diphthong

nice points total-844-by team Crazy Legs in the tdf tissot game today.

it's only stage four and pogacar, roglic and alaphilippe expending a lot of energy early on. i think roglic knows how to ration out the efforts throughout
three weeks. alaphilippe seems too impetuous and rash (and i love that about him) to dial it down from 11. still don't believe he's only in it for the stage wins.
i think i posited somewhere in this forum that alaphilippe couldn't win the tdf...this year's course changed my mind. alaphilippe just seems like he always wants to go stage by stage
and unsure if he has the long-term discipline to stay within striking distance without actually striking until the last week. pogacar...not sure he knows his limits just yet.
if either alaphilippe or roglic are in yellow at the end of the first week, at what point do they let it go (but remain close enough to retake) for a mental + physical "breather?" stage 10?

benoot finished okay but that crash didn't look like fun. hoping he's okay to continue and ride with conviction as always.

diphthong

stage five is slightly uphill near the end but looks to flatten out for the last two km’s or so with a “straightish” finish. transitional stage. expecting kristoff, viviani and sagan to finish in the top ten but i'll call ewan taking stage five.

diphthong

def in the running for a win on stage five.

USAZorro

1-3-4 today. Wout! Wout!

USAZorro

Question. Is it fair game to change captain from stage to stage?

diphthong

^no

diphthong

so much for yates only hunting for stage wins...surprise!!

GrainBrain

Will the team refocus now?

Who dropped the ball on the Soigneur for Alaphillipe? A ton of mechanicals over the season now this!?

dstrong 

I now wish I had just copied my Crazy Legs team from Tissot to GBBG (Covid Kid)...but I wanted to be a bit contrarian with my GBBG and boy, did I succeed! Succeeded in sending my GBBG team almost right to the bottom of the pile! I'll pin my hopes on my Tissot team.

diphthong

the last few km on stage six should be a gc barnburner with 18 guys within 22 seconds of the yellow jersey and bonus seconds available for the first three riders.
was gonna pick quintana (or yates before he found himself in yellow) but going with alaphilippe to cut his new time deficit in half with that finishing kick of his ftw.

slcbob

A meaningful penalty against a native son and national hero? Arguably even harsh? Zut alors!!

We should have known not to trust Mitchellton-Scott. Their lips were moving. Yates is from the town next to where my wife grew up, thus he is "our Adam" during race commentary here. I'm sad and a wee bit ashamed I didn't pick him but that's all in keeping with my long shot Latin-centric Velogames team, living la vida loca, instead of going with favored Slovenians or the Colombian con los palmares grandisimos. Heck, I even opted for Nieve instead of our Adam to stay on theme. No idea how WVA slipped into my mix, but I'm glad he snuck away from domestique duties today. Back to the boiler room tomorrow, young man.

Our fantasy host has a sizable lead. Say no more, wouldn't want to jinx him coming into this next stage with a little bump at the end. Allow his fantasies to run a little longer. I thought I might break Trollstigen today but Curtis clung to the first non-podium spot.

I think it's pretty clear the 1-2 punch of WVA and Sep Kuss will continue to put the hurt on the GC bunch. I think it's too early for a major sorting but am curious who the Grim Reaper may grab. This looks to be one of those can't win but can lose the Tour days. Predictions? My money is on Chaves and Porte to be the first to vanish. Well, make that the 2nd and 3rd since my man Martinez has already checked out. I think Bernal will cling a little better tomorrow than he did yesterday.

I give a break a bit of a chance. Hope my man Calmejane pips Lutsenko, and I expect to see Roglic clip a few more seconds and be in yellow.

Who is going to work to chase the break? Will QS put Ahlaphilippe in range to try to snarf the bonus points at the Col de la Lusette as well as the stage, putting our Adam back into team kit? Heck, I wouldn't put it past Roglic at this point.

diphthong

with yates in yellow...that's as good as a stage win for the sponsors. the team might be able to defend the yellow jersey until that barnburner of a stage
on stage 13 but it will be really, really difficult. stage seven looks relatively easy for defensive purposes (in reality tho, no stage is easy to defend the yellow against
potential poachers. truly, everyone is out to get you. talk about the height of paranoia). so if michelton can successfully defend it tomorrow, yates will probably
be in yellow until at least the end of stage eight.

diphthong

can't wait to see team jv turn him loose on stage twenty-one and see what he does to the true sprinters on the biggest sprinting stage of the year. would not bet against wout taking that stage win. calling it now.

USAZorro

Richie doesn't usually come to grief until stage 7. I'm not predicting he'll crash tomorrow, but I think he'll lose a little time.

When I look at the elevation profile, my first thought was Julian tries to gap the bunch on the short descent after the Cat 1 climb near the end. Then I looked at the map and see it's a straight shot on the way down. I see some trying to attack on the Lusette, and LJ shutting it down if Mitchelton Scott or Decuenick don't do it. I really don't think Julian will be given ANY breathing space if he tries to fly the coop.

If Roglic comes into the final km with the lead group and a teammate on the front, I think he's going to win. I could imagine Yates and Julian possibly trying to animate things before then, but I suspect Yates will be playing defense of the jersey. Roglic, Pogacar, Higuita, Yates the first 4 across the line. Julian and Pino in hot pursuit.

DLBroox

What’s up with Sagan? He seems off his game to me.

diphthong

^it's interesting because we don't know. he's no longer the new kid in town and has not only plenty of competition from the veteran pure sprinters and the classics specialists
but the new wave such as wout and mvdp. bora seems to have bigger gc aims than in years past so perhaps he's getting less dedicated support from the team? perhaps he's
over it and not as hungry or is just done with the grind or is worn out from all the sponsor-related meet and greet/ride with peter events. maybe it's an undisclosed/unaddressed
health/injury issue. possibly it's a change on the dark side of racing or any combination of several of these factors. he's still in contention when/where he needs to be and can't be
discounted or dismissed but he's coming in second or fourth or sixth where he used to come in first. granted, he set an unbelievable standard to uphold for quite a few years and
i'm disposed to write off poor results from 2020 with everything going on.

i still think he takes the green jersey and is in contention for a bunch of remaining stages. we'll see how he handles this compressed racing schedule of the last two weeks of the tdf
along with remaining classics/gt's/races he rides.

would you consider it a successful season for him if he wins the green jersey, has a few top three placings on tdf stages, wins a classic, wins a secondary race and two stages in the vuelta?

diphthong

he has definitely established his ability to finish off his rivals at the end of mountain top finishes.

2cam16

They we discussing that on The Move the past few days. If you look at his sitting position on some race clips yesterday and the day before, he was riding a bit to the side. Lance was saying maybe saddlesores.

diphthong

alaphilippe won't be given any space whatsoever but his fearless descending style off the penultimate climb (fairly shortish descent) and tt ability for roughly 1.5-2 km's of flattish territory will probably net him
10-25 seconds off a majority of the current gc contenders before that final 8.3 kilometers of climbing. looking at this last climb as a preview of the mountain tt stage 20. if alaphilippe can gain 25 (+) seconds
and another of the contenders (or a few) is/are able to follow, i like his chances and i'll still take his finishing 150m sprint vs everyone else's except possibly valverde's or roglic's...especially since we're still in
the first week of the tdf. i really like this relatively innocent (for a mountain top finish) stage to relegate a few of the gc guys to stage hunting before the end of the first week.

USAZorro

If it were a technical descent, I'd buy this. But it isn't. It is dead straight. This said, I'd put money on Roglic keeping pace with Julian on a technical descent when he's motivated to. I saw what he did in 2018 on stage 19.

diphthong

^yuup. i thought this was an underrated stage when i first saw it and now thinking it's gonna be awesome given the circumstances. could be wrong as usual tho. roglic is a smooth operator...
dunno how many chances he wants to take in the first week vs staying within striking distance. alaphilippe doesn't seem to have any "chill." he goes for it as often and as long as he can.
really difficult to sustain for longer than a week and a half even with a great team. maybe jp dials it down from 11 to a 7 or 8 but not seeing it yet.

really hoping it's not one of those stages where a few guys bust tail and finish 5+ minutes ahead of the main gc guys who eyeball each other the entire way and sprint in the last 100 m for no time bonuses.
i have faith lopez will attack himself out of contention as he has in the past. i have faith richie will have bad day #1 here. i have faith mollema will finish in the top twenty without any spark or drama or teevee
time. i have faith the new cannibal-roglic-will be opportunistically hovering. less sure about what bardet, g martin, pinot, quintana and uran + ef co. will do but thinking at least one of them will take a
flyer < 3kms to go.


prediction for the win? *edit...nvmd...you already did.* one of the few and the brave.

slcbob

If there's any relevance in extrapolating from stage 4's final climb to stage 6's much bigger and higher grind with its slight double tap...

In 4, Bernal barely hung on and Juju's sprint at the end was blunted.

The calculating fantasy bastard in me would love to see Bernal gapped a bit at the end, and the fan in me would LOVE to see Ahlaphilippe grab two bonii at the end and a small gap and leap back into yellow even though that would be bad for the calculating fantasy bastard and our Adam.

I don't see either of those happening. The longer grind suits Bernal and will further blunt Juju's juju. Not only will they not give him space, he won't be able to create any while WVA and the Kussmeister leave him gasping for air.

I had hoped Bardet would be stage hunting by now, but he's still in contention.

Not a prediction, just an idle musing: Astana puts LL Cool Sanchez in the break to be in a position to help MALopez attack himself out of contention. Lopez never quite gets there, and a few other miracles happen, and I score some points.

slcbob

P.S. d'oh. I see i could have switched on live coverage and spared us all my idle and errant musing.

GrainBrain

I've been happy to see EF has held onto the teams classification, I think this is a good sign for today's stage 6. What I want to happen? Rigo or Higuita take yellow. What will probably happen? Roglic will distance everyone by 20" into yellow.

A question that's been in my mind - how much does Vaughters need to offer Sep Kuss to transfer teams? A promise of protected rider status?

USAZorro

I suspect Sepp will stay one more year at JL as a soldier before he makes bigger demands.