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Well, interest seems to have waned.
Today with a rather uneventful stage - Chris Froome and Dumoulin one-two, and all the other GC riders in fairly close contention.
The three winners today for the GC battle were Aru, Porte, and Bardet... And the losers were Quintana, Yates, and Mollema. Outside the top 8, I don't expect the standings to change much, the riders have shown what they're capable of here. It'll be nice battle to watch to see who can get those podium places, anyone in the top 7 is has good odds imo.
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I just wanna know what is affecting Quintana.
Aside from that, Froome has nicely consolidated everything. Which makes sense because with Quintana dealing with whatever he is, it's basically like Nibali 2014 TdF. No competition. Hoping Porte goes inside the top 3. Wouldn't mind seeing Yates stay there, it's been a nice ride by him.
Expecting Mollema to drop to 3rd, or ideally outside the top 3.
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On July 21 2016 05:22 FiWiFaKi wrote: I think when I did some calculations with my bodyweight and climbs @ 300W, the percentage of your power that goes into fighting air resistance is:
0% - 80.5% 1% - 56.3% 2% - 38.3% 3% - 25.7% 4% - 17.2% 5% - 11.6% 6% - 8.0% 8% - 4.1% 10% - 2.3% 12% - 1.4% 14% - 0.9% 16% - 0.6% 18% - 0.5% 20% - 0.3%
And wind tunnel tests suggest that the air resistance figure is reduced by 35-50% when riding behind another rider. So riding at 300W on the standard 8% climb suggests they'd be getting a 12W boost. However they're lighter (I think I used a figure of 77-80kg, don't recall exactly), and they also generate more power, thus they ride faster... I used a fairly typical Cd and A values, an air density at 1200m~ elevation, power transmission efficiency of 0.97, and a rolling resistance coefficient of 0.005. And since they ride faster, the air resistance component is even larger, and their savings would be around 20W, which I think is a fairly significant number.
I like the analysis. Just curious though how did you get to 12w boost? If you're going 300w, and spending 4% of it overcoming drag that means you're spending 12w overcoming air resistance. A 30% savings from that would be roughly a 4w advantage.
Now, at 400w and the 67kg of Froome that might even double that, which would bring you into 8-10w advantage. Of which there is a subtle penalty for the fact that you have to be a little more variable with your effort following the wheel. I'd really think at best you're talking 5-10w on a climb like that...and on a good day it's definitely possible to be more than 10w better than someone, probably 20w for normal good/bad legs, and 30w-40w if it's a great day for one versus a terrible day for the other.
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Oh geez, not sure what I messed up. Yeah, you're right, I meant to do 300*0.04*0.5 (some paper said it was about that when couple cm's behind the front wheel, the 35%~ was for 1-1.5m meters behind wheel in front of you)... So yeah, I must've just accidentally made a silly omission, and I'd roughly half that number, and 10W looks more reasonable for a better case scenario, so yeah, I don't think your 5W estimate was far off at all.
Off the top of my head, I don't know how much savings the better case of 10W would be, though I watched a GCN video a couple days ago, where one guy went 275W up a climb, and one went 225W, and I vaguely remember that the 275W did it in 21 minutes, while the 225W did it in almost 26 minutes. So for the sake of simplicity, and probably not too outlandish of an assumption, lets assume power is proportional to speed (lets assume everyone weighs the same, and most of your power goes to fighting gravity) if you're riding alone (i.e the people who get dropped)... That would be a 2.5% increase in your speed, or a 2.44% decrease in your time.
So if we use a classic climb like the Alpe d'Huez (it's 8% ish), and use a monster quick time of 40 minutes, that'd result in around a time saving of 1 minute. That's probably the best case scenario though, like you said, doesn't include pacing to the person in front of you and such, and compares it to biking at the front the whole time, etc.
However one factor that we didn't consider is that a big headwind could raise that air resistance number on a climb tremendously (I'd think even 10-20km/hr could double, maybe even quadruple that number), though I don't have any numbers. And once you start getting dropped in those conditions, you could lose massive time. All in all, it's probably a bit overrated, but you know Team Sky, they'll take every marginal gain they can.
By the way, I used this stuff to collect the info (I even looked over the equations and methodology, looks solid): http://www.gribble.org/cycling/power_v_speed.html
And found values in papers and articles for some of the other things, which I don't remember offhand.
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Bit disappointed with the last few mountain stages, Sky is really locking everything up tight. The most annoying part isn't that Froome wins, because well he's clearly the strongest in every aspect of the race. But 2nd to 8th place can also hardly attack each other due to the Sky pace, Wout Poels just kills any attacks lol. Also the French tv director must be drunk, he keeps changing shots when excitement happens :/
Really hope that today Sky will chill in the back with their 4 minute lead and let the others fight for the podium places, as that is a super close fight! Mollema will have a very tough time defending his silver (unless he finds his Ventoux legs) as Porte and Yates both look very strong. Quintana very much less so, but is still a threat if he finally has a good day. Bardet might also grab his chance after that super strong TT
I also hope the GC will try to take today's stage for themselves but they've been letting breakaways win every time so it will probably be no different. Also France still needs to win a stage so I expect Coppel, Galopin, Alaphillipe, Chavanel, Rolland, Barguil etc to go crazy today.
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On July 21 2016 05:32 FiWiFaKi wrote: I personally think the Green Jersey is good, depending on the point breakdown on flat/mid/mountain stages, it can either say who's the best sprinter, or the best all-rounder. Currently it is focused on the best sprinters, and I think it demonstrates that very well... I'd be very hard pressed to argue that Sagan isn't at least the top 2 sprinter in the peloton (after biking for 200km), with Cavendish being the one who likely beats him out. But before Cav dropped out, they were very close, Sagan just makes up for it for being a really good all-rounder.
I associate the yellow jersey with being the best climber, and since we value that the most, it's the person who wins the entire TdF. I suppose there's also a bit of TT that goes into it, but overall, being able to stay in the peloton on flat stages doesn't scream oh wow, this guy is so well rounded... Getting good finishes with sprints, tough descents, hills... In my eyes it's like the best classics rider should be the one who wins the Green Jersey, though right now it emphasis the sprinters a bit more. Personally I think the intermediate sprints should only be worth 10-15 points, but anyway.
But yeah, currently the KoM jersey is for a decent rider who is willing to consistently go into the breakaway, kind of like some extension to the most combative award. Either way, it's something I ignore as well.
Wow I couldn't disagree more with this.
The green jersey is set out to be won by the best classics rider with current rules. The fact that intermediate sprints give so many points is why Sagan won in some of the previous years. Maybe you don't see it this year because Sagan actually won several sprint stages but think about the previous years (some of them Sagan won the jersey with zero wins just by going 3rd/4th in stages and getting into breakaways to get intermediate sprints and also grab a good result in a stage ending with a sprint that had hills or even climbs before). The green jersey is, in the past 4 or 5 years, saying who is the best classics rider as you want. Sagan won last year and the year before despite lack of sprint wins and that to me doesn't represent the green jersey since every year while growing up I was used to see the sprinters fight for that jersey and not have a huge amount of sprint points in the middle of a mountain stage to have a winless "sprinter" take the jersey. Nevertheless, this was probably Sagan's best performance in a TdF that I remember and he is more than deserving of his jersey (that's not the point of this, I'm not taking anything away from Sagan's value that even I can now appreciate).
Regarding the KOM jersey you have to remember who won it in previous years...you have Froome, Majka and Quintana in the 3 previous years IIRC. So you have 3 good climbers, one of them the best in the world and another one probably the second best. In this TdF the jersey is again going to a breakaway climber due to the freaking lack of proper mountain finishes (most mountain stages this year ended with a descent after a huge climb or even a flat few KMs). This highly discourages favourites to go for the stage and allows breaks to have much more success thus it seems normal that the jersey is going to another solid climber in Majka that is not really fighting for the GC this year.
Again, regarding the yellow jersey and being the best climber...one could argue that Quintana last year was the best climber but he didn't win or that in previous years Froome was the best climber yet Wiggins won in 2012 (2016 it seems Froome is clearly the best climber so the point is meh). Why? Because Froome gains time in all terrains (mountains, flat, TT), thus the better overall rider, thus the first in the GC. Yes one could argue that having Quintana win this would be a prize just to the best climber, sure, but previous winners (even Nibali) showed great performances on all terrains (even cobblestones in Nibali's case, although with a lot of help from Westra ^^) so I can't agree that the yellow jersey represents the best climber (just see Froome's first TdF victory..Quintana was the better climber and won the KOM while Froome won the Yellow or even Andy Schleck, was a much better climber than Contador in the "chain year" yet Bertie won in terrain that was not the mountains).
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Astana showing courage! Attacking the peloton on the first climb. Rodriguez following.
Others getting nervous now it seems though
The others closed the gap, everyone riding hard now
Hmm in the end it's a big peloton again but Astana still in front. Wonder what the plan is.
edit: Damn, Tom Dumoulin crashed into abandon He did so well. Really hope this doesn't kill his chances for Rio, for now it's 'severe wrist trauma' :X
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Crash fiesta now with rain. Dangerous as fuck
FROOME CRASH
Mollema also behind due to a crash
Froome had to change bikes with Thomas. Interesting is that Froome uses oval chain blades so any other bike must feel very weird to him.
Mollema loses 4 minutes. Dumoulin abandon. Fuck man I can't take this after the giro.
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Froome had to crash for the tour to have the slightest excitement...
Bardet deserved this win, did the whole climb on his own despite making the difference on the descent. Froome even crashing very badly finished top10 stage losing only a few secs, the guy was bloodied all over. Team support was crucial here especially Poels Porte attacks and then blows. Quintana slightly better though not great, already on the podium.
Only fight left are the 2 podium places for 3 riders: Bardet, Quintana and Yates, although I don't think Yates will recover tomorrow.
Fuck man I can't take this after the giro You mean the crashes affecting the leaders? At least Froome has (the best) team, Kruijswijk hadn't.
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On July 23 2016 00:50 Gjhc wrote:You mean the crashes affecting the leaders? At least Froome has (the best) team, Kruijswijk hadn't. More the dutchmen losing a great position due to crashing out in the final 3 days
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The superiority of Froome and Sky is undeniable, Quintana just keeping the pace, not a good TdF for him, he was even thinking about retiring today, and he is onn the podium now lol. Bardet deserved the victory and being in the podium, not expecting too much about tomorrows stage, it seems that nobody has anything left.
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Was pretty brutal to see they could hardly drop a bruised up Froome on someone else his bike in the finale. He's in his own class
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Damn, today sucked
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On July 23 2016 01:06 palexhur wrote: The superiority of Froome and Sky is undeniable, Quintana just keeping the pace, not a good TdF for him, he was even thinking about retiring today, and he is onn the podium now lol. Bardet deserved the victory and being in the podium, not expecting too much about tomorrows stage, it seems that nobody has anything left. Froome crashes, immediately gets a bike from one of his half a dozen team mates cushioning him and proceeds with Poels looking after him every step of the way. They would have jumped in front of him if someone tried to take a shot.
Mollema crashes, completely alone, no team mates and nearly drops out of the top 10.
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Poor guy.
Still a nice battle for the podium remains.
Can Quintana claim 2nd, being only 16 seconds down? Tomorrow is a day where it'll be very easy to crack, and you could go down the Mollema route. I think from 2-5th place, the podium is all up in the air still.
An impressive tour from Kreuiziger, in 12th place, being less than 10 minutes down, and the only one out of the 12 still 18 minutes down or less... I hope this result finds him a good contract as a super domestique (maybe even GC rider in a worse team), it's been very impressive from him.
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On July 22 2016 17:47 KobraKay wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2016 05:32 FiWiFaKi wrote: I personally think the Green Jersey is good, depending on the point breakdown on flat/mid/mountain stages, it can either say who's the best sprinter, or the best all-rounder. Currently it is focused on the best sprinters, and I think it demonstrates that very well... I'd be very hard pressed to argue that Sagan isn't at least the top 2 sprinter in the peloton (after biking for 200km), with Cavendish being the one who likely beats him out. But before Cav dropped out, they were very close, Sagan just makes up for it for being a really good all-rounder.
I associate the yellow jersey with being the best climber, and since we value that the most, it's the person who wins the entire TdF. I suppose there's also a bit of TT that goes into it, but overall, being able to stay in the peloton on flat stages doesn't scream oh wow, this guy is so well rounded... Getting good finishes with sprints, tough descents, hills... In my eyes it's like the best classics rider should be the one who wins the Green Jersey, though right now it emphasis the sprinters a bit more. Personally I think the intermediate sprints should only be worth 10-15 points, but anyway.
But yeah, currently the KoM jersey is for a decent rider who is willing to consistently go into the breakaway, kind of like some extension to the most combative award. Either way, it's something I ignore as well. Wow I couldn't disagree more with this. The green jersey is set out to be won by the best classics rider with current rules. The fact that intermediate sprints give so many points is why Sagan won in some of the previous years. Maybe you don't see it this year because Sagan actually won several sprint stages but think about the previous years (some of them Sagan won the jersey with zero wins just by going 3rd/4th in stages and getting into breakaways to get intermediate sprints and also grab a good result in a stage ending with a sprint that had hills or even climbs before). The green jersey is, in the past 4 or 5 years, saying who is the best classics rider as you want. Sagan won last year and the year before despite lack of sprint wins and that to me doesn't represent the green jersey since every year while growing up I was used to see the sprinters fight for that jersey and not have a huge amount of sprint points in the middle of a mountain stage to have a winless "sprinter" take the jersey. Nevertheless, this was probably Sagan's best performance in a TdF that I remember and he is more than deserving of his jersey (that's not the point of this, I'm not taking anything away from Sagan's value that even I can now appreciate). Regarding the KOM jersey you have to remember who won it in previous years...you have Froome, Majka and Quintana in the 3 previous years IIRC. So you have 3 good climbers, one of them the best in the world and another one probably the second best. In this TdF the jersey is again going to a breakaway climber due to the freaking lack of proper mountain finishes (most mountain stages this year ended with a descent after a huge climb or even a flat few KMs). This highly discourages favourites to go for the stage and allows breaks to have much more success thus it seems normal that the jersey is going to another solid climber in Majka that is not really fighting for the GC this year. Again, regarding the yellow jersey and being the best climber...one could argue that Quintana last year was the best climber but he didn't win or that in previous years Froome was the best climber yet Wiggins won in 2012 (2016 it seems Froome is clearly the best climber so the point is meh). Why? Because Froome gains time in all terrains (mountains, flat, TT), thus the better overall rider, thus the first in the GC. Yes one could argue that having Quintana win this would be a prize just to the best climber, sure, but previous winners (even Nibali) showed great performances on all terrains (even cobblestones in Nibali's case, although with a lot of help from Westra ^^) so I can't agree that the yellow jersey represents the best climber (just see Froome's first TdF victory..Quintana was the better climber and won the KOM while Froome won the Yellow or even Andy Schleck, was a much better climber than Contador in the "chain year" yet Bertie won in terrain that was not the mountains).
Yeah, I don't agree with you either haha.
Look at 2015: if it wasn't for Sagan, 2nd-5th are all sprinters, are they were super close to winning. Sure, Sagan didn't win, but he had many stages where he was super close, and was the best consistent sprinter
Of all the sprinting stages: 2nd, 3rd, 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 2nd, 4th, 7th... On top of that, he did well in 3 stages where sprinters normally wouldn't do well.
Look at 2014: Again, 2nd-5th, all sprinters.
Sagan results in sprints: 2nd, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 2nd, 3rd, NA, 9th... Plus 3 top 5 results where most sprinters wouldn't do well.
Look at 2013: Again, 2nd-5th, all sprinters
Sagan results in sprints: NA, 2nd, 3rd, 2nd, 1st, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 4th... Plus 1 2nd place results where most sprinters wouldn't do well. Sagan would 100% the green jersey here if he only participated in sprints.
Look at 2012: Again, 2nd-5th, all sprinters
Sagan results in sprints: 1st, 6th, 1st, 5th, NA, 1st, 2nd, 9th (3rd in sprint), 3rd, 2nd. Sagan with a 6th and 2nd on non-sprint stages. Still would have easily won sprinting jersey without them.
Point is, Sagan is every year, without a question a top 3 sprinter, and usually 1st or 2nd best. This year I would say is an exception, where Cavendish was better than him, but can you really make an argument for a sprinter better than Sagan except him? So naturally, if Sagan is the 2nd best sprinter, but he's far better at everything else than any other sprinter, he'll get a few more points and win the jersey. I'm looking through the Classics results for this year, and I don't see anyone who can ride Classics and be anywhere close to winning the Green Jersey with the exception of this year (admit you were wrong ).
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As for KOM:
2016: No GC rider in top 15 atm
2015: 1st polka = 1st GC, 2nd polka = 2nd GC, 3rd = 9th GC, 4th = 16th GC, 5th = 29th GC... No real representation of good climbers, they were just people who went into the breakaway to get extra points, or the top people in GC, which were on top since they were 1st on the stages where it mattered.
2014: 1st polka = 44th GC, 2nd = 1st GC, 3rd = 54th GC, 4th = 3rd GC, 5th = 2nd GC... The two low placings were Rodriguez and Makja, two riders who definitely don't climb exceptionally compared to the GC group, they just like biking aggressive and always go into the breakaway.
2013: 1st polka = 2nd GC, 2nd = 1st GC, 3rd = 24th GC, 4th = 3rd GC, 5th = 37th GC... In this case, the two far out of GC were Rolland and Riblon, two riders who again, they are not top end riders, they just always go into the breakaway.
2012: 1st polka = 26th GC, 2nd = 40th GC, 3rd = 15th GC, 4th = 8th GC, 5th = 20th... This year is kind of odd, since it was the year of Bradley Wiggins. Though we see riders like Voeckler and Pierre, and honestly I don't remember that far back. But looks at the stage to stage results, one stage was a breakaway with 2 HC and 2 Cat 1 climbs... Though I don't know this year it might have actually been a decent representation of the best climber.
At least currently it's odd, because the best climber will more or less always win GC... So what happens if there's a lot of breakaways like this year, the best climber who likes going into that group of 20 every day will win... Or they wont let any breakaways, and then the rider in the top 5-10 who cares about it most will win, as the GC rider most of the time wont care enough to go full gas for 500m before the top of the climb. or the top GC rider will be so much better than he will just get it.
I suppose when it has value is when you have GC contenders like like Wiggins, Indurain, or Dumoulin that it'd matter. However right now, to me it seems like all of the top 12 GC are all pure climbers, I guess minus Froome, since he's so good at everything that he TT's pretty damn well. So anyway, in it's current state it's an odd jersey.
edit: Also, for Froome's first win in 2013, Froome won the polka dot jersey, and meh, climbing ability wise they were very similar, where Froome destroyed Quintana on the first climb, and then Quintana beat Froome in two climbs later on, but if you look at purely the time they made up on each other on mountain stages, Froome made up more time.
In 2015 Froome once again won the polka dot jersey over Quintana, where he beat him on Stage 10 to take first place, whereas Quintana beat him on two stages further on once again. Anyway, it's a very hit or miss jersey, and I'm not a fan, especially this year.
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Super disappointed Quintana, Yates, Porte didn't try to attack Bardet or eachother today. Quintana must have the most invisible third place ever.
Sky über dominant, it's a bit disgusting they can finish with 5 riders left standing in a stage like this.
At least the fight for stage was amazing, huge props to Pantano, what a fighter.
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really disappointing last few stages. still sad porte had unluck on that descent where everyone was all over the place
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Pretty poor year. I'm happy for Dimension Data and Tom Dumoulin. Sky a-moved to victory pretty much. Still props to Froome for giving us few moments of brilliance ^^
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