steve, be honest .... did you think he sat up 50 meters to early? I was SURE the blew it. I visualized him pointing to the logo on his jersey ... and finishing fourth.

what a great result. no way to predict that, even at the 2k to go mark

steve, be honest .... did you think he sat up 50 meters to early? I was SURE the blew it. I visualized him pointing to the logo on his jersey ... and finishing fourth.


Yes, he almost missed it and blew it. I kept saying (shouting), "Don't sit up. Don't sit up"! They were RIGHT on him.

BIG rookie mistake.

At least this did not happen - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UD0QtUeXbI

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

oh my god, I've never seen that one before. THAT's gonna leave a scar. jeepers

The feed I was watching had the announcers yelling at him as he sat up!! They were nervous it was too early to sit up... Glad it worked out though.

THAT's gonna leave a scar

Dave,

This version of that same video will REALLY scar you then ( If you are a Democrat!) - warning - MASSIVE laughs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7vKDzgRdEY

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Good first day. Sad to see Teklehaimanot not taking those early points for the KOM jersey but he can only blame himself for that...

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2020 Team Zoot MTN

Love it when that happens. It's great for the guy- GT STAGE WINNER.
Even though I had Caleb for the win.

Lil observation: Did anyone see at an intermediate sprint all the past winners' names painted on the road? Left me shaking my head ruefully.

The Giro is cray cray.

While I'm in the bag for the Cannondale kids, I predict once again that Katusha, Astana do very well. It must be all the garlic.

Steve, what media outlet are you using in Ontario to watch? Let's start a new thread for each day's stage so that things don't get buried.

Dev,


I thought one thread would be better, than putting one up for each day. Did not want to hog the front board, and other than REAL controversy, the discussion/debate about each stage is more or less done for the day at the end of that day and we move on to the next stage!

I watched today here - http://www.granfondoguide.com/ - it's the Eurosport feed with Sean Kelly et al on the commentary.

Please send a Thank You note to the folks at Gran Fondo Guide - Simon Smith & Mark Harding for making this happen - marketing@granfondoguide.com

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Ding! Ding! Ding!!!!


not so good for that whole Italian racing thing.....


http://www.granfondoguide.com/LiveStream/GirodItalia/1/2712/bardiani-riders-withdrawn-from-giro-start

Steve, did you catch what happened to the BMC rider at 3k to go? He is shown holding his crank and pedal in his hand. However, there is something that looks like a BB bearing cup too. I can't tell if the crank fell off, if he broke the spindle, the BB came, out, or some combination of the above.

Yes. I saw that. With the way modern cranks/BBs are built, I always wonder how that could happen?

I recall a photo from a long time ago of the great Laurent Fignon sitting on the road, after he had fallen. Fignon is sitting on the road with the pedal and the whole of the crank arm, sitting in front of him and it's obviously snapped/sheered right off off at the BB.

Found photo - http://bit.ly/2pRJm8r

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I'm watching the Giro here on the Granfondo Guide supplied live stream - http://http://www.granfondoguide.com/LiveStream/GirodItalia

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

watching on xfinity in the states.

gotta say, I don't know this area at all. its beautiful. glorious mountains and valleys

Dave - Indeed. Looks like a beautiful area.

All back together with 30Km to go. Downhill and flat run-in to the finish. Slow stage so far - 34km/h average. Piano! Could be a wild and very fast bunch sprint for the win here in Stage 2.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

ha! yesterday we didn't know the winner with 2K to go. today, we knew it was gonna be Griepel with about 30k to go

Bad luck for Caleb Ewan - pulled out of the pedal with about 200m to go. Amazing that he stayed up-right. That could have brought down a bunch of people.

Greipel in Pink! First time for him, I think I heard them say.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Damn!
I have Ewan in my team, you'd think the Orica mechs would crank the pedal release to maximum for the sprinters.

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I have Ewan in my team, you'd think the Orica mechs would crank the pedal release to maximum for the sprinters.


I am sure they do.

Looks like there may have been a bit of contact, just prior to the pull out. There is a tendency when you are doing this to counter the movement with some leg twisting/torquing - if that is radiated to the pedal, then you will pull out - that's the way they work - you need to pull straight up to stay engaged.

As I noted, I'm always amazed when sprinters do this and they are able to keep the bike upright - Kudos to Caleb. It's a very dangerous high speed situation.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Happy for Greipel. By all accounts a great guy and a sprinter who'll ride everything and smash it for his team when he can.

I think the pedal pull out was either caused by or coincided with a dropped chain. You can see he pauses to clip in, spins quickly for a second, then raises the middle finger in frustration. I think he somehow dumped it off the big chainring.

Looks like a dropped chain, the way he spun out afterwards.

Good save by Katusha.

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'It never gets easier, you just get crazier.'

Day 3 shows how much the wind can change the race.

Big time. Made for a much more exciting race in the last 15 or so km!

Day 3 shows how much the wind can change the race.


Looked to be some awesome stage-recon work on the part of Quick-Step and then a strategic decesion to launch an almost whole team attack when they turned into the quartering head-wind at just the right moment. Blew the whole front of the race up.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Love the Giro - No "transition" stage(s) like they have at the Tour de France, they go from "sprinters stages", right to a full blown Mountain Goat stage!

Profile for tommorow's Mt Etna Stage - http://www.steephill.tv/...talia/profile-04.jpg

. . well they did give them a rest day! :)

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

That move is just in the Quick-Step DNA. Crosswind? Drive it full gas to the gutter and blow shit up. And it's not like it was a secret. You could see teams trying to advance for miles before the turn. But a Classics team is going to win that positioning battle every time. Also in the sprint Gavaria's leadout man drove Nizzolo into a Nathan Haas, causing Nizzolo to have to scrub speed. Nasty, dirty racing by Quick Step. Love it.

Nasty, dirty racing by Quick Step. Love it.

Indeed, they played that one well! :)

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

More great work today by Quick-Step - they are ruling the early days of the Giro!

The Etna stage which I could not watch live (just did a bit of a review) proved to be a bit anti-climatic - most of the CG contenders eye-balled one another when the crux part of the race happened mid-way up Etna. A few digs from Nibali. Zakarin gained a few bonus time seconds. They said that the Etna would be too early for someone to really go for it, and that proved to be the case.

If you are new to following Road Racing the best summary web site is http://www.steephill.tv/ - great aggregation of news and content.

Love guys like Jan Polanc - away in a break since 2km in, and somehow hangs in and on, all the way for the win!

Looks like back to more action for the sprinters tomorrow.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Jungels is interesting. Prominent in the Ardennes, crazy strong pounding it out on the flats and he's their GC guy. He was smart to help make the QS effort in the wind stick but he looked like Boonen doing it.
Would be cool, but I cannot see him sticking in the front group in the high mountains.

I was able to catch the last 10-15k at work and would argue that it was anything but anti-climatic...Sure, none of the big names did anything but it was excruciating watching to see if Polanc could hold them off! Another k and he would have been toast...it was a fantastic finish to watch.

Chapeau to Polanc, he was solo for a large part of the stage.
He also got lucky because Gaviria went way wide on a turn 18K from the finish, threw a spanner in the works of the peloton, after that none of the GC contenders wanted to seriously stick their necks out.
Still too early for Nibili or Quintana.
Too bad for Dennis, hurtin for certain from yesterdays crash, lots of people were expecting big things from this kid

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agreed on all counts. I couldn't watch yesterday's stage live either but I would have been surprised to see any GC guy make a move, with the possible exception of Nibali. and even for him it would have been a vanity project. its just too early to go so deep, only to be obliged to defend the jersery for another two weeks. no thanks. still a cool stage though. the break worked!!!!
and I too am loving the QS 'dominance'! LOL

also agree on the stages. we should have some old school travel-log racing for a couple of days with sprint finishes. and then a break gets away on either Friday or Saturday (you heard it here first). Sunday .... I don't know. could be fun, or it could be a replay of today.

HAHAHA! Another classic "wining the bell lap" episode!

you just knew it was going to happen. if one were to be cynical, then one would say that being on camera for doing silly stuff like that is better than being anonymous (the whole "the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about" philosophy)

wow, QS is having a great year. another stage, another jersey. on top of Phil Gil's great start to the year.
not too shabby.

not too shabby.


In the past on these boards we have been very critical of QS - despite massive talent and horse-power, they would often botch up races that they should have won.

But yes, this year in all seems to be coming right for the new blue-train!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

QS looks like they may try and split this again. Wind is up.

Kind of a long boring stage until a wild finale with a crazy sprint at the end. Young Caleb Ewan wins his first ever Giro stage.

In review, they could not see the line until about 100M to go. I thought that Ewan had gone too early - he went around his last lead-out man, before he had pulled off. It was a long sprint, and he just won in a close photo finish at the line!

Tomorrow there is a bit of geography/topography that may play into the hands of a break-away that can stick! The GC favorites will be probably taking it easy, so it will be a good day for a break to get away and stay away. The massive mountain top finish at Blochaus comes up on Sunday could provide another shake-up in the GC!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Agreed, extremely boring stage.

bump.........

i follow Cannondale pretty closely and while we keep hearing about how they haven't won a GT stage in 2 years, it was Formolo who did that in this race and he's riding pretty well thus far.....Woods got a fourth yesterday and can do some work at the beginning of the climb today and Carthy and Dombrowski should be in the mix with Formolo..Joe D may or may not be up for it as he's been hurt, etc but i think he's been keeping his powder dry.... .Rolland made the break...almost there...little negotiations going on now..hope they let him on cuz i don't want Cdale to do any more work today until the climb........i'm thinking this is a Quintana day, hoping for Yates too and Formolo...

well, this sucks.....all the Cdale boys working on the front except Formolo so I guess he's the man today if they have one...Rolland is too dangerous overall, apparently....

We need a proper thread for today's stage:



Everything is totally tense in the lead up to the base of the Blockhaus climb. Movistar and Bahrain are drilling it at the front with 3K to go to the climb. It's the 50th anniversary of the first climb up

Oh Jeez, Sky carnage all over the road. Geraint doesn't look good.

Holy shit.....right before the climb, the peloton is going full throttle and a police moto stops at the edge of the road. Team Sky literally plows right in. Thomas and Landa down with 2 others. It looks like Movistar and Bahrain OK....I see Adam Yates at the back of the peloton on the base of the climb!

It looks like Thomas is pedaling but not injured....just gapped. Same with Adam Yates. The commentators are talking about this trend of motos messing up the racing (Ventoux last year)

Did I just see Thomas with a teammate pulling him?

That's Landa, the other Sky GC threat. Thomas is bleeding from a few places. Yates also off the back. No way they catch the GC gruppo with Movistar drilling it.

Did I see a 2:46 gap from Thomas to the front of the peloton?

Yup. He's not closing that. But if he ends the day with less than 2:00, that'll be reasonable.

2:39 for Land and Thomas.

Jungels looks like he is jettisoned from the top group. Are Doumoulin and Nibali still in there? Do I see Woods in there in the top 11.

Teejay just exploded....bummer...Zakarin off the back now...I see the Cdale rider with him is Formolo? Doumoulin still hanging on these steepest grades?

Maglia Rosa to Quintana?

Nibali gets into the TT posiiton on a 10% grade and counters attacks from Quintana and Pinot!!!

The entire giro just detonated. Nibali has to take the first Italian stage win for the home crowd on their 100th Giro

Interesting that Quintana is riding a high variability strategy and Nibali just maybe ups his effort by 5-10% and gradually closes each attack

Kind of surprised Movistar is revealing Quintana's numbers. Showing 477W last time they showed it on screen.

Great ride by Dumoulin and Pinot. Dumoulin is now officially a climber. With his TT skill, he's a threat to Quintana.

when you are the king by a long margin, you really aren't afraid what everyone else is doing
I guess the fact that there aren't so many true mountain top finishes should aid Dumoulin. Wonder how much time Dumoulin would take from Quintana.

I'm thinking perhaps 2:15-2:45?

Lots of TTing left and final day is Monza to Milano. Quintana will need to explode Dumoulin in the Dolomites or this thing will be super close.

If Quintana was doing 477W was Dumoulin pushing close to 600W at that moment in time?

Didn't show Dumoulin's at the time, wasn't in the same group. It was one of the steep sections where he was pulling away from Nibali and Pinot.

I wonder how much time Quintana will have on Dumoulin going into the final stage? This could be very entertaining.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

With the amount of TTing left, I would think Quintana would need 3-3.5 min of buffer generated in the mountains to be sure of the win. What do you think?

Lots of TTing left and final day is Monza to Milano. Quintana will need to explode Dumoulin in the Dolomites or this thing will be super close.[/quote]
I wonder how much time Quintana will have on Dumoulin going into the final stage? This could be very entertaining.[/quote]

With the amount of TTing left, I would think Quintana would need 3-3.5 min of buffer generated in the mountains to be sure of the win. What do you think?[/quote]

2 ITTs left, tuesdays (stage 10)is 39.8k with a few hills; last stage is 29.3k slight downhill.
Certainly the 10th stage will favour Dumuolin, he'll prolly win the pink by a minute or so.
But Quintana looked like a beast today on the Blockhaus, and didn't look like he was suffering much.
The last week has a lot of climbing, this gonna be epic!

I hope they fire that motocop

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res, non verba

C'Dale really lighting up this race, Tejay going for the reverse breakaway, and an amazing ride by Dumoulin who will likely take the lead after the first TT. The question remains can he hang on in the final week? I do wonder if Sky now tries to burn up Quintana before the tour.

The best way to have done that was for Thomas to have been in contention on the mountain stages, with Quintana having to bury himself in advance of the TT's. Having said that, Dumoulin seems like Sky should pay Dumoulin a massive bonus if he can keep the heat on Quintana and stay within 2 min before the final stage ITT from Monza to Milano. If Dumoulin can do that, Quintana should have burned a lot of matches prior to LeTour. I am not sure what Sky can do right now to burn Quintana's legs aside from some some of surprise ambush where they catch Movistar napping and Thomas gains back 3+ minutes.

Between the two ITT's, Dumoulin might take back 3-3.5 minutes. But on the last stage, it will be tough for Dumoulin to take back more than 90 seconds.

Shame about Thomas, Landa, and Yates today, but sometimes stuff happens. Still plenty of GC contenders and a lot of racing left to go though. Should be entertaining.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

With crashes like this one involving a moto at a critical juncture in the race it would seem to make sense that a commissar could step up and neutralize things for a finite amount of time, maybe a minute or two. That way, riders who can stay in the race has an opportunity to get back on and back in and are not screwed by some external factor. Pretty subjective, and they would probably have to see the accident as it occurred, or have a race official watching on tv communicate with them quickly, but really does suck that this sort of thing sends a guy home or out of contention. Thomas, Yates- this was such a critical time for these guys and they're effectively out of the GC. And there was a time when guys would pull up and neutralize themselves. I don't blame the various DS for being pissed at Movistar.

As for Cannondale, or Tejay or really anyone else in the race, they're doing what they can with what they have. Not sure why that's up for ridicule Formolo was top 10, 90 seconds behind Nibali, and ahead of Kruijswijk, a GC favorite. Mission accomplished. Tejay finished with Jungels. He was never going to factor in this kind of climb anyway. Lots of guys got popped and we're only a third of the way through the race.

OK, I'm not ridiculing, just disappointed. Tejay finished 16 seconds behind Jungels. If he'd finished around 2 minutes back, I could put a positive spin on it. 3:46 and 17th is bad. It looked like Hermans had to slow up to pace Tejay to the line. It was a bad day, full stop.

Same with Formolo. He's not a TT guy, so not sure what the end-game is. Finishing top-10 GC? I'd prefer Cannondale go for a stage win or two (which Formolo was the last to do) rather than finish 4-5 places off the GC podium. That way they'd be doing a lot more for their sponsors and the confidence of their riders. In my opinion.

I didn't see your post. I was looking at another. Cannondale is still going for stages. That's always been the plan, and it was a shot for Formolo yesterday. But everyone has a plan until they're punched in the face, right? The Rolland in the break thing turned out to be a huge waste of energy. Movistar simply dominated the stage and the Cannondale DS, who doesn't have a team full of fans maybe should have known that they wouldn't let Rolland get too far up the road. Tejay- I give the guy credit for still trying to hang as a GC guy. He's got a lot of pride. He takes a lot of crap, but he brings a lot of it on himself too. Hermans will get to ride now.
Overall with Cannondale, I think they're riding aggressively and taking their shots, with nothing to lose going up against Sky and Movistar. I can't fault them for that. They rode the same in the one days.

So ITT is up tomorrow, any predictions? Dumoulin takes pink?

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Dumoulin will be in pink after tomorrow.

Pinot will be very close though. And Quintana won't lose that much time, although he could be in 4th (behind Mollema).

Should make for a good last week for the Giro.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Dumoulin will be in pink after tomorrow.


The main GC contenders are now out on the ITT course (nearly 40km - with an uphill finish), and at this point Dumoulin, based on time, is in virtual Pink! But Quintana, may be fastest over the closing few kilometers which is uphill.

Who will take this?

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Great call on Dumoulin. Takes the Stage win and the pink jersey.

Fill badly for Thomas - if not for the crash with the moto the other day, he would be right in the mix. Clearly he has the legs as he finished a strong second today in the ITT.

Dumolin now up by 2:23 in GC, but the other top 8 - 9 behind him still reasonably bunched. There are still some savage, mountain states to go in this Giro and anything can happen!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

How would a rival team use this number to their advantage?

This is the GC standing, end of the 10th stage: http://www.giroditalia.it/eng/rankings/
Dumoulin is 2:23 to the good of Quintana, with 11 stages remaining.
4 of the stages will be climbers [including the Stelvio], still one more ITT on the finale.
I'll predict Quintana will pass Dumoulin in the mountain stages for pink, and the winner will be decided in Milan.

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so when does NQ get the jersey back and how big of a lead does he need?

tomorrow (5/17) - a 2, two 3s, and a 2
Saturday (5/20) - a finishing cat 1
Tuesday (5/23) - fer sher. gotta have it after this

not tomorrow; he's going to be too knackered by today's effort. Perhaps Saturday, more likely Tuesday.

How big a lead? Say 1 min 45, perhaps a bit less. Dumoulin would be tired by the final stage as well, doubtfull he'll be as effective. I'm not sure about the bonus second situation, but Quintana may be able to pad his lead with those (so the actual gap at the end of the stages doesn't need to be as large). It favors Dumoulin that there aren't as many MTF this year

The "going out out a limb" part was tongue in cheek, but I was pretty sure about Dumoulin being in pink after today.

However, I didn't think Dumoulin would be that much faster than everyone else. Quintana (and Pinot) were worse than I thought they'd be.

Given today's performances, Quintana will need at least a two minute lead over Dumoulin going into the final stage. That could happen. The loss of Kelderman won't help, but Dumoulin will probably just follow Quintana's wheel for as long as he can when they get to a mountain stage. Should be lots of fun to watch!

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

rather, i think Dumoulin will let Quintana ride away and just ride at a sustainable pace

Quintana will have to attack on the penultimate or an earlier climb to make a real difference

What's going on today? Who all are in this breakaway group 2 min up on the pink jersey Dutch Windmill guy?

Am I seeing Pinot attacking solo off the pack, ~ 2 min up on Dumoulin?

No, he's only a handfull of seconds ahead of the Maglia Rosa group. Chase group is a large group of riders that have been away for a long time. Leaders are Rolland and Fraile.

Great racing ahead of a 220 k day coming up. Nice ride by Rolland, great ride by Fraile. Good on him. I thought Rui was going to come around them all.

Lotta good racing yesterday in Cali.....

looking for someone with more bike racing knowledge than me:
did the Bora squad try to drive Gaviria into the boards by blocking his leadout man into him?

https://t.co/mAhBILBJql


with a few hundred to go, the Bora and QS riders were bumping harnd. then they stopped. but once Gaviria started his flyer up the right side, it appeared that the Bora rider spotted him and tried to drive the QS rider right to cut off the lane. good on him, the QS rider knew Gaviria was coming and held the right side open.

so says my untrained eye.

Thomas from the Sky Team has abandoned. He said his knee that was banged up on the Blockhaus stage has gotten worse every day. Considering that, his ITT was amazing. I wonder if his ITT position puts less stress on the injured part of the knee than his road position, or he just "dealt with it" in the ITT as there was more pain from elsewhere in the body, but at lower intensity on long stages it is really apparent.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/...ns-the-giro-ditalia/

Dev

Looks like Selig of Bora actually blocked Ewan. Richeze of QS took a bump from Ewan to keep space for Gaviria on the right - amazing work from Richeze.

One could also say that Selig was making space to allow others to come on the left but to my eye he pulled off too much to the right. Others might see it differently.

Richeze was complaining about Selig constantly bumping in every sprint - seems a bit overly agressive.

I also thought the 700m to go attack from Postlberger was a great tactic - didn't expect to pull it off but he did force QS to close him down and that disrupted their train.

Gaviria has amazing cat-like sprinting qualities. He appears to be much bigger than Cav or McEwen who have similar characteristics.

I believe it was a slight downhill so that would have helped Gaviria a bit compared to Bennett or Ewan. He's a few lbs heavier than Bennett and quite a lot heavier than Ewan.

or his time-trial position puts more stress on the knee. he could get through it once for the itt, but that extra stress on top of the (previous day?) crash maybe put the knee too far gone to recover this week?

dev, heard you and konaexpress are riding in Gatineau park tomorrow. have a fun time, and watch out for the racing cars. they seem to be worse this year.

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run well, run happy
george

It was a really cool sprint to watch. Richeze absolutely knew what he was doing, and his attempt to make space for Gaviria on the barrier was super smart and legal.

Gaviria is a little bigger than Bennett and Ewan, but at 70-71kg, he is pretty average in size for a sprinter. In addition to his ridiculous kick and maneuverability, his team has also mentioned several times how aerobically strong he is compared to other sprinters. He's probably marginally fresher at the end which makes it a little easier for him to unleash. His combination of skills is going to allow him to win a ton of races.

McNulty wrote:

Lotta good racing yesterday in Cali.....

Damn, Talanksy is hurting people. Great TT today.

He needs to group up the young Cannondale guys and teach them the ABCs.

OK, it seems that Fleck needs to change the title of this thread to, "Cervelo releases new disc brake aero road bike with built in optional motor" at Giro. It seems like no one on ST is really interested in some of the best racing going on:

Here is today's stage profile. It is the first day that the climbers can try to do some damage on climber Dumoulin. Movistar has to shut down any breakaways so that no one can steal the stage time bonuses. Quintana needs to take every second of time bonus he can. Same with Nibali and Pinot. Those three teams should be motivated to keep things together until the climb up to Oropa. There should be a replay of the drag race to the foot of Blockhaus:

i am intrigued by this stage. it could be a slug fest if it was at the end of the tour. sadly i suspect it will go down like Etna or the post TT stage; lots of staring, a few feints, but in the end, all drama, they all have Tuesday on their mind.

and good points about the doping. the race organizers don't get enough of the beating for the doping. some of these courses, wtf. of course no 'normal' person could do that. it would be carnage. and so, the UCI and the ASO look like the WWE. SMH.

(edit: i just realized that was in the other thread)

If you look at the Tour de Ski (XC ski World Tour race), basically a 12 year old kid could easily finish all stages every day with some effort. The stages are short enough so that it's full on racing, but a human does not need WWE style enhancement to just complete the thing and not be shattered. If you do any of these Grand Tour Queen Stage type of days, definitely a rest day before and after is needed for "real humans". I understand that pro athletes can race hard and recover faster than the rest of us tourists, but even they have their limits. When people used to say that athletes in the 80's raced less hard in cycling and the giro was a 4 hour cigar smoke followed by 1 hour of racing there was some truth to that. With access to less high octane dope, the peloton knew for self preservation things had to be paced out to just survive through the three weeks. Now with higher octane dope, and better prep, while not as insane as the Tour in terms of racing from the gun every day, it's not a cigar smoke/espresso stop tour for 80% of each day. Basically back then, there were equivalently stupid stages, but the peloton self preserved. It would be like an unwritten NFL rule where for 6 quarters, they would play touch football and the refs would roll with that, because the organizers decided to have 8 quarter games instead and it would turn into tackle football only in quarters 7 and 8.

Quintana attacks, TD brings it back, and then attacks Quintana just as a "bring it bro" kind of moment.

What a finish! I got home from work in time to watch the last 10k...probably the best finish I've watched so far this year. I definitely did not expect Quintana to get dropped.

they should have more cobbles on climbing stages

i recall Dumoulin taking seconds on people in the 2015 Vuelta during similar circumstances, albeit on flat ground

Yup, so much for a dull stage. Fantastic finish. Can't wait til Tuesday. I just hope TD doesn't grenade

Quintana is under pressure and mentally on the back foot, He tried to do too much today and paid the price.

i don't think he's on the back foot; not until after 2 of the mountainous stages are over. Sunweb looked awfully weak in the final. If Quintana decides to attack on the penultimate climb or even earlier, Dumoulin might lose time. Sunweb will need to send people into the break to make sure that someone actually accompanies Dumoulin in the later kms of a stage

Dumoulin surprised me at the cobbles today, but the final week is going to be the real test.
Lots of cat 1/2 climbs in one stage several days in a row.
If he's still leading his rivals going into final final TT, then the pink is his; if he's trailing Quintana by 2 minutes or more, Quintana will probably win.
If Dumoulin is behind by less than 2 minutes........

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res, non verba

Geschke and Ten Dam are riders capable of getting in a break and helping TD. Hope they are in shape and have just been keeping their powder dry to this point. I don't recognize the names of any of the other remaining Sunweb riders (w/ Kelderman out). Are any of the others capable of providing support?

Stage today looked meh till 4-5 km to go and ended up super.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

OK, so I missed watching today's stage and went for a ride but did not expect Quintana to be outgunned by Dumoulin for the stage. I guess we now know who is the boss of this peloton! Hopefully everything we see is what we see and there is no magic going on at Sunweb. I'm a fan of Dumoulin but it's feeling a bit too good to be true at the moment. Fingers crossed that the Dutch Grand Tour curse can be broken by this guy though. He's really riding like the boss of the peloton!

I just watched today's highlight video and how Dumoulin just took control over the race:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvJiP0fbPxM

This feels like the Indurain transformation to me.

Well I hope so, being Dutch myself, after the bitter crashes of Kruijswijk and Mollema in the last two years. Dumoulin said himself in an interview that he was very glad but surprised he won the stage. He said the stage was favourable for him because it was all flat with only the climb at the end. Let's see how he'll do Tuesday. And indeed, we still have Kruijswijk and Mollema🇳🇱

I thought Dumoulin would be able to stay with (or at least very close to) Quintana on today's stage, but seeing Dumoulin leave Quintana behind (on any hill) was surprising.

The climbs next week will be a bigger challenge for Dumoulin, but he sure looks good after today's stage.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

Today's stage has a 2000 ft "bump" before the finish in Bergamo:



They are on that section now, with Maglia Rosa group together. Small breakaway group 49 second up. No major players in that from what i can see

http://www.streaming-hub.com/lequipe-21-live/

Quintana crashes, but no major damage on the first descent. It looks like Dumoulin sat up and slowed down the Maglia Rosa group to let everyone re group...at least it looks like that.

Yep, very nice of Dumoulin to do it.

didn't realize that the stage finish is the same as the 2014 Giro di Lombardia, with that infamous gate of death with 1km left

edit: thank goodness i'm wrong about this. they choose a slightly different finish

Odd finish. Quintana "sprints" into 2nd place for the stage.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

Yeah, he won me over with that move. As you guys know, I was critical of Movistar keeping the rev's up when the race was on at the bottom of Blockhaus and Thomas and Yates were down. Most people responded with "when the race is on no mercy". Glad to see Dumoulin react differently. He may have had the chance to put Quintana right out of contention today, but let him back in and then Quintana even got to claw back some bonus second due to his 2nd overall on the stage!

interesting thing is that movistar were the ones on the front pushing the pace on the descent when quintana crashed
"Gorka Izagirre led Quintana on the descent, but came into a curve a bit hot and Quintana had to brake hard to avoid overlapping wheels in the turn. He still slid out into the dirt and tumbled into the crash barrier. He was not hurt and quickly got going again. Unfortunately, his Movistar team car stopped just after the corner and several riders went close to hitting it - including two Movistar riders."

i think it wouldn't have been unreasonable to take advantage of that situation, clearly just not dumoulin's style - he wants to win with his legs.

Nothing odd about time bonuses, those 6 seconds will come in handy on the last stage TT

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res, non verba

I think he was more referring to Quintana sprinting.....

As for the bonus seconds - on a day when Tommy D had the grace to pull the peloton up when a GC competitor was down (exactly a week after the crash that took out Thomas, Linda, Keldermann) Quintana & Movistar lost me. Then again, they lost me with the pink shorts and the "what red flag?" last time.

Maybe.

Dumoulin effectively has 4.5 minutes to work with in high mountains. Baring a complete implosion or bad luck, last week he showed he only has to stay within himself this week to bring it home. The terrain favors Quintana and doubtful Dumoulin can climb with him, but he doesn't need to with that kind of cushion.

Queen Stage tomorrow. Many say it is best, and maybe last, chance for contenders to break Dumoulin.

Will Dumoulin give up pink or significant time?

Will someone from the break win? And if so, who?

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

Tomorrow is the "coppi cima ", but by no means the last chance to test Dumoulin.
Quintana will try to take back a minute or two Tuesday, a few minutes thursday, friday, and saturday also.
Duloulin will still be in the pink, but not sure for how much longer

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res, non verba

break should stick tomorrow.....I'm going with a Cannondale guy.....:)

In reference to the sprint on Stage 13; here's Bennett's point of view.

Says that Richeze deliberately blocked and bumped leadout guy to block out Bennett at about 250m. Has been getting aggressive with Selig and Muhlberger the last few stages.

"With his sprint done, Gregor Muhlberger pulled over to the left 50m later to let Rudi launch me from his wheel but as soon as he did Richeze came up alongside him and drove a shoulder into him to try and block my path to the line."

Worth a read

http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/cycling/sam-bennett-richeze-told-rudi-hed-make-him-crash-the-next-time-if-necessary-35735661.html

yea, that's interesting. I watched that part five or six times. I can't speak to the bumping before Bennett got loose, other than to say there was a lot, but these two comments sound like sour grapes.

to the first, the street had painted lines, you could see it was Ewan banging on Richeze to close out Gaviria on the right. Richeze held a straight line. to his credit. the banging by Ewan was late and looked pissy. I guess it could have been retaliatory.

and as far as "closing the door", man, that horse was gone

Edit: and great find on that interview. such drama in these big races. races within races.

To be fair, the piece is probably ghost-written by a journalist from an interview with Bennett. They're always going to try to phrase it to get some controversy.

I think nearly everyone thinks that Richeze was in the right to take a bump from Bennett. The shenanigans described a couple of hundred meters earlier wasn't captured on camera so we only have the interview.

For good measure, here's a description of the sprint from stage 5. Breathless stuff.

""MOVE UP! WAIT! GO!"
From 1.5km to 1.3km to go felt really long today because I wasn't comfortable at all. On the roundabout, with 1.2km to go, I lost Rudi's wheel when my handlebars got hooked on the guy on my inside as we leaned into the sweeping U-turn at 55kph. As my bars were higher than his, they caught underneath and I had to shoulder him to get them off.
In order to keep my speed up, I tried to pedal around the curve but could feel my shoe brushing off the tarmac, and with my arse on the tip of my saddle and all my weight on the front of the bike, my back wheel started to skip.
Trying to keep my wheel on the ground, accelerate and overtake the guy in front of me, I used up a bit of energy to get back up to ninth in line behind Rudi and Lukas.
Elbow
Suddenly, we had just 600m to go, and with the other lead-out men pulling off the front, Quickstep came up the outside with their sprinter and former pink jersey Fernando Gaviria in tow.
One of them went straight to the front, while Max Richeze jumped in on Rudi's wheel in third place. I used another bit of energy trying to go around him, with the Brazilian sticking an elbow in my arse just to let me know he was there and make it that bit harder for me. To be honest, though, I didn't even notice it until I watched the replay. It's all part of the game and didn't bother me. With Rudi now opening up his lead-out on the front, a headwind in the finishing straight meant I knew I had to time my sprint perfectly to have any chance of winning the stage."

i'd say stage 18 (Thursday) and, to a lesser extent, stage 20 would also matter. Key is to get Dumoulin isolated on the penultimate climb and have Dumoulin chase Quintana up the penultimate climb, through the valley, and on the final climb. Doubtful that he'd be distanced by a lot with attacks just on the last climb

Bump from Ewan - I should have said

Quintana himself doesn't seem suited to being off the front for very long, though. He seems to do best at quick strikes rather than just riding people into submission. I think the risk to Dumoulin is collusion among the top 4-5 guys. If Pinot or someone goes on the penultimate climb and everyone forces Sunweb to chase, Dumoulin could be alone very quickly. I think the risk to Dumoulin is just completely cracking on the final climb from having to close gaps himself over a period of an hour or more.

I think the X factor for Quintana is how the rest of the podium contenders perform in relation to each other. Quintana needs to make a strong move...but he can't do it by himself. There are a ton of situations that would call for contenders to potentially work with Quintana to gain time on TD (if it means possibly jumping spots with another podium contender), and there are just as many situations where contenders would just sit on Quintana and let him burn himself out to pounce on him.

If the gaps between 3rd-5th were closer to TD and/or TD wasn't a superior TTer, I think the others would be more likely to work with Quintana to drop TD...but they need to put around 5 plus minutes into TD before the TT. I think Pinot and Nibali understand that their current goals are the podium and are not the same as Quintana...who should be going all in for Pink.

we do have that one stage in the 2014 Giro where Quintana attacked the neutral descent and did the lion share of work to drive the break through the valley and onto the final climb. interestingly, also the mountain stage after the last rest day (and on the Stelvio stage, no less), when one could really catch people out.

edit: before Contador's audacious raid in the Fuentes De stage of 2012 Vuelta, no one thought of him as someone who'd go long; so always time for people to try new things

There was also the stage in the 2015 TdF where Quintana attacked Froome at the bottom of Alpe d'Huez and basically went solo the last 10 km (with some help from Anacona who dropped back from the break). Froome had Porte and Poels to guide him up much of the way to limit his losses.

And I think we probably agree on who we would LIKE it to be.... Just hope they give it a go!!

Break doesn't stay away.

Movistar is going on the rampage to try and break Dumoulin. The other contenders try to stay in Movi's wake.

Quintana wins the stage, puts 90 seconds into Dumoulin. Not enough.

Anyone have a link to where to watch today?

Well, looks like they're trying. Joe D. has had a rough spring and he's either been just surviving so far or riding into form.

http://rai2.web.tv

Hurry. It is Italian but that is better than hearing the eurosport idiot.

So far nothing from Quintana. I have a feeing that TD is going to increase his buffer today attacking on the final climb.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

I expected some action on the Stelvio. But after watching the stage, nothing was ever going to happen there. I was fooled by the graphic display of the stage. As it turns out, the valley before the final climb is long, long, long, and by some reports windy. Not good scenario for long range attack.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

holy shit..........

Code Brown for Dumoulin?

literally, oh s#1+

hopefully it's not a stomach bug

Zacharin attacks. Shocking. What a doping dick.

" the adrenaline effects everyone differently"
(Sopranos)

Openers

Worst timed dump of all time?

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--Chris

lotta movement in the overall standings.......

maybe they'll end up going slower here with all the acceleration and slowing down

what a travesty; the other teams can all go to hell.

I just read he needed to take a dump.. still have 30s on NQ though. Did they attack him while he was in the bushes???

Zakarin did.

what a loon, I hope he cracks and falls off the top 10.

he's no Denny Menchov.......

At this point, Dumoulin still has a 31sec. lead over Quintana and 1:12 on Nibbles with 4 mountainous stages and one TT to go.
I'm in the majority, the contenders (especially Zaharin) should have shown more sportsmanship to the the pink jersy; it also over-shadows a brave effort by Landa and a braver result from the shark.
I think this day will motivate TD tho, he will ride the next 4 stages with a chip on his shoulder & do the TT like a man possessed.
The Giro never fails to entertain!

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Well they did. They neutralized for a while. But they hit the bottom of the climb, and Zakarin had Kruijswijk attacking the breakaway up the road, threatening his GC position. How long do you wait for a guy taking a dump?

I don't know all the Euro peloton rules, but if it's me in a bike race, and I decide to take a dump on the most critical climb, I'm telling the guys, "It's on me - you guys go." Dumoulin had all day and several scripted nature stops to take care of business. Instead he forced the issue at the most critical part of the race. I'm all for respecting the pink jersey, but the jersey doesn't make him a special snowflake who gets to call a neutralized nature break whenever he wants.

its a fair point. the NFL is derided for its litigious nature but arguing about when we race and when we don't is just as zany.
this is the queen stage, this is the critical piece, its a little silly to ask for a time out.

to be fair to TD, I bet he was in agony.

Was at the shop today and well known respected rider from our area comes in....."you take a dump on that stage w 20k to go and want the race to take a timeout...that's up for grabs at that point".


I only get text cyclingnews updates but they did "chill" for a while yes? The group atleast tried to see what was up before going on? Or atleast the fireworks didn't go off because he stopped, right?

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I think the crux of it was that Dumoulin wasn't making any headway getting back to the group even when the pace was off, so the question became how long do they wait around for him. It took him a while to get going to even match the pace of the domestiques once they started riding.

You might be missing some of the nuances of this thread.
Dumoulin had a stomach bug and experienced an diarrhea attack.
Do you really think the leader of the Giro, with millions watching live, is going suddenly decide to "force the issue" with a bowel movement? Sheesh

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I'd have little appetite for nuance once well into the Stelvio. One of very few places that Tom might be vulnerable. I'd put that firmly into the "race is on" category.

Is diarrhea "misfortune" like getting a mechanical or getting crashed out by Izagirre on descent? I don't know. That sounds like it might be expanding the boundaries of etiquette.

OK moving over to tomorrow's stage its on the road in between Cortina D'Ampezzo and Bolzano. My personal story was that I was riding in this area from Cortina to Bolazno around Canazei, when myself and my buddy who were bike touring on a cold rainy day, got kicked off the side of the road by the Carabinieri for the Giro to come through. Basically we sat shivering on the side of the road while Moser, Lemond, Hinault, Guiseppe Saronni and Roberto Visentini went blow to blow in the 1985 Giro. Some of you may recall this was a the first Grand Tour for an American team (7-11) who took 2 stages with Ron Kiefel and then Hampsten took stage 20: https://en.wikipedia.org/...1985_Giro_d%27Italia

Looking at a lot of these situations where the race sits up and waits, there's usually a teammate that lobbies for the race leader in distress. Tough call, fog of war, heat of battle, etc. But Zacharin appeared to go right when he was told what was transpiring. Bullshit move from a bullshit guy. Just heard his DS called his attack off. Good on him.

So when there's stuff that can fall under the heading of "that's racing" there's some grey area. But when race leaders get taken out by a random cop moto, that seems like a good time for the commissar to call a one or two minute time out. Really a bad way to blow a guy's chances in a GT that he targets 12 months out. Dumolin had a serious situation, part of racing, fatigue, diet etc. Still, a quick TO for the whole race in deference to the jersey seems righteous. All others let fly at their own risk.

Robbie McEwen once took a dump while he was riding versus risking getting dropped. Good story. That story is the only reason to read his book.

btw, this is Cannondale's day. Woods.

Ooh, nice bridge by Woods just now. And Van Garderen. Good chance for a North American win here.

good call

CANNONDALE! Woods and Rolland played that really well.

Except he makes that call every day. :)

they now have as many world tour wins as Rally cycling in the last two years.......

The only reason why Roland won today was because of my bike fit. It had nothing to do with his team or his coach or the fact that he covered a half a dozen attacks in the last 15k or held 400w for the last 8k...it was the fit.

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Ian Murray
http://www.TriathlonTrainingSeries.com
I like the pursuit of mastery
Twitter - @TriCoachIan

Stand down! They shut down those four UAE tools, so give them this day. They deserve it.

it is a good win. I am happy for Rolland. I feel like he's been banging on that wall for a while now.

Ha. Looked like PR was trying to set up Woods. Worked out pretty well. So stinkin happy for those guys.

I was sayin that all day. Wow, PR looks GOOD on that bike....damn.....

McNulty 1:16 : Thou not knowest dick and yet thou runneth at the mouth.

way cool; only gripe is that his noggin was sticking so far up during his flat ground efforts. Moot point in the end, but i was hoping he'd do the IAB to save a few watts and go faster

ok, its time for wild speculation. the next two days finish with climbs, with tomorrow being the hardest hitter.
- can NQ get lose?
- can Nibs or anyone else?
- does it matter? (can anyone get the overage required to mitigate the TT loss)

i could see Nairo going for it at Friday's finish and maybe getting to even but that would be for naught.
i really think he needs to take a flyer earlier on Thursday. checker or wrecker.



General Classification after Stage 17
NED 1 DUMOULIN, Tom (SUNWEB) 76:05:38
COL 2 QUINTANA, Nairo (MOVISTAR) + 31
ITA 3 NIBALI, Vincenzo (BAHRAIN - MERIDA) + 1:12
FRA 4 PINOT, Thibaut (FDJ) + 2:38
RUS 5 ZAKARIN, Ilnur (KATUSHA ALPECIN) + 2:40

http://www.steephill.tv/...talia/profile-18.jpg

This is the type of stage where Dumoulin has struggled with in the past, multiple steep climbs with an uphill finish.
Quintana with Movistar and Nibbles with BM will put TD to the test.
I hope Dumoulin is over his stomach problems, he'll do well in the early climbs, but can he ride with the contenders in the run to Val Gardena?
I predict the gap will shrink but the jersey stays with Sunweb.

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res, non verba

This is what I think of when I see TJ racing... Still waiting but good to see him in the break today.

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2020 Team Zoot MTN

This was my feeling on the Stelvio stage. I felt that NQ and Nibbles needed to attack early on the steepest parts near the bottom of Stelvio, and gap TD and then TTT it for the next 75 km and try to gain back 4 minutes. But on the descent to Prato from Stelvio I said the stage was a snoozer and the Giro was over and the climbing midgets were racing for first loser....until the oh shit moment and TD gifts back a full 2 minutes. But the small guys still need almost 2 full minutes on TD to have a chance during Monza to Milano on Sunday. So that means they need to gain back 2.5 minutes more between now and Saturday. They can't do that just attacking the final climb, so I totally agree with you, there has to be an early ambush of Sunweb and then a few teams dashing for the stage from 60K out. Basically they need to create a breakaway and make sure that TD cannot bridge up. It almost feels like you need half of four teams sitting up (like around 12-16 riders) getting in the way of Sunweb+TD while 10 of there guys fly up the road in a perfectly sync'd TTT.

Or TD has to do a big bonk and lose 2.5 to 3 minutes. I think the likelihood of the latter is zero.

So which stage will they try to get away?

Quintana and Nibali have to go on the attack.

Quintana used to be that sort of rider when the road tilted up, but more recently in grand tours(TDF in particular) with the win on the line, he seems to race more conservatively, just following wheels. It's all a bit maddening.

Now Nibali, tends to race with a bit more passion, throwing caution to the wind and just going for it - we saw a bit of that yesterday.

It's down to the wire here, and with Doumilan being such a strong ITT force, it's to the other guys in the top-10 GC to make up as much time as they can, if not crack him completely before they get to the last stage!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

For the Giro so far, I don't think that's fair. There was absolutely nothing conservative about Quintana repeatedly attacking on the Blockhaus until there was no one left and all the other GC contenders were in damage control mode. And in Stage 15, field-sprinting for 2nd.

Quintana used to be that sort of rider when the road tilted up, but more recently in grand tours(TDF in particular) with the win on the line, he seems to race more conservatively, just following wheels. It's all a bit maddening.

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Maybe I'm way off but doesn't that seem to be how GT racing goes? X new climber goes off and climbs to the gods then we pronounce him the next GC favorite for next 5 years and then we beat our heads waiting for those same fireworks every big mt stage and then we are left with "well shit that was a dud" feeling more times than not. But Q is like, bro I'm just doing all I can to maitain this podium, "go big or go home" is for the Freds' of the world.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Tomorrow's stage to Val Gardena has a pretty tough saw tooth profile on a "short day", but it looks like it packs in 3300m of vertical in around 137K



Midway through the stage the summit of Passo Valparolo caps out at 14% just before the descent. After that there are two more solid climbs and a short 200m hump before the finish. That 14% grade has to be the one for the smaller riders to make a run for the rest of the stage, but its really an obvious place to attack and TD should be ready. Also before the stage finish there is a final 12% grade to create separation for stage finish bonus seconds

My 2 cents is that unless some kind of ambush materializes, the entire GC group basically finishes the last climb in a parade and then the small climbers all attack each other for bonus placement seconds if there is no breakaway with guys in it 10-15 minutes down. If a breakaway stays away, then there will be a a group parade almost to the finish line and then very small separation. Stage seems too short for anyone to bonk, but they just had back to back 6 hour days, so you never know who went too deep.

I think Dumoulin has a good shot of staying in the Maglia Rosa tomorrow. Sure, the final KOM (which ends with 5km) is back loaded, but after the 5km to go mark, the road flattens out, and we even get some cobbled sections. Dumoulin might get dropped before the KOM but will probably crawl back to limit his loses. Should be an interesting day

It will also be interesting to see who potentially runs out of gas after back to back ~6 hour days into the third week. There is always going to be one athlete who just caves. I don't want that athlete to be Dumoulin, Quintana or Nibali. I want these guys to race and decide it on legs and cardio only....but you never know. Quintana is on his third grand tour in only 10 months, but that guy never really blows up either

I think TD does a lot of stem starin' today, staying within himself as best he can, no panic unless, of course, he needs to let fly again. I'd like to see him win it all, but today is key. He could flat out blow up. He rode so smart on Blokhaus. When NQ went on the steep section, he kept it together and rolled him up later and NQ was then just hanging on. NQ's real advantage is on the steep grades. Other than that, guys can hang with him.

Joe D and Cannondale for the win. :)

Or Yates.

Rosskopf would be good, too

Jest aside, this is brutal, and Dumoulib is quickly isolated. His team needs to hang tough for another 3 climbs, and i dont see it happening...

Ha, yes....psyched to see Joe in the break!.......Jesper Stuyven is now in....strong group

Who is in the breakaway. I see the Maglia Rosa group down 2:22. Is Nibali in the break? There was some banter in french about Nibali, but I missed what group he is in.

OK, I see Anacona, Amador, Rolland, Teejay and Landa in the break. .Looks like 2 other Cannondale in there. Are Woods and Formolo with Rolland?

I can see Nibali attacking on the 3rd climb (Gardena) and using his descending skills. It's a super long decent with a short climb in the middle before the last climb to the finish. I can't imagine he won't put the pressure on there. I wish I could see this live!

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Viella and Dombro


will be an exciting stage indeed; time to chill your prosecco

Dombrowski and Rolland for Cannondale. Tejay and Rosskopf for BMC. No Rally guys in the break.
Good for Joe for busting this group up.

espresso then prosecco. what a day.


some hard punching today. good stage. I hope NQ and Nibs are waiting for a last climb throw-down.

Quintana starts punching early

Dumoulin able to benefit a bit from work of Nibble's work

Play by play has been great from cyclingnews. Seems they are going for it today!

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Nibbles and Quintana caught. First fire extinguished

this is good.......scenery is okay too...Villella, right...would have been a big ask of Rolland...Formolo has another clear shot today

Great riding, entertaining stage...I have to think if they can pop off another attack or 2 that may be the end? Of course attacking and re-attacking may not be so easy. solid day of riding by all.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Great racing going on.

TD seems to have great instinct on these climbs, waiting out the attack and catching them by the top.

I hope he crushes dream on the final climb.

Formolo has been towed along by the Malia Rosa group. should be fresh

Joe D is gonna have a go on the climb if they're getting caught.

those are nice roads and beautiful mountains. this is a pretty Giro.

Except I don't see him....did he get dropped?

Cannondale dropped the ball on the descent. Should have at least one guy with TVG and Landa.

I hope he crushes dream on the final climb.


We are about to find out.

10K to go and onto the final climb straight up to the finish! GC favourits all in a group, eye-balling one another!

TJ for the stage win . . does it matter?

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Every Grand Tour stage win matters.

What were you saying about Quintana "just following wheels?" :)

What were you saying about Quintana "just following wheels?" :)

He must have had a peak at the Slowtwitch forum over night! :)

Here we go!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

hopefully TJ won't repeat his attack on the Alpe d'Huez in 2013

and now he's going backwards

Quintana might get dropped toward the end of the stage

My feed from L'Equipe froze just when the Columbian climbing midget droid attacked. What's going on?

Quintana is the most frustrating rider from a spectator perspective. Seems like he rides not to lose rather than trying to win.

This is great. Total slugfest. Good for TVG and Landa.

Meanwhile TD is showing them all that he's not to be messed with.

My feed is on and TD throws it down and take midget droid with him!

I have no idea what you're talking about. He threw the initial haymaker.

These guys just gave away 20 seconds to Pinot

Go TVG!

They're racing for first.

Nice win.....but Nibbles and NQ giving away time to Pinot is not wise, given that when Pinot is on during a TT he's going to hurt them.

Great win for TJ today! I think he saw my post...

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2020 Team Zoot MTN

Good on TGV, glad to see him fight after such a rough road.

WHAT A DAY.

Damn happy for Tejay, the MT boy. Great ride from Joe, VA boy.

Especially your first ever one (not counting TTT).

I'm no Tejay fanboy, but in my opinion this was huge for him. Finally did something.

Edit: just saw his interview. First thing out of his mouth was talk of not being in GC. He still has no sense of reality.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

Eurosport commentators jokes that Dumoulin was "trolling" Quintana and Nibali when Dumoulin attacked at the steepest pitch on the final climb

Also Landa is really good at leading guys out for stage wins! Not sure what he was thinking there.

Eurosport commentators jokes that Dumoulin was "trolling" Quintana and Nibali when Dumoulin attacked at the steepest pitch on the final climb


Why was Dumoulin doing most of the work over the final few Kms while NQ and Nibali just sat on? In fact, Dumoulin even did a WFT and seemed to be saying - "how about some help and a pull boys"?

A great last 10km. Pinot most likely the biggest beneficiary.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

In his interview TD said he hopes NQ and Nibs lose their podium spots. He said Pinot is better in TT and it could happen. LOL. Patron.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

Can we now officially state that the race for first loser is officially confirmed and we can paint a Pink Jersey on TD's bike, paint his bike and helmet pink and convert the Dutch national flag to pink for the rest of the week? Now we're watching stage hunting and how the 2-5th GC spots shuffle around between now and the end of the ITT.

While I understand TD's frustration and was barking at the TV for them to pull through, it may have been they just didn't have anything left. Nibali and Quintana's attacks, and subsequent having to chase down TD's accelerations, may have drained them.

No - they think (correctly) that they can still break him on stage 19 and 20.

LOL. More likely that TD gets two more stage wins before this is over.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

Anyone else think TD is doors to the hills? How can he stink with the mountain goats?

though it raises eyebrows, what he has done wasnt too surprising.

Nibbles is about 10lbs lighter and is hardly mountain goat, and Quintana may not have yet hit peak form. Dumoulin's weight is not too different from Froomes's, though that there is another can of worms. So who knows

He said he's not in GC. That's a perfect sense of reality.

I don't understand this constant crap about TVG and how half the Internet seems to revel in parsing his every word and expression for evidence of some kind of horrible character flaw.

He won the ToC and Pro Challenge then followed it up quickly with two 5th places at the TdF at a young age, at one point nearly dropping his GC guy in the TdF in the same way that Froome nearly dropped Wiggins. 4th in Olympic TT. That's a REALLY good reason to think you're candidate to be a really good GC guy. I'd have thought the same thing about myself.

Yes, that promise hasn't panned out. He's really struggled. I don't know why, and I don't think he nor BMC does either. But the dude trains and races really hard. He's a good guy, and a good racer. And possibly completely clean. Deserves none of the armchair vitriol.

with the stares at the others, the trolling, the size/build, overcoming the dysentery and getting back on, the no jour sans,...yeah, it has me wondering...looks a bit like some other guy with shoulders from back in the day....anyone know if he has a TUE or two in his jersey?

x2
I cheer this and wish him success.

Nibbles, Quintana - would like to win.
They didn't go for it today. (They just tested things a bit).

My guess is that they think their chances might be better later on.

TJ, finally!

TD looked good today, barring the unforseen [this the Giro afterall], he will win on sunday.
Quintana was on the radio a lot, attcked half-heartedly on the run towards Val Gardena but he was suffering big time, as was Nibbles.

Will friday & sat be the replay of today?

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res, non verba

Stage 19
Who would win a 15k hill climb time trial?
My guess:
Quintana- 32 seconds ahead
Nibbles - 15 seconds
Dumoulin- 0

That means that ignoring team dynamics, stage 20 and stage 21.
Quintana and Dumoulin are essentially even odds at this point.

The more I think about it the more convinced I am....

The smartest move today for Quintana was to watch, maybe test, but NOT to go for it.

Stage 20 won't be optimal for Quintana either. The flat 15 K at the end will allow everyone to catch back up if Quintana or nibbles try to get away.

Stage 19 is thus Quintana's best shot at the win. And I think 30 seconds is definitely achievable.

He has been a pretty vocal opponent of TUE use by Sky, so I would be surprised if he had any of the more nepharious ones.

Do you think Quintana has any chance of making up 2.5 minutes BEFORE Sunday? Without a bonk, a mechanical at the wrong time, or an unfortunate crash, I don't see how it is humanly possible to make up that much time on Dumoulin. They basically have the same loaded down watts per kilo (when you add in bike, helmet, shoes, electronics, clothing and bottle). On top of that Quintana basically gave away a full minute to Pinot today. Basically within a minute of Quintana you have Pinot and Nibali, both of who could make up a minute on the final ITT and push Quintana off the podium, forget about the win. I get it that he is going for the win, in which case rolling with Pinot's attack would have been beneficial anyway than sitting on Dumoulin's wheel.

Dumoulin can make it, riding GC today means riding scientifically and they all learned how to. TvG raced nice today ..

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