Agreed, I think instead of beating on Bennett we should be giving him kudos for trying to do something "outside the box"

Also wanted to note, another strong ride by Craddock, he is knocking on the door of a big result.

Flat stage, wind blowing- you know they're going.

Pogastar looks fresh, relatively speaking. Not an easy day for anyone but he followed wheels well and it may be that he has a little more than most tomorrow. Majka also had some solid help. I don't see how Valverde can hang and Roglic was worked too. Again, Quintana may not be the most likeable guy but that was a hell of a ride today.

Agreed on Quintana, Movistar played it well today. They're a lot more dangerous with Quintana and Valverde right there.

Only 48-hours from good one-day. Lot of potential screen time this weekend.

Sam has several quality wins from jumping early and holding off the pack. He'll often do this when he knows he'll be the watched guy at 200m, so he'll jump at 700 or 500. He's rarely caught.

Only one rider was able to match him today. I presume Sam didn't realize the finish was as steep as it was, he's still developing the tactical sensibility that Gilbert has in spades.

Crawfish is too good. Sadly he will have to transfer to a better team and I am a big supporter or EF. I just don't see them retaining him. He would have better results at a big bloke setup.

Agreed. Gilbert's reaction to Bennett kicking off his sprint was ridiculous; if he was a hair slower, he would have been out of Bennett's slipstream. Bennett will get there in terms of tactical awareness.

A few years back I heard Hincapie talk about Phil Gil. Said they used to love to train together at BMC and Phil Gil was the only person who had 1 minute power that could blow him off a wheel. Phil clearly has tuned the engine toward long distances these days, but that explosive power is still very very good.

Just watching the replay. What a great day.

Phil Gil class all around as always. What a great influence/mentor for James Knox as he begins his ascent. Fun watching the team celebrate together at the end. Would so love to hang in their bus.

Meanwhile, today's winner:

"He's taking the lead in the Movistar Cup"

Will give credit though. They lingering.

Those criticising Movistar today are not correct. Movistar put on a masterclass today.

Astana didn't do too badly either, some might say why chase but they were looking out for Lopez. In fact, I think for their own interests they should have started chasing earlier.

The situation as it was had Quintana up the road with a big lead with 4 team mates, and he has 4 Ineos, 5 Sunweb, and 7 DQS riders working with him.
Behind, in the peloton, Jumbo was chasing all day with some help from UAE.
When Soler and the other guys in the peloton attacked, it would 'seem' that they were chasing down Quintana, but that is not true. If you notice, they attacked on the slight climb.

The intention here was to ISOLATE Roglic by dropping his team mates, who were by then, tired and blown. If Roglic gets isolated, then he is forced to chase himself versus the 20 guys in front, which then opens up more opportunities. This worked- Roglic was alone for the last 40-50 odd kms. IT was only because Astana went to the front that Roglic got lucky.

With Roglic isolated, then Movistar can do a few things:
- All Quintana needs to do is just. keep. riding. Before yesterday, Valverde was the better placed rider, so what they're essentially doing is getting their Plan B into a better position.
- Force Roglic to chase alone, wasting his energy. Meanwhile Valverde sits in the peloton.
- Later on, when he's tired, say in the last 10-15ks try to send Valverde up the road with 1 or 2 movistar guys from the break dropping back to close the gap on roglic in GC.

This obviously did not materialise, because Astana took up the chasing so roglic could mark Valverde.

The best case for Movistar would have been that both Quintana and Valverde gain time on Roglic. The Worst case would be that only Quintana gains time, but either way, Roglic and his team have spent a huge amount of energy with 2 mountain stages to come. Movistar now has 2 riders within 3 minutes of roglic and a relatively fresh valverde

^^^ absolutely spot on.

Let's see who has left anything for climbing today after yesterday's smashfest.

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Need more W/CdA.

I can't wait. I have a weird feeling a few major GC guys are going to blast apart.

Do you non-Euros or non-Scottish have crawfish or crawl fish? Basically little fresh water lobster / scorpion looking things. Weird question for the tread I know, but it made me wonder.

People here eat them like a delicacy.

Crayfish or Crawfish or Crawdads. Delicacy in the southern states, usually in a gumbo (a blue collar bouillabaisse).

It's also a term used in association with someone (usually our politicians) when they try to back out of a position or lie. As in, "He's trying to crawdad out of it." (When you approach a crayfish from the front they shoot backwards very quickly to escape danger.)

We have crawfish in the states, they are awesome! Usually done in a boil with spices, corn and potatoes and dumped on a table covered in newspaper and devoured. Add some cold beer and you have one hell of a party.

Regarding Movistar, yes I have thought about all of the scenarios that you described, and I still stand by my criticism, if they hadn't attacked (or as I say, chased down Quintana) that is a very high probability that he would have picked up the red jersey, so instead yeah they have 2 guys on the podium but both are still pretty far from Roglic, so they aren't such big threats anyhow, and while they isolated Roglic it didn't really matter because just like Quintana had the luxury of having the full power and might of DQS pulling him, so did Roglic with the full show of force by Astana, so I still stand by my opinion that Movistar are and were always riding for Valverde and Quintana be damed and by doing so foolishly gave away their best shot at winning this Vuelta.

Lopez is flying. Roglic isolated vs.Valverde, Quintana and Soler with 50+k to go. Full on cage match.

Kuss is back and Powless has come back from chase; Lopez seems to not be making any more progress
20 km from top of last climb to finish - slight uphill at end

Some badass riding by those two.

Props to the EF guys overall for hanging tough.

Hope Higuita can finish this.

I like how he's doing the IAB

Hope he gets it

Nice. Tour saver for EF. And Roglic nipped Valverde. Statement?

Roglič just pips Valverde at the line. Deceptively fast sprinting

Lopez is 46 sec behind Quintana and Pogacar is another 32 behind - Sat is 14K+ of climbing
great win for EF and what a pickup in May by them

They are all Jumbo.


So strong all year.

According to the EF IG, his nickname is "HiguitaMonster"

https://www.instagram.com/p/B2UgRcQBnwo/

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