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Tour De France 2020
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 15-09-2020 16:40
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Tour de France Champion
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Nothing like seeing Bernal get bested by Sam Bennett in the Alps. 
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Wilier |
Posted on 15-09-2020 16:42
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 5405
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I'm thinking about the fact that Jumbo initially wanted to bring Kruijswijk to the Tour as well. That would've been sick. |
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 27-11-2024 00:10
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Bot Agent
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| Kirchen_75 |
Posted on 15-09-2020 16:53
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Grand Tour Champion
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Pogacar needs to stop being a Fränk Schleck to Roglic if he wants to win this race |
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| FreitasPCM |
Posted on 15-09-2020 17:25
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Grand Tour Champion
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This win is trully deserved by Kämna. He is definitely back to show his full potential. |
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 15-09-2020 18:25
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World Champion
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Kirchen_75 wrote:
Pogacar needs to stop being a Fränk Schleck to Roglic if he wants to win this race
Ah remember the mini attacks Andy would do then stop as soon as he saw that could drop Frank only to claim at the end of the race they are the only ones attacking. Good times. Good times.
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| Forever the Best |
Posted on 15-09-2020 19:10
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Classics Specialist
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Schleck was criticized massively back in the day ( and rightly so ) but if you teleport him to this race he would be the most attacking GC rider along with Pogacar. I mean, at Col du Grand Colombier ( a HC summit finish ) we saw attacks with what, 800m to go? That's awful even for modern cycling's standards.
Hopefully Col de la Loze tomorrow turns out better. I expect Pogacar to attack just like he did on Peyresourde and Marie Blanque, and some action, unlike the passive riding we saw from everyone bar Adam Yates(!) on Grand Colombier.
The user formerly known as 'The Schleck Fan'
Gracias Alberto.
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 15-09-2020 19:23
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World Champion
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Schleck never rode against a team that could control the favorites group like Jumbo/Sky though.
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| Forever the Best |
Posted on 15-09-2020 19:46
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Classics Specialist
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That's also true. Astana 2009 was extremely strong, but were also divided into two camps thanks to the Contador-Armstrong feud. I also remember Schleck doing a half-assed attack on one of the Pyrenees stages ( stage 8 IIRC, and there was massive amount of flat before the finish - the Pyrenees stages of Tour 2009 were absolute garbage, saw no GC action apart from Contador's attack with 2-3 km to go at Arcalis in stage 7 ) and quickly being brought back by Astana. But sometimes when you attack hard enough the leader needs to respond, something maybe Pogacar could have done at Sunday.
Also, for instance Quintana was massively criticized back in 2015-2017 by many including me but if he had a form similar to 2015 I think he would have attacked on Grand Colombier.
In some of the GTs, GC racing seems so passive, but in some of them it is extremely enjoyable. For example Roglic comfortably won last years Vuelta but it was one of the best GTs in recent years, with proper action on lots of stages by overall contenders. I also think such a hard summit finish as Loze late in the race is not the recipe for exciting racing, because people fear that stage and don't attack with the fear of blowing up and losing minutes on the next stages.
The user formerly known as 'The Schleck Fan'
Gracias Alberto.
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 15-09-2020 19:58
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Forever the Best wrote:
Schleck was criticized massively back in the day ( and rightly so ) but if you teleport him to this race he would be the most attacking GC rider along with Pogacar. I mean, at Col du Grand Colombier ( a HC summit finish ) we saw attacks with what, 800m to go? That's awful even for modern cycling's standards.
If you were a rider and you saw Bernal and Quintana dropped by Wout van Aert, would you still dare to attack? That's assuming you still have energy left to attack.
Jumbo/Roglic want to play it boring, and I can understand their decision, they haven't won a Tour yet. The tactic is sipmle, set a pace and trust on Roglic acceleration in the last kilometre. It's lame, but if it gets them a first Tour win, I'll let them have it this year.
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 15-09-2020 20:01
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Tour de France Champion
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Forever the Best wrote:
That's also true. Astana 2009 was extremely strong, but were also divided into two camps thanks to the Contador-Armstrong feud. I also remember Schleck doing a half-assed attack on one of the Pyrenees stages ( stage 8 IIRC, and there was massive amount of flat before the finish - the Pyrenees stages of Tour 2009 were absolute garbage, saw no GC action apart from Contador's attack with 2-3 km to go at Arcalis in stage 7 ) and quickly being brought back by Astana. But sometimes when you attack hard enough the leader needs to respond, something maybe Pogacar could have done at Sunday.
It also seems to me that there was just a different philosophy of how to race as a strong team then. Even with Contador and Armstrong not working together, they had more than enough firepower to easily do a Skytrain like we've seen in recent years. But the philosophy was completely different, and they chose not to do it.
Firstly, Contador was an attacking rider who could and wanted to blow away the competition with a kick. I reckon a steady, hard tempo would have hurt him more than helped him. it might have helped someone like Basso a lot more.
But secondly, the team genuinely wanted as many guys high in the overall standings as possible. Andreas Kloden finished 6th in that Tour, don't forget. And it wasn't because he was pacing on the front all day and just happened to be that strong that he still outlasted the other leaders. Each man on that team went for themselves as much as possible, which completely goes against the Sky train philosophy (not that the Sky train isn't capable of similar results if the riders are strong enough, i.e. 2012 Tour). If Contador has Skytrain and doesn't attack on his own, Kloden is probably outside the top 10 at least.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Kirchen_75 |
Posted on 15-09-2020 20:26
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alexkr00 wrote:
Kirchen_75 wrote:
Pogacar needs to stop being a Fränk Schleck to Roglic if he wants to win this race
Ah remember the mini attacks Andy would do then stop as soon as he saw that could drop Frank only to claim at the end of the race they are the only ones attacking. Good times. Good times.
#FrändyForever |
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| Forever the Best |
Posted on 15-09-2020 20:34
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Classics Specialist
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Bernal is way off form though. He finished with Sam Bennett today for example. And Quintana is injured ( he had a crash in stage 13 ).
For Roglic, it's smart if he does not blow up and lose time in one of the remaining stages, if he has a jour sans on ITT and loses the Tour, it's not smart. For others, it is not. Even if they are not going to beat Roglic, they should still be battling against each other. For example Porte looked stronger than the rest ( everyone except roglic and Pogacar ) on Grand Colombier but did not gain much apart from a few seconds because he did not try. And I think Pogacar may be as strong as Roglic so I would have liked him to try earlier on Grand Colombier.
The user formerly known as 'The Schleck Fan'
Gracias Alberto.
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| Forever the Best |
Posted on 15-09-2020 20:50
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3803
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baseballlover312 wrote:
Forever the Best wrote:
That's also true. Astana 2009 was extremely strong, but were also divided into two camps thanks to the Contador-Armstrong feud. I also remember Schleck doing a half-assed attack on one of the Pyrenees stages ( stage 8 IIRC, and there was massive amount of flat before the finish - the Pyrenees stages of Tour 2009 were absolute garbage, saw no GC action apart from Contador's attack with 2-3 km to go at Arcalis in stage 7 ) and quickly being brought back by Astana. But sometimes when you attack hard enough the leader needs to respond, something maybe Pogacar could have done at Sunday.
It also seems to me that there was just a different philosophy of how to race as a strong team then. Even with Contador and Armstrong not working together, they had more than enough firepower to easily do a Skytrain like we've seen in recent years. But the philosophy was completely different, and they chose not to do it.
Firstly, Contador was an attacking rider who could and wanted to blow away the competition with a kick. I reckon a steady, hard tempo would have hurt him more than helped him. it might have helped someone like Basso a lot more.
But secondly, the team genuinely wanted as many guys high in the overall standings as possible. Andreas Kloden finished 6th in that Tour, don't forget. And it wasn't because he was pacing on the front all day and just happened to be that strong that he still outlasted the other leaders. Each man on that team went for themselves as much as possible, which completely goes against the Sky train philosophy (not that the Sky train isn't capable of similar results if the riders are strong enough, i.e. 2012 Tour). If Contador has Skytrain and doesn't attack on his own, Kloden is probably outside the top 10 at least.
Good points. Kloden could have also finished higher if not for waiting for Armstrong at Verbier.
The user formerly known as 'The Schleck Fan'
Gracias Alberto.
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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 16-09-2020 08:57
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Team Leader
Posts: 6036
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What bothers me the most is that, prior to the start, we had a major favourite in Jumbo and Roglic, but we also had an extended group of guys good enough to challenge them.
Ineos has been using this US Postal tactic to perfection in the last decade. Suddenly though, despite having arguably the best squad ever, they just can't ride with Jumbo. Not only that, they are about to finish without a rider in the top10. Did they just suddenly unlearn their marginal gains? What happened there?
The rest of the expected contenders were all dropped before the end of the 2nd week: Pinot, Buchmann, Bardet, Alaphilippe, Quintana, Mas/Valverde, Martin. Only a very select group of these is still within 3min of Roglic and haven't showed any spark in them, namely Úran, Lopez and Landa. Pogacar is the only realistic threat to Roglic with little less than one third of the race to finish.
And all of these guys/teams have made this event their main target of the season. That's the TdF in a nutshell and that's why the other 2 GTs have become much more entertaining and watchable sporting competitions.
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| Kalach |
Posted on 16-09-2020 12:04
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Breakaway Specialist
Posts: 880
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GVA why do you want to be in a breakaway in this kind of stage?
Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
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PCM Velogames Championship - Top Results
* 1st Tour de Suisse ('23)
* 1st Tour de Romandie ('19, '18)
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* 2nd Tour of California ('19)
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* 3rd Vuelta Espana ('23)
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 16-09-2020 12:34
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Kalach wrote:
GVA why do you want to be in a breakaway in this kind of stage?
In preparation of the WC maybe? Stuyven and Naesen were also there, could be for the same reason. |
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| Kalach |
Posted on 16-09-2020 12:58
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Breakaway Specialist
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Nemolito wrote:
Kalach wrote:
GVA why do you want to be in a breakaway in this kind of stage?
In preparation of the WC maybe? Stuyven and Naesen were also there, could be for the same reason.
The stage itself is enough preparation for the WC for them I would say  Curious to see if Belgium will back up only Van Aert or he will be sharing leadership with GVA.
Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
_____________________________________________
PCM Velogames Championship - Top Results
* 1st Tour de Suisse ('23)
* 1st Tour de Romandie ('19, '18)
* 1st Tour de Pologne ('20, '19)
* 2nd Tour of California ('19)
* 2nd Tour de Suisse ('18)
* 3rd Tour de France ('23, '21)
* 3rd Giro d’Italia ('22)
* 3rd Vuelta Espana ('23)
* 3rd Autumn Classics ('19, '18)
* 9th Spring Classics ('18)
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| deek12345 |
Posted on 16-09-2020 13:35
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2761
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Free landa Bahrain on the front on the madeleine |
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 16-09-2020 14:14
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 16429
Joined: 27-07-2011
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It always amazes me when teams think the best way to beat a skytrain tactic is to just do your own skytrain and let their skytrain sit on all day.
Hopefully I'm wrong and it works.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 16-09-2020 14:15
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World Champion
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Landa can be free only when he is so far down in the GC he is not a threat no anyone. Otherwise just a regular Tour top 10 guy.
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