Tour de France 2016 **SPOILERS**

[smutchin]

He only needs to double that to beat Froome and his new found ability to tuck his elbows in on descents...

Yeah, Froome was riding for Wiggo at the 2012 Dauphiné, and hadn't yet learnt his mad descending skillz...

OTOH, despite his mistakes, Nairo is still a lot closer to Froome than he was at this point last year, without having properly shown his face. We haven't seen his true form yet and there's still a lot of racing to come (including, as @400bhp rightly says, two TTs - in which discipline Nairo is much improved this year, plus the second one is mostly uphill, which will suit him perfectly).

 

[T4tomo]

I think everyone is forgetting there's 2 TTs to come.

exactly Quintana will need to make up more than 36 seconds as he will surely lose some time to Froome in the TTs. there is a limit to what you can gain on a descent too - he needs a serious attack up hill. I don't think cutting 6k off the top changes much, any attack just needs to start earlier, the steeper bits are in the forest anyway, bar a little section very close to the top.

 

[HF2300]

Not sure yesterday was the disaster for Quintana everyone's proclaiming. Realistically he lost a few seconds, in a situation that wasn't best suited to his strengths, from a bit of opportunism. It's still all very close and it takes nothing to turn a few seconds round given what's still to come and where Quintana's strengths lie.

The bigger issue seems to me not that Quintana wasn't on Froome's wheel, but that Movistar seemed to be dotted about in ones and twos all over the place. Can't help feeling it might be more the impression of another missed chance, Movistar's apparent inability to pull as a team and Valverde's uncertain loyalties that are causing the gripes from them.

 

[smutchin]

exactly Quintana will need to make up more than 36 seconds as he will surely lose some time to Froome in the TTs.

That's less certain than in previous years. Nairo matched Froome's time in the TT at Romandie in April, although that's not an especially useful indication of what to expect tomorrow, since it was less than half the distance and neither rider was at anything like their peak form at the time. However, what is clear is that Nairo has been working on his TT skillz in much the same way that Froome has been working on his descending. And on top of that, Movistar have the fastest TT bikes and skinsuits.

OTOH, the kind of form Froome is in, he'll probably smash it out of the park tomorrow.

We'll see!

 

[Twizit]

exactly Quintana will need to make up more than 36 seconds as he will surely lose some time to Froome in the TTs.

I'm not so sure. Quintana has improved his TTs a lot this year and given one of them on the Tour is just uphill I don't think it's a given that Froome will gain loads of time. Suspect that's why Sky have been pinching seconds wherever they can.

Edit: Smutchin beat me to it - fairly similar points!

 

[brommers]

Quintana also won the ITT at the Route de Sud recently.

 

[HF2300]

I think everyone is forgetting there's 2 TTs to come.

Not sure they're the obvious deciders they might once have been, for reasons @smutchin outlines above and others.

 

[smutchin]

Not sure yesterday was the disaster for Quintana everyone's proclaiming. Realistically he lost a few seconds, in a situation that wasn't best suited to his strengths, from a bit of opportunism.

Absolutely. The whingeing about safety shows that it definitely rattled them, but I'll repeat myself: we haven't seen Nairo's true form yet and the overall time gap is small.

Quintana also won the ITT at the Route de Sud recently.

Yes but look who he was riding against... Possibly a more useful race to look at is the TT at last year's Vuelta (similar distance and terrain to tomorrow's course), where he finished 1.33 behind Dumoulin but just two seconds behind Kiryienka.

 

[brommers]

Like great sportsmen in any sport, they all work hard on their weaker areas.

 

[Shadow]

Even though we have a shortened stage stage today, for those of you who have not been there, this little clip here from the beeb is quite good.
This was obviously filmed in good climatic conditions, it gives no sense of what is like when it is scorching, wet, or windy!

 

[Globalti]

I have today's stage recorded, can't wait to watch once home - luckily I'm cycling home into what seems like a Block headwind, so I will be unable to have the result spoiled by Twitter, and the wind will give me an idea of what they are facing...

What the hell is this "block headwind" that cyclists keep talking about?

Is "block headwind" to "breeze" as "flu" is to "a cold"?

 

[HF2300]

I always thought it was a pretty much continuous headwind as opposed to just intermittent gusts in yer face. Just another of those obscure cycling turns of phrase.

 

[smutchin]

What the hell is this "block headwind" that cyclists keep talking about?

I don't know for sure but I think it means a wind that's blowing at a (mostly) consistent speed rather than in gusts.

(edit: cross-posted with @HF2300 )

 

[Hont]

17 minute gap for the break atm. 4 (?) Frenchmen in the break. Normally that's your Bastille day prediction sorted, but who knows this year. Eleven stages in, who would have thought that the two most instinctive and unexpected GC attacks would come from Chris Froome and that a flat stage into Montpelier would result in bigger GC time gaps than the first summit finish.

 

[HF2300]

Breakaway: Vanmarcke, Lindemann, Clement, Pauwels, Teklehaimanot, Greipel (!), de Gendt, Coquard, Chavanel, Keisse, Navarro, Lemoine, Sorensen.

Peloton at 17:30