It seems that they’re favoring the climbers now. The dominant riders of the past were always excellent in both the time trials and the mountain stages. It looks like they’ve greatly reduced the advantages that the time trial specialists had in the past. But to me it doesn’t “feel” right to have only 1 time trial. I’m now surprised that they didn’t do this during the Virenque years. I know they put in a mountain time trial a year or two to help the climbers.
This year is short on the TTs but that is unusual. It does seem strange that there is no team time trial, as if they don’t care about teams this year. Frankly, TTs are kind of boring to me so I don’t mind too much. But then, they got some cobbles, and some good sprints and I like how the whole tour flowed north to south. Some years they jump around and it doesn’t feel like a ‘tour’ to me.
Glad to see Niboli still attacking when he doesn’t have to. He will always have to hear ‘but you what if Froome or Contador were still there’ but he has shown he deserves the win on a lot of different terrain.
Have to agree that the ITT is a bit dull. I can see why it’s important to have in the tour but it’s not very interesting to watch. TTT’s are far more interesting, IMO. It’s technical and tactical and often grueling to some riders on the team who are ejected from the back when they’ve done all the work they can do for the team. But they still have to finish with a minimum of 5 riders.
I like the fact that tours are not the same from year to year as far as the stage profiles and locations.
Nice team win for Garmin today. Must have felt good for Bauer to hold up the pelaton a bit towards the end.
One hour to decide the podium. Peraud’s going to move up into second I would guess, but can Pinot hold off Valverde?
Bardet doesn’t look comfortable at all, whether because he’s just bad at TT or from landing on the road in the big crash yesterday I don’t know. TJ likely to pass him for 5th. And looks like Konig might pass the Belkin pair of Mollema and Ten Dam to move up to 7th which would be a pretty amazing result for a rider from a wild card team.
Love the TT as it’s what I’m best at. I was a little surprised at Valverde’s bad day, although I dislike him so not unhappy. I also have a soft spot for converted mountain bikers so am thrilled for Peraud. Pinot put in quite a showing as well, im firmly on his bandwagon.
I heard a rumor that The Belkin riders were apparently riding brand new TT bikes that they had hardly ridden? If that’s true, it’s pretty big mistake. Even I know what a huge difference the tiniest tweak makes so it seems pretty stupid to ride bikes at a race this important that one hasn’t completely dialed in.
Most importantly, my favorite cyclist dominated so that was pretty satisfying. He did so by attacking over and over again, which is the cherry on top. Let’s hope Nibali, Froome, and Contador align there schedules next year at one of the grand tours so we get the race we missed out on this year.
It’s true the Belkins had new bikes (they only rode them an hour the day before). The background is that they changed suppliers this year because Giant wanted only to supply its own team (the bike Dumoulin got second on), so they switched to Bianchi… who apparantly didn’t have any good TT bike because the teams they supplied last year (Vancasoleil) didn’t really care that much.
So they got this newly developed bike during the last week, Ten Dam had his personal guy flown in to make some last minute changes in the seating. Mollema tried to ride it, but was cramping up within 10km. The bike is probably fine, but not having trained on it is what might have been problematic. Interestingly Kruiswijk did just as well as Ten Dam on the old bike. Mollema finishing in the 140s is terrible, he was 11th in one of the ITTs last year.
There is a little bit of a row because Mollemal said picking this bike might not have been the best idea (which was his decision), which the team doesn’t really like. Pretty big chance of Mollema transfering to another team next year (probably Trek). They should just have used the old (Giant) bikes with some other brandnames taped on, apparantly that kind of thing happens reasonably often.
I have a feeling that Nairo Quintana will be in that mix as well next tour. Moviestar wanted to give Valverde a good shot at the title so built the team around him and excluded Nairo. Mistake, as it turns out.
So either Nairo or Valverde will find themselves on a new team next year. Either way, nobody will leave Nairo Quintana in the corner again in le tour.
Interesting. I guess it’s all on Mollema then. I have the new Trek Speedconcept project one and it’s terrifically fast (but some frames work for some better than others of course). It did take me eight weeks and countless alterations to get the fit right, however. I’m surprised he did it. I had a race a week after I got it and was terrible and cramped all over.
QuickSilver - forgot about Quintana. He might out climb all three of them. I hope his brother Dayer makes an appearance, just to see what he is all about.
That seems an odd choice for Giant. I mean, anybody can get a team to use their bikes when they’re paying to be a sponsor, but when a team is free to use any bike and chooses yours, that would be an even better endorsement. I don’t see what’s in it for Giant to withhold their bikes from Belkin.
Speaking of Giant, I wasn’t really familiar with them until I was shopping for a new bike about three years ago. I bought one of their road bikes, and like it a lot. I just seem to be seeing a lot of them now; in the Tour (and TV commercials during the coverage) and on my daily rides. Is it a case of noticing something more once you’re aware of it, or have they really been raising their profile the last few years?
Giant is and has been one of the bigger names in cycling for a long time. I don’t know if it’s still true, but they used to make the lower end frames for most other big name companies.