2018 PRO thread

[Daniel1975]

I agree Rondje.

[micky]

Dumoulin made the mistake. He should have put his head down and time trialed up the climb with his power meter. The guy in 2nd who is losing time has to do all the work. That's grand tour 101.

As italian CT pointed out on TV, Dumoulin was most probably having a rough time himself cause in the final climb when his group wasn't putting the hammer down, he was looking for stuff to eat in his pocket; something you wouldn't normally expect in that kind of situation.

[peted76]

This is Yates on the form of his life, hugley impressive, however the only comparison to Contador is his easy dancing on the pedal style, which looks great imho. It's just so pleasing to see the pink jersey on the attack becuase of the TT, instead of the usual defence mode of riding. I thought TommyD was cooked on that last climb when he dropped off the back of the chasers.. impressive he latched back on to get third, but I guess he showed us last year, that's what he's good at, when the chips are down he can dig deep and time trial up a mountain.

[tymon_tm]

Big Tom wasn't having the best day yesterday, but the facts are: if the fab 5 decided to work instead of pulling petty attacks on one another, the outcome could've been a bit different

[mike]

aru and dumoulin and others are looking quite normal. aru has some good days and a couple of bad ones. it really is amazing how yates is looking so good. has not shown any bad days. his recovery is really impressive, like a contador.

[nathanong87]

i like the fact that yates has classic bend on his bike. he obviously knows style

[BdaGhisallo]

i like the fact that yates has classic bend on his bike. he obviously knows style

Agreed! Full marks to both Yates and Chaves for that.

[Willier]

aru and dumoulin and others are looking quite normal. aru has some good days and a couple of bad ones. it really is amazing how yates is looking so good. has not shown any bad days. his recovery is really impressive, like a contador.

Yet. I think that he will have a bad day...

[wingguy]

f the fab 5 decided to work instead of pulling petty attacks on one another, the outcome could've been a bit different

True... but why would they? Too many competing elements.

Pozzovivo and Pinot have a better chance of putting time into Dumoulin than Yates in the final weekend, so they should be attacking him instead of working with him. Realistically they’re prob racing each other for third though, so either attacking Dumoulin too hard would leave them open to a counterfrom the other. Still more reason to put in a bit of a dig than work full gas in a chase.

Then you’ve got Lopez and Carapaz in their own private battle for a jersey that has nothing really to do with what the other three are riding for except to break up the rhythm whenever they accidentally find themselves on the front or throw down an attack.

Dumoulin was really the only guy with an easy decision - ignore the others and do whatever you can to limit the gap to Yates. If that meant the others mugged him on the final climb to the line, it shouldn’t really matter because he’ll put them away in the TT.

[TonyM]

f the fab 5 decided to work instead of pulling petty attacks on one another, the outcome could've been a bit different

True... but why would they? Too many competing elements.

Pozzovivo and Pinot have a better chance of putting time into Dumoulin than Yates in the final weekend, so they should be attacking him instead of working with him. Realistically they’re prob racing each other for third though, so either attacking Dumoulin too hard would leave them open to a counterfrom the other. Still more reason to put in a bit of a dig than work full gas in a chase.

Then you’ve got Lopez and Carapaz in their own private battle for a jersey that has nothing really to do with what the other three are riding for except to break up the rhythm whenever they accidentally find themselves on the front or throw down an attack.

Dumoulin was really the only guy with an easy decision - ignore the others and do whatever you can to limit the gap to Yates. If that meant the others mugged him on the final climb to the line, it shouldn’t really matter because he’ll put them away in the TT.

This exactly!

[guyc]

Of course they could all just be absolutely at their limits and not able to attack at will.....

[dgasmd]

I can’t help it to think that after 3 stage wins, flying away on mountains, riding off the best like they have lead legs, and riding like he has never ridden before in ANY race, one has to be seriously cautious with Yates and his “one off” performance so far. Just being realistic, and frankly, I’m surprised nobody has alluded to it yet. I like the guy, but the observation is an obvious one to me.

[bilwit]

I can’t help it to think that after 3 stage wins, flying away on mountains, riding off the best like they have lead legs, and riding like he has never ridden before in ANY race, one has to be seriously cautious with Yates and his “one off” performance so far. Just being realistic, and frankly, I’m surprised nobody has alluded to it yet. I like the guy, but the observation is an obvious one to me.

did you see him after the stage? He was crying and said he didn't know why, that alone proves he's at least not on testosterone

[Calnago]

^Ha! Maybe too much estrogen, to cancel out the testosterone.

[tymon_tm]

f the fab 5 decided to work instead of pulling petty attacks on one another, the outcome could've been a bit different

True... but why would they? Too many competing elements.

Pozzovivo and Pinot have a better chance of putting time into Dumoulin than Yates in the final weekend, so they should be attacking him instead of working with him. Realistically they’re prob racing each other for third though, so either attacking Dumoulin too hard would leave them open to a counterfrom the other. Still more reason to put in a bit of a dig than work full gas in a chase.

Then you’ve got Lopez and Carapaz in their own private battle for a jersey that has nothing really to do with what the other three are riding for except to break up the rhythm whenever they accidentally find themselves on the front or throw down an attack.

Dumoulin was really the only guy with an easy decision - ignore the others and do whatever you can to limit the gap to Yates. If that meant the others mugged him on the final climb to the line, it shouldn’t really matter because he’ll put them away in the TT.

you're probably right, still it felt like they could achieve more as a collective than pursuing each their own goals

re: Yates being crazy strong. IMHO time will tell whether it's a one time thing or something more permanent. Big Tom had his breakthrough Vuelta which made many people shake their heads (myself included) but later he won the Giro, and never really gone below a certain level performance wise.