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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res, non verba

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