well GvA has more yellow jerseys than TJ does ;)

Dimension Data. EF seems to be a place where people get stale, and the cultural shock on Katusha may be a bit extreme

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well GvA has more yellow jerseys than TJ does ;)


Mic Drop! :)

Excited for the best grand tour. So many looking for redemption from the TDF from being injured.


Anyone who was in the Velogames Slowtwitch league last year, your automatically registered when you create your team.
To avoid any legal issues its now called Spain 2018 on Velogames.


League Code: 521835710 (League Code is good for all races on Velogames)

EF is a happy place for US guys. Katusha has cleaned up their act it seems though Zakarin is still their guy and that sucks. As a teammate, one would have to ride too close to him. I think Joe would be a good Mich Scott guy, but I don't see him leaving EF. He had a good Giro, tried to steal Colorado in a long attack and has been healthy.

As for Tejay, 2 5th place finishes at TdF. Not nothing. He rode Utah knowing he might hang given the tour in his legs and there are people (promoters) who like that he's in races. And finishing places in GT races especially outside of the top ten usually mean zip, though GvA was pretty studly for a grand tour.

David de la Cruz is sky's co-leader alongside kwiatkowski and arguably the stronger gc contender - he has a recent 7th overall GT compared to kwiatko's best 11th 5 years ago. will be interesting to see how these guys go given a chance for themselves.


if porte has another troubled GT then i'm calling it all over for him, hard to see getting over mental blocks if nothing else.


Yates is the favourite to my mind - best build up and the vuelta style should suit him. quintana could win by default though if everyone else has issues

not knocking the guy but i watched the tou in person and live tv and joe d never seemed to be a threat to
win a stage (even the snowbird climb) or animate a stage being comfortable with a top 5

I watched the live stream and reading your take means that the only rider that did anything was Kuss?? Not trying to argue-just understand where you are coming from since nobody other than Kuss looked comfortable and most just tried to sit on wheels....

other than lotto it seemed like it was the continental teams pushing and not ef, bmc, trek

Pah! Anyone can do that. Any big climbs for Bennett to have fun and wheelie up it like he did on Zoncolan?

There's unlikley to be much Montana in there, being Spain and all.
Quintana might podium, Tejay won't. It's time to accept that.

I'd really love to see Dan Martin win but seems he'll be going for stages and Aru is their man for the GC. It would be good to see Aru performing better than he has of late, but I'm not confident. If he's not in the mix, Martin might become the GC man.
I'm looking forward to seeing what Nibali, Porte, Lopez and Simon Yates can do. Can Simon add a week to what he did in Italy?

I accept nothing- except that maybe my jokes maybe aren't as funny as I think they are and/or I don't know when I'm being trolled.

Tejay Quintana is a hybrid of the most maligned very good world tour pros out there. He wins the Tyler Farrar award every year.

Montana is Spanish for mountain.

Joe D will not win a stage of this year's Vuelta. Book it.

Oops, I thought I deleted that bit - so two errors on my part. Misread it, typed it, realised what you were saying and meant to remove it again. Duh

This is something that gets neglected a lot by pro cycling fans. While Sagan, Froome, and anyone finishing in the top five of a French, post-TdF criterium get the big paydays, appearance fees are a not insignificant part of the cost of putting on a world class bike race and can be a similarly substantial portion of the yearly income for any rider with solid name recognition. Probably number three on the list behind brand sponsorship and team salary, though the order and amount of all three varies quite a bit rider to rider, year to year. Sometimes it's more in-kind, as in a race will bias the invitation for or chip in more for a particular team if that team will bring certain riders. It is a business, after all.

From a fan's perspective, if they make it through the race, I can't see Porte and Nibali not making the podium. There are a bucket of strong maybes/top ten possibilities including Pinot, either Yates, Quintana, Uran, Meintjes, Bennett, Kruijswijk, Mollema, Aru, Martin, Buchmann, Majka, Formolo... Sky comes in with an strong, interesting group with Kwiatkowski, Geoghegan Hart, Castroviejo, and Henao all capable of a top ten, maybe a podium, if they peak right. I may eat my words, but I don't see any of them winning. Woods is the freshest of the EF team, so might actually be their highest performer. Valverde by all rights should squeak into the top ten, but not a likely contender in my book. BMC will have an interesting dynamic, too: with Porte moving on to Trek, are the domestiques given more free rein? All of them are potential stage winners.

Kuss rocked it to get into the race and will be interesting to watch from a Young Rider perspective, but he will have a huge target on his back. If he keeps racing like he has been, I would love to see a decade-long head-to-head between him and Skujins!

And the biggest gamble in the race: does Bouhanni win a stage?

Keep it coming, most of us get it.

I just wish the Vuelta Montana would get going already before Fitness Star Ashley Horner completely overruns ST. Been a long August.

Going out on a limb: Porte avoids throwing himself on tarmac for 3 weeks, gains time in 32k TT and wins first GT.

Porte is skipping the media day and team presentation due to stomach issues. It will be interesting to see if that continues into the first couple days of the race and how that may impact his overall chances. I'd love to see him string together a complete tour to see what he's capable of.

i thought your jokes were quite good

I think I know what you're doing there. Also a Sky domestique will definitely emerge as a huge Grand Tour-dominating talent.

Not sure if Kwiato contending would be any sort of revelation. He's already a stage race leader on any other team.

Yeah, the only revelation would be that he can go 3 weeks without a really bad day or 3. That's always a question mark for any rider.

My comment was just acknowledgement that it'd be just like Sky to go 3 deep into GC contenders and still find a GT winner. Eye-rolling as a Sky-hater (though I like Kwiato).

I’m a fan, he’a a badass. Just wish he’d find another team.

Individually, I like the Sky guys. Collectively, not so much because they have a lot more money than the other teams and then squash them like grapes in GT's.

So I pull for the Americans and teams like EF and Mich Scott and the local Euro teams that get spots in the big races. And I'm really looking forward to seeing Sep Kuss ride. He made Utah look like a Wednesday nighter.

Kwiatkowski

perhaps I am too prone to fan-boying but MK is the most badass mercenary in the peloton. he can win the WC, MSR, Amstel [I think], etc, etc AND be a watt factory in a GC.

I'd love to see a team celebrate him, like BMC did for GVA

I would love to see Kwiato win. Or Rigo.

Yeah, based on the stomach issues and the quotes on the cyclingnews article, Porte doesn't look like a contender. Dude didn't ride for a while, had a baby, and is riding for another team next year. I'm thinking BMC put pressure on him for the start here, but we'll see.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/...t-i-was-in-the-tour/

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