2019 Tour de France

[Havre]

Kruijswijk also didn't have a need to attack. As soon as Alaphilippe got dropped he had the podium spot under control. Was enough for him the stay with Buchmann who also hadn't his best day.

Overall a very entertaining Tour.

For the podium sure. But why wouldn’t he try for second? Or evening hoping Bernal would fall through?

I’m 100% he would have given a shot at 2nd at least if the energy had been there. With bonus seconds he wouldn’t have needed much. But as the ending showed he was cooked.

 

[KahunWOW]

I was so excited for today and then absolutely nothing happened. Very disappointing ending imo.

 

[mexicohockey]

For the podium sure. But why wouldn’t he try for second? Or evening hoping Bernal would fall through?

I’m 100% he would have given a shot at 2nd at least if the energy had been there. With bonus seconds he wouldn’t have needed much. But as the ending showed he was cooked.

I was into competitive cycling until age 20. From that experience I can tell you that especially on climbs you get a very accurate feeling how much more’s left in the tank. Kruijswijk obviously thought that successfully challenging Thomas was improbable, but a failed venture would put him at risk to loose on Buchmann. Staying put therefore was the obvious choice.

 

[mexicohockey]

I was so excited for today and then absolutely nothing happened. Very disappointing ending imo.

Main objective for Bernal, Thomas, Kruijswijk and Buchmann was to get rid of Alaphilippe first. Loosing a podium spot on the very last day is tough, so for sure something happened.
Bernal was the strongest again so Thomas wasn’t allowed to attack and Kruijswijk apparently believed that protecting his 3rd place was the best course of action. BORA tried everything with Mühlberger picking up the pace late in the race, but to no avail. Buchmann’s final attack fizzled out quickly.
Also smart read on Nibali’s part, I’m sure he had an eye on this stage for quite some time.

 

[MAHJ71]

France likely to remember this one as the one that got away..

Bernal the youngest winner in 110 years. Also the first Columbian. Crazy.

 

[mexicohockey]

France likely to remember this one as the one that got away..

Bernal the youngest winner in 110 years. Also the first Columbian. Crazy.

Bernal looks like a potential perennial winner.
I do hope that Pinot can come back even stronger next year.
Also curious how Ineos will sort out their future. A team featuring Bernal, Thomas and Froome seems too complicated to handle

 

[Havre]

I was into competitive cycling until age 20. From that experience I can tell you that especially on climbs you get a very accurate feeling how much more’s left in the tank. Kruijswijk obviously thought that successfully challenging Thomas was improbable, but a failed venture would put him at risk to loose on Buchmann. Staying put therefore was the obvious choice.

Right. Which was my point so..

 

[Vasilevskiy]

What an incredibly disappointing stage this is. Nobody doing anything.

Worst TdF edition since I watch cycling.
Yesterday finally looked like a very, very decent stage and then nature denies it.

 

[Vasilevskiy]

Buchmann sure showed some balls attacking with 500 meters to go.
He had nobody to challenge his 4th position and that's all you try? The lack of ambition shown by some cyclists is really worrying. Thank you WT points.

Can't wait for Van der Poel to obliterate all these guys once he finishes his olympic adventure next year.

 

[Vasilevskiy]

Bernal looks like a potential perennial winner.
I do hope that Pinot can come back even stronger next year.
Also curious how Ineos will sort out their future. A team featuring Bernal, Thomas and Froome seems too complicated to handle

They signed the reigning Giro champion as well, Carapaz.

 

[Fighter]

Bernal looks like a potential perennial winner.
I do hope that Pinot can come back even stronger next year.
Also curious how Ineos will sort out their future. A team featuring Bernal, Thomas and Froome seems too complicated to handle

With the amount of injuries he sustained in that horrible crash, Froome is pretty much done (comparable to Joseba Beloki's injuries) also because he's up with age too. Thomas ain't that special, he was lucky that Froome went all in in the Giro d'Italia last year, the future is with Bernal but for sure I hope to see Pinot back stronger than ever.

 

[letsgocaps]

Can't wait for Van der Poel to obliterate all these guys once he finishes his olympic adventure next year.

You mean Remco Evenepoel

 

[Vasilevskiy]

You mean Remco Evenepoel

He only needs to stop falling in every other race and he could be the guy we've all been waiting for

 

[mexicohockey]

Worst TdF edition since I watch cycling.
Yesterday finally looked like a very, very decent stage and then nature denies it.

I really disagree. The worst Tour in recent memory was 2016, from my point of view. Most of the Froome years were boring, let alone the Armstrong years. Alaphilippe delivered an epic battle and the race remained open until the end. Really glad that the focus on time trialists is disappearing.

 

[Vasilevskiy]

I really disagree. The worst Tour in recent memory was 2016, from my point of view. Most of the Froome years were boring, let alone the Armstrong years. Alaphilippe delivered an epic battle and the race remained open until the end. Really glad that the focus on time trialists is disappearing.

I couldn't disagree more in this point. TT have always been a key part in GT and have made the GT editions all that more entertaining because climbers need to recover much more time on what they are good at, climbs.
Now the problem is that time trials at the moment are a joke (really? 25 km?), we go back 25 years ago and time trials were almost 60 km long, now that's how time trials should look like. Another problem (this one bigger) is that everything is so calculated that riders are basically forgetting about how to ride, they just look at their potentiometer and go from there. They should be removed and so should be communications via earwig, directors suck nowadays and are making races all that much boring. Let riders take decisions and improvise, and if they don't know what to do, go to the car and talk with the director.

If the winner is great at time trials and good enough at climbs to survive the attacks of the great climbers then he deserves to win the GT, and if the winner is the best at both (like Froome), then nothing to do... which brings us to super teams. They are an issue but it's hard to solve, the only thing I could think of is having less riders per team (which was already done).
Anyways this time around Ineos didn't win because they had a great team, one can easily argue that Jumbo Visma was the strongest team.

Alaphilippe put a battle, but we did see that when teams wanted to make it tough on him, he just couldn't keep up.

Means nothing to me that there are 4 guys within 1 minute if none of them is even going to try an attack in a 59 km stage, can't believe someone is ok with what happened yesterday.

Can like (or believe) more or less Froome, but when he attacked he left no prisoners.


Anyways, it's not that I had high hopes for the Tour this year anyways, the only good think I can take out of it is that no british riders won this time.
Giro has been the best of the 3 GT for a long time and it doesn't look like it's going to change.

 

[mexicohockey]

The time trials were still great up until the nineties. Things changed heavily with the arrival of Lance Armstrong and US Postal. Race tactics changed. It was now making a difference in the Time Trials, grinding down climbers and controlling the field from there. Complete snoozefest most of the time. This was only possible because Armstrong had the economic power to concentrate on the TDF, allowing him to convert himself into a VOmax behemoth.
Sky pretty much copied this setup, and others followed.
The way to go should be therefore to limit stages where a strong team is a big advantage. That would mean more classic-like stages and to discontinue the team time trial. Instead I'd put a difficult ITT with mountain top finish into the first half (ala Mount Ventoux) and a longer flat one in the last week.

 

[Yorkshire Leaf]

I couldn't disagree more in this point. TT have always been a key part in GT and have made the GT editions all that more entertaining because climbers need to recover much more time on what they are good at, climbs.
Now the problem is that time trials at the moment are a joke (really? 25 km?), we go back 25 years ago and time trials were almost 60 km long, now that's how time trials should look like. Another problem (this one bigger) is that everything is so calculated that riders are basically forgetting about how to ride, they just look at their potentiometer and go from there. They should be removed and so should be communications via earwig, directors suck nowadays and are making races all that much boring. Let riders take decisions and improvise, and if they don't know what to do, go to the car and talk with the director.

If the winner is great at time trials and good enough at climbs to survive the attacks of the great climbers then he deserves to win the GT, and if the winner is the best at both (like Froome), then nothing to do... which brings us to super teams. They are an issue but it's hard to solve, the only thing I could think of is having less riders per team (which was already done).
Anyways this time around Ineos didn't win because they had a great team, one can easily argue that Jumbo Visma was the strongest team.

Alaphilippe put a battle, but we did see that when teams wanted to make it tough on him, he just couldn't keep up.

Means nothing to me that there are 4 guys within 1 minute if none of them is even going to try an attack in a 59 km stage, can't believe someone is ok with what happened yesterday.

Can like (or believe) more or less Froome, but when he attacked he left no prisoners.


Anyways, it's not that I had high hopes for the Tour this year anyways, the only good think I can take out of it is that no british riders won this time.
Giro has been the best of the 3 GT for a long time and it doesn't look like it's going to change.

This was a great TdF in my opinion and was way better than this year's Giro which was boring for the first week and then virtually sewn up for all of the final week. This TdF will only be appreciated over the next few years when Ineos have the race every year on lock down.

Re: Alaphilippe, deceuninck-quick step were not really set up for a tilt at the GC, they were looking for stage wins with Viviani and therefore Alaphilippe didn't have the team around him to realistically defend yellow in the Alps.

I do agree to some extent that Kruijswijk & Buchmann, finished 3rd and 4th, but did little more than be consistent and never really tried to win it.

 

[Vasilevskiy]

The time trials were still great up until the nineties. Things changed heavily with the arrival of Lance Armstrong and US Postal. Race tactics changed. It was now making a difference in the Time Trials, grinding down climbers and controlling the field from there. Complete snoozefest most of the time. This was only possible because Armstrong had the economic power to concentrate on the TDF, allowing him to convert himself into a VOmax behemoth.
Sky pretty much copied this setup, and others followed.
The way to go should be therefore to limit stages where a strong team is a big advantage. That would mean more classic-like stages and to discontinue the team time trial. Instead I'd put a difficult ITT with mountain top finish into the first half (ala Mount Ventoux) and a longer flat one in the last week.

We agree on that.
Armstrong ruined the TdF, it didn't help that he signed his more dangerous rivals like Heras to ride for his team. Sky is following this pattern too signing Bernal, Sivakov and now Carapaz. It's kind of ridicolous tbh.

 

[mexicohockey]

I do agree to some extent that Kruijswijk & Buchmann, finished 3rd and 4th, but did little more than be consistent and never really tried to win it.

A lot of what ifs for final days. It's really a pity that the ascent to Tignes had to be cancelled. I am a threesome of Thomas, Buchmann and Kruijswijk chasing Bernal would have made for a serious clash. Same goes for a full Val Thorens stage with everybody tired.

Kruijswijk is the only guy that was passive all the time. He certainly observed that Buchmann was stronger than him in the mountains, indeed his advantage stems from the Team Time Trial. So Kruijswijk knew that had more to lose with an uncertain attack. Buchmann tried twice in the Pyrenees and sent out Mühlberger on the final climb. His last jump was a desperate effort to get rid of Kruijswijk again.

Next year will be interesting. Ineos will field a strong squad, Pinot should be back, Buchmann might continue his development, Alaphilippe might get a worthy support group.

Oh, and I am very happy for Colombia as a country. Cycling is at at least on par with soccer as the most popular sport of the country. People are totally excited right now

 

[Vasilevskiy]

Don't think we will see Alaphilippe again going for it, this was his only chance, very much like Voeckler's year.
Next year seems a bit early for Remco, maybe on La Vuelta we will see the belgium phenom.

 

[Fighter]

Now the problem is that time trials at the moment are a joke (really? 25 km?), we go back 25 years ago and time trials were almost 60 km long, now that's how time trials should look like.

No, you're missing the fact cycling has changed: back then the stages were at the bare minimum 160kms and on average between 180 and 200kms. Nowadays we get stages of 110-130 kms, the stages are on average way shorter, Tour and Giro themselves used to be around 4000kms and now they are what? 3300?
Shorter TTs reflect this changes too. Besides the Indurain years with TTs of 60+ kms were among the most boring I can recall (if it wasn't for that amazing crazy cyclist that was Claudio Chiappucci).
I totally support the shorter and lone TTs in the big tours, I wanna see more and more mountains which is were the real show happens.

 

[Vasilevskiy]

No, you're missing the fact cycling has changed: back then the stages were at the bare minimum 160kms and on average between 180 and 200kms. Nowadays we get stages of 110-130 kms, the stages are on average way shorter, Tour and Giro themselves used to be around 4000kms and now they are what? 3300?
Shorter TTs reflect this changes too. Besides the Indurain years with TTs of 60+ kms were among the most boring I can recall (if it wasn't for that amazing crazy cyclist that was Claudio Chiappucci).
I totally support the shorter and lone TTs in the big tours, I wanna see more and more mountains which is were the real show happens.

You miss the fact that there are not Chiapuccis or Pantanis in the peloton, without them we get boring mountain stages because all guys are in a minute span and they only attack with a km or 2 left. Shorter stages also mean guys have more energy left (and less punishment in consecutive mountain stages). My philosophy is easy, if they don't attack, have them crack because of accumulated climbed meters.
Longer stages with more climbs.

The best stage I've seen was this:

Shorter stages can work if cyclists want it, we have seen good ones with Contador or Andy Schleck attacking from far on, but yesterday's was a joke. We have u23 with harder stages than the super pros.

Anyways, to each their own, I keep watching this GTs despite knowing it is a much worse show than the spring classics

 

[mexicohockey]

You miss the fact that there are not Chiapuccis or Pantanis in the peloton, without them we get boring mountain stages because all guys are in a minute span and they only attack with a km or 2 left. Shorter stages also mean guys have more energy left (and less punishment in consecutive mountain stages). My philosophy is easy, if they don't attack, have them crack because of accumulated climbed meters.
Longer stages with more climbs.

The best stage I've seen was this:

Shorter stages can work if cyclists want it, we have seen good ones with Contador or Andy Schleck attacking from far on, but yesterday's was a joke. We have u23 with harder stages than the super pros.

Anyways, to each their own, I keep watching this GTs despite knowing it is a much worse show than the spring classics

Longer stages and all out efforts led to prevalent doping usage. Recent tours reflect the change. GC riders stay put more often than not. Also better and more sofisticated training led to smaller differences within the top crop. Race tactics are based on rationalized decisions. Riders can gauge exactly what's left in the tank by monitoring their powermeters.
There's a reason why Chiapucci always fought like mad but usually fell short

 

[Vasilevskiy]

Longer stages and all out efforts led to prevalent doping usage. Recent tours reflect the change. GC riders stay put more often than not. Also better and more sofisticated training led to smaller differences within the top crop. Race tactics are based on rationalized decisions. Riders can gauge exactly what's left in the tank by monitoring their powermeters.
There's a reason why Chiapucci always fought like mad but usually fell short

Nothing has changed on that, and if you think it has you are very naive. Do I even have to go on Wiggins super evolution? Or Froome's evolution from bottleman in his team to a dominant force?

And as for the second part, it is exactly what we are seeing, cyclists acting like robots deciding their fate on 1-2 km attack, is that the cycling you want?

Sure as hell made for much more entertaining show seeing Chiapucci try despite falling short.

 

[mexicohockey]

Nothing has changed on that, and if you think it has you are very naive. Do I even have to go on Wiggins super evolution? Or Froome's evolution from bottleman in his team to a dominant force

I agree that Team Sky/Ineos' performance raises suspicion.
In general, the situation has improved. Average speed is now well below the expected linear evolution line, despite having shorter stages.