La Vuelta a España 2017

I was thinking this on Sunday.

They should ban power meters.

The way Sky just ride tempo, staring at their power meters to reel in the attacks spoils the excitement a bit.

When Pantani kicked off the front there was always a chance he'd make it stick. These days you know Contador won't because Sky will ride at the exact number they know will reel him in.

The reason Pantani could make it stick was because he had enough red blood cells in his body to fuel three men.

They all did...

Most did.

Citation?

Unless you have extraordinary proof Im going to go ahead and assume anyone riding at the front with Marco was on the juice. ;)

There were exceptions, riders like Moncoutie, who finished 13th in the Tour, who rode their entire career without indulging in oxygen vector doping.

All I'm saying is that it would be more exciting if there was a genuine challenger to Froome and Sky's dominance, and a more open race. Is that really so controversial?

It's a shame Dumoulin didn't ride, and with Kelderman Sunweb as a GC team seem to be getting stronger. TdeF next year I guess ?

Kelderman was always seen as a bigger talent than Dumoulin, it was just that he kept falling off his bike or getting sick at crucial moments, whereas Dumoulin steadily progressed and shone. This Vuelta (he only fell once I think) finally he's able to show it. I wonder if they would be part of the same team for a Tour de France (should the course suit them). They could be a kind of Sky-bot-train too then, with Oomen, Ten Dam, Geschke, Haga, Fröhlinger et al.

Final kms today...

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Sure, Froome is in a strong position and it should be his to lose now. He could still lose it though, fall off his bike again or get outgunned by the Colombians on the high / steep stuff, or Contador might out-fox him the way he did Rodriguez a few years ago (unlikely with Froome's team).

If he had done this every year since 2011, I agree, it would have been boring but, for me, the fact that he has kept showing up and tried in vain to win it for 6 years makes this year's race interesting over and above whether he does an attack on such-and-such hill.

Also, he's only a couple of years younger than Contador, who is clearly past his best, so this might be his last chance.

Thinking about it, the thing that makes it less exciting is not Froome himself but his team. The fact that Sky have the money to put together a world-beating team for the Vuelta the month after they fielded another world-beating team for the Tour means that when Froome makes a mistake (falls off or misjudges an attack) he gets away with it, while others can't. If there was to be a rule change to make it more exciting it might be about limiting the amount of money a team can spend on riders (salary cap) but I can't see that being likely.

One of the reasons why that motorbike crash in the Giro was such a loss, didn't get the chance to see Kelderman, Thomas and Landa battle with the others.

Looking forward to next year though, as there are so many brilliant on the cusp riders and teams like sunweb who are real contenders.
Movistar should perform better next year, with Landa and a fresher Quintana.

So the 'leaked' footage that got the AG2R riders DQ'd came from Sky's car...

https://twitter.com/tourdejose/status/905357238092656640

If it'd been the other way round the controversy would've been much, much bigger and the AG2R team member would've been hailed as a whistleblowing hero.

Yeah. I love how those tweets are desperate to make an accusation of... something.

Perhaps Sky didn't want to seem petty and didn't notify the commissaires, but the video got shared/leaked anyway?

Bit different how it went down with Nibali/Bardet previously.

Woah that's a climb!!

Hard to see if Froome is struggling or playing it cool.

Yeah - nuts.

Looks to be struggling. Could lose the red jersey. Think it's the first time I've seen him out of the saddle.

Nieve looks way fresher than Froome

similiar story....happened at tdf with landa

Survived.

Yeah, seems like he lost ~40sec

Nibs has roughly 30s on Froome at the moment.

Are people still bored? Still think a grand tour is over after two weeks and a half weeks?