Tour de France - Forum Archive

Jul 12, 2013 at 02:57 PM

starting to come down - i hope they can pick it up again. contador trying to motivate the break to work harder. sky finally put a few guys to the front to chase - froome's gonna have to move up, too, because there's not many bodies up there.

EDIT: up to close to 50 seconds! valverde giving up 7 minutes - jeez.

Mark Clifford

Jul 12, 2013 at 03:11 PM

chapeau contador and team. brilliant racing.

Adam

Jul 12, 2013 at 03:13 PM

OMFG 47.2kmph average speed!!!!!!!!!!!

For the imperials, thats as tiny bit shy of 30mph.

JohnMalcolmson

Jul 12, 2013 at 03:15 PM

29.32mph Jesus balls!

mugwump

Jul 12, 2013 at 03:16 PM

who says flat road racing is boring? I was hoping that Ten Dam and Mollema would drill it at the end to push their gap even farther.

Jules

Jul 12, 2013 at 03:17 PM

DAMN!

tito

Jul 12, 2013 at 03:19 PM

Incredible. Saxo was running thangs.

I only saw the last 40km or so - how did they manage to get all their guys up there without everyone chasing them down?

And weird move by Sagan in the sprint - cat-and-mouse, then nada. Is he just exhausted?

Brendan Rigby

Jul 12, 2013 at 03:22 PM

damnit, i missed it.

where's the best place to get video recaps? i've not found one good place yet

alyoshas

Jul 12, 2013 at 03:23 PM

I think we're gonna see a perfectly timed fitness peak for contador at the end of the tour. Kreuziger is also a great sidekick, both are very aggressive riders who are going to put a lot of pressure of Froom and the dwindling sky team.

dstokes

Jul 12, 2013 at 03:32 PM

Ugh. I'll have to root for Froome over the tainted meat eater. Though I was never very fond of Valverde's dog Piti. At least we have a race again.

Ryan J

Jul 12, 2013 at 03:33 PM

tito said:

Incredible. Saxo was running thangs.

I only saw the last 40km or so - how did they manage to get all their guys up there without everyone chasing them down?

They basically just accelerated and rode everyone off their wheels! It was crazy.

How often do you see a breakaway that contains almost an entire team, their GC guy, a couple other GC guys, and the two best (or at least most famous) sprinters in cycling?

dstokes

Jul 12, 2013 at 03:37 PM

I wouldn't call it a breakaway. I would call it a split.
Similar thing happened when Lance returned to the peleton and Contador was on his team (Lance in front group and Contador left behind - nice teamwork!)

dstearns

Jul 12, 2013 at 04:07 PM

Ryan J said:

tito said:

Incredible. Saxo was running thangs.

I only saw the last 40km or so - how did they manage to get all their guys up there without everyone chasing them down?

They basically just accelerated and rode everyone off their wheels! It was crazy.

How often do you see a breakaway that contains almost an entire team, their GC guy, a couple other GC guys, and the two best (or at least most famous) sprinters in cycling?

nailed it. watching that unfold was as good as any mountain stage - amazing teamwork by saxo. sky put in a few big efforts and brought the initial gap down, but they clearly ran out of ammo and nobody else was much interested in working for them.

Dan Reiners

Jul 12, 2013 at 04:09 PM

That move has Riis written all over it. Brilliant use of a stage that should have been boring and no change to the overall standings, turns into a GC bloodbath. A nice split that was exploited by Saxo, to move their guy up in the standings, and forcing Sky to burn matches trying to limit the losses.

mugwump

Jul 12, 2013 at 04:19 PM

Basically, Saxo took advantage of the crosswind from the left. They set up about 2/3 of the way to the right side of the road, with only enough room for them. With six of them going for it and not giving much in the way of shelter, there was only room for about that many more. Everyone else was going to have to make a new echelon. And they didn't do it fast enough. And when they did, they didn't commit as well.

Scary thing is OPQ started the move 60k in because they read the wind and figured they could drop a few guys.

tito

Jul 12, 2013 at 04:38 PM

mugwump said:

Basically, Saxo took advantage of the crosswind from the left.

Scary thing is OPQ started the move 60k in because they read the wind and figured they could drop a few guys.

Why "scary", JP? I'd a thought "ironic".

Jeff Owens

Jul 12, 2013 at 05:25 PM

Heh, Rogers said he went harder than he did in the ITT. He could barely speak. Awesome.

Thierry Bonnaire

Jul 12, 2013 at 06:54 PM

Contador's move reminds me what he accomplished during the Vuelta last year against Rodriguez by attacking him during a transitional stage before hitting the big mountains. I can't wait for Mont- Ventoux my friends!!!!

alyoshas

Jul 12, 2013 at 07:11 PM

yes, exactly what that reminded me of as well.

mugwump

Jul 12, 2013 at 10:28 PM

tito said:

mugwump said:

Basically, Saxo took advantage of the crosswind from the left.

Scary thing is OPQ started the move 60k in because they read the wind and figured they could drop a few guys.

Why "scary", JP? I'd a thought "ironic".

They threw everything into an attack 113km from the finish. That is the stuff of spring classics, not grand tours. Grand Tour echelon blowouts occur much closer to the finish, like 50k or less. People are tired, the risk of backfiring on yourself is too great. OPQ threw everything into it and were pretty cooked by the intermediate sprint. And Cav' barely made it on to the Saxo move. Considering that Cav is still probably the fastest guy out there most of the time that they'd risk everything on drilling it from so far away is what I'm referring to. They probably could have blown out Kittel closer to the finish and saved more of their guys to blow out Greipel.

David Yang

Jul 13, 2013 at 02:33 AM

Just catching up on the last two stages...holy crap! Exciting stage today! Agreed that Sagan blew it weirdly at the end there. Oh well...

mugwump

Jul 13, 2013 at 04:13 AM

Sagan wasn't going to win with Cav' on his wheel and knew as much. Cav' did,too. So Sagan paused to let Cav' start the sprint, but that was all the opening Cav' needed.

Marc Bertucco

Jul 13, 2013 at 02:28 PM

I feel like, in addition to getting any results/titles stripped from their palmares, riders who have returned from doping suspensions should no longer have the right to be referred to by Phil and Paul as "having been a very good" anything. Yes, those years he was doping? He was totally awesome--a TT-er who can climb! A climber who can TT! David Millar [fill in your own favorite ex-doper/huffy tosser] is your next Tour de France Champion!

[huffy tosser? Huh...let me consult with the Queen's subjects on the matter here..."tosser" is a British expression, like "wanker" or "punk" or "jerk" for us, right? Can then, "huffy tosser" take on a new meaning? Can we try to create a new British expression and then have it become so popular, that it takes over Brooklyn, then crosses the pond to land in Trafalgar Square?]

Brendan Rigby

Jul 14, 2013 at 02:35 AM

@twoyacks velveeta, errr valverde (ron burgandy tells me that's spanish for "green val"), suffered a terrible mechanical: some fool fell onto his wheel and broke it. one wonders if a more resilient material would have prevented his $3000+ wheelset from cracking upon impact

Jeffrey White

Jul 14, 2013 at 03:28 AM

Also just catching up. Amazing stage yesterday!

Poor Valverde. What an inopportune time to have his mechanical. I have to say, though, that after he and his minders got subsumed by the big chase group behind, I found myself yelling at the TV when they were letting the team cars through to service the lead group. At the first tinny squeak of a Euro clown horn, they'd all move over in deference. Uh. Completely retarded. They had a big enough chase peleton to take up the whole road, and they're entitled to it. Dumb.

Marc Bertucco

Jul 14, 2013 at 08:18 AM

For all you Cav lovers:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/video-cavendish-reflects-on-his-25th-tour-win-and-the-beauty-of-the-race

Also, am I the only one who winces a little bit every time Bob Roll uses the expression "Indian file" to describe it when the peloton is strung out? #everybody'salittlebitracist?

mugwump

Jul 14, 2013 at 04:08 PM

Jeffrey White said:

Also just catching up. Amazing stage yesterday!

Poor Valverde. What an inopportune time to have his mechanical.

Do you mean you Piti him?

dstokes

Jul 14, 2013 at 04:38 PM

woof woof!

Jules

Jul 14, 2013 at 05:34 PM

That stage was so exciting! It was like watching Pantani of old; such speed such heart, such...Panache. [spoiler] He's juiced to the eyeballs [/spoiler]

Jules

Jul 14, 2013 at 06:36 PM

Why does this seem so familiar?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-J2bIsPDH8