Anyone got any tips for mountain stages im always having to dot really slow to recuperate the yellow bar. Even with Froome it is hard to win mountain stages on hard difficulty on pcm 13 it was a fair bit easier. Is dot no longer as good?. I was Astana and lost 2 and half minutes to Landa with Nibali which would not usually happen
My feeling is that 13 was easy compared to 15, and that form matters a lot more, if you form on the day, or in general is bad, it is very hard to win, not only in mountains but also on hills and cobles.
I agree which is ok as 13 was too easy imo but it seems so extreme on the mountain stages. My first carear was Sky and I could barely beat Valverde on MTF on hard, in fact I won the TDF by like 20 seconds and he was perfect fitness if it was on 13 I would win by 10 minutes plus with a rider like Froome. Thinking of trying Normal difficulty for AG2R as Bardet will get a bonus in the TDF anyway.
atlanta wrote:
Anyone got any tips for mountain stages im always having to dot really slow to recuperate the yellow bar. Even with Froome it is hard to win mountain stages on hard difficulty on pcm 13 it was a fair bit easier. Is dot no longer as good?. I was Astana and lost 2 and half minutes to Landa with Nibali which would not usually happen
One thing that is key on not only mountain stages, but all stages is POSITIONING. I won the Giro with Hugh Carthy on PCM 15 (77 MON) on extreme, against guys like Majka (80 MON) and Van Garderen (80) etc. I only was able to do this by being at the front of the pack in every mountain and hilly stage and even the flat ones. Even if you waste a bit of energy to get up there, you will prosper later as you will not get blocked and have an easy passage to the front as you are already up there. Now I did not win this Giro by that much "skill" in particular, we went up the Stelvio or some other famous Italian mountain and I was one of the first riders on it. Majka (Maglia Rosa at the time) was down in around 8th place coming into the mountain and so I saw my opportunity to make a semi-mountain train and it worked out perfectly. Just by positioning Carthy was already 1:30 ahead before Majka could reach the front of the pack behind. It's these sort of moments that counts.
Also, you should get a protector normally as it conserves more energy for your leader without one. As well as this you should measure your effort to each situation for instance, when there is a downhill, you know you will recover after the mountain so you may want to alter your pace slightly and if there is a mountain finish you might want to go faster.
Of course, I don't want to limit the way you play, so of course you can continue playing your style, but positioning is key.
