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Tour de France 2017 |OT|

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You know what, I love my bou Aru, he is the only one who has had balls in this tour. He better do somewthing special tomorrow.

I have faith in him.

edit: it is easy to forget he hadn't raced for a couple months until the dauphine.
 
Landa lost a minute in the first stage so it's about normal for a climber. But if he drops Froome and takes 10 bonus seconds it's entirely doable. I don't think such brazenly confident cyclists exist in our day anymore though. Which is a shame.

Also it would totally make Froome lose his shit and potentially not perform well.
 
Isn't it more that the pace is forced so high by Sky that they have nowhere to go? Sky know what wattage will take them up the mountain with everyone just under the red. They ride that pace and they know that if anyone goes off the front, they won't be able to make it stick.

edit: sorry misunderstood your point. Yes, I agree. You don't see that sort of naked ambition anymore. Froome himself could have won two more tours had he shown it earlier in his career...but would probably have been fired by Sky.
 
I sometimes wonder if the only way to crack sky is to put the pressure on from day 1. It seems like teams are too cautious to sit behind and see how Sky works, but then it's too late.
 
Landa is a 1.24 down. Add on a minute for the TT and he's going to struggle to put 2.24 on Froome even if he wanted to, especially because the other contenders would also chase him down.
 
Yep, this parcours is not good for solo efforts, like at all. Barely any mountaintop finishes so groups always have the trump card. Tomorrow is the only stage where you can make the backstab count.
 
jakonovski said:
I'm really hoping Landa does it since he's leaving Sky anyway. The others clearly lack the guts and the team.
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That would be an awesome moment, but he's too far behind considering the upcoming TT I think.

Uran seems stronger than Froome to me 1-1, but Team Sky are just in a league of their own, so it almost doesn't matter.
 
Man, I just realised I didn't know what Friday's stage was and it's another one of those flat finish snoozefests that will only affect the competition by accident. This is truly the worst route.
 
TarpitCarnivore said:
I sometimes wonder if the only way to crack sky is to put the pressure on from day 1. It seems like teams are too cautious to sit behind and see how Sky works, but then it's too late.
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teams know how the train works at this point. if they attempt to crack that train, you risk losing either your podium or top 10 finish. with how little money there is going around in the peloton, they are forced to suck sky's wheel. in a sense, it's less about winning than it is about seeing a pay check. it's just the unfortunate reality of this sport and team sky understands the economics and game theory behind it

the only hope is the few teams and the fewer riders that can rival sky or those outlier teams that are competing for the kom or green jerseys to shake things up like on yesterday's course
 
We've seen AG2R really put in a great team GC performance this year but it's still not good enough, considering Sky do all the pulling on the front and still tend to have more men. And even if they can go toe to toe with Sky in the next edition, Bardet will still lose minutes in the TT.

Dumoulin is maybe the only rider who can match Froome in both the TT and in the mountains. If he can get a decent team behind him, then maybe he has a shot. I'm not sure Sunweb can provide that GC team though.
 
Ruruja said:
Nairo super-domestiquing for Froome would be amazing.

It's too soon for Nairo to go there because he won't be GC leader at TDF until Froome declines. He could win a few more Giros though.
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God No
Sky train at Giro, Sky train at Tour Chou Chou 🚆
 
bobnowhere said:
Yates' hanging tough.

Go Roglic! I want those velo points.
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1st ever stage victory for our country on Tour

The most interesting thing is that he was a very talented ski jumper, even won a gold medal in team competition on junior world championship. On the same year he was allowed to jump on ski flying hill in Planica, big mistake...His ski jumping career never recovered. He tried until 2012, but after that he bought a bike and started anew. He is a natural talent for cycling with phenomenal physical predispositions.
 
chicken_pasta said:
This is precisely why Aru doesn't deserve this. I'm sorry, but as a person with a Sardegna tattooed on his ribs, I think Aru hasn't been strong enough in this Tour to deserve the victory.
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He's not been great, and he's been tactically naive on numerous occasions, but to be fair to him he's not exactly got masses of team support atm.
 
chicken_pasta said:
This is precisely why Aru doesn't deserve this. I'm sorry, but as a person with a Sardegna tattooed on his ribs, I think Aru hasn't been strong enough in this Tour to deserve the victory.
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You are right he hasn't been strong enough, was never gonna be with his spring.

However, he should have taken more risks. Like Vincenzo would have.

All these guys have played he it too safe. They should have been attacking on the penultimate climbs and flying down and bombing it straight up the next climb.

I hope Aru tries that today.

I have faith that we are gonna witness greatness today.
 
Shanks D Zoro said:
You are right he hasn't been strong enough, was never gonna be with his spring.

However, he should have taken more risks. Like Vincenzo would have.

All these guys have played he it too safe. They should have been attacking on the penultimate climbs and flying down and bombing it straight up the next climb.

I hope Aru tries that today.

I have faith that we are gonna witness greatness today.
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The pace that Sky rode at yesterday meant it was pretty much impossible to attack until halfway up that last climb. By which point Aru was cooked. It was a gutsy ride by him though, hung in there, could have lost minutes, but only last 30 seconds.

AG2R have been good though, tried to break Froome on the descents. I actually think we see a Froome Masterclass today, hasn't gone his way so far this tour and he will want to cap it off with a mountain top win. Should be a good stage.

Hopefully people will try things on the Cat 1 before the the last climb though.
 
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