He's no GC contender and I doubt he's ever trying for that. The GC guys are climbers who can hopefully tt, and who have teams to keep them in the front group otherwise, with Nibali being a bit more versatile than most with his 1 day race ability. Sagan will never climb with the real big mountain goats. Hes not built for that. He's versatile enough to get and keep yellow for a while, a la Hushovd a few years back but as long as there are the Pyranees and such in the race, he gives it up. They create too big a gap to catch back on.

I'm still thinking (hoping) Tejay has a move left in this race, bc of his team and the timing if his form, but it looks like it needs to be tomorrow and Nibs has to sleep in and miss the start.

Exactly.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

Nice breakaway today, my money's on Tommy V.

If he does it doesn't look like it's going to be today. Just got dropped from yellow jersey group

Race is blowing to pieces....Teejay is gonna lose big time, Bardet just got dropped...complete carnage.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

I've been checking the live text updates from cyclingnews, apparently Mr. Rogers is prepped for a fast decent, he's wearing a skin suit etc. I'm thinking he's going for a repeat of his Giro win.

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Don't forget to unclip!

Awesome stage so far!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

danger. so much danger. yeepers. racing these descents is nutty.

Good call!

And Rogers takes it, it must have been the skin suit...

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Don't forget to unclip!

Eff the GC. That was great racing. How did Blood and Guts Voeckler managed to screw that pooch for Europcar?
Bummer for Tejay.

Great stage. The fight for third is going to be great. Also calling König making up one more spot by getting ahead of TVG tomorrow. Rogers is having a pretty epic year with 3 GT stage wins.

2nd and 5th for Europcar -- that's gotta hurt. I've always liked Rogers because he's the consummate team guy, but now taking full advantage of his rare opportunities to go for it. "I am more hungry and opportunities more clear to me and I’m not scared of the outcome any more. Previously I was already scared to try something because I was scared of failure."

"It was amazing. Once I got to the bottom of the last climb the race began for me. I knew Voeckler would be hard to beat. I tried to drop him and I knew I would have to," Rogers said. He was seen wagging his finger at Voeckler on the final descent, and giving some harsh words to the Europcar rider. "I said, 'don’t play with me because you’re not going to beat me. I’ve been in this position too many times, not to win.'"



Did anyone see this on the telecast?

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
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I don't know if Sagan will ever try to become a GC guy, but unlike Cancellara, Sagan has actually won a big mountain stage in the Tour de Suisse.

The potential is there, but he would have to lose a lot of weight. I actually think his climbing has gotten worse over the last few years as he has tried to turn himself into a sprinter.

I certainly wouldn't want him to try before he figures out how to win 250K monuments though.

Unlike Sagan, Cancellera has actually won the entire Tour de Suisse, not just a stage.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

Yeah, I forgot about that. I still think Sagan has shown more climbing chops than FC ever has. I believe that TdS was tailor made Cancellera with no real difficult mtn stages.

Anyone know what Tejay's real name is?

I mean we're not talking something like BJ Hunnicutt here, are we? [Mom Bea + Father Jay]

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

... And NO ONE had better say "Trucker Jaat"

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

 
i wonder what valverde will do. contador, in his shoes, would risk it all to win, and probably try to isolate nibali even as early as the peyresourde. but maybe valverde will be content to defend second.

I think Valverde knows he is racing for second at this point. They had Nibali isolated today, Movistar was drilling it and Nibali never budged. They know the race is over, barring catastrophe.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

Valverde will attack again, for sure but there's not a damn thing he can do, really. Contador on the other hand, can punch these steeper climbs like no one else except Purito when he's in form. I wouldn't say Valverde is content. We've all been on the road with a guy who we just can't drop. Staying with him is a strategy in itself, hoping for some reason he cracks. Today, Movistar blistered that climb and didn't touch him but shattered a whole bunch of people. Just the way it is.

Second stage over the last few that Valverde has looked soft near the peaks of the climbs. Pinot looks the most able to drill the climbs apart from Nibali, and he'll have to put time into Peraud if he wants to hold the podium after the TT, so it'll be interesting to see if another Pinot drive (he looked great drilling towards the top) can put pressure on Valverde as well.

Nibali dropping a few bike lengths due Pinot's pressure before the peak (and not being able to drop Peraud until the very end a few stages ago) also has me wondering if he'll run out of energy a la Froome at the end of last year's Tour. He has a more closeable gap than the 7 minutes Froome had on Quintana/Rodriguez, and isn't the monster TTer that Froome was last year (Valverde might well get the better of him, Peraud is markedly better). Obviously it's a long shot (2-4 being 4.5-6 minutes behind), but we could still see an overall battle, and not just the exciting podium battle we're getting.

A couple of other observations:

1. Really surprising to see Kwiatkowski coming in so casually considering he broke back into the GC top 10 and can TT significantly better than most of the riders within shouting distance, both above and below him in the standings.
2. While I like Carlton Kirby as an announcer significantly more than most people do, was super annoying to hear him treat Peraud like a domestique for the nth straight stage, wondering he didn't stay back to help Bardet... he's wearing the team principal number, was only ~ a minute behind Bardet entering the stage, had stuck with Nibali much better on the last MTF, and is going to put at least 2-3 minutes into Bardet on the TT.
3. Awesome to see Ten Dam finish strongly; same with Konig in getting back to the front group.
4. The squad Movistar brought dwarfs everybody else's full-strength squad to an astonishing degree (only Saxo w/Kreuziger might have been better).
5. While the British Eurosport guys sang Kiryienka's praises about steady tempo riding, it was surprising they didn't mention his 3rd/4th place finishes in the TT worlds the last couple of years.