Pro-cycling thread

Brailsford talking about fuel...

Dunno...The sliver of hope for some competition tomorrow is to consider Froomes condition after Zoncolan.

What’s the time cut? Yates 38 minutes down....

No way. Hinault just took him off his christmas card list.

Surely some of the sprinters are in trouble with the time cut...

The subweb guy that got interviewed at the end there seemed pretty pessimistic about their chances

He seemed in a foul mood.

Internet meltdown.

The French are royally shitting the bed as only they can:

Lysto.y - 17h13

Belle performance de Pinot qui prend la deuxieme place au général derrière Dumoulin.

Eau_Pastis_Olives - 18h27

UCI= UNION CICLISTE IMBECILE

Why? They’ve no need to chase, their race is man to man now.

Lutscher.

Suckers in eng.

Yates finished 38 minutes down. Ooof.

How is the cut off time calculated?

As a percentage of the winner’s finishing time. It’s usually plus 20% for mountain stages I think.

Brilliant day, watched every second on TV, and laughed my head off reading the last 10 pages or so,,,,,,

Have the sprinters finished yet?

LOL
but the last person to cross the line was 45 min down, so they all finished within time limit (assuming it's 20%)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI9_SIJrhTo

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

“First he dropped me on the climb. But on the descent,I decided two
times to wait for Sébastien Reichenbach [Team Groupama-FDJ] because he
wanted to ride with me. Maybe that wasn’t a good decision.

“On my own I can descend just as fast as Froome, but Reichenbach
descends kind of like an old lady. With hindsight, that wasn’t the
best idea. But it’s easy to say that afterwards.”

Dumoulin.

According to Twatter Froomed gained 1'40 descending+ 11 secs time bonus.

Finestere climb 37s
Finistere descent 1 min 15
Sestriere climb 49s
Sestriere descent 25s
Valley 15s
Final climb 3

Lots of salty pros out there-Callmejane and Dennis being two most prominent. Seems lots of people don't believe in miracles any more.

It's weird, obvs despite not liking him very much as an athlete I fancied Froome for this last night because Yates looked fucked, Dumoulin's not the most natural climber and Froome's got previous for going on alien pedalling sprees so what I saw was ballsy and clever racing, taking advantage of a pretty shit chase from riders who can't climb (or descend apparently) as well as him.

Seems for a huge amount of people taking 3 mins back on a rival in one stage is totally implausible in this day and age. I don't know what to believe-did I just drink some KoolAid?

I've never been up Finistere but would absolutely love to after watching that today. Loved the people dressed up as large inhalers.

Looking back at the betting chat, I can't help wonder if Dave's had his budget slashed on account of Froome's lung candy habit and he's called sandbagging orders so that he can stick a wedge on at Paddypower.

Zoncolan can be explained by either Froome getting it mixed up with the name of a new inhaler or Dave panicking because the team cars were getting a bit low on diesel.

Froome's time gains on the descents were partly due to him being totally committed to them, but also due to the Dumoulin/Pinot group twice waiting for Reichenbach. Any assistance he provided on the climbs and valley roads was negated by his poor descending.

In isolation, I think each of those efforts are well within the realm of possibility. A monstrous feat of athleticm, and some luck to fit it all into a 80km solo attack.

Froome is a better climber than Dumoulin, with only Dumoulin having the need to chase (given that Pinot was riding for podium) so the gains on the climbs are reasonable.

The gain on the first descent is nuts, but a lot of it is probably Reichenbach's fault.

I would have expected the chasers to make up time in the valley, but it wasn't 5 people working smoothly, it was basically Reichenbach and Dumoulin, with Reichenbach riding at a speed that would not drop Pinot.

Lots of attacks on the final climb by Pinot, Carapaz and Lopez, so makes sense that the gap wasn't as big as before, plus Froome's fatigue.