The Pro Cycling Thread

Hopefully we see some ‘hail Mary’ attacks from the GC contenders who have lost a bit of time in the last few stages. Like Schlek in the TDF when he had guys in the breakaways up the road after having lost a chunk of time to Cadel previously.

Chavez has been super-impressive. Great decision by OGE to take the chance on him a few years back.

You can see that Ewan was boxed in by Greipel (nothing untoward) 100m out and actually had to stop pedaling.
If it wasn’t for that, Ewan could have taken it.

So the next 3 stages could prove to be fairly decisive IMO
Tonight we have this:

Last two climbs:


The formula is set in stone; a breakaway up the road and a select GC group trying to catch them at the end.
This should weed out the remaining non GC riders out of the top 10 I feel.

They will have 8 in Paris Roubaix, the provisional lists are not even in yet, but expect a similar team to Tour of Flanders.
They might switch out Blythe who has had a lot of racing and perhaps Cort who is a neo, and two big races in a row might be a bit much.

I loved Porte and Dan Martin & Mollema attacking Froome up the mountain, was surprised Quintana did nothing.
Was an epic stage with the weather etc.
TJ Van Garderen was a bit disappointing,
Valverde could have went for a win/place instead of dropping back from break away given Quintana didn’t do anything. He could have finished in yellow right if he stayed with the break away? Im not sure why he got sent back.
Contador Abandons - since hes been injured, its been like watching someone fighting with one arm behind their back.

Tour de France general classification after Stage 9:

  1. Chris Froome

  2. Adam Yates + 16"

  3. Daniel Martin + 19"

  4. Nairo Quintana + 23"

  5. Joaquim Rodriguez + 37"

  6. Romain Bardet + 44"

  7. Bauke Mollema + 44"

  8. Sergio Henao + 44"

  9. Louis Meintjes + 55"

  10. Alejandro Valverde + 1’01"

Points Classification Top 5 (Green Jersey)

  1. Mark Cavendish - 204 points

  2. Peter Sagan - 197 points

  3. Marcel Kittel - 182 points

  4. Bryan Coquard - 112 points

  5. Greg Van Avermaet - 90 points
    Mountains Classification Top 5 (Polka Dot Jersey)

  6. Thibaut Pinot - 80 points

  7. Rafal Majka - 77 points

  8. Tom Dumoulin - 50 points

  9. Rui Costa - 40 points

  10. Thomas de Gendt - 36 points

Nick Schulz joins OBE as a stagiare - No nothing about Nick except he's riding at Continental level with SEG Racing Academy.
Yeh, I know nothing about him, apart from that he's a climber / GC rider?

Nick Schulz joins OBE as a stagiare - No nothing about Nick except he’s riding at Continental level with SEG Racing Academy.

Not surprisingly, Europcar won’t be sending a squad to the TDU.

Not surprisingly, Europcar won’t be sending a team to the TDU.
Not surprisingly, Europcar won’t be sending a team to the TDU.
Stage 10 You'd think the sprinters get dropped - or a very big breakaway group gets away early. And then there's a 170km chase to get back on before the finale, which they should do. That cat 3 though might just stop the pure sprinters. Clearly Sagan, Matthews, Gerrans (hell, even Impey) should be in the mix, but it wouldn't surprise if a breakaway takes it. If I was OBE, I'd get Alabsini in the break.

Nailed it - Albasini in the break - Alba has been saving his legs.

Kruuswiijk looks like the winner, unless something ges astray in the last week.

Kruuswiijk looks like the winner, unless something ges astray in the last week.

Hope the GC battle gets interesting now at least.

And Folipirov of Gazprom wins the MTT by 6th of a second from Kruuswiijk. Chaves is 6th in the TT losing 40 seconds to Kruswiijk. Chavez did a good job and got third fastest time of the GC top 10. Nibali collapsed and lost over 2 minutes.

Kruuswiijk leads Chavez by 2m and 12s with Nibali third.

MTT tonight

Basically a solo 10km climb averaging nearly 8%.

Thought the altitude may have helped Chavez - Will be interesting to see what happens in the MTT - Good save by Nibali after being dropped by Kruuswilk and Chavez.

Awesome.

This

Awesome.

And that interview - he’s definetly an Aussie favourite after that!

You Rippa!!! Great ride and great win for Chavez!!!

Anyone up watching this? Chavez is the real deal!

Stage 10



You’d think the sprinters get dropped - or a very big breakaway group gets away early.
And then there’s a 170km chase to get back on before the finale, which they should do.
That cat 3 though might just stop the pure sprinters.
Clearly Sagan, Matthews, Gerrans (hell, even Impey) should be in the mix, but it wouldn’t surprise if a breakaway takes it.
If I was OBE, I’d get Alabsini in the break.