slcbob

Some times I wonder if banning power meters would have more impact than radios.

For safety, i'm not a fan of banningradios. It seems a relatively cheap potential equallizer.

diphthong

we have a mads, lutsenko/s bennett (i presume not g bennett) and gva predictions for stage nineteen. i was thinking gva as well but now i gotta go with someone else...hmmm...
not gonna invoke rule 87...thinking either naesen or benoot. *horrible prediction xxii*-i'll go with benoot ftw but only because hirschi crashed on stage 18...otherwise, i'd pick hirschi.

i'd love to see bora go all out for that sprint and then try to carry sagan to the finish and have him win that too but i can only see them doing one or the other-not both.
hope i'm wrong as usual.

forgot i had picked kwiatkowski to win msr on august 8th. he finished 15th there. glad to see him finish first on stage eighteen..

diphthong

you may well be correctly prescient.

slcbob

^^ Naesen has got to be feeling better about his chances today after Tiesj had the hex placed on him there.

^ So many GC folks in TJV. I've got to assume they've got Sep and WVA on multi-year contracts so they're not going anywhere soon. What do they do with the other guys to make space? Where do they find the budget? Next contract, Roglic will certainly expect and deserve a pay day. Others will in due course. IDK whose renewals come up when. It will be very interesting to see what happens with Dumo and Krjiujswjijjkjjj. I could see something like Sep & Tom or Sep & Stejven as the lead pair for a 2021 Giro or Vuelta, but I think the 2022 mark of USAZorro is on point. Or later.

slcbob

As we talk about rushing another debutante into things, I'm thinking about how it's worked out for Bernal and Pogačar.

These days, we rush the wonder kids into all kinds of things. The conventional wisdom is that It takes a while to build the hardness for a GT GC rider. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Also it will be fun to watch how the dynamič duo of Slovenians move through their careers as friends and opponents. Long term predičtion -- do you think in head-to-head battles we'll see Pogačar even the score, or will he stay an Ulrich / Poulidor to Primoz's Lance/Merckx/Anquetil?

Flip Flop Rider

I'm no expert by any means but from what I've seen Pogacar is equally as good as Primoz, however, Jumbo Visma is a better team than UAE. So, put Pogacar on Jumbo Visma and Roglic on UAE and what would be the result? Then there's the question of could Wout be a GC contender in the right role with the right team?

Jumbo looks a lot like Sky, in that they have a few guys that could win the tour with the right tactics

slcbob

Experts are like eagles. We don't have either of them around here. Just some Holiday Inn Express types.

Interesting question re the teams.

Pogacar lost that time early in the cross-winds. A combination of youthful inexperience and a team that, at that point, was strong enough but not diligent enough. Other than that, I don't see that the teams have made much of a difference. The two of them could be poaching behind any mountain express, and neither has needed a tow from that last teammate. It's been a heckuva mano a mano battle between them.

Pretty sure WVA could become a GC contender. Up in the air whether he wants to go that way. We might be looking at the next green jersey Tourminator and all-around classics cannibal. Maybe he'll go that route for a few years and then GC up in his late 20s / early 30s.

GrainBrain

We have a lot of eagles here, those suckers are surprisingly big if you get close to one! Couple more thoughts from the horses mouth:

Wout said he didn't want to become a GC rider, he'd rather stay a classics man. Sepp is older then Higuita and Pogacar at 26 so it seems natural for him to move into a GC role soonish but he claims he'd rather hunt stages. Don't blame people not wanting GC, there's a ton of stress for probably only a top ten finish, and such specialization it borders on lunacy.

Roglic demurred when it came to a question of bike swapping tomorrow, but quite possibly he will. Can anyone help me remember what GT race it was last year or two years back where someone had an absolutely horrendous bike change debacle at a TT with a hill finish? Bike stuck in a huge gear and the mechanic didn't even give them a push?

diphthong

wrong rider, right team. sunweb having a nice little tour.

GrainBrain

It was a beautiful finale. Everyone eyeing each other while Soren flies off the front - for the second time!! Great footage of him screaming out "Time!!??" to a vehicle when he was 2km out, guy had no idea what was going on he just went full throttle till a couple hundred meters to the line. No idea he had put in a minute on those fools in the back, exact same scenario as before and once again nobody followed? Pure, delicious racing.

slcbob

So...
- Roglic for the win to fill out the yellow jersey. Narrowly edging out Ewan.
- Carapaz for the KOM after a long warm up to the base of the climb.
- Landa menos c/o Mas
- commissaires inject themselves into the proceedings for someone's long push

So it has been said. So it has been written. So let it be done.

Ewan on sage 21.

diphthong

can't really decide between dumou or richie (in some of his best form ever) for the stage 20 tt win. i'm assuming dumou will be let off the leash to ride his best tt but i could be wrong again.
oh what the hell...in a tour full of horrible predictions, what's one more? richie for the tt stage win and makes up his one minute, 39 seconds deficit to the current 3rd place denizen-lopez-and
bumps lopez off the podium. c'est la vie.

**edit...half-right is still better than the usual 100% wrong horrible prediction**

diphthong

revoking rule #87...still going with wout the wonder kid to win the final stage in paris.

slcbob

I think Richie may do that good. I don't know if MA Lopez will do that bad.

Similarly with Mas and Landa, but the extra strike against Landa is that I picked him.

slcbob

Winner time of 52m30s would time cut Ewan. I went in to do the math just now and saw Sam Bennett 16s behind Ewan. Wow. Does Sagan still have a chance at green?

diphthong

this little mtn tt is just full of surprises...hoo boy!

Ed Wiser

Man what a TT. POGACAR WINS.

diphthong

the kids are alright.

slcbob

Well just about everything I've thought or said here has been wrong. Carapaz, Roglič, Landa, Mas. Very sorry, Caleb, it bodes poorly for you on the Champs.

Wow.

Re post #225 , Poulidor my butt. Perhaps we've just seen the emergence of Tadej Armstrong to Primoz Ullričh. With pedaling tempo reversed. And hopefully without all the drugs. Jeez.That young whipper snapper.

2cam16

Wow,just wow! Just like they predicted for this tour, it was going to be one of the most exciting ones!

GrainBrain

WOW TADEJ!!!! WOW WOW WOW!!!
He's won the tour! No, literally - yellow, white and polka dot jersey's! Won the KOM on Planche des filles! Effing decimated the ITT infront of Dumoulin,Porte,Wout!!!!

THANK YOU URAN!
Top ten on the ITT and #8 on GC this has been a good tour from a guy that last year was underneath a literal pile of riders somewhere in Spain with broken ribs, punctured lung and broken clavicle.

vane171

I only read about it, don't have means to watch TDF this year. If they rode like that into the finish, that is, not after the finish line, they should be punished or disqualified, same as happened last year to a women racer who did the same when crossing finishing line, not sure if that was a bicycle race or in some other sport.

If I remember correctly, it was deemed unsporting or damaging to sport or something like that, and win went to somebody else...

I never liked this 'buddy racing', like I couldn't care less for the ride last day, getting to Paris. If Eddy Merckx raced today, he would step on it unexpectedly and leave the peloton open mouthed, spilling their champagne LOL

If I was in Kwiatkowski shoes, I wouldn't value such 'win', or at least, it would detract from it greatly. How can that technically or in logic be that called a win if someone lets you purposely cross the line before him without racing you? I just hope, that photo when they are in arms was taken after the finish line and that they raced for it.

GrainBrain

No worries, the UCI cares more about sock height or illicit bottle feeds then a deserving win to an unsung domestique.

slcbob

Since you didn't get to see it, allow me to elaborate for you.

It was totally before the line, absolutely everything that you describe and despise, and I thought it was epic and absolutely magnificent.

They stamped their authority decisively upon the race long before they went under the red kite, and there was nothing unsporting about their race. Their finish was the pinnacle of teamwork, sportsmanship, and joie de vivre.

Ironfish653

Why not? Neither of them was in GC contention, so it didn't make a difference to the overall race. These two are nominally domestiques, but with Bernal gone, there's no one to ride for but the team; and it was a magnificent ride, they'd gone off the front at 2km, and worked together to ride away from everyone else on the day. It doesn't always look like it, but cycling, especially a GrandTour, is a team sport.
Carapaz had taken enough KOM points on the day (with Kwiatkowski's help) to win the Polka-dots, so you acknowledge your teammate with the stage win.
Besides, Kwiatkowski's earned that rainbow stripe on his sleeve three times, so his palmare's already speak for themselves.

It's the difference between Sportsmanship and 'winning'