Tour de France 2016

Movistar have arguably sent a better team to the Tour in the last two years and weren't able to capitalise on it, but this year Sky do look a little stronger on paper. I think Quintana is playing the long game, and perhaps looking more towards the Alps and the third week to put the hurt on Froome. Right now he's just all back of the bus, those dead eyes slowly burrowing holes into Froome's back.

Yes, a highlights show of the first 9 stages.

Arguably Rik Van Looy perfected the lead out train, so it's been around a while.

Sky's tactic is an evolution from Armstrong, which he copied from Indurain, who's team management got the idea from Merckx, who probably got the idea from Anquetil. It's clear that if you want to neutralise the threat of climbers you set a pace that is so hard that it's virtually impossible to attack, and this has been the case for the best part of 50 years. When the Colombians first arrived in Europe in the 80s, the rest of the GC contenders soon worked out that the best way to neutralise them was to take advantage of their inability to cope with echelons on windy days, to leave them so far behind on GC that they were no longer a threat.

Movistar have a strong team, and play some pretty amazing stage tactics when they want to.

But if Sky want to sit on the front for the first week. Why would Movistar argue.

I Wonder if Sky are burning the ekstra strength they have, and are left on terms With Movistar on the last week.

if valverde was willing to work for Quintana (or vice versa) then I think they'd have much more of a chance.

he felt rain nor hail in the last couple of km's, Dumoulin said after the race. nice pic

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If Movistar are thinking this way and are confident of implementing it will make for interesting last week. Rather than fighting fire with fire, let Sky protect for a week then pick a battle ground and commit all resources to an all out attack sending rider after rider up the road.

In a way it neutralises the scorched earth approach assuming you have a team equal to the task when you finally play your hand.

If only Quintana had a team able to do for him what Sky do for Froome...

Quintana does they're called team Sky.
Riding the back wheel till the last 15km. That's a lot of preserved energy.

TBF I'd be doing the same.

And this year he has not lost the tour in the first week.

True that.

Riding on the back wheel on all the proper climbs surely has negligible effect

Valverde got into the breakaway for Quintana yesterday no?

LOLs

The speed they're going it has plenty of effect.

The mental aid of being paced is also not something to be underestimated.

Tomorrow looks interesting. Looks like we've got an immediate 24km with 1200m climbing followed by 60km with 2000m of descending. Then about 130km undulating. So the climbers are going to want to make sure they're up front on that climb or risk Froome pulling basically the same tactic and getting a few minutes lead there alone. Don't know whether Quintana would be able to make that much of a difference in 24km of climbing to make it stick for the rest of the stage, but it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Plenty of proper climbs coming up later though...

The longer Movistar leave it, the less their tactical options. Valverde lost more time yesterday and, with a Giro already in his legs, is unlikely to get stronger as the race goes on. Which means that if Movistar send him up the road in an attempt to get Sky to commit, then Sky can just hold him at a steady gap, rather than burning up riders to try and get him back. None of their other riders are any threat on GC, so that's their only alternative tactical option.

From the comfort of my armchair, I think Movistar believe that Quintana will be stronger than Froome in the final week and will be able to gain enough of an advantage in the Alps to move into yellow.

The only people on the attack on the Envilara tomorrow morning will be the riders trying to get in the day's break. There will be no GC action until Thursday now.

As for the sky stranglehold. It never seems to work in the giro .

The polka dot fight seems pretty heated. Not sure how many Points are on offer tomorrow though.

getting ready to lead you out on thurs dude

yeh cant wait for thursday.

@rhowe I've taken Thursday off so I'm game to watch the stage somewhere, the place what was Pretorius looks as good. @Rod_Munch?

those dead eyes slowly burrowing holes into Froome's back.

Hang on, how old id he again?

No one actually knows. Even his mother doesn't remember the conception or delivery.

That picture also doubles as Quintana through the ages, think the top left is from him leaving primary school, top middle from leaving secondary school, top right....or maybe it starts bottom left, I can never remember.