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On July 13 2017 17:50 stilt wrote: What a boring tour, for now. And all the french who create polemics for bullshits against Froome are ridiculous, even more when you're seeing Williams sisters, Phelps, Ledecky, Biles or Anthony Ervin joke victories.(yeah yeah, I know, only cylists, chinese and russians are using dopage lol) Froome might use doping but he is the scapegoat of these people. He is basically the new Armstrong. Someone so strong he completely dominates the Tour and cripples the fight for first place.
You can argue if hes doped out of his mind or not but if I remember correct Armstrong was never caught doping either.
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On July 13 2017 17:55 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2017 17:50 stilt wrote: What a boring tour, for now. And all the french who create polemics for bullshits against Froome are ridiculous, even more when you're seeing Williams sisters, Phelps, Ledecky, Biles or Anthony Ervin joke victories.(yeah yeah, I know, only cylists, chinese and russians are using dopage lol) Froome might use doping but he is the scapegoat of these people. He is basically the new Armstrong. Someone so strong he completely dominates the Tour and cripples the fight for first place. You can argue if hes doped out of his mind or not but if I remember correct Armstrong was never caught doping either.
The persons I mentionned are even worse than Armstrong who was still a true champ, his predatory look was damn impressive and without dopage he should have won at least one tour, his domination could make the Tour boring but I will always respect the guy and his sheer will power which was superior to all of this collegues. (And we talk about cycling, even the doped ppl are super courageous in this sport) Moreover, at this time, everyone else was doped which is not the case at the olympics where these american athletes are and then they acted like if they were parangon of morality, Armstrong was not like that, maybe because he was really intelligent. Froome might be doped but his performances are not superiors to the ones Contador did in 2009, then the pistolero was caught (2010) while being far below the level of the previous year and still, everyone loves him. The reason of the hatred toward Armstrong/Froome is not really dopage itself, that seems obvious, otherwise, some american athletes would be the most hated, in France and elsewhere but there are still idols.
Edit : Armstrong has been caught in the tour 1999 but got protected by the institutions at the time which wanted to calm down the scandal after festina's stuff, this sort of things happens quite a lot in football and probably in jo too.
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Froome and Aru make a mistake and miss the curve and have to go into the grass. Their competitors sit up and wait. Gentleman's agreements for mechanicals, ok. But this is just personal error and they should take advantage.
It's like they didn't notice Sky having half the team still there. You need to exploit every advantage you can to beat them because their lineup is just insane.
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Wow that final was insanely steep. Froome cracked, well done Bardet and Aru :o
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WOW. What an insane finish in the last 400m! Aru, Bardet and Uran looked strong. Perhaps it was the nature of the climb but Froome cracked for the first real time in years
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Amazing final 500m, well done boys!
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Woah awesome results. GG Bardet, Uran and Aru. The race for yellow is really exciting again. I mean, Froome will get some time back from the last TT but still, he got beaten quite handily today and there still are more mountain stages left.
But also really brutal last 500 meters... 16% man.
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Impressive, must feel bad for Sky to drive in front of Froome for so long just for him to then lose 20s on the final climb, even though it was pretty brutal.
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It must also be a deja-vu for Froome, seeing Landa being stronger than him must give flashbacks to him and Wiggins and it won't sit well with him
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On July 14 2017 00:12 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote: It must also be a deja-vu for Froome, seeing Landa being stronger than him must give flashbacks to him and Wiggins and it won't sit well with him
Was thinking the same thing. Landa would be a GC rider on his own team
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Lol, Uran didn't catch up at all. I read on another german site he got a 20 sec penalty for taking a water (or w/e they drink) bottle during the last 20 km, which is against the rules apparently. It's in line with the times at letour.fr so I think it's true.
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On July 14 2017 00:05 darthfoley wrote: WOW. What an insane finish in the last 400m! Aru, Bardet and Uran looked strong. Perhaps it was the nature of the climb but Froome cracked for the first real time in years
Quintana cracked Froome pretty bad on Alp D' Huez two years ago. Froome was barely holding 10mph up the second half of that climb.
As for today...yep, just nowhere to hide. Froome was probably still doing 400w, but that doesn't hold up well to the guys smashing it at 600w when the draft might be worth 10w. Then of course you never see this riding (guys going full gas for 1') on the other climbs because if this was 7% they would be going 15-20mph and the draft is pretty significant at that speed.
Froome didn't really crack in my book. Cracking to me is where you just totally lose it, and you're power falls off dramatically. In this case, assuming a 1' climb around 20%, if we assume guys like Aru were doing around 10w/kg to finish 20s behind Froome needed about 7.5 w/kg to finish 20" back. In Froome's case, thats about 500w. So, on the climb leading up to that they were probably doing 350-400w, so Froome was still able to increase his power significantly for the finish, he just didn't have the gas left for an explosive jump. He tried for a few seconds before going "nope, can't go there" and setting back into his usual "even pace for fastest time to the line damage limiting effort".
Still, Froome was clearly more tired than many of the other guys, including his teammate Landa, who spent a signficant amount of time on the front. Probably just a bad legs day, but it will make things interesting for sure.
On July 14 2017 00:29 darthfoley wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2017 00:12 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote: It must also be a deja-vu for Froome, seeing Landa being stronger than him must give flashbacks to him and Wiggins and it won't sit well with him Was thinking the same thing. Landa would be a GC rider on his own team
Not really (with regards to Froome being unhappy). This happens all the time on bad days. I can think of several times where Porte or Pouls or somebody else was dragging Froome's butt up the climb on days where he was struggling.
Landa certainly would be a GC rider on other teams. He was the leader for Astana at the Giro two years ago, and was also going to co-lead for sky at this years Giro before getting moto-fucked.
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On July 13 2017 22:33 stilt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2017 17:55 Gorsameth wrote:On July 13 2017 17:50 stilt wrote: What a boring tour, for now. And all the french who create polemics for bullshits against Froome are ridiculous, even more when you're seeing Williams sisters, Phelps, Ledecky, Biles or Anthony Ervin joke victories.(yeah yeah, I know, only cylists, chinese and russians are using dopage lol) Froome might use doping but he is the scapegoat of these people. He is basically the new Armstrong. Someone so strong he completely dominates the Tour and cripples the fight for first place. You can argue if hes doped out of his mind or not but if I remember correct Armstrong was never caught doping either. The persons I mentionned are even worse than Armstrong who was still a true champ, his predatory look was damn impressive and without dopage he should have won at least one tour, his domination could make the Tour boring but I will always respect the guy and his sheer will power which was superior to all of this collegues. (And we talk about cycling, even the doped ppl are super courageous in this sport) Moreover, at this time, everyone else was doped which is not the case at the olympics where these american athletes are and then they acted like if they were parangon of morality, Armstrong was not like that, maybe because he was really intelligent. Froome might be doped but his performances are not superiors to the ones Contador did in 2009, then the pistolero was caught (2010) while being far below the level of the previous year and still, everyone loves him. The reason of the hatred toward Armstrong/Froome is not really dopage itself, that seems obvious, otherwise, some american athletes would be the most hated, in France and elsewhere but there are still idols. Edit : Armstrong has been caught in the tour 1999 but got protected by the institutions at the time which wanted to calm down the scandal after festina's stuff, this sort of things happens quite a lot in football and probably in jo too.
Bolded #1 - Not a chance in hell. The entire peleton was doped to the gills and then some in the 90s/00s. Not a prayer for a non doped rider to compete in that era. If you dropped Froome off in that time period with his current numbers he would be a mediocre domestique. Those guys were going up 20-40' climbs routinely at 6.5 to approaching 7w/kg. You can't dream of that with any clean rider we have seen today or before. No human has ever had a clean physiology that could approach those numbers.
Bolded #2 - Uhh what? Everyone at the Olympics at that time was doped to the gills as well. Some of the records in other sports set at that time are utterly unmatched today.
Outside of the bolded I'm inclined to agree, Lance was a cheater, and definitely has a major streak of asshole in him; but he was absolutely one hell of a bike rider and racer.
On July 13 2017 17:55 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2017 17:50 stilt wrote: What a boring tour, for now. And all the french who create polemics for bullshits against Froome are ridiculous, even more when you're seeing Williams sisters, Phelps, Ledecky, Biles or Anthony Ervin joke victories.(yeah yeah, I know, only cylists, chinese and russians are using dopage lol) Froome might use doping but he is the scapegoat of these people. He is basically the new Armstrong. Someone so strong he completely dominates the Tour and cripples the fight for first place. You can argue if hes doped out of his mind or not but if I remember correct Armstrong was never caught doping either.
To some extent yes, but I think Froome is significantly less above his competition than Armstrong was above his. He doesn't really dominate the tour. 2013 was pretty damn impressive. 2015 was totally different. He was, overall, badly beaten by Quintana in the mountains. Remember that Froome only won by a margin on about a minute. Quintana, because of some dumb mistakes lost over 2:00 on stage 2 in the crosswinds to Froome. Without that mistake that tour might well have gone to Quintana. 2016 Froome was pretty dominant but didn't have competiton. Porte was immediately out with luck, and Quintana was ill and nowhere near his 2015 form. Everybody else is clearly a level below. It was a bit like Nibali in 2014. Froome beat up on a tour where his competition was out of shape and/or non-existant.
This year...well he is still in a good spot but hardly running away with it.
Froome, to me is a guy who is probably among the top 2 or 3 climbers in the world; but can TT like hell. That gives him a pretty solid buffer, especially when he gets to have the incredibly strong team he does, but it's far from unbeatable.
I wasn't watching bike races during the Lance era but you look at the winning margins and the people he beat, and then especially go watch the stages and see some of what he was doing and the manner in which he did it...and he looks like someone who wasn't judge good climber, great at TT...but just on another level.
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On July 14 2017 03:20 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2017 00:05 darthfoley wrote: WOW. What an insane finish in the last 400m! Aru, Bardet and Uran looked strong. Perhaps it was the nature of the climb but Froome cracked for the first real time in years Quintana cracked Froome pretty bad on Alp D' Huez two years ago. Froome was barely holding 10mph up the second half of that climb. As for today...yep, just nowhere to hide. Froome was probably still doing 400w, but that doesn't hold up well to the guys smashing it at 600w when the draft might be worth 10w. Then of course you never see this riding (guys going full gas for 1') on the other climbs because if this was 7% they would be going 15-20mph and the draft is pretty significant at that speed. Froome didn't really crack in my book. Cracking to me is where you just totally lose it, and you're power falls off dramatically. In this case, assuming a 1' climb around 20%, if we assume guys like Aru were doing around 10w/kg to finish 20s behind Froome needed about 7.5 w/kg to finish 20" back. In Froome's case, thats about 500w. So, on the climb leading up to that they were probably doing 350-400w, so Froome was still able to increase his power significantly for the finish, he just didn't have the gas left for an explosive jump. He tried for a few seconds before going "nope, can't go there" and setting back into his usual "even pace for fastest time to the line damage limiting effort". Still, Froome was clearly more tired than many of the other guys, including his teammate Landa, who spent a signficant amount of time on the front. Probably just a bad legs day, but it will make things interesting for sure. Show nested quote +On July 14 2017 00:29 darthfoley wrote:On July 14 2017 00:12 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote: It must also be a deja-vu for Froome, seeing Landa being stronger than him must give flashbacks to him and Wiggins and it won't sit well with him Was thinking the same thing. Landa would be a GC rider on his own team Not really (with regards to Froome being unhappy). This happens all the time on bad days. I can think of several times where Porte or Pouls or somebody else was dragging Froome's butt up the climb on days where he was struggling. Landa certainly would be a GC rider on other teams. He was the leader for Astana at the Giro two years ago, and was also going to co-lead for sky at this years Giro before getting moto-fucked.
Yea I know Froome didn't crack in this Quintana/Contador sense of the word. He just got exposed in the last 400m even though his team paced him leading up to that. I'm not going to overreact because even prime Armstrong had his bad days, losing ~1.5 minutes to Ullrich/Mayo/Basso once or twice. 20 seconds isn't that much. It'll be interesting so see if the other contenders get any more time off of him, because Aru will need to at least double his ~20 seconds before the TT. Froome will annihilate them in the TT so...
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Awesome, excited to actually watch tomorrow now .
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On July 14 2017 01:33 HolydaKing wrote: Lol, Uran didn't catch up at all. I read on another german site he got a 20 sec penalty for taking a water (or w/e they drink) bottle during the last 20 km, which is against the rules apparently. It's in line with the times at letour.fr so I think it's true. it was reversed today, i guess they saw that bardet also benefitted from this and they didn't want to penalise him :D
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Won't complain about that, makes the race for yellow more fun.
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On July 14 2017 18:41 Jetaap wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2017 01:33 HolydaKing wrote: Lol, Uran didn't catch up at all. I read on another german site he got a 20 sec penalty for taking a water (or w/e they drink) bottle during the last 20 km, which is against the rules apparently. It's in line with the times at letour.fr so I think it's true. it was reversed today, i guess they saw that bardet also benefitted from this and they didn't want to penalise him :D
Rules say that you can't get drinks from your team in the last 20km. Taking water from the public is tolerated. That's why Bardet didn't get a penalty.
That's a stupid rule though and I think it's the reason why they reversed the penatlies this morning.
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Have to say I'm really impressed with Barguil. I know he was quality (almost put him into my fantasy team :D). When the commentators said that he was injured (broken hip?) just a few weeks ago I was glad I didn't but he came with fantastic form. He's 15 minutes behind in the gc but he seems far more impressive than Quintana, Contador, Yates, Meintjes, Bennett.
Oh how I wish Porte was still in it (and Dan Martin hadn't lost a minute in that crash).
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That was a fun stage. I was unmotivated to watch after that first stage TT and then Cavs and Sagan going out, but at least it's getting competitive and I mainly want to see Froome go down tbh 8D.
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