Giro d'Italia / Tour de France

[Paddingtonwolf]

Brilliant by Froome on the final climb today. And by Tom Dumoulin.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

BTW - that climb to finish was an absolute beast. Only 5k but good lord it was brutal.

 

[thehistorymakers]

Great climb.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

BIG mountain stage today. Not ideal that Froome fell off in the first kilometre of the first climb and is playing catch up.

 

[thehistorymakers]

It is a lot cooler this week, which is a good thing.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Not looking good for Froome today at all. Dropped badly on the fourth climb and he isn't going to get back two minutes up to the finish surely.

 

[thehistorymakers]

Like the giro took it out of Contador, the tour has taken it out of Chis Froome. It is to be expected, I would have thought.

 

[Kenny]

Not looking good for Froome today at all. Dropped badly on the fourth climb and he isn't going to get back two minutes up to the finish surely.

Bust his foot in the fall and is out.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Not surprised. He looked in quite a lot of pain for such an innocuous fall.

 

[Wombat del combate]

Out of interest, could someone send me a link to the reams of physical data Froome was releasing between the end of the Tour and la Vuelta please?

A touch annoying to see the majority of comments relating to Froome here considering Tinkoff-Saxo have had two riders absolutely fucking mullered by rogue motorcycle outriders BTW.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

I thought Oleg Tinkoff was actually going to pull the team out of the race after the Paulinho incident. The bikes, and the crowd, get far too close at times, but Saxo have been ridiculously unlucky to lose two riders in the same fashion.

 

[Wombat del combate]

I was chatting to my mate about this and it's weird how it only seems to have happened this season. The first I can remember is Van Avermaet who got banjoed when well clear and now these two. Surely there is a briefing and why were lessons not learned?

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Franck Schleck was very lucky yesterday as well. Just after he had broken clear on that last brutal ascent, he came up behind the stills motorbike. The twat on the back waved at his mate on the other motorbike and almost took Schleck out completely. Carlton was going apeshit on Eurosport about it.

That climb yesterday was an absolute beast of 6k. Good grief. 30% ramps?????

 

[Wombat del combate]

Fuck that. We've got a few down here that crank up to 20% and it's hard enough to keep moving on those. There's also a technical mile-and-a-bit descent at Duncton which is an average 10% and finishes on a sharp left. So if you get your line wrong or there's a crosswind you're in deep shit.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Well done Tom Dumoulin today. 2000/1 shot at the start and now he must be just about favourite to deliver the jersey to Madrid. Kept up with the goats and then demolished them in the time trial.

 

[nimrod]

Well done Tom Dumoulin today. 2000/1 shot at the start and now he must be just about favourite to deliver the jersey to Madrid. Kept up with the goats and then demolished them in the time trial.

is there still a mountain stage to go?

i saw one of the stages where Dumoulin got dropped on a climb. rather than try to keep up, he just kept to his own pace and managed to avoid losing too much time. he didn't crack by trying to be a hard man. it probably helped knowing the TT was to come but it was impressive all the same.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

There is a cat one climb today and also the penultimate stage is mountainous but they have no mountain top finishes left. Dumoulin just needs to mark Aru closely and he should get the job done.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Well done Aru. Dumoulin finally blew up.

 

[Wombat del combate]

I see Sky have comlemented their squad with Landa and Kwiatkowski. That's a brutal-looking GC line-up now.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

The 2016 route for the Tour has just been announced. Looks moderately bruising but not the complete bitch. Quite a bit of time trialling but four summit finishes, including my absolute favourite of Mont Ventoux. Sets up perfectly for Froome by the look of it.