Chico Posted October 20, 2015 Share Posted October 20, 2015 Route announced today. Fair play to Prudy and his team, looks like they've done a good job again. More than likely going to be a climber, again, Froome probably favourite ahead of Bertie and Nibali - the flat ITT being the longer of the two means that the likes of Quintana will have to attack the others that little bit more. Can't see Dumoulin being able to repeat the heroics from this year's Vuelta. But the 'super'-domestiques could have a big part to play, Fabio Aru (assuming he targets the Giro) and Ale Valverde could be the difference. Saw something saying that double points would be awarded on penultimate climbs, too, which will make the KOM a full-on competition on its own again. Should make for a fair bit of aggressive racing everyday,with the second-tier guys having something to aim for, as opposed to Thibault Pinot's "podium" comments today. Could really make BMC an interesting prospect, however, as they'll have two contenders in Porte and TJ - difficult to get this right tactically, but if they make it work, either of them could be in with a shout. Sagan's green jersey could be in threat if team orders come into play, but, ability-wise, the parcours is perfect for him - lots of lumpy stages where he can get in the break and take the points at the intermediate sprints and he'll finish top three (second) on most of the flat stages, too, probably. Looking forward to the race already, even if it means having to travel to see any of it. Imagine it'll come quite close next time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denny's Yard Posted June 30, 2016 Share Posted June 30, 2016 Well that came round quick. I see Froome is favorite at least according to this... https://m.oddschecker.com/t/cycling/tour-de-france/winner I have barely watched any cycling this season so have no idea on form but the route would seem to suit Froome with a couple of TTs. I would love to see the baby-faced Quintana win though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan cake Posted July 1, 2016 Share Posted July 1, 2016 froome seems to think the route should suit Quintana he could just be trying to put pressure on an opponent tho love watching the tour, its a cycling and geography lesson all rolled into one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan cake Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 magnificent performance from cav i dont think his achievements will be properly appreciated until hes retired (or brown bread) easily one of the uks top ten sportsmen/women ever hopefully he'll get his olympic medal this year an amazing career (not over yet) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fringo Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 24 minutes ago, dan cake said: magnificent performance from cav i dont think his achievements will be properly appreciated until hes retired (or brown bread) easily one of the uks top ten sportsmen/women ever hopefully he'll get his olympic medal this year an amazing career (not over yet) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 Cav being a top 10 british sportsman/woman ever is a ludicrous statement. Wiggins/Froome and Cook have all accomplished more. Then you have Chris Hoy and Cavendish. So he is a top 4/5 british cyclist ever, but also top 10 sportsperon ever. He's one of the best sprinters ever in cycling. Modern sports though...wins stage today, out comes hyperbole. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
killiefaetheferry Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 Was disappointed for Tejay Van Garderen last year, having to pull out a few stages from the end with a respitory infection, when he was in with a shout of a podium finish. 40/1 this year so each way bet again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parklife Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 The complete absence of doping chat in the media is pretty illuminating. Like everyone has just thought "ah feck it, let's just enjoy the freak show". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sherps Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 If Froome doesn't crash, he'll win. I'd love to see Quintana do it, but his individual climbing talent just isn't enough to overcome the combination of the set tactical plan and the domestiques to make it work, and Froome's ability, that Froome/Sky have. The Giro this year was so open and exciting purely because Sky lost their leader, so had no reason to strangle the race, which is something they excel at doing with the TdF. 3 hours ago, Parklife said: The complete absence of doping chat in the media is pretty illuminating. Like everyone has just thought "ah feck it, let's just enjoy the freak show". Serious question. Who do you think is doping, what are they doping with and how are they doing it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parklife Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 44 minutes ago, Sherps said: Serious question. Who do you think is doping, what are they doping with and how are they doing it? Who do you think isn't? Chris Froome's evolution to a guy who gets dropped by even modest climbers on modest climbs, to the greatest climber in the history of the sport may well be down to sleeping on volcanoes and the "marginal gains" that Dave Brailsford loves to talk about... Or maybe it's down to dope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biffer Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 Delighted to see Cav get his yellow jersey for the day. He comes over as a very likeable guy imo, and I'm happy for him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 5 hours ago, Sherps said: Serious question. Who do you think is doping, what are they doping with and how are they doing it? All the teams with a few clean folk (basically how it has been since I can remember). Misusing TUE, next generation EPO, steroids specifically testosterone cultivated from animals instead of plants (much harder to detect), various other drugs which aren't know to testers yet. , with the look away attitudes of the sponsors and governing body who can provide a much better spectacle with dopers than without. This has been the trend in cycling for decades the question should be, what evidence do you have it has stopped? I enjoy the spectacle it's not fair and open competition though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thplinth Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 (edited) Why does cycling give itself such a hard time about doping when most other sports pay it lip service and dont really give a shit. It is very self defeating for the sport. I know this windbag who refuses to watch the Tour as 'they are all cheating' yet he bores the arse off me about the tennis. How naive are these pricks. Any sport with serious money to be made is going to have a drug problem where drugs can give you an edge. It is just economics. Edited July 4, 2016 by thplinth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denny's Yard Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 1 hour ago, thplinth said: Why does cycling give itself such a hard time about doping when most other sports pay it lip service and dont really give a shit. It is very self defeating for the sport. I know this windbag who refuses to watch the Tour as 'they are all cheating' yet he bores the arse off me about the tennis. How naive are these pricks. Any sport with serious money to be made is going to have a drug problem where drugs can give you an edge. It is just economics. Great post. Interesting to compare this thread and the Wimbledon thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fairbairn Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 8 hours ago, biffer said: Delighted to see Cav get his yellow jersey for the day. He comes over as a very likeable guy imo, and I'm happy for him. I don't really follow cycling so don't quite understand it however with Cavendish winning 2 of the first 3 stages I'd have expected him to have the Yellow jersey but see he's not in the top 10 overall standings. Is this just because the stage he didn't win he was so far behind? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fringo Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 38 minutes ago, Fairbairn said: I don't really follow cycling so don't quite understand it however with Cavendish winning 2 of the first 3 stages I'd have expected him to have the Yellow jersey but see he's not in the top 10 overall standings. Is this just because the stage he didn't win he was so far behind? Yes. It's all about overall times for the yellow, stage wins, points for green and mountain wins, points for polka dot jerseys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 3 hours ago, thplinth said: Why does cycling give itself such a hard time about doping when most other sports pay it lip service and dont really give a shit. It is very self defeating for the sport. I know this windbag who refuses to watch the Tour as 'they are all cheating' yet he bores the arse off me about the tennis. How naive are these pricks. Any sport with serious money to be made is going to have a drug problem where drugs can give you an edge. It is just economics. they got caught big in 1998, deaths due to drugs during races, deaths in training (EPO era), then the guy who won all 7 tours after the huge bust during the "clean era" and medical miracle and beacon to cancer sufferers everywhere was shown to be a cheat. You're right about all sports though. 1 hour ago, Denny's Yard said: Great post. Interesting to compare this thread and the Wimbledon thread. I'd like to think i've been consistent in thinking almost everyone cheats, I did mention the possibility of Murray cheating to Parkie he rubbished me though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sherps Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 7 hours ago, Parklife said: Who do you think isn't? Chris Froome's evolution to a guy who gets dropped by even modest climbers on modest climbs, to the greatest climber in the history of the sport may well be down to sleeping on volcanoes and the "marginal gains" that Dave Brailsford loves to talk about... Or maybe it's down to dope. I have no idea who is doping, who isn't doping, if it's even happening at all, or if everyone's at it. What I do know, though, is that anyone that speaks with any level of certainty on the subject is ultimately wrong, and those who speak with certainty that it is happening but not on who or how are definitely wrong. The whole Froome thing has been done to death, so I'll skip the argument about whether he's clean or not. What i will say, though, is that he's not even the best pure climber on Team Sky, never mind the best climber in history. He's very, very good at a 30mn effort, which, combined with the ability of Thomas, Poels, and before them Porte etc, to protect him until he's ready to make that effort, is crucial to him winning the tour. 3 hours ago, phart said: All the teams with a few clean folk (basically how it has been since I can remember). Misusing TUE, next generation EPO, steroids specifically testosterone cultivated from animals instead of plants (much harder to detect), various other drugs which aren't know to testers yet. , with the look away attitudes of the sponsors and governing body who can provide a much better spectacle with dopers than without. This has been the trend in cycling for decades the question should be, what evidence do you have it has stopped? I enjoy the spectacle it's not fair and open competition though. TUE misuse is something that I could see as a viable way to gain an unfair advantage - for instance, Asthma diagnosis and medication use. No idea if it goes beyond that, though. It also stands to reason that I have no evidence that doping has stopped, but I don't think that anyone could argue that it's still going on to the extent it was in the early nineties to...say...2009. There is no Floyd-Landis-Stage-17-2006-type performances anymore, performances they euphemistically term "superhuman" or "out of this world". If someone has a bad day, they're generally finished, and no one rips the field to shreds consistently anymore - Froome has lost time to his rivals in the third week in each of his tour wins. 2 hours ago, thplinth said: Why does cycling give itself such a hard time about doping when most other sports pay it lip service and dont really give a shit. It is very self defeating for the sport. I know this windbag who refuses to watch the Tour as 'they are all cheating' yet he bores the arse off me about the tennis. How naive are these pricks. Any sport with serious money to be made is going to have a drug problem where drugs can give you an edge. It is just economics. I don't think cycling does (or did) give itself a particularly hard time about doping, it's basically been dragged into that situation by the press and French/Italian/US authorities. If anything, the reaction to the Festina affair and Operacion Puerto by some of the riders themselves proves they were quite happy to keep doping, and the UCI's involvement with Armstrong shows they weren't particularly bothered about it either, so long as it kept everyone interested, as you intimate yourself. Baseball was exactly the same - when Bonds, Sosa and McGwire were hitting balls out of the park, no one cared how they were doing it. The minute guys started falling off their bikes during races, like Jesus Manzano, because they'd been given bovine blood products, though, or were dieing in their beds at night because their blood's so thick, public opinion, driven by the written press, started to turn against them. And like you say, once the public turn against you, the money goes too. I'd also say there is very little money in cycling now, and definitely nothing like there was 10 or 20 years ago, but I'd also say the lengths that some more unscrupulous people are willing to go to to succeed are probably not being replicated nowadays because the rewards are not there. If you are Peter Sagan you could still probably command a couple of million a year, but a neo-pro domestique is probably only on around 40-50,000 euro a year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan cake Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 18 hours ago, biffer said: Delighted to see Cav get his yellow jersey for the day. He comes over as a very likeable guy imo, and I'm happy for him. he's just really good at what he does reminds me of Andy Murray, only known for his sporting abilities which is as it should be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 14 hours ago, Sherps said: TUE misuse is something that I could see as a viable way to gain an unfair advantage - for instance, Asthma diagnosis and medication use. No idea if it goes beyond that, though. It also stands to reason that I have no evidence that doping has stopped, but I don't think that anyone could argue that it's still going on to the extent it was in the early nineties to...say...2009. There is no Floyd-Landis-Stage-17-2006-type performances anymore, performances they euphemistically term "superhuman" or "out of this world". If someone has a bad day, they're generally finished, and no one rips the field to shreds consistently anymore - Froome has lost time to his rivals in the third week in each of his tour wins. Thyroid medicine as well. The average speeds are up again. However i've stated what i think loads of times I don't think anyone disagrees there is a possibility of doping these days. Folk wouldn't even accept that talk 10 years ago, so folk less naive about what they are watching, but you can still enjoy it as much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fringo Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 Another interesting race today ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parklife Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 2 hours ago, fringo said: Another interesting race today ! That's one of putting it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fringo Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 I had to be reserved as I didn't want to give it away for people who hadn't seen it. Highlights on just now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parklife Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 Froome going full Landis. Quality stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 Will need to catch up, all the MMA over the weekend inverted my sleep pattern. Missed the last 2 stages live as was snoozing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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