Giro d'Italia 23 Stage 4: Venosa - Lago Laceno, 175 km - Lumpy ***SPOILERS***

Pross

pblakeney said:

Pross said:

So arguably the two strongest riders, Remco and Roglic, look to have fairly weak teams which could make it interesting with some of the other teams have two outside bets. Hopefully they'll play their cards well to make a race of it.

Well Tadej has shown that as long as a strong rider can catch the train it doesn't matter who is driving the engine.

But also that it is hard if you have a team with two contenders that is willing to take a risk.

RichN95.

pblakeney said:

Pross said:

So arguably the two strongest riders, Remco and Roglic, look to have fairly weak teams which could make it interesting with some of the other teams have two outside bets. Hopefully they'll play their cards well to make a race of it.

Well Tadej has shown that as long as a strong rider can catch the train it doesn't matter who is driving the engine.

And Jumbo has shown that two strong riders and strong team can beat up that rider

pblakeney

RichN95. said:

pblakeney said:

Pross said:

So arguably the two strongest riders, Remco and Roglic, look to have fairly weak teams which could make it interesting with some of the other teams have two outside bets. Hopefully they'll play their cards well to make a race of it.

Well Tadej has shown that as long as a strong rider can catch the train it doesn't matter who is driving the engine.

And Jumbo has shown that two strong riders and strong team can beat up that rider

Yes but the point was made that Roglic has a weak team so in that case...who else?
Ineos? Not from what I saw today. Also Remco may have learned from Tajed's error.

RichN95.

pblakeney said:

RichN95. said:

pblakeney said:

Pross said:

So arguably the two strongest riders, Remco and Roglic, look to have fairly weak teams which could make it interesting with some of the other teams have two outside bets. Hopefully they'll play their cards well to make a race of it.

Well Tadej has shown that as long as a strong rider can catch the train it doesn't matter who is driving the engine.

And Jumbo has shown that two strong riders and strong team can beat up that rider

Yes but the point was made that Roglic has a weak team so in that case...who else?
Ineos? Not from what I saw today. Also Remco may have learned from Tajed's error.

Ineos looked pretty good to me. Five riders in the GC group

Pross

pblakeney said:

RichN95. said:

pblakeney said:

Pross said:

So arguably the two strongest riders, Remco and Roglic, look to have fairly weak teams which could make it interesting with some of the other teams have two outside bets. Hopefully they'll play their cards well to make a race of it.

Well Tadej has shown that as long as a strong rider can catch the train it doesn't matter who is driving the engine.

And Jumbo has shown that two strong riders and strong team can beat up that rider

Yes but the point was made that Roglic has a weak team so in that case...who else?
Ineos? Not from what I saw today. Also Remco may have learned from Tajed's error.

Wasn’t really a day for it today though. Maybe they could have put more pressure on when QS seemed to be under pressure but I’m sure that will have been noted having not been expected this early.

m.r.m.

phreak said:

mididoctors said:

Iirc Alex zuelle won here in festina kit .....zillion years ago . There was a London double decker bus parked up there bizarrely

https://youtu.be/4t2Vyky96Bw

Zulle looked unbeatable for the first half of that race, but then Pantani took him apart on the Fedaia. Incidentally, the Festina team at that race was pretty underwhelming and he lacked any real support. Not that we can compare that race with Remco today as I'm not sure there's anyone like Pantani around today.

Entirely offtopic, but was Pantani that good or purely a product of Epo? Genuine question. I never saw him race (at the time) and would love to hear your opinion(s).

RichN95.

m.r.m. said:

Entirely offtopic, but was Pantani that good or purely a product of Epo? Genuine question. I never saw him race (at the time) and would love to hear your opinion(s).

Well almost everyone was a product of EPO back then. It's impossible to say how much was talent, how much was training and how much was EPO. Matt Rendell's book goes into some detail about his haematocrit levels and the changes were huge (40% to 60%), but possibly typical for the time.
One thing that was for sure was he was a bold, attacking rider and that always counts for something. Modern GT courses with their aversion to TTs would have suited him better.

pblakeney

RichN95. said:

pblakeney said:

RichN95. said:

pblakeney said:

Pross said:

So arguably the two strongest riders, Remco and Roglic, look to have fairly weak teams which could make it interesting with some of the other teams have two outside bets. Hopefully they'll play their cards well to make a race of it.

Well Tadej has shown that as long as a strong rider can catch the train it doesn't matter who is driving the engine.

And Jumbo has shown that two strong riders and strong team can beat up that rider

Yes but the point was made that Roglic has a weak team so in that case...who else?
Ineos? Not from what I saw today. Also Remco may have learned from Tajed's error.

Ineos looked pretty good to me. Five riders in the GC group

But surely their intention was to drag Remco back into Pink?
They failed. Five riders in a bunch achieving nothing. not impressed.

pblakeney

Pross said:

pblakeney said:

RichN95. said:

pblakeney said:

Pross said:

So arguably the two strongest riders, Remco and Roglic, look to have fairly weak teams which could make it interesting with some of the other teams have two outside bets. Hopefully they'll play their cards well to make a race of it.

Well Tadej has shown that as long as a strong rider can catch the train it doesn't matter who is driving the engine.

And Jumbo has shown that two strong riders and strong team can beat up that rider

Yes but the point was made that Roglic has a weak team so in that case...who else?
Ineos? Not from what I saw today. Also Remco may have learned from Tajed's error.

Wasn’t really a day for it today though. Maybe they could have put more pressure on when QS seemed to be under pressure but I’m sure that will have been noted having not been expected this early.

I was thinking over the 3 weeks, not just today. I'll predict Remco will keep up with the GC contenders (till the Roglic sprint anyway 😉) at the pointy end of the race, regardless of his team's performance.

RichN95.

pblakeney said:

RichN95. said:

pblakeney said:

RichN95. said:

pblakeney said:

Pross said:

So arguably the two strongest riders, Remco and Roglic, look to have fairly weak teams which could make it interesting with some of the other teams have two outside bets. Hopefully they'll play their cards well to make a race of it.

Well Tadej has shown that as long as a strong rider can catch the train it doesn't matter who is driving the engine.

And Jumbo has shown that two strong riders and strong team can beat up that rider

Yes but the point was made that Roglic has a weak team so in that case...who else?
Ineos? Not from what I saw today. Also Remco may have learned from Tajed's error.

Ineos looked pretty good to me. Five riders in the GC group

But surely their intention was to drag Remco back into Pink?
They failed. Five riders in a bunch achieving nothing. not impressed.

Not really. This is a team that has lead GTs for around 140 days over the last dozen years. I doubt they buy into the cliche of losing the jersey saves the team and energy - a cliche pioneered by Armstrong who wanted to avoid drug testing.

Thomas said it wasn't their priority and they were just controlling the race. He said he checked on the time check once to see if they could 'flick him'

They just gave the peloton a shake to see what fell out. All of Soudal QS did. They're clearly not going be around when the going gets toug, no matter how much energy they save.

pblakeney

Remco specifically said he’d lose the jersey today.
Time will tell over 3 weeks.

RichN95.

pblakeney said:

Remco specifically said he’d lose the jersey today.
Time will tell over 3 weeks.

And no-one else cared whether he did or not, other than to wind him up. There's another GC day on Friday

andyp

RichN95. said:

pblakeney said:

Remco specifically said he’d lose the jersey today.
Time will tell over 3 weeks.

And no-one else cared whether he did or not, other than to wind him up. There's another GC day on Friday

And then a 30 km flat time trial on Sunday. He'll be back in pink just in time for the first rest day.

phreak

m.r.m. said:

phreak said:

mididoctors said:

Iirc Alex zuelle won here in festina kit .....zillion years ago . There was a London double decker bus parked up there bizarrely

https://youtu.be/4t2Vyky96Bw

Zulle looked unbeatable for the first half of that race, but then Pantani took him apart on the Fedaia. Incidentally, the Festina team at that race was pretty underwhelming and he lacked any real support. Not that we can compare that race with Remco today as I'm not sure there's anyone like Pantani around today.

Entirely offtopic, but was Pantani that good or purely a product of Epo? Genuine question. I never saw him race (at the time) and would love to hear your opinion(s).

Impossible to really know either way. He did seem to be good from the very start rather than turned into a racehorse ala Riis, but that maybe doesn't mean too much. As an innocent though, his attacks in the mountains were what got me into cycling so I'll always have a soft spot for him.

It probably helped that he rose (and fell) in the days before social media and really even that much coverage online, which as the Giro wasn't shown in those days (on terrestrial tv) meant his fall from grace wasn't covered too much in the mainstream media. So I'm kinda in the Italian camp that still reveres him even though we know deep down it wasn't really real.

andyp

RichN95. said:

m.r.m. said:

Entirely offtopic, but was Pantani that good or purely a product of Epo? Genuine question. I never saw him race (at the time) and would love to hear your opinion(s).

Well almost everyone was a product of EPO back then. It's impossible to say how much was talent, how much was training and how much was EPO. Matt Rendell's book goes into some detail about his haematocrit levels and the changes were huge (40% to 60%), but possibly typical for the time.
One thing that was for sure was he was a bold, attacking rider and that always counts for something. Modern GT courses with their aversion to TTs would have suited him better.

I'd add that he also had that sense of self belief that marks out the true champions. His main rival in the 1998 Giro was Pavel Tonkov, who was expected to recoup time in the final, flat time trial. Pantani spent the last week trying to break Tonkov, which he did on the final mountain top finish, to ensure he had a race winning gap. He then beat Tonkov in the final TT for good measure.

rick_chasey

andyp said:

RichN95. said:

m.r.m. said:

Entirely offtopic, but was Pantani that good or purely a product of Epo? Genuine question. I never saw him race (at the time) and would love to hear your opinion(s).

Well almost everyone was a product of EPO back then. It's impossible to say how much was talent, how much was training and how much was EPO. Matt Rendell's book goes into some detail about his haematocrit levels and the changes were huge (40% to 60%), but possibly typical for the time.
One thing that was for sure was he was a bold, attacking rider and that always counts for something. Modern GT courses with their aversion to TTs would have suited him better.

I'd add that he also had that sense of self belief that marks out the true champions. His main rival in the 1998 Giro was Pavel Tonkov, who was expected to recoup time in the final, flat time trial. Pantani spent the last week trying to break Tonkov, which he did on the final mountain top finish, to ensure he had a race winning gap. He then beat Tonkov in the final TT for good measure.

This is the bit people forget about Pantani. When he wanted to, he wasn’t a bad TTer either.

rick_chasey

Today was quite a good day to illustrate how differently you read GT parcours vs one day.

If you run a one day race on this route you’ll get some fairly major gaps on that final climb….

DeVlaeminck

Re Ineos emulating Jumbo beating up Pogacar I think they've got to try but whether their contenders have the legs to make it stick is another matter. That said their opposition may not be at Pogacar's level so interesting how it pans out. For a race that hasn't really caught the imagination in the build up maybe it'll surpass expectations.

TheBigBean

rick_chasey said:

andyp said:

RichN95. said:

m.r.m. said:

Entirely offtopic, but was Pantani that good or purely a product of Epo? Genuine question. I never saw him race (at the time) and would love to hear your opinion(s).

Well almost everyone was a product of EPO back then. It's impossible to say how much was talent, how much was training and how much was EPO. Matt Rendell's book goes into some detail about his haematocrit levels and the changes were huge (40% to 60%), but possibly typical for the time.
One thing that was for sure was he was a bold, attacking rider and that always counts for something. Modern GT courses with their aversion to TTs would have suited him better.

I'd add that he also had that sense of self belief that marks out the true champions. His main rival in the 1998 Giro was Pavel Tonkov, who was expected to recoup time in the final, flat time trial. Pantani spent the last week trying to break Tonkov, which he did on the final mountain top finish, to ensure he had a race winning gap. He then beat Tonkov in the final TT for good measure.

This is the bit people forget about Pantani. When he wanted to, he wasn’t a bad TTer either.

He was a lot worse than Indurain which was the yardstick that everyone was measured against.

rick_chasey

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

andyp said:

RichN95. said:

m.r.m. said:

Entirely offtopic, but was Pantani that good or purely a product of Epo? Genuine question. I never saw him race (at the time) and would love to hear your opinion(s).

Well almost everyone was a product of EPO back then. It's impossible to say how much was talent, how much was training and how much was EPO. Matt Rendell's book goes into some detail about his haematocrit levels and the changes were huge (40% to 60%), but possibly typical for the time.
One thing that was for sure was he was a bold, attacking rider and that always counts for something. Modern GT courses with their aversion to TTs would have suited him better.

I'd add that he also had that sense of self belief that marks out the true champions. His main rival in the 1998 Giro was Pavel Tonkov, who was expected to recoup time in the final, flat time trial. Pantani spent the last week trying to break Tonkov, which he did on the final mountain top finish, to ensure he had a race winning gap. He then beat Tonkov in the final TT for good measure.

This is the bit people forget about Pantani. When he wanted to, he wasn’t a bad TTer either.

He was a lot worse than Indurain which was the yardstick that everyone was measured against.

Sure. But the final TT in 1998 Tour for example he finished 3rd. (appreciate it was a much reduced field by that point).

In the 1999 Giro he was top 10 in the 45km TT.

He wasn't a bad TTer.

dabber

Pantani.... yes, the EPO but, what excitement, panache and colour he gave to races. Seeing him on Oropa was just so brilliant.

mididoctors

m.r.m. said:

phreak said:

mididoctors said:

Iirc Alex zuelle won here in festina kit .....zillion years ago . There was a London double decker bus parked up there bizarrely

https://youtu.be/4t2Vyky96Bw

Zulle looked unbeatable for the first half of that race, but then Pantani took him apart on the Fedaia. Incidentally, the Festina team at that race was pretty underwhelming and he lacked any real support. Not that we can compare that race with Remco today as I'm not sure there's anyone like Pantani around today.

Entirely offtopic, but was Pantani that good or purely a product of Epo? Genuine question. I never saw him race (at the time) and would love to hear your opinion(s).

We will never know the true relative talents from that era ... It was a tragic waste