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Cycling - 2022 the remco show


BigFatCoward
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13 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Froome retrospectively awarded 2011 vuelta, now a 7 time grand tour winner joining some of the all time greats. 

Today is a waste of a stage, 30km from final mountain to the finish. 

Only because ciclists like bardet, quintana, pinot and those guys that will be almost 3 mins behind Thomas or Bernal tomorrow are a shame for the sport and should feel ashamed. 

If they want to win the tour they have to take risks. They won t win shit by attacking in the last kms of the last 4 stages that end with a mountain because they are too far behind. They will all end up fighting for third... 

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Sounds like Dennis isn't happy with the TT bike/skinsuit/team management. At this stage its starting to look like he can be a bit of trouble for a team of he doesn't agree with management after the way he left Garmin and now as the TT World Champ climbing off his bike the day before the tdf TT.

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The 'race of truth', much as I like GT I hope he doesn't put another minute into everyone, but I can see it happening.  Expect Alaphilippe to still be in yellow, but by the skin of his teeth, and he is definitely losing it on the Tourmalet tomorrow.

Of the rest Kruijswijk should do ok, and Bernal will still probably be within 45-60 seconds of Thomas. 

 

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39 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

The 'race of truth', much as I like GT I hope he doesn't put another minute into everyone, but I can see it happening.  Expect Alaphilippe to still be in yellow, but by the skin of his teeth, and he is definitely losing it on the Tourmalet tomorrow.

Of the rest Kruijswijk should do ok, and Bernal will still probably be within 45-60 seconds of Thomas. 

 

Yates might not lose too much time. Maybe he will be 90 seconds behind by the end of the day... 

 

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It's great that Alaphilippe is doing so well but I think Thomas is in yellow by the time they leave the Pyrenees. I hope not and I hope we see riders spread all over the mountain not because of Ineos but because of attacking climbers.

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8 minutes ago, lmanion said:

It's great that Alaphilippe is doing so well but I think Thomas is in yellow by the time they leave the Pyrenees. I hope not and I hope we see riders spread all over the mountain not because of Ineos but because of attacking climbers.

Ineos usually doesn't let that happen. They will control the race until the end where Thomas can attack. 

 

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Well that didn't go according to predictions, Alaphillipe needs to be seen as a real threat now and Kruijswijk was looking better than Thomas.

All my preferred riders are out of contention after today so I guess I'm pulling for Alaphillipe now. So expect him to finally crack tomorrow lol.

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7 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Well that didn't go according to predictions, Alaphillipe needs to be seen as a real threat now and Kruijswijk was looking better than Thomas.

All my preferred riders are out of contention after today so I guess I'm pulling for Alaphillipe now. So expect him to finally crack tomorrow lol.

If he doesn t crack tomorrow then he becomes a real threat. 

I was looking at the stage profiles and in 3 days there is a stage similar to the one he won 30 secs. Besides 2 easy stages where there won t be time differences. 

So it is 3 stages to win 2 to 3 mins... 

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There is a lot of altitude in the last week. Ala has never shown any aptitude for riding in the real high mountains, so its still wide open. He has enough of a buffer to keep it very interesting. No idea who is going to win, for the first time since 2011. 

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Yeah, I hope Alaphilippe continues to ride well to keep it interesting, but we don't really know if he's a top-drawer climber in a three-stage race. You'd have to think Thomas will have ample opportunity to make it back.

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8 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

There is a lot of altitude in the last week. Ala has never shown any aptitude for riding in the real high mountains, so its still wide open. He has enough of a buffer to keep it very interesting. No idea who is going to win, for the first time since 2011. 

But we have a lot of short stages with 2 mountains. It is as good conditions as Ala is going to have to win the tour. 

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Haven't been following the cycling this year at all, till today noticed the Tour was on and had time to sit down and watch it. What a stage! Now that the discipline of what was Team Sky is crumbling (e.g. Bernal setting off on his own instead of working for Thomas in the last 10k), the race feels tremendously open and exciting.  

Because of my country of residence, I feel kind of obliged to support Geraint, though I can't share the worship of the people from his area of Cardiff that I've talked to. Would be v. happy if Alaphilippe won, though he was looking very strained today - saw the footage of him half collapsed on a fence after the finish. Only saw the last thirty km of the stage, so not sure what happened to his domestiques. He shouldn't have to be making runs to the team car. 

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33 minutes ago, Maltaran said:

He doesn’t really have any domestiques, half the Deceuninck team are lead out men for Viviani.

In that case though, shouldn't Deceuninck have made some tweaks to their strategy - Viviani is a very long way down the GC?

Movistar were a trainwreck today. Either Landa or Quintana should be encouraged to go for a contract with another team. 

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14 minutes ago, dog-days said:

In that case though, shouldn't Deceuninck have made some tweaks to their strategy - Viviani is a very long way down the GC?

Movistar were a trainwreck today. Either Landa or Quintana should be encouraged to go for a contract with another team. 

Viviani is only going for stage wins. He can't get the GC (not a climber) and he's not going to get the Green points jersey (Sagan) so all that's left for him is to win a few stages (and I think there are only a couple of flat ones left). Lead-out men generally are sprinters as well, so if the team was geared to Viviani winning sprint stages it's not all that easy for the riders to switch over to give domestique mountain support.

I think Thomas is still in good touch here. He has the strongest team of anyone and Alaphilippe might be starting to fade. I'd love for Kruijswijk or Pinot to pull it off though. Pinot in particular has always had that massive French expectation on his shoulders, some of which was a little premature early on. 

Edited by Jeor
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