2020 pro-cycling / Tour de France thread

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

Yeah, I dunno. I’m not sure “the greatest climbing day by 2 riders ever, clearly beating numbers by a notorious blood doper” is quite the triumphant headline cycling thinks it is. Definitely great theater, but those numbers aren’t even pushing the ceiling of human anatomy they are absolutely smashing through it.

IMO of course not really knowing the hell I’m talking about really.

Those climb times are anecdotal data.
For one, It makes a difference what happened in the previous hours/kilometers and what the weather conditions were at the time. Bikes get more advanced, overall conditioning of riders gets more sophisticated.

It's easier to compare 100 meter dashes. Even then, weather conditions, the shape of the stadium, and presence of a crowd, the elevation, are all factors that can make 0.01s seconds difference.

[PilotMan]

That was an emotional one. Great to see the break get one. So hard to push all day and stay ahead to the end.

[cartman]

Pogacar is a beast. He gained nearly two more minutes on the field today.

[PilotMan]

Yeah and made it look easy. Jonas is clearly gassed and hanging on. Remco isn't strong enough. Visma too depleted. Carapaz has been fun to watch the last few stages. Jorgenson have the Americans hope, but the beast squashed it in an aggressive manner. Will Tadej win tomorrow too? Honestly it's great to see a champion go for it instead of resting and playing defense to the end. That's what you really want to see stage in and stage out.

[cartman]

Yeah, Pogacar is taking the Eddy Merckx approach

[PilotMan]

Thoroughly enjoyed the tour this year. The final three riders are simply a full level ahead of everyone else, and Pogacar is in rare form for sure. So many good story lines and just a great race this year. The time trial was great to watch for the final day. Every rider getting attention and a spotlight to finish the race.

[whomario]

Yeah, Time Trials to end it are great. Though i think a course needs a chance for the sprinters in the final days as well and not having an obvious one in the last 5 stages is a bit rough.

Overall i don't think it's great that a lot of Potential Top 5/10 GC guys are doing work for the Top 3, takes a bit out of the intrigue of GC battles past the podium. Though to be fair this has always been the case to a degree.

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by whomario

Yeah, Time Trials to end it are great. Though i think a course needs a chance for the sprinters in the final days as well and not having an obvious one in the last 5 stages is a bit rough.

Overall i don't think it's great that a lot of Potential Top 5/10 GC guys are doing work for the Top 3, takes a bit out of the intrigue of GC battles past the podium. Though to be fair this has always been the case to a degree.

Actually, the organization proclaim stage 18 would be a sprinters stage, but that one was overly obviously going to be a breakaway stage anyway. There were some complaints about there being too many sprinter stages (8 ended up in a big bunch sprint, with a couple were after some of the pure sprinters were dropped out over the course of the stage), but that's really how this all was set up. The "let's go offroad" stage was full of excitement and ended up in a couple of groups ahead of a big bunch as well.

I felt that the last stage time trial fell flat. The gaps between the main contenders was too big already to make a difference anymore. Although one can't plan for what went down, going in nobody could have know it would be a case of Pogacar being sky high, then Vingegaard sky high above the rest, then Evenepoel sky high above the rest of the rest and probably Roglic may have been the best of the rest, if not for his early departure (but there's always a big favorite dropping out). The battle for 4th and 5th was "meh", battle for 10th place was quickly settled.

A typical complaint would be that too many GC contenders were stacked on the same teams. UAE finished with 3 in the top10, with Ayuso dropping out early. Soudal had 2 guys in the top5. Visma-LaB also had a second guy in the top8. Carlos Rodriguez was a major disappointment, despite being the true best of the rest, the Ineos GC rider still finished 15 minutes behind 3rd place and was the only of his team capable to finish near the top10. Red Bull was the unlucky team with both their GC riders Roglic and Vlasov dropping out. But between those teams and Bahrain, there really are no other teams out there with true GC ambitions.