Looks like everyone in the GC who is a major player other than Froome, Aru and Uran have gone down and hit the deck and are wounded going into the last half.
As is the case with most yellow jersey guys, it's a matter of making your own "luck" and staying upright more than the other guys on many stages. I am sure past winners on turbo dope were able to use the enhancements of themselves and teams to stay out of trouble vs a few percent less FTP over 3 weeks. Sky does it with marginal gains and a big budget (actually unless you are Lemond riding for ADR, pretty well no TdF winners in 40 years have come from Division 3 equivalent teams....everyone is from a superteam). Sky have the budget, which means the top helpers and the marginal gains and we have everyone else (including them) maximizing inside the blood passport thresholds.
So here we go....Pyranees + Alps + final ITT to see who is "best of the rest" (am I giving the TdF win too early to Froome ???)
Thursday's stage while not the Queen stage of the Tour, at least she's the princess stage of the Pyranees:
- Km 64.0 - CĂ´te de Capvern7.7 kilometre-long climb at 3.1% - category 4
- Km 111.5 - Col des Ares (797 m)7.4 kilometre-long climb at 4.6% - category 2
- Km 139.5 - Col de Menté (1 349 m)6.9 kilometre-long climb at 8.1% - category 1
- Km 184.0 - Port de Balès (1 755 m)11.7 kilometre-long climb at 7.7% - category H
- Km 209.5 - Col de Peyresourde (1 569 m)9.7 kilometre-long climb at 7.8% - category 1
- Km 214.5 - PEYRAGUDES (1 580 m)2.4 kilometre-long climb at 8.4% - category 2
Last edited by:
devashish_paul: Jul 13, 17 10:55