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All roads lead to Aigle: Pro Cycling 2020

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    Is Porte going to make the podium?

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      Yup.

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        I mean, fucking hell.

        Roglic has days like that, though. Biarritz in 2018, last year's Worlds. I was going to write something tomorrow about how I thought he would be a one time winner. Now he won't even manage that.

        Well done Tadej. Won't be his last.

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          Pogacar's ride was extra-terrestrial.

          Even if Roglic had beat Dumoulin he would have lost the jersey.

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            Wow. This is incredible.

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              Roglic dutifully doing his post stage interviews with incredible good humour whilst dying inside.

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                MJ, polka dot, and white jerseys. That's just greedy.

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                  It'll help with social distancing when they put all the jersey wearers on the podum, mind. Plus I see Movistar are going to win the team prize again.

                  Roglic obviously had a shocker of a day there but Jumbo - Visma as a whole have to take some responsibility for their tactics through the race. All they've done is pretty much defend all the way round - that method used to work for Indurain but that was in the days of more conservative route planning and monster time trials where he could just marmalise the field. There was a day (Grand Colombier?) when Roglic went most of the way to the finish with Dumoulin and Kuss with most of the top ten still in the front group and I was sat there thinking "go faster, break the group, you've got space to burn one of them up". He's never really attacked at all, just pinched a few seconds here and there and taken time bonuses. Say what you like about Brailsford's merry bunch but they would have raced it differently in that they would have got rid of anyone who could time trial and used the TT as insurance against climbers - there is absolutely no way they'd have risked constant defence and going into a technically difficult time trial with less than a minute over someone who has beaten him fairly recently. (Apart from 2017 Sky always based the foundation of their wins on a major attack or two) You need to do enough to remove the bad day from the table of possibilities and Jumbo simply didn't do that, they just assumed that he'd be OK. That was a real risk given his record in late race time trials.

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                    A bit off topic but is the next generation of cyclists as good as they are made out to be, or is it partly the case that the current riders in the prime of their careers are just not that good?

                    Also, virtually every time they mention someones descending skills they are invariably described as being 'one of the best in the peloton'. Who are the riders that are as bad as Ilnur Zakarin?

                    Did anyone else go from being giddy with excitement for Pogacar to being distraught for Roglic, in about two minutes?

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                      Originally posted by longeared View Post
                      It'll help with social distancing when they put all the jersey wearers on the podum, mind. Plus I see Movistar are going to win the team prize again.

                      Roglic obviously had a shocker of a day there but Jumbo - Visma as a whole have to take some responsibility for their tactics through the race. All they've done is pretty much defend all the way round - that method used to work for Indurain but that was in the days of more conservative route planning and monster time trials where he could just marmalise the field. There was a day (Grand Colombier?) when Roglic went most of the way to the finish with Dumoulin and Kuss with most of the top ten still in the front group and I was sat there thinking "go faster, break the group, you've got space to burn one of them up". He's never really attacked at all, just pinched a few seconds here and there and taken time bonuses. Say what you like about Brailsford's merry bunch but they would have raced it differently in that they would have got rid of anyone who could time trial and used the TT as insurance against climbers - there is absolutely no way they'd have risked constant defence and going into a technically difficult time trial with less than a minute over someone who has beaten him fairly recently. (Apart from 2017 Sky always based the foundation of their wins on a major attack or two) You need to do enough to remove the bad day from the table of possibilities and Jumbo simply didn't do that, they just assumed that he'd be OK. That was a real risk given his record in late race time trials.
                      Maybe Fotheringham wasn't as far off about Jumbo as he seemed at the time.

                      I was at a game today and thought I wouldn't miss much as a processional time trial isn't the most exciting day's watching. As it is, I've just caught up with the highlights and still can't believe how it played out.

                      I had a small shudder today that perhaps Geraint could have lost the Tour in 2018 on the penultimate day's time trial after all.
                      Last edited by Ray de Galles; 19-09-2020, 22:40.

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                        Carapaz is a terrible descender - see how much time he lost to Kamna on Tuesday, or alternatively when he looked horrible in the few shots we got of him with Kwiatkowski a couple of days later. If they'd been on different teams Kwia would have distanced him for good on that descent.

                        Re riders in their prime; if you think back to about 2014 there was a huge cohort of riders ("class of 1990") with a really exciting future and for various reasons many of them seemed to stall eventually. Usual raft of reasons really, burn out (Sagan), staying at a team too long (Bardet / Quintana), injuries (Dumoulin / Kittel), finding a niche role (Barguil), struggled to define a precise speciality (Kwia), had a career in reverse (Boasson Hagen), falling out with everybody (Dennis / Bouhanni), overhype (van Garderen / Coquard). What also seems to have happened is that there isn't a huge amount in the 26-28 age group, ie riders entering their prime now, there's good riders in this bracket but not anyone that's likely to dominate the sport in the future. The other factor is that male riders are now developing younger, there's improvements in sport science at much lower levels, links with big teams and riders are now coming more fully formed into the World Tour. If Pogacar had been born 20 years earlier he'd probably still have been on the Italian amateur circuit at his age and preparing to turn pro for Fassa Bortolo or someone.
                        Last edited by longeared; 19-09-2020, 23:36.

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                          Originally posted by Ray de Galles View Post


                          I had a small shudder today that perhaps Geraint could have lost the Tour in 2018 on the penultimate day's time trial after all.
                          Thomas always had plenty in hand that day, a lot would have had to go wrong for him because he'd built up enough of a buffer (two minutes on Dumoulin over a forty minute course). He could have finished 26th that day and would still have won the race overall. That was almost an hour long time trial we had today, you wonder in retrospect if that really was the aim of the organisers. They don't usually have TTs of that duration in the Tour these days.

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                            Oh, it wasn't a logical feeling and I know it was far from an exact comparison. Just seeing the leader blow up like that at the same point in the race caused me a "What if..?" moment, I still remember the heart in mouth feeling when Geraint's back wheel locked and slipped on the course that day.

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                              Lopez blew up

                              Roglic was beaten by a world historical performance

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                                I had delayed catching up with the highlights until this morning, as like RdG I was thinking time trials are boring, and that at best Pogacar might take 10 seconds out of Roglic, Porte might do the same to Lopez but otherwise who cares.

                                So wow.

                                Richly deserved, I agree with longeared's assessment of Jumbo's conservative tactics, but having said that a minute should have been enough - Roglic is a decent time trialler, and he didn't exactly shit the bed, he was just beaten by an extraordinary performance.

                                ​​​​​​​It's a young man's game now, it seems. Is 25 too old for the white jersey?

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                                  Has Bennett completely sewn up the green jersey? I thought the Champs d'Elysees stage was worth 70 points in that race, so if some calamity befell Bennett keeping him out of the points today he could still lose it?

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                                    He could still lose it, but the pathway is such a narrow one it's highly unlikely to happen. Sagan needs to overhaul a deficit of 55 points, to do that he would need to win the stage and get something of substance at the intermediate sprint. Bennett only needs sixth on the stage or third at the intermediate to mathematically confirm the win regardless. To be honest the greater threat is him somehow not finishing by getting really sick overnight or crashing out.

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                                      I was out shopping for most of the TT, got home and turned on the TV in time to catch Roglic and Pogacar on the split-screen. Saw that Roglic was about 14 seconds down and instinctively thought it must be for the stage, not the GC.

                                      Originally posted by Billy Casper View Post
                                      Did anyone else go from being giddy with excitement for Pogacar to being distraught for Roglic, in about two minutes?
                                      He looked like death warmed up on the final stretch. I know that was probably a result of shock and being utterly gassed but my first thought was COVID-related.

                                      In a sense Ineos lost the Tour twice this year - once when Bernal imploded and again when their wannabe successors slavishly adopted their strategy but without any of their tactical nous. Amid all the Champagne and hi-jinks, the J-V train should be a real laugh today.

                                      Anyway, made up for Richie Porte. I can go out on my Emonda with its Trek-Segafredo racing livery tomorrow with a degree of pride
                                      Last edited by Mumpo; 20-09-2020, 12:40.

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                                        This was nice but you think they might have put Pogacar in the middle ;

                                        https://twitter.com/letour/status/1307682153908633602?s=21

                                        The anti-racism message that was meant to be made at the start hasn't materialised yet, save for Kevin Reza being pushed up to the front at the roll out.

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                                          Bennett finishes 5th in the intermediate sprint and clinches the green jersey. Sagan seemingly didn't bother to contest it.

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                                            Bennett absolutely cruises to the stage win too!

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                                              Textbook from all on Deceuninck that. Kudos to Mads Pedersen - second on the first stage, second on the last. That's his last race in his shortened year in the rainbow jersey and he's not participating in Imola next week as the course doesn't suit. Never even got to sport the stripes in the classics.

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                                                https://twitter.com/PresidentIRL/status/1307732821251960836

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                                                  Since when - leaving out the famous 89 time trial - has the final stage of the Tour been anything other than a confirmation of the victor?

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                                                    Zoetemelk tried to break away from Hinault and make up three minutes in the late 70s, but Hinault ended up winning the stage and the Tour

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