Pro Cycling

OMG shit is so close.
This is great.

I know froom kicks ass at the TT, but what are the other three like?
didnt Uran win a TT at the giro?
I’m curious about aru and bardet in week 3.
So stoked for uran, I want him on the podium so bad.

What you think?
Big attack from martin on Wednesday?
Sky buries themselves on Wednesday to shut it down and avoid a race on the descent?
Cannondale in the break trying to support Uran on the descent and get him to the line the GCs for bonus seconds?
Aru and bardet team up to throw shots on Thursday?

Im thinking for the final podium:
Froom
uran
aru

[quote=Wintage Townie]In 1974, Eddy Merckx used the descent at Mont du Chat to regain time lost to Raymond Poulidor on the climb.

So it’s not like this is a new addition to the tour.[/quote]
I don’t even know how one would find this but what do we think the average descent speed was when Merckx did it versus today?

They all suck at time trials. Uran’s Giro win was in 2014 and out of nowhere.

I’d expect descending to be quite similar.

It sounds like a glib answer, but I would guess that the descents were faster, since their bikes didn’t stop nearly as well as a modern bike.

Or the roads were worse and they knew they had to feather their shitty brakes so they descent was a tad bit slower.

Although this is all bullshit because had Porte hit that limestone wall with a helmet they had in '74 he’d be dead.

In my opinion, as much as this tour has been completely fucked up the commisars are at no fault for Porte’s crash. If the peloton wants to follow traditional bullshit they can’t complain (link) about a traditional stage.

Richie should just go do a fuckin’ IronMan and piss off already.

tiz-cycling.racing[/quote]

Thank you for this, btw.

if y’all don’t mind listening to dutch this seems to be the only free live broadcast up at the moment for today’s stage. under 10km remaining.

Was watching the last 15k of stage 15 and a bunch of people were booing Froome. I searched and only found articles about him getting piss thrown on him. Can anyone fill me in as to why people are hating him so much?

I imagine its just because he is part of SKY, and they are looking a lot dirtier than they say they are. Anyone that wins a lot gets hated, or hassled because they are boring, or not boring enough (Sagan) . He looks more human than a lot of contenders have over the years. He seems to have bad days to me.

tiz-cycling.racing[/quote]

Thank you for this, btw.[/quote]
Yeah, pretty great when they get it up.
Especially since I was watching the final km on nbc via steephill and it looked like a 56k modem feed. Tiz is high quality.

FTFM
Trying to limit myself to one Sag troll per week.
Slim pickins when he’s on vacation for half the season.

[quote=Todd]OMG shit is so close.
This is great.

I know froom kicks ass at the TT, but what are the other three like?
didnt Uran win a TT at the giro?
I’m curious about aru and bardet in week 3.
So stoked for uran, I want him on the podium so bad.

What you think?
Big attack from martin on Wednesday?
Sky buries themselves on Wednesday to shut it down and avoid a race on the descent?
Cannondale in the break trying to support Uran on the descent and get him to the line the GCs for bonus seconds?
Aru and bardet team up to throw shots on Thursday?

Im thinking for the final podium:
Froom
uran
aru[/quote]

Wednesday
The term “bury themselves” implies Sky go under from doing exactly what they always do. Not likely. The Izoard will leave very little need for a team, so Wednesday’s game is “Smoke ’em if you got ’em.”

Dan and Uran will hang on by the skin of their teeth, Aru will get dropped before the Galibier, Bardet will attack on the descent and move up to second position.

Bonus: Contador and Quintana go up the road and El Pistolero takes the stage.

Thursday
Dan and Uran do their best to hang in again.

Froome third
Bardet second place
Landa takes the stage

The TT
Froome does kick ass in the TT, but it’s not nearly as consistent as it once was.

Aru and Danny Boy both finished 41s down on Froome in the Dauphine TT, which is a good recent benchmark, very similar in length and profile.

Bardet finished 1:16 down on Froome.

Uran’s TT used to be very good, but he’s definitely has traded that for climbing in recent years.

Really tough podium to call, but…

Froome
Uran
Landa

Not bad, except I haven’t seen anything that would even remotely hint at the bonus take. But it’d be great to see.

Principled leadership from a grade A gentleman. I’m sure the rest of the press pool will stand behind their colleague.

Once Sky gets busted up by UK anti-doping, perhaps Brailsford could find a job with the Trump administration.

What do you mean? Did you miss stage 13? It went down very similarly.

Quintana and Contador are obviously not in the form of years past. In order to save face their only option is to go for hail maries at this point. I don’t think Quintana has the legs to pull it off, but if Barguil is looking to secure his polka dots, he’ll find a good ally in Contador.

I feel silly but also vindicated by this prognostication I just read:

I did, but they’ve both looked so lack-luster this year. Almost as lack-luster as Froome…

All of the GC action feels like it’s almost in slow motion. I just don’t see any of the GC guys winning a day.

They are lackluster, but given those tactics on a normal length stage, they have the staying power that rival stage hunters lack. Other names that can pull it off and climb are Barguil (running himself ragged), Rolland (tummy issues), Mollema…

Aru, Uran and Bardet have now all won a stage each. But yes, GC action is generally in slow motion, right?

You’re right. I still haven’t given those guys the respect of legit GC contenders, but they are. Rolland has bronchitis, btw.

And sometimes? Contador on beef dope was hot fire.

Also, after reading about Greg Lemond shitting in a cap in the 1986 TdF, I stumbled on to this (NSFW, but just for language):