TDF Stage 17*Warning-contains unmasked spoilers

ednwireland

Bagnères-de-Luchon – Peyragudes

Distance: 143.5km
Highest point: 1,755m
Category: High mountains

http://www.cyclingnews.com/tour-de-france/stage-17

velopeloton

The finishing climb, 1km from the summit.

Rovi

A tweet from Cav:
"Rise & shine! There's some mountains to be climbed! Again. Ohhhh."

It'll be interesting to see who has anything left after yesterday.

dave_o_brien

velopeloton wrote: »

The finishing climb, 1km from the summit.

I think these are my favourite contribution to these threads. Thank you so much!

dastardly00

Rovi wrote: »

A tweet from Cav:
"Rise & shine! There's some mountains to be climbed! Again. Ohhhh."

It'll be interesting to see who has anything left after yesterday.

Team Sky could have a relatively easy day today in terms of defending the yellow jersey because I'm not sure if any of the GC contenders have anything left in the tank from yesterday.
Nibali will probably attack on the last time, but I reckon it would be just to try and gain the 19 seconds he needs to leapfrog Froome for 2nd place. Van Den Broeck is a good bit behind Nibali, and he had a tough day yesterday. Evans surely has nothing in the tank, and Van Garderen is the team leader now anyway. And I can't see Zubeldia attacking. He hasn't attacked so far in the tour, and he seems content to keep his 5th place overall.

It'd be great if Nico could gain the 5 seconds needed to jump ahead of Pinot

GT_TDI_150

Being belgian myself, really hope VdB has a good day

buffalo

dastardly00 wrote: »

Team Sky could have a relatively easy day today in terms of defending the yellow jersey because I'm not sure if any of the GC contenders have anything left in the tank from yesterday.
Nibali will probably attack on the last time, but I reckon it would be just to try and gain the 19 seconds he needs to leapfrog Froome for 2nd place.

19 seconds isn't much use to Nibali though - Froome put 90" into him in the first time trial, nothing to suggest he won't do the same again. With tomorrow being only bumpy, and Sat being the TT, today is the last stage that Nibali has a good chance of getting away, and staying away. Froome seemed to have him on a leash yesterday though.

jinkypolly

Hopefully Roche can get back into the top ten, he's only 4 seconds behind Thibaut Pinot.

Rovi

Just spotted Nico third last in the peloton!!!
It's okay though, Pinot's last

AG2R

Grivko giving it another bash

Darkglasses

Pinot's being spat out the back! Keep it together Nico!

Ormus

Voeckler and Kessiakoff at it again, the KOM jersey is the most entertaining one.

Ormus

Darkglasses wrote: »

Pinot's being spat out the back! Keep it together Nico!

Is that not Jerome Pineau?

Thibaut Pinot is Roche's rival.

topcat77

Think all the action will be between Fredrik Kessiakoff & Thomas Voeckler[/B] for the king of the mountain. Defiantly be action with Voeckler involved!!!

buffalo

Ormus wrote: »

Voeckler and Kessiakoff at it again, the KOM jersey is the most entertaining one.

Definitely. I'd be surprised if Voeckler can do two super rides in a row though, I think it's Kessiakoff's for the taking today.

Darkglasses

Ormus wrote: »

Is that not Jerome Pineau?

Thibaut Pinot is Roche's rival.

Flip, you're probably right. Dan Martin is in the breakaway though!

dastardly00

A breakaway is forming at the moment, they have a 20 second lead.
Dan is there, along with a host of other riders including Rolland, Tommy V, Menchov, Valverde, Leipheimer.

Darkglasses

Wow, serious mist down.

dastardly00

EBH is setting a serious pace for Sky on the front of the peloton.
Zubledia and Evans are at the back.

buffalo

What ****ing morons some of the spectators are. Rolland should've given him a slap to the back of the head.

Rovi

Good man Tommy!!!

Darkglasses

Can't see a thing on the way down.

Rovi

Very dodgy looking on the descent

davidsatelle100

few crashes in that mist on the descent i'd say

dastardly00

Sweet Jesus. The mist! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

dastardly00

Sagan is flying down the descent

Rovi

Only 6 points between Voeckler and Kessiakoff for the polky dot jersey now, this is most definitely the 'race' of the race!

le petit braquet

The Col de Menté featured prominently in the 1971 TDF. The Spaniard Luis Ocaña was in yellow with a 7 minute(!) lead over Merckx . On the descent of the Menté, Merckx attacked but skidded into a low wall . Ocaña tried to avoid Merckx but fell himself. Merckx got up quickly and resumed the descent but Ocaña couldn't release himself from his toe clips and was struck by Joop Zoetemelk and he had to be taken by helicopter to hospital. The following day Merckx refused to wear the yellow jersey out of respect for Ocaña

Rovi

TdF ticker says the polka dot points are Voeckler first with 117 points and Kessiakoff second with 110; so 7 points difference.
Still a great contest

JRant

KOM and the White jersey are the only interesting things going on at this stage of the tour. It's a while since the yellow jersey competition has been this downright boring to be honest. Still enjoying the tour though, mainly thanks to the likes of Sagan and Tommy V.
Froome to take todays stage for me.
As an aside has anyone been following Froome long enough to say if he always had this potential or is it a surprise to most?

Darkglasses

Nibali's broken from Groupe Wiggo. EBH looks to be going after him

BQQ

Zubeldia dropped by peleton according to Le tour.fr


Break tells Nibali to sit up, and he does.

mcgratheoin

Nibali dropping out of break to wait for peleton - just a little psychological dig there i think

Hungrycol

On Eurosport Ticker: Nibali and Valverde chat, then shake hands - and the Italian drops back. They clearly decided that Nibali's presence in the group would doom it to failure.

What's that all about? Anything said about this on TV commentry?

buffalo

Hungrycol wrote: »

On Eurosport Ticker: Nibali and Valverde chat, then shake hands - and the Italian drops back. They clearly decided that Nibali's presence in the group would doom it to failure.

What's that all about? Anything said about this on TV commentry?

Nibali's too far up the GC for Sky to let the break go with him in it. So he does the honourable thing and drops out, which means the break has a chance of success. If he stayed, the peloton would chase them down, and everyone in the break misses out.

mcgratheoin

Is zubeldia in serious trouble or will he get back on to the peloton? Any chance of Roche putting the 4 minutes into him that he needs?

BQQ

mcgratheoin wrote: »

Is zubeldia in serious trouble or will he get back on to the peloton? Any chance of Roche putting the 4 minutes into him that he needs?

Back on already.
Nico could still put some time into him later, but not 4 mins

Rovi

mcgratheoin wrote: »

Is zubeldia in serious trouble or will he get back on to the peloton? Any chance of Roche putting the 4 minutes into him that he needs?

I'd be hopeful; Nico has shown himself to be well capable of hanging on with (or very close behind) the peloton on a lot of stages, particularly the big lumpy ones like this.

death1234567

Strange move by Nibali...if he wan'ts to do something wait until the final climb, that's the one that's going to sort the men from the boys.

Hungrycol

buffalo wrote: »

Nibali's too far up the GC for Sky to let the break go with him in it. So he does the honourable thing and drops out, which means the break has a chance of success. If he stayed, the peloton would chase them down, and everyone in the break misses out.

Thanks for this but IMO tuffski-sh!tski on the break, Nibali have a chance on winning the whole bleedin thing and with such strong riders in the breakaway such as Valverde they should work together to tire the f**k outta sky. I just don't like the free ride (literally!) sky are getting at the mo. My hopes were for Evans to do something yesterday. SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING FFS.

mcgratheoin

Radioshack will probably start chasing the break down in a bit - more freebies for Sky

death1234567 wrote: »

Strange move by Nibali...if he wan'ts to do something wait until the final climb, that's the one that's going to sort the men from the boys.

**edit** He may have a go on the HC - what's the descent off that like for sustaining an attack over the top I wonder

g0g

buffalo wrote: »

Nibali's too far up the GC for Sky to let the break go with him in it. So he does the honourable thing and drops out, which means the break has a chance of success. If he stayed, the peloton would chase them down, and everyone in the break misses out.

So how does anyone ever get to challenge for overall lead then, or is that why people are saying the tour is so boring this year? Is Nibali expected to let the breakaway disappear 10 minutes up the road and only then can he try to do his own thing?

buffalo

Hungrycol wrote: »

Thanks for this but IMO tuffsky****sky on the break, Nibali have a chance on winning the whole bleedin thing and with such strong riders in the breakaway such as Valverde they should work together to tire the f**k outta sky. I just don't like the free ride (literally!) sky are getting at the mo. My hopes were for Evans to do something yesterday. SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING FFS.

But unless Nibali has an actual ally he can depend on, he'll end up tiring himself out as well as Sky. And seeing as how Sky have men to spare to chase him (Froome, BH, etc.), he'll only be damaging his own chances.

Ideally yes, Nibali attacks, Sky chases, then Evans attacks, Sky chase, Taaramae attacks, etc., and eventually somebody dangerous gets away. But spread over different teams, they can't rely on each other unless they've made an agreement, and nobody wants to risk their own chances for "the good of the race".

dave_o_brien

Hungrycol wrote: »

Thanks for this but IMO tuffski-sh!tski on the break, Nibali have a chance on winning the whole bleedin thing and with such strong riders in the breakaway such as Valverde they should work together to tire the f**k outta sky. I just don't like the free ride (literally!) sky are getting at the mo. My hopes were for Evans to do something yesterday. SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING FFS.

If Nibali stayed with the break, the other riders in the rest of the break would say "It's all yours" and not help him, so then you'd have the whole Sky team chasing Nibali, and maybe one or two others if he offered them money. The maths would then be in Sky's favour.

It boils down to him wanting to build on his current placing. Him going out this early would more than likely result in him losing time in the long run to Sky, so he's reckoning he should bide his time, attack off the second last climb and see if he can stay away. I hope.

Rovi

And Tommy gains 2 points on Kessiakoff in the KOM race!

AG2R

Hungrycol wrote: »

Thanks for this but IMO tuffski-sh!tski on the break, Nibali have a chance on winning the whole bleedin thing and with such strong riders in the breakaway such as Valverde they should work together to tire the f**k outta sky. I just don't like the free ride (literally!) sky are getting at the mo. My hopes were for Evans to do something yesterday. SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING FFS.

In an ideal world yes but why should the other break away riders bury themselves for Nibali if there isn't alot for them to gain. If he got in the break the peloton or just Sky would be forced to pull them back but without him the break may have a better chance to stay away

Darkglasses

There's got to be something better than a big bulky newspaper for descents...Like a kind of venetian blind inside your jersey?

gaybeer

Was Dan dropped back to peleton?

mcgratheoin

Sorenson in crash - hate to see it happen to anyone, but that removes the only threat to Roche in the break

AG2R

Tommy stretches his lead to 9 points :pac:

He has a decent turn of pace

Rovi

Gotta love Tommy