Le Tour 2018

1speed

1speed

Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
I know there has been kind of a backlash against the tour this year overall, but I've been watching it and so far it's been entertaining. I enjoyed last night's stage precisely because Van Avermaet was able to hang on to the yellow jersey despite being way out of his element in the mountains. Just finished watching today's stage and things kind of came back to what you might expect as Sky is now in control of the race with Thomas and Froome sitting one and two overall, respectively. Meh on the result. But watching it was entertaining - lots of surprises with attacks. Froome's only competition at this point appears to be his own teammate Thomas. Quintana certainly isn't a concern - he rides way too passively to pose any threat. For anyone who watches road racing at all, when was the last time you remember Quintana attacking Froome in the tour? He just tries to shadow Froome on the road, which is an absolutely terrible strategy considering how much better Froome is against the clock. It's like he aspires to only lose the tour by the gap in their respective TT times. That's pathetic. If I were Landa or Valverde, I'd be lobbying pretty hard to dump him as team leader. Valverde at least tried a hard push (which probably only failed because of age) and Landa is on his way to being a great rider in his own right, but if they have to sit in and pull Quintana up to but never past Froome, that has to be really frustrating.
 
All quintana has done, going back to last year as well, is sit on froome's rear wheel the whole time......I was rooting for Richie Porte, but he's out now....don't know who to root for any more.....I'd like to see an upset and have someone win who hasnt before.....but it's not looking good right now with Sky so strong.....with Froome racing in the Giro earlier this year, I thought he might struggle, but he's looking really good so far....... hopefully he tires in the Pyrenees.....nibali has won already, don't want to root for the Frenchies, maybe I'll root for Yates? Or domoulin?
 
My brother is in France now and has ridden the past 3 tour stages before the pros this week...today he is riding Alpe d'huez...probably riding it up as I type this lol. Averaging like 9000 feet elevation per day. Ouch.
 
oobaa47 said:
All quintana has done, going back to last year as well, is sit on froome's rear wheel the whole time......I was rooting for Richie Porte, but he's out now....don't know who to root for any more.....I'd like to see an upset and have someone win who hasnt before.....but it's not looking good right now with Sky so strong.....with Froome racing in the Giro earlier this year, I thought he might struggle, but he's looking really good so far....... hopefully he tires in the Pyrenees.....nibali has won already, don't want to root for the Frenchies, maybe I'll root for Yates? Or domoulin?
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That's exactly right. After his first tour, I was really rooting for Quintana - I liked his story as an outsider with this freakish ability to go uphill all day. But as he's matured as a pro, he's become so timid. It was actually pissing me off last night when he was sitting there gesturing for Roman Bardet to give him a pull up the mountain. Fuck that. If I were Bardet at that point, I'd have played stop-and-go with him like on the track just tp break his damn legs. He needs to do his own work with 2K to go on a mountain stage. Quintana is never going to be as good in the TT as Froome, so if he had any real aspirations of winning, he and his whole team would just keep throwing punches in the mountains. It's not like he doesn't have the manpower on Movistar.

I'm not really rooting for anyone specifically, but I'd like the race to be more than Sky.
 
One other point about this year's tour ... Lawson Craddock. Holy shit. I was trying to explain to my brother who probably hasn't even been on a bike in 20 years just what this guy is doing right now. It's mind-boggling. How does he make the time cut when much healthier riders like Cav are missing it? Regardless of whatever else they are, pro cyclists (with their shipwreck- victim bodies and bone densities that probably match that of a pigeon) are tough MFers.
 
Quinatana did murder Froome on the Alpe du huez stage a few years ago, but it wasnt enough to take the least as it was way late in the race.

Some good stuff this year so far but the Froome doping stuff just tainted this whole tour for me. The whole sky thing is rediclous and they nee to work on at least making it look like they are clean. I like Thomas as a rider, but you go from a classic style rider to completely decimating a pure climber on a summit finish? Yeah, I know he was out front all day and Thomas has wheels to sit on, but sprinting for 500m at 30 mph at the end of a climb like that just left me like:

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At least Dumolin dick punched Froome by pipping him at the line. That should happen every time as pay back for how horrific Froome looks on a bike. Not that 2 second bonus between 2/3rd matters as Sky will likely bury TD today....

I did find it amusing how the feed was foscusing on the pack with Bardet, Nibali, Quintana, Yates?, Martin, etc and you would have thought they were the leaders. Meanwhile GT is just riding away and Froome eventually just rides away also. It is slightly interesting how Sky will handle Froome being 1:20 back from his teammate, who is in yellow. I guess they are just waiting for GT to blow the f up on a stage? But what if he doesnt?

Honestly, I didn't give a crap about GVA in yellow. I find that dude extremely boring, his riding, his interviews are all meh for me. Maybe he would be more exciting if he didnt overlap Sagan, who is an entertainer in all respects.
 
rick81721 said:
Generic. Reminds me of my Penn State football unis
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I kind of like them, with a giant killer whale on their back.....rather unique..... usually it's just names of advertisers plastered everywhere....
 
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stb222 said:
It is slightly interesting how Sky will handle Froome being 1:20 back from his teammate, who is in yellow. I guess they are just waiting for GT to blow the f up on a stage? But what if he doesnt?
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I was surprised that Sky's leadership let Froome attack Dan Martin so close to the end. I mean, he literally pulled a contender closer to the leader, who is his own teammate! If Thomas did the same to him, that's all we'd be hearing about from the cycling media today. I know in the end it didn't have a huge impact considering he was closer to Thomas in the overall than Martin was, but WTF? Why would he do that at all? If he forced Martin to do all the work and just sat in and sucked his wheel, Thomas' lead on non-Sky rivals would be bigger than it is. Why was Sky okay with that move? It kind of says they have no faith in Thomas' ability to hold the jersey.
 
The Froome Thomas situation may become dramatic as the race goes on. I haven’t watched today’s stage so no idea what happened.
As far as the Quintana comments, I agree as I can’t stand riders that don’t attack. I know sometimes it’s smarter to ride your pace and hope you catch them up the road, but it’s boring. I’ve been saying for years that they should dump him and ride for valverde (which wouldn’t work either but more fun to watch).
I’m bummed for uran dropping out of contention, and Yates not having legs so far. Not bummed for cav, sayonara.
 
Loved the cobbles, hate Froome, sad Teejay couldn't stay up top or manage the cobbles, Craddock is a tough mf'er.
 
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