Giro d'Italia

[foxyrider]

Froome was magnificent and far from boring but you do have to feel for young Simon, to lose so much time - I wouldn't blame him for not starting stage 20.

As to whether Tom can take the time out of Chris tomorrow - well from the interviews and his riding i'd say he's resigned to step 2 and has been for the last fortnight.

Whichever way it goes you can't deny that we've had some fantastic rides by the Brits on the race and long may that continue.

[foxyrider]

after Yate's signs of vulnerability yesterday, someone, maybe everyone, was gonna come bashing the doors down today, if they could. Froome's ride was pretty epic, attacking from 50 miles out like that. Poor Yates. Mind you, he is young still; BITD a lot of DSs would have only just let him ride a grand tour at all, leave alone expect him to win it; three weeks is a long time.

On the highlights show they played out to Johnny Cash's 'Hurt'. I don't know if anyone else noticed but they left out an early verse of the song which goes

....The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away....

cheers

So are you insinuating that Simon ran out of needles?

I find it particularly galling all this finger waving at the Brit riders, what about Dumoulin, dropping back then powering back on the climbs, or Pinot or......

[Brucey]

the song is too long to play in full within a highlights show so they had to shorten it anyway, but they probably left out that particular verse because they were worried about implying drug use.

BTW DuMoulin didn't 'drop back' at the foot of the final climb so much as ride a steadier tempo than the others in that group (it seems to be the only way he can climb). You may have noticed that as he appeared to 'drop back' the time gap to Froome dropped by over ten seconds, because the other mad sods were busy attacking one another. Had they not done so DuMoulin would probably be closer to Froome, but the others in the group didn't have a big enough incentive to co-operate any better than they did.

cheers

[mig]

i too feel sorry for yates but he's clearly a clever chap and i would think he'll mark in down to experience and use it well. tour podium next year?

what gear ratio does froome have for descending? it looked bigger than a usual top gear.

[Postboxer]

I think I'm going to stop making predictions after that. Tomorrow's stage doesn't look any easier. Although a few days ago I did ask whether anyone would go for it all or nothing and whether it would be Froome.

[reohn2]

after Yate's signs of vulnerability yesterday, someone, maybe everyone, was gonna come bashing the doors down today, if they could. Froome's ride was pretty epic, attacking from 50 miles out like that. Poor Yates. Mind you, he is young still; BITD a lot of DSs would have only just let him ride a grand tour at all, leave alone expect him to win it; three weeks is a long time.

On the highlights show they played out to Johnny Cash's 'Hurt'. I don't know if anyone else noticed but they left out an early verse of the song which goes

....The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away....

cheers

I must admit I thought the same myself...........

[reohn2]

This morning I thought about Froome's win yesterday and I'm even more convinced that ride is the best I've seen in modern racing and IMO the only thing that comes close is Silva Dillier's second place in this year's Paris Roubaix which IMO rated a better performance than Peter Sagan's win.

Today is another day.......


PS, commiserations to Simon Yates,he's done a brilliant job and IMO time will come when Froome and the rest will get very worried in a grand tour he's riding in.

[boink]

I was stuck in a meeting yesterday afternoon but recorded the days events. I think everyone anticipated an attack early on from Sky, but not a Bertie style solo effort like that. I was on the edge of my seat (I'm a Froome fan) from the moment Elissonde upped the pace on Finestere, but wasn't at all surprised that so much time was gained on downhill sections by a guy who took big risks and went flat out - as Froome did in TDF a couple of years back. That pedalling when he's on the top tube thing is insane. The doubters should at least give some credit for the balls it takes to ride like that.

Froome is an exceptional climber, a very strong descender and not far from Major Tom on TT. Given that he's stronger at this point in the race than Dumoulin and that the chasers wouldn't commit, I'd say this was an epic ride, but not an 'otherwordly' 'Landis' style miracle. Landis looked fatter that Betancur when he duped his way to that overall tour win. Froome is a proven, elite endurance athlete and 4 time TDF winner. Everything went for him yesterday, including the heat, the gravel sections and the tailwind.

I hope Froome caps it off today, and thank God it's nor a work day. If he doesn't, and he left it all on the road yesterday, he's still ridden with intelligence, panache and guts to win in a way that most would dream about. A poster on cycling news forum said it was maybe the greatest sporting exploit he'd ever seen. I'd go along with that. One for the ages. On the flip side it was awful seeing Simon Yates collapse like that, after dominating the first 2 weeks.

[pwa]

In the long run Yates must see the positives. He just ran out of steam a few days early. Next year he will probably have a bit more stamina and the final piece will be in place.

[thirdcrank]

It was the ideal terrain for this sort of ride: in particular, no real opportunity for an organised chase to pull back a breakaway on descents and long valley bottoms. Historically, Sestrieres has figured in, well, historic breakaway stages, in both the Giro and TdeF.

Once upon a time, the Miroir du Cyclisme would have carried a Pellos cartoon with brooding gods looking down on a hammer-wielding Froome riding a rocket, while Team Sky riders tortured Yates on a rack.

We've become accustomed to defensive riding with the race leaders' teams controlling everything, up to the point where it's the main contenders fighting out the last few kms of a climb or until the sprinters' teams take charge for a sprint. The time needed to be gained here was minutes not seconds so it needed to be launched early: no time to send a rider or two up the road to act as stepping stones. I only saw the highlights, but I think early on, Yates rode out in front in a bit of a show of strength, which was perhaps just bluff. Anyway, the whole of the Sky squad set about launching Froome on his solo attack and it worked. For that, it needs a strong team with total confidence in the leader to deliver the goods.

I fancy the big positive for Yates from this is that his market-value will be such that a sponsor will be prepared to shell out to build a super-strong team to support him.

[foxyrider]

So it's all over bar the shouting (procession into Rome tomorrow), CF actually gaining time on TD and answering the attacks that mattered. Chapeau Chris and of course Wout without whom it wouldn't have been possible.

It really is good to see CF actually responding to others moves - in the past he's been slow to react, even in this Giro, which has ultimately lost him time and or ended up needing to expend more energy. I'm sure. Both he and Sky have learnt from the experience, maybe we'll see more exciting riding from them in future -whilst it's impressive to see them controlling things, it doesn't do much for the spectators or sponsors.

In a few weeks we'll still be talking about CF of course but the epic rides of young Simon will be largely forgotten. Is he the big loser, another Geraint, destined to never fulfil his potential? Or will he take his time in pink as a positive and come back stronger next year?

Then what of the Tour? Can CF recover to pull off an even more historic 5th win, apparently he'll not race before the Depart so no Dauphine etc for others to assess his form. Will the other Yates brother be able to able to replicate the Giro? Who else will be in the GC race? Sagan of course but who else will step up to the ocky? And can Cav add to his palmares in France?

Looking forward to an exciting June.

[Postboxer]

If I were Chris Froome and I managed to win the Tour, Vuelta, then managed the Giro and then a 5th Tour, I'd be tempted to do La Vuelta this year as well to see if I could win all three in one year, then if I'd managed 5 grand tours in a row, I'd be in a quandary as to whether to concentrate on winning a 6th tour, or seeing how many consecutive grand tours I could win. Don't think the Vuelta will be possible though, the Tour will be tough.

Will Chris Froome do the opposite in the Tour, start strong and fade?

[reohn2]

Froome a giant bigger than a giant sitting on a Giant
Superb racing from THE Campionissimo!

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
I cant comment as I am still watching the stage.
Doumolin Like Frooomey gives measured outputs, The climbers on the hills they pop up and fall back as said.
Even without Froomey Doumolin dropped Yates, as said Yates is the age when Froomey started to perform well so he has maybe more to come, but I feel he is too small to carry off some of the stuff you do need to do well like TT's.
No doubt he has improved his profile no end so he is still a good player in the races for sure, better than I have seen him of late.
Just a pity he is off the Podium.
Wattage is high today closing race.

[reohn2]

Yates was two stages from winning the Giro,which indicates that as he is only 25 there's possibly a lot more to come IMO
We'll see .....