmindedly pulled on a gilet in Copenhagen.

The best sprinters were at the Giro and are too scared of Wout to even try. The Laporte win was a perfect example of everyone being too scared to take the race by the scruff of the neck. (Cav would have - which is a joke, but also kinda true)

TVJ were the only team to bring the GC fight to Pog who needs to have a stern word this winter about the strength of his team. Also, all the sprint teams are afraid of WvA and were too hesitant to take the fight to him for fear of giving another sprint team am easy ride.

They've maximised the opportunities for sure, but they've not had a full on scrap for many of them.

mrb123

If Ineos have so much money, any reason why they haven't signed Pog/JV/WVA? Banking on Bernal getting back to challenge those boys seems a bit optimistic. Have they got anyone else who could get to that level?

Lanterne_Rogue

ddraver said:

The Laporte win was a perfect example of everyone being too scared to take the race by the scruff of the neck. (Cav would have - which is a joke, but also kinda true)

I thought about that last night, and yeah, I think it is kind of true. There's nobody amongst the sprinters this year that really demands respect from the peloton - they're either relatively young, second rank sprinters, or WVA (who isn't a sprinter but... Wout).

Part of the chaos of this year's Tour overall has been a lack of a big voices telling everyone to knock it off - Ineos can't do it because Thomas is third, UAE can't do it because Pogacar is doing everything on his own, and Jumbo can't do it because the person kicking the hornet nest is almost always Wout. Someone like Cavendish would probably have been able to unite the sprinter's teams at least.

Albeit I'm not sure he'd have had the legs to be up there to be bothered. But in theory at least...

Pross

ddraver said:

The best sprinters were at the Giro and are too scared of Wout to even try. The Laporte win was a perfect example of everyone being too scared to take the race by the scruff of the neck. (Cav would have - which is a joke, but also kinda true)

Which sprinters are you rating more highly than Jakobsen, Philipsen, Groenewegen and Ewan?

RichN95.

mrb123 said:

If Ineos have so much money, any reason why they haven't signed Pog/JV/WVA? Banking on Bernal getting back to challenge those boys seems a bit optimistic. Have they got anyone else who could get to that level?

The top neo pros are signed up to fairly long contracts nowadays. Pogacar is at UAE until 2027, Evenepoel at QS til 2026. Supposedly the next big thing Ayuso is at UAE until 2025,

Ineos have bought up a lot of young talent - Bernal, Rodriguez, Plapp, Pidcock, Sivakov, Tulitt and Hayter will follow Hayter. One needs to pay off.

Lanterne_Rogue

RichN95. said:

mrb123 said:

If Ineos have so much money, any reason why they haven't signed Pog/JV/WVA? Banking on Bernal getting back to challenge those boys seems a bit optimistic. Have they got anyone else who could get to that level?

The top neo pros are signed up to fairly long contracts nowadays. Pogacar is at UAE until 2027, Evenepoel at QS til 2026. Supposedly the next big thing Ayuso is at UAE until 2025,

Ineos have bought up a lot of young talent - Bernal, Rodriguez, Plapp, Pidcock, Sivakov, Tulitt and Hayter will follow Hayter. One needs to pay off.

To be fair to Ineos, Bernal already has paid off - though the latest injury (after the back issues) obviously raises doubts about his future. Pidcock's getting them a huge amount of publicity and is paying his own bills comfortably - the decision to let him race what he wants, and what it's doing for their classics campaign, is also likely to make Ineos a potential destination for other talent.

ddraver

Pross said:

ddraver said:

The best sprinters were at the Giro and are too scared of Wout to even try. The Laporte win was a perfect example of everyone being too scared to take the race by the scruff of the neck. (Cav would have - which is a joke, but also kinda true)

Which sprinters are you rating more highly than Jakobsen, Philipsen, Groenewegen and Ewan?

Before the tour,maybe not, but right now you could argue that Jakobsen isn't the best sprinter in his team.

Phillipson certainly isn't.

Gronewegen showed promise in Denmark but hasn't mentally recovered from what he did to Phillipson.

Ewan doesn't have the confidence to pick which GT he wants to ride.

None of the above have the confidence to command the team chosen to support them and to boss the peloton into shape on their specific days.

The Giro was a much better race in terms of sprints and sprint team control (which may not actually be a good thing for us).

Yesterday was a flipping shambles from a sprint team POV. Let the wrong break go, then caught it far too early, then let an even stronger break go. I mean, come on WTF guys? Wherefore art thou, Cheng?

mrb123

RichN95. said:

mrb123 said:

If Ineos have so much money, any reason why they haven't signed Pog/JV/WVA? Banking on Bernal getting back to challenge those boys seems a bit optimistic. Have they got anyone else who could get to that level?

The top neo pros are signed up to fairly long contracts nowadays. Pogacar is at UAE until 2027, Evenepoel at QS til 2026. Supposedly the next big thing Ayuso is at UAE until 2025,

Ineos have bought up a lot of young talent - Bernal, Rodriguez, Plapp, Pidcock, Sivakov, Tulitt and Hayter will follow Hayter. One needs to pay off.

Good point re the contract length.

I suppose my point was that harking back to Sky days, the entire raison d'etre of the team was to win the Tour every year. That currently feels some way off for this team.

RichN95.

rick_chasey said:

Gronewegen showed promise in Denmark but hasn't mentally recovered from what he did to Phillipson.

He should have learnt from what he did to Jacobsen. Doing something to Phillipsen as well is just callous.

RichN95.

mrb123 said:

I suppose my point was that harking back to Sky days, the entire raison d'etre of the team was to win the Tour every year. That currently feels some way off for this team.

I think they have moved on a little. They realise that other teams have caught up and they no longer have the best GC rider, so they've diversified. This mirrors their sponsors in some respect. Ineos have their fingers in many pies, while Sky TV stick more to their core business.

Pross

ddraver said:

Pross said:

ddraver said:

The best sprinters were at the Giro and are too scared of Wout to even try. The Laporte win was a perfect example of everyone being too scared to take the race by the scruff of the neck. (Cav would have - which is a joke, but also kinda true)

Which sprinters are you rating more highly than Jakobsen, Philipsen, Groenewegen and Ewan?

Before the tour,maybe not, but right now you could argue that Jakobsen isn't the best sprinter in his team.

Phillipson certainly isn't.

Gronewegen showed promise in Denmark but hasn't mentally recovered from what he did to Phillipson.

Ewan doesn't have the confidence to pick which GT he wants to ride.

None of the above have the confidence to command the team chosen to support them and to boss the peloton into shape on their specific days.

The Giro was a much better race in terms of sprints and sprint team control (which may not actually be a good thing for us).

Yesterday was a flipping shambles from a sprint team POV. Let the wrong break go, then caught it far too early, then let an even stronger break go. I mean, come on WTF guys? Wherefore art thou, Cheng?

So who, among those who weren't at the Tour, do you think would have been better? Of the top 10 ranked sprinters on PCS the only ones not at the Tour were Demare (6th), Olav Kooij (7th and not exactly a household name yet), Gaviria (8th who never seems to quite get the win plus would have had no team support) and Viviani for whom the same applies. Maybe Cav could have done better but who knows? Losing Morkov was a big issue for DQS.

There weren't many chances for the sprinters and you had WVA determined to win everything yet three of those names still took a stage. The only officially flat stages not won by one of those sprinters were the one where the break held on and Pedersen (a sprinter) won plus yesterday when they'd all been killed off by the Pyrenees.

RichN95.

On the subject on sprinters, Cavendish was on Armstrong’s podcast yesterday. He was disgusted that the Laporte stage hadn’t ended in a proper sprint.

Lanterne_Rogue

RichN95. said:

On the subject on sprinters, Cavendish was on Armstrong’s podcast yesterday. He was disgusted that the Laporte stage hadn’t ended in a proper sprint.

This is the crux of it. As a peloton do you really want an angry Cavendish stomping around France with you?

bm5

Covid played a part too. Some, like Yates, affected by prior illness, some,Trentin, not able to start and then those who had to DNS on route. Left JV as by far the strongest team.

rick_chasey

RichN95. said:

rick_chasey said:

Gronewegen showed promise in Denmark but hasn't mentally recovered from what he did to Phillipson.

He should have learnt from what he did to Jacobsen. Doing something to Phillipsen as well is just callous.

Not sure I wrote this

rick_chasey

RichN95. said:

On the subject on sprinters, Cavendish was on Armstrong’s podcast yesterday. He was disgusted that the Laporte stage hadn’t ended in a proper sprint.

Cav on the Armstrong podcast?!

blazing_saddles

RichN95. said:

On the subject on sprinters, Cavendish was on Armstrong’s podcast yesterday. He was disgusted that the Laporte stage hadn’t ended in a proper sprint.

Yeah, I was listening to him last night.
Both disgusted and bemused by the fact that all the sprint teams hesitated at the point when Laporte made his move.
He doesn't mince his words and places the blame firmly upon then for the fact it wasn't a bunch sprint.
All about "Sprinting in the red" as he called it: It's what has separated him from the rest, as his numbers aren't the best. (although he's just posted his second best ever)
None of them were prepared to "sprint in the red" and so it never ended as a bunch sprint.

Can't help but feel QS farked up the team selection.

blazing_saddles

rick_chasey said:

RichN95. said:

On the subject on sprinters, Cavendish was on Armstrong’s podcast yesterday. He was disgusted that the Laporte stage hadn’t ended in a proper sprint.

Cav on the Armstrong podcast?!

Cav after stage 19, Wiggins after yesterday's ITT.

I have to say that Armstrong has been extremely complimentary about G's Tour performance. (not sure if that's a good or bad thing....)

rick_chasey

Well me too, it was a top performance. Didn’t put a foot wrong.

ddraver

RichN95. said:

rick_chasey said:

Gronewegen showed promise in Denmark but hasn't mentally recovered from what he did to Phillipson.

He should have learnt from what he did to Jacobsen. Doing something to Phillipsen as well is just callous.

Oh damn and blast!