Tour de France
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Looking like today's results could be interesting as well.
Contador and Landa have 2min lead on the yellow jersey group, with Quintana, Kwiatkowski and Barguil about 10 seconds back.
Aru has no friends and is stuck in the Peleton covering Froome while Landa is looking to grab the Yellow. -
@Kruse said in Tour de France:
@jegga said in Tour de France:
There's a prominent story on stuff about our tour rider, is that a sign I should be jumping on the bandwagon or is it still too soon?
I think a more accurate metric for "when to jump on the bandwagon" would be the length of the relevant TSF thread.
If/when this thread gets to 100 posts, I'll consider re-evaluating my views on bicycling, and I'll be on that bandwagon with some hastily compiled knowledge and opinions.Sweet, when it gets into the 80s I'll have a good read of this
A Beginner's Guide to the Tour de France - Freewheeling France
A Beginner's Guide to the Tour de France - dummy's guide to watching the Tour de France in person and following the Tour de France on TV. - Freewheeling France
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George drops another spot today, but (without having seen any of it) otherwise I think the day was very good for him. He got jumped over by Caruso who was in the break - but, Quintana lost about four minutes on the big guns (with whom George rode with and almost is one).
So - in George's battle for a top 10 place:
- Meintjes 0.00
- Contador 0.28
- Caruso 0.56
- Quintana 1.07
- Bennett 1.30
- Barguil 3.39
Barring disasters - everyone else looks too far ahead or too far behind.
But, when the really big guns have been fighting it out in the mountains only Meintjes and Bennett have been able to ride with them.
So Stage 18 - the last big mountain stage - if George has his legs and a bit of luck with him he has a good chance of jumping over Caruso and probably Quintana and hopefully even Contador.
He apparently spent a lot of time in the off-season working on his time trialing and I think that was a factor in his win in California, so again hopefully an opportunity to take time out of Quintana at least in the final time trial - if he's close enough.
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@Chris-B. said in Tour de France:
George drops another spot today, but (without having seen any of it) otherwise I think the day was very good for him. He got jumped over by Caruso who was in the break - but, Quintana lost about four minutes on the big guns (with whom George rode with and almost is one).
So - in George's battle for a top 10 place:
- Meintjes 0.00
- Contador 0.28
- Caruso 0.56
- Quintana 1.07
- Bennett 1.30
- Barguil 3.39
Barring disasters - everyone else looks too far ahead or too far behind.
But, when the really big guns have been fighting it out in the mountains only Meintjes and Bennett have been able to ride with them.
So Stage 18 - the last big mountain stage - if George has his legs and a bit of luck with him he has a good chance of jumping over Caruso and probably Quintana and hopefully even Contador.
He apparently spent a lot of time in the off-season working on his time trialing and I think that was a factor in his win in California, so again hopefully an opportunity to take time out of Quintana at least in the final time trial - if he's close enough.
George was 50 seconds down on caruso and Quintana on the first TT. The second one is longer.
Of those listed above him in your post he was the slowest in the first TT -
Stage 17 although not a summit finish will shake up the GC more than 18. They've got to climb Telegraphe, Croix de Fer and Galibier, followed by a fast descent of 20kmto the finish. If Bennett comes through that ok then he can start thinking of maybe top 10.
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lost a bit of time one of the earlier stages too unfortunately..
kinda annoying cause it was deliberate.. his target for the tour was stage wins so to do that he needed to lose time early so he could target getting into breakaways in the last 2 weeks and not be chased by GC teams.
But then his team leader Gesink sucked so he automatically became team leader..
I hope his contract up for review this year cause he'll be getting a massive payrise.. when you consider guys like Nairo etc that he's outperforming,and they'd be well north of a mill, GB would be a on a fraction of that.
Still got hopes on Paddy for having a crack at a stage, that boy can sprint.. thinking they're keeping him under wraps so if he got in a break he'd be allowed to stay
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'I am empty' - George Bennett distraught after Tour de France withdrawal (with video)
Bennett succumbed during the 16th stage to an illness which had bothered him on recent stages and turned into a fever, forcing into bed and unable to hold down food. It ends a campaign which had lifted the 27-year-old to 12th in the overall standings. Poised to finish as the best-placed New Zealander on general classification in the history of the Tour, Bennett was simply unable to stay on the pace overnight. "I felt weak, I am empty," Bennet said. "I was in pain in places I didn't even know could hurt. It should have been an easy day to survive for me, but that was not the case. I felt like I sprinted all the way, but in reality, I almost went backwards. "It is devastating to leave the Tour. It is one of the worst feelings for a bike racer." A winner of the Tour of California in May and a top-10 finisher on last year's Tour of Spain, Bennett's reputation was enhanced through the first two weeks of the famed French race. He had climbed to as high as ninth through 10 stages and was targeting a move later this week in the French Alps to finish in the top 10. LottoNL-Jumbo team sports director Nico Verhoeven says Bennett was desperately unlucky to have hit the wall with just five stages remaining. "This morning the fever was gone and we decided to start. If you have an easy day, it is possible to survive. But today was a very tough day," Verhoeven said. "Right from the start, he was in trouble. He did not want to stop. He is a fighter and wants to continue but at a certain point you are just completely empty." Australian Michael Matthews won the 165km stage to Le Puy-en-Velay while Briton Chris Froome retains the overall lead. The three other Kiwis remain in a field which has shrunk to 173. Patrick Bevin (Cannondale-Drapac) is 104th, more than two hours behind defending champion Froome. Jack Bauer (Quick-Step Floors) is 111th and Dion Smith (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) 132nd. -
@Rocky-Rockbottom said in Tour de France:
Needs a Tour de France For Dummies primer.
Yes you do, and instead of spending 5 minutes on google learning about it. You have posted on here to bitch about it.
All the worlds information available to you in your pocket and we are too fucking lazy to even use it. We are doomed.
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@Rocky-Rockbottom said in Tour de France:
Had a look at some of TDF but excuse me what in the holy hell am I looking at? The Aus commentators were great, making revealing sense of the clusterfuck of chicanery, but wft, if I didnt have them there holding my hand it would just be an amorphous blob of peloton coasting past nice scenery, the end, someone in the middle won the fucken Tour de France. Who’s coming first? Oh. Froome. And it sounds like he was always going to win? What, the other guys on his team don't want to win? They have to kowtow to him?
The “peloton” (technical term, look it up, haven’t got time to explain these things to you newbies) look like, apart from the hill climbs, they’re giving it about 60% for 99% of the time.
The whole winner thing seems like some sort of pre-ordained mafia ritual? Froome was always going to win yet there he is, somewhere among the 600-strong peloton?
Needs a Tour de France For Dummies primer.
After a few years watching I have got to grips with most of the aspects that just 'look wrong' to me as far as a competitive sport goes. There are still a few aspects that annoy me such as everyone slowing down when a leader has an accident/ mechanical/toilet stop. Do you see that in a marathon? A motor race?
Geez, Lewis Hamilton has just had a blowout, let's all slow down and let him fix it and catch back up again.
Yeah, yeah, I get that there is etiquette involved, but it still seems at odds to being a competition.
The other thing that I can't get is that although everyone tells me it is a team sport with glory to an individual (which in itself is fairly unique in sport), Sky seem to be the only team that actually give their top rider a chance by having a strong team. By the end of the race most teams have a handful of weak riders down the back and their contender by himself up the front riding along with a full Sky Train.
Froome gets such a massive advantage by the big $ spent on assembling his support.
