Tour de France discussion (spoiler alert)

drheaton wrote:

Raleigh wrote:

You wait till we get to the mountains and SKY start TTTing straight up them.

I wouldn't be surprised if they got two on the podium, like they did at Vuelta.

And that was before they started these crazy dominating tactics.

I'm not sure about them even getting two in the top 10. Froome has last 1:40 and Porte over 6:30, Rogers is still in touch with the leaders but I think they'll end up burning through the whole team once we get to the bumpy stuff.

I'm sure that on a few days BMC and Liquigas will just let Sky do all the heavy lifting then try and blow them up on the last climb and isolate Wiggins, it's what I'd do. If they've come into the tour prepared to work every day, make them work every day and save your own legs.

What rubbish (although I did tell you at the time!)

It's like drheaton aiming at a dartboard, on a wall, in his house, and landing in the wrong street.

veseunr wrote:

drheaton wrote:

Raleigh wrote:

You wait till we get to the mountains and SKY start TTTing straight up them.

I wouldn't be surprised if they got two on the podium, like they did at Vuelta.

And that was before they started these crazy dominating tactics.

I'm not sure about them even getting two in the top 10. Froome has last 1:40 and Porte over 6:30, Rogers is still in touch with the leaders but I think they'll end up burning through the whole team once we get to the bumpy stuff.

I'm sure that on a few days BMC and Liquigas will just let Sky do all the heavy lifting then try and blow them up on the last climb and isolate Wiggins, it's what I'd do. If they've come into the tour prepared to work every day, make them work every day and save your own legs.

What rubbish (although I did tell you at the time!)

It's like drheaton aiming at a dartboard, on a wall, in his house, and landing in the wrong street.

Fair enough, I'll admit that I always underestimate Sky but it's early days and to keep that up through the really big mountains will take some doing.

One of the most telling comments in the live commentary on ITV yesterday was on the make-up of the Sky and BMC teams. Evans has a team of strong guys around him capable of keeping him out of trouble on flat stages, Wiggins has a team around him built for the hills.

I was surprised by how isolated Evans was at the end but massively impressed with Wiggins and Froome. One thing I will say though is that Evans may be isolated from team mates but he'll have plenty of help in trying to break Wiggins from Nibali, Van den Broeck, Schleck etc who are all looking to pull back huge chunks of time.

londonplayer wrote:

I know this may be unpopular to say BUT do you think that Froome and Wiggins might be on more than just Weetabix?

Interesting how they can take so much time out of Fabian's time. A few seconds - perhaps. But minutes?

I think brad might have something to answer that one...$#%& +%$#: **&$###***

londonplayer wrote:

I know this may be unpopular to say BUT do you think that Froome and Wiggins might be on more than just Weetabix?

Interesting how they can take so much time out of Fabian's time. A few seconds - perhaps. But minutes?

I think brad might have something to answer that one...$#%& +%$#: **&$###***

cancellara is no longer at his absolute peak, plus he's had a tough first week, not just defending yellow but showing the leader's jersey great respect by powering up that final climb (even past his own GC man, Schleck) on the day he was always going to lose it. Wiggins seems to have been riding within himself in week 1, so to me no great surprise that he smashed this TT. Froome was more of a surprise, but then he'll have been doing very similar traning and preparation to Wiggins. One thing that I have noticed is a slight difference in the Sky TT bike compared to others - they have their aero extension bars raised up quite high, creating a gap for the air to flow under the fore-arms but above the head-tube. Perhaps Sky have spent more hours refining their TT bike design in the air tunnel.

londonplayer wrote:

I know this may be unpopular to say BUT do you think that Froome and Wiggins might be on more than just Weetabix?

Interesting how they can take so much time out of Fabian's time. A few seconds - perhaps. But minutes?

I think it's more that the emphasis has been different. Sky more or less just 'survived' the first week (notwithstanding Cav's stage win) where Spartacus gave it some real beans to stay in yellow so long, and Cadel's babysitting group always looked strong. Now that's out of the way, Sky are coming into their own. The gaps wouldn't be so big if another team had the riders and and a similar strategy to put in a strong showing on the climbs. Dave B is sometimes criticised on a tactical level, but strategically he's the master, and that's what we're seeing here.

Froome has been good at TTs for a while - h'e been picked for the Olympic TT ahead of Dave M remember.

Super Domestique wrote:

drheaton wrote:

I suspect HTC had thrown quite a lot of money at the team and no other sponsor was willing to match that so they couldn't keep everyone on salary.

I guess so but you could have kept some of, what was a most successful, team together surely.

Had the best kit in peloton last yr too imo.

Agreed, I suspect there was a choice to be made at some point, either scrap the team entirely or carry on as a much smaller, less well funded and less successful team. I can't blame them for pulling the plug rather than wanting to dwindle into mediocrity, it was a brave choice and one that many people would not have taken prefering to linger on as something average.