Did you guys not see the Giro?
Definitely wouldn’t put it past Sky to attempt to ‘ensure’ a 1-2
Was Froome not a lot further back then so less of a threat, or so they thought?
Sky will want a 1-2 I’d imagine, order won’t matter.
Tricky for Sky though if they go for that, in that Dumoulin could spoil the plan and Sky is left with 2-3.
G sounded confident in his interview tonight, so, as @SAP7 infers they might play safe and work entirely for G which would be lovely but a bit boring for us punters.
Big G seems in better form than CF. It would be satisfying to see Froome give his all to ensure G gets to Paris in yellow. It would also be payback for G’s service to successive Sky Tour leaders.
What I mean is, it would make a nice story, and I want to see it happen.
Agree, but I always love to see a stage blow wide open too 
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Should be a good one. Riding home early to catch the finish 
Yes, I think Dumoulin will have a couple of dabbles, try to get some time back but without going so far as to jeopardise a podium if it goes wrong. He will try to get enough time to make a real go in the TT a decent proposition. GT and CF will follow all the moves. If Roglic has the balls to go all or nothing in order to get a podium it could stir things up. CF will follow to preserve his position and GT will sit on TD. That’s when it will get interesting. Ultimately, at this stage of the tour I think tomorrow night the status quo will have prevailed.
Sky don’t do personal favours they do numbers.
They want a winner. They’d like a one two but would put a win above that if pushed to support one.
Tomorrow won’t be a surprise unless someone crashes or pops. It’s a long day… so no GC rider will go early and that leave the final climb. Having ridden it is hard until it actually descends and then rises again to a summit. I can’t see anyone stealing two minutes.
Unless they’re on the juice…
Brailsford is keeping his eye on this promising youngster for next year.
So, barring catastrophe G it is; I like him but somehow I feel a sense of anti climax and feel the GC race is now too predictable, especially on mountain climbs where it’s all about power/weight ratio. I understand the team thing and Sky having the most money, but if it wasn’t them it would be another team, so I don’t see money as the issue.
Solutions?
Not sure but I would like to see radio/headsets taken out on mountain stages - it seems to me that this, more than anything removes the unpredictability of these stages, which should be the most exciting but generally aren’t these days. Especially when the chaps in the bus can precisely calculate the power outputs and determine whether any given rider can sustain a break.
Another of course is to allow drugs; at least the effects of those made for exciting races.
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There’s no easy answer tbh. As Froome proved in the Giro, any gains made on the climbs can also be negated during the descents.
Maybe making the stages shorter would help ?
Wouldn’t banning the radios & power meters make for more exciting racing?
No answer?
Drugs?
FFS.
It’s about professionalism. Like every sport the science and money has boiled it down to numbers and tactics.
Ban power meters and radios and you have a chance. But good luck.
I remember when Rugby was amateur (ish) and loved it. But life moves on.
The days of break away riders and mystery are long gone.
I see sky as something to be appreciative off. Sod the French. It’s not all sentiment.
I believe that is what I suggested, so yes.
It’ll be tough to get change like that I suppose; it’s too commercial a race to go back to pure racing now.
Shorter stages maybe, but the Col de Porter was just that and still all too predictable.
The only way Is smaller teams and no radios.
Like football, the power is with the money. I can’t see anyone with influence trying to change it.
Don’t they currently have the power meters on the bikes? If the riders didn’t know & the support crews couldn’t tell them it’d certainly be more challenging.
I guess it’d be about letting the riders use their own judgement as to what pace/effort was feasible & sensible. At the moment they are like programmed robots, hence the link above.
While accepting that professionalism has taken dulled many sports, I wouldn’t agree with that generalised view because sports vary hugely - in cycling the Monuments are still unpredictable, exciting affairs where there is huge unpredictability. Funnily enough golf is also very hard to predict, so it isn’t all down to science and professionalism.
Cycling is entirely predictable now drugs have been removed and measurements are available.
The only factor is luck. Froome crashed and lost time. TD had a puncture.
It’s all show biz really. Sky were never going to lost given a level field. The numbers showed it.
You say it was predictable from the numbers but whilst almost everyone would have predicted a Sky win very few would have predicted GT. CF and TD didn’t lose all of their time to bad luck. Most of it yes, but when the going got tough and it was a duel GT beat both of them to the line every time it counted. He is the strongest in the race and a deserved winner.
CF is shattered from the Giro and TD doesn’t have a jump so he can’t get away and can only chase down and close moves down by grinding them out.
Power meters are not the problem, let the rider have as much info to hand as possible. In my experience of using them and GPS devices in cycling and running they are not beneficial in the race for the rider/runner for analysis of what to do at any moment in time, but rather a tool for analysis after to inform and guide recovery/training for the next competition.
The problem lies with real time data transfer and analysis to team personnel who relay back via radio so that the riders do not have to think and react on the road for themselves.
Anyway, I said Roglic would attack but at the end of the day status quo would prevail.
TLDR.
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