Le Tour 2012

[tigerland12]

This is a very strong break away group. Sprint between Sagan and Goss should be interesting, but it is seeing how riders such as Voeckler, Sanchez, Voigt, Cesar and Gerrans last, some definate potential stage winners there.

And Matty Goss gets the maximum sprint points. I know the Australian focus is clearly on Evans, and rightfully so, but Goss is really pushing for the Sprint jersey, which is no easy feat.

 

[Cutter]

Will be interesting to see what Goss and Gerrans do now. I don't think either of them are strong enough climbers to win the stage so their Green Edge work is done. But will they help Evans?

 

[tigerland12]

Voeckler is a complete nutcase! He can't sit still. Great to watch, I hope he lasts, was brilliant to watch last year.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

I have a real soft spot for Voeckler. I thought he rode very bravely last year and looks to be getting back into his groove this time around too.

 

[tigerland12]

Could not be more happy to see Voeckler win and Voigt come third. Two of the best riders to watch, brilliant stuff!

For Evans, nothing lost, nothing gained, luckily for him Nibali's move was not finished off. Bloody Porte, I'm sick of Team Sky, imagine how dominant Cadel would be if his team was not shit.

 

[Bruwheresmycar]

how good was that? every man cracked and they still had a sprint finish to do. Good on Voeckler, what a stage.

 

[Cutter]

Great finish. More stages like that are going to exhaust the GC guys as much as anyone. Tomorrow it will be different escapees. Love it.

 

[G&GR News Bot]

Thomas Voeckler claims a heroic stage victory over breakaway partner Michele Scarponi and the ageless “Grimace” Jens Voigt. There are no changes in the overall standings.
Phil Ligget said it all.

“This is the slowest sprint I’ve ever seen!”​

The comment was a testament to the intensity of the day’s stage and the ferocity of the home stretch.
It wasn’t a sprint really but a collection of five uphill, 1000m individual time trials – in slow motion. Dries Devenyns attacked his breakaway companions Thomas Voeckler, Jens Voigt, Luis Leon Sanchez and Michele Scarponi 3kms from the finish.
Voeckler, the work horse in the breakaway, rightly refused to chase and the Belgian Devenyns jumped out to a handy lead. It was Sanchez who took up the slack before Voigt, who had just bridged a 2 minute gap on the descent, attacked.
The 40 year old Grimace was going to catch Devenyns. Then Voeckler launched his umpteenth surge of the day, dropped the Grimace and swept past Devenyns who was running on empty. With just 800 gruesome uphill metres to go, Sanchez, Voigt and Scarponi were each in a private hell in pursuit of Voeckler, who spent more time checking his tail than focusing on the finish line.
He could hardly celebrate when he finally finished. A blown kiss was enough. Voeckler takes the polka-dot jersey, an incredible feat considering he was close to abandoning with a knee injury a couple of days ago.
There’s no change in the overall classification despite a frantic downhill attack by Italian Vincenzo Nibali in the last 30km. Cadel Evans made an unsuccessful bid for a couple of seconds on the finish line. He’ll need a better effort in the real mountains if he wants to peg back Bradley Wiggins.
As Evans said on his website:

A mountainous day but not too much excitement on the GC front; I hope these climbs that are so far from the finish don’t lead to a controlled and predictable Tour… I might have missed an opportunity with Nibali today on the descent of Grand Colombier, but with the open and exposed Col du Richmont – it was more favourable to the controlling team than one or two out in front alone.
Tomorrow’s tougher shorter stage will hopefully offer more opportunities – more interesting for everyone involved.​

Evans’ BMC teammate Teejay van Garderen retains the white jersey, 25 seconds ahead of Rein Taaramae. Peter Sagan stays in green ahead of Matt Goss and Radioshack stay top of the team classification.
The post VIDEO Review: More Voeckler Heroics on Stage 10 appeared first on Green and Gold Cycling.

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[G&GR News Bot]

Cadel reckons today could be better for the attacking teams and not so good for team Sky.
What do you think?
A tough one

< blockquote>”One of the shortest stages in the 99thedition. But riders beware, it is a tough one! The course is simple: after the first thirteen kilometres from Albertville, the peloton will be hard pressed to find a single inch of flat terrain! The cyclists will tackle La Madeleine, La Croix de Fer and Le Mollard one after the other before the final climb up La Toussuire. Let me tell you, the final podium will start to take shape on the finish line here! Those who falter in this stage will get no second chances. The winner will not be known yet, but the losers certainly will.”

Jean-Francois Pescheux​

The post PREVIEW: Stage 11 Albertville / La Toussuire – Les Sybelles appeared first on Green and Gold Cycling.

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[Ash]

Awesome, a cycling forum! I should look at the other forums more often. I've followed cycling for years now.

Have to say stage 10 was very disappointing.

Big screw up letting EBH soft pedal halfway up the Colombier, meaning the Porte and Rogers had little work to do. If Hincapie and Gilbert are happily in the peloton on a HC climb, then you know it's not beeing pushed hard enough.

Nibali, Evans and VDB can't afford to let Sky ride a soft tempo up the HC climbs, as tempo climbers like Porte, Rogers and Wiggins will eat it up all day. Waiting for Wiggins to be tired in week 3 where you have maybe 2 whole decisive days only is a rubbish strategy if you let him soft pedal with his team through week 2.

Evans in particular got stage 10 completely wrong when Nibali got away. Nibali and Samu Sanchez are easily the two best descenders amongst the climbers and Wiggins one of the worst with Basso, and Evans not going with Nibali was a major fail. Nibali basically sat up and waited to be rode down when nearly 1 minute up as he didn't want to ride against Sky once Sagan dropped off. Meanwhile, Evans had two teammates up the road in Cummings and Burghardt but was too conservative to go with Nibali.

Have to think that Evans is going to merely ride for second here as he's too scared to lose his podium for a shot at winning. That's my major issue with Evans in GTs (and indeed most stage races) - he's just too conservative and too afraid to put in that big effort. He's been more attacking since the WC win, but it's still not enough. He needs to take maybe 4 mins on Wiggins before the final TT, and waiting until the final 1km of mountain stages after Sky have ridden the perfect tempo for Wiggins the rest of the stage is just a useless strategy.

Watching the Sky train ride tempo through all the mountain stages and Evans sit on is going to be so disappointing, hate to say it.

This tour desperately needs a Contador - someone who is confident enough to attack early and shake things up.

edit: fixed some typos. Sick as a dog at work today.

 

[Ash]

As for stage 11, Nibbles and Cadel and VDB and anyone else who wants to work against Sky need to put Porte and Rogers under pressure on the Croix de Fer, if not earlier. If they wait until La Toussuire they will fail as it is a huge tempo climb, with nice long areas of 6% where the Sky train can happily run down any attempted escapees.

The best tactic would be to make sure at least EBH and Rogers are well gone before the end of the Croix de Fer, and Porte has been made to do a lot of work. The descent of the Croix de Fer isn't technical enough for Nibbles or Evans to get away, but the descent from Col du Mollard is, so they need to go there, best 1km or 2km from the top as waiting for the descent is harder. Hopefully by then Porte will be buggered leaving it anyone who gets up the road vs Wiggins and Froome, a winnable battle.

In reality, I am willing to wager that no-one puts Sky under pressure apart from the odd attack from VDB2, Nibbles attacks on the descent but gets reeled in and Evans sits in until 1km to go and tries another pointless attack that gets nowhere. So damn frustrating to watch.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Ash, I agree that he needs to get after it more. That Sky team is very good and have guarded Wiggins well so far. Cadel seems to function best when he's up against it and being challenged directly, like last year. He doesn't take the initiative as much as some other blokes, but he'll need to here. I agree that letting Wiggins glide through the mountains won't win it. I'd like to see him attack on a mountain stage get Wiggins and co. to chase him. Then we'll see what the Sky boys are made of.

 

[Ash]

Most frustrating thing for me this year has been how long Wiggins has held his peak for. If he's still good in week 3 of the tour after being put under pressure throughout the tour, then be very suspicious. No athlete can be at 95%, as claimed by Sky, for that much of any season. Even a fully doped to the gills Armstrong couldn't manage it, and just targetted the Tour each year.

 

[Ash]

Ash, I agree that he needs to get after it more. That Sky team is very good and have guarded Wiggins well so far. Cadel seems to function best when he's up against it and being challenged directly, like last year. He doesn't take the initiative as much as some other blokes, but he'll need to here. I agree that letting Wiggins glide through the mountains won't win it. I'd like to see him attack on a mountain stage get Wiggins and co. to chase him. Then we'll see what the Sky boys are made of.

Yup.

Problem is Cadel doesn't have the team to put Sky under pressure, especially with TJVG apparently riding for himself for the white jersey, so either Leakygas with Basso and Szmyd and Lotto with Vanendert need to stop Sky initially putting down an easy tempo before an attack.

So only thing Cadel can do is attack from a longer way out and put Sky under pressure. As I said I just don't think that Cadel has the mentality to do that until his back is against the wall. And I don't think that is the way Cadel sees it yet. So instead Cadel will try lame 1km attacks from the finish that would at best get 10 - 20 seconds when he needs 4 minutes. To make it worse Cadel doesn't seem to be in the same shape as last year.

I hope Evans proves me wrong as I've followed him for years, but at best this year he seems racing for second.

 

[antimony]

Just watched the highlights and liqigas played out the tactics I was thinking off, with Kibali catching Sagan on the final climb and he still got caught. Maybe it was best for Cadel to sit and watch this time but I wish he was ready to go with Kibali at the top of the HC climb. Still someone else but a bit effort into the legs of team Sky. Get to watch all of tonight's stage from the airport waiting for my plane, booked it ages ago but couldn't of timed it better. Cadel has to attack but I think he is going to wait to see some weakness from team Sky I'm just not sure if it'll ever come.

 

[GlobeTrotter]

Agree completely with Ash, the tactics of BMC and Evans are coming across as highly passive and conservative. So frustrating when Sky are looking so organised.

 

[tigerland12]

Cadel has found his cahonies, break with van Garderen, with two other BMC riders in the break away.

......and he is struggling to keep up with van Garderen. Looks like the peleton has caught him.

 

[GlobeTrotter]

Agree completely with Ash, the tactics of BMC and Evans are coming across as highly passive and conservative. So frustrating when Sky are looking so organised.

I take it back somewhat... Unfortunate that he couldn't drop a couple more Sky riders off during the attack.

 

[antimony]

Stupid bar at the stupid airport! Closed, not happy jan! Is that it for Evans? Is it back to the pketon with his tail between his legs or his just testing out team sky?

 

[tigerland12]

Chris Anker Sorenson has got to be the toughest rider I've seen this year, he has been dropped at least 4 times and still manages to catch up. I would love to see him win, but I think Pierre Rolland has this one.

In the peleton the lack of innovation from anyone is getting tedious. Someone has to attack, I'm looking at you Nibali.