tymon_tm wrote:Valverde, I don't know how much longer can he keep it up. Quintana is too passive, but he's still in the top group so to speak. obviously Froome and Nibali are first tier GC contenders as well, I can't see anyone able to challenge them, although the Bahrain team is a question mark at this stage, the transition to a completely new team doesn't have to be that smooth for Nibbles.
the second tier group looks a lot more exciting IMHO. Aru, Krujswijk, Chavez, Majka, Contador, Porte are the obvious picks and althought I wouldn;t bet my money on any of them winning any of the 3-weekers, they are definitely podium candidates.
Landa hasn't showed anything so that's a question mark. Bardet showed progress and he might be there next season fighting for GC. Pinot is a solid GC rider but he lacks something that doesn't allow him to fight in the GTs.
IMHO we're gonna see the most new talent in Giro and Vuelta next year. the Tour is "unwinable" at the moment if you aint got SKY-strong team and a Froome-like guy to finish up the work. if I were a DS, I'd put all my best riders into Giro roster and hopefuly that's what we'll see next year
I hope your right about new talent. It would be great to see a real breakthrough. I think reading what happened at the tour to make a judgement on riders performance is not the best place to start IMO.
The tour route should have been a dream for Quintana but he just was not in the ball park regarding his form.
He was much stronger at last years tour and if he had been on equal form I think we would have seen a different result. We had what you would call a lot of 2nd tier riders Porte etc all lasting and performing well in the last week. Riders such as Martin commented on the slowness of some stages/climbs. No one including Froome could attack on a uphill climb and put some definitive time into other riders. It was a strange race IMO and made some riders look a lot better than past performances have shown them to be in three week races i.e Porte for example looking much stronger.
For me besides Berties crash I was disappointed with Aru at the tour. He was not the same as the aggressive attacking force at the Vuelta where he put everyone to the sword. I still think he and Astana will be a major threat if they can repeat that kind of form at the tour.
I would certainly not call Bertie a 2nd tier rider just a rider who perhaps does not have the form to win a GT anymore although I would not count him out. In 2013 he was awful and 2014 he got back into GC winning form. Can he do it again new team fresh start etc?
Back to today. It looked like the main GC boys saved themselves for tomorrow. Nice cheeky attack from Valverde and Bertie hung "just IMO" so that was good. Froome and the rest looked pretty comfortable.
Lets hope we have some real fireworks tomorrow.