Vuelta Short Stage - Sunday (lots of early action)

Inquitus

Could be an epic stage.

Inquitus

Quintana and Contador 1 min up the road on Froome Group early in the stage, Froome only has 2 teammates, rest of Sky a minute further back. Orica and BMC will have to help chase you'd think as their GC hopes and in the Froome group.

velo.2010

The one day I thought I'd sit down and watch most of a stage and I miss the damn start!

I think it'll be crucial the second group keep far enough ahead that Froome's teammates don't get across using the team cars for instance. I think that's why Movistar keep surging in the second group with Valverde.

All or nothing effort from Contador and Quintana now. Is this the way Sky can be beaten?

Burial.

God I love Contador.

Inquitus

Looks like its all over for Froome, he's 2 mins behind Quintana and Contador, and most of his teammates are 3 minutes back, there's only Orica with any reason to ride in his group, and maybe Astana.

Solobally8

Fantastic to see Contador racing at the front bet Sky didn't have that in their plan for the day! It's been great yesterday and today to see stages from the start.

Inquitus

Sky and Orica are bolloxed after yesterday, hard to see a way back from here and the time just keeps going out.

Burial.

Froome chats to Astana and they start pushing. Ffs.

Inquitus

Astana to the rescue for Froome, for now anyways. He only has lopez and no chance of the rest making it back.

Burial.

Astana have ruined this stage from being special

Inquitus

Burial. wrote: »

Astana have ruined this stage from being special

Most teams not in the break have a reason to chase, we might not like it, but that's just the long and the short of it, protect your best riders GC position by riding and try and secure your WT points, that's the name of the game.

People might not like it but the job of the other teams is not to just spite Sky at every opportunity.

funnights74

Gap is 2.35 now.

Inquitus

I think Froome only has himself to blame he should never have let Quintana get up the road, dozed off there. 3 minutes now, and unless a concerted chase emerges soon then this break is going to stick.

Solobally8

God I love the Vuelta! Always ten times better than the tour.

funnights74

No poels and Thomas for froome, it goes to show what immense engines they were in the tour. Not a chance in hell this would happen if they were here.

irishrover99

Contrador is the last of the old skool gc riders and you can see why he wants power meters gone in races. Long break aways are a thing of the past because of them

G1032

Good man Sean......

"It's a climb that's certainly not for the fat boys".

MPFGLB

funnights74 wrote: »

No poels and Thomas for froome, it goes to show what immense engines they were in the tour. Not a chance in hell this would happen if they were here.

Not Poels & Thomas on a stage like today whne the attack on the downhill...more like Stananrd & Rowe are really missed

Inquitus

irishrover99 wrote: »

Contrador is the last of the old skool gc riders and you can see why he wants power meters gone in races. Long break aways are a thing of the past because of them

They are more a thing of the past due to radios and seven man teams tbh.

JK.BMC

Inquitus wrote: »

Could be an epic stage.

It is.....

at1withmyself

Ticker is showing chavas and froome with valverde in chase, is this the case?

Also where is Yates?

Inquitus

at1withmyself wrote: »

Ticker is showing chavas and froome with valverde in chase, is this the case?

Also where is Yates?

Quintana and Contador with teammates escaped at the start on the first climb and all of Sky bar 2 were dropped. Chaves and Yates in the Froome group, Froome on his own now, gap has been between 2-3 min all day. Astana and OBE done most of the chase work.

pelevin

Went back to see start of stage on ES player. All the work of Contador. What a fighter. Haven't noticed Froome ever at the head of the chase. Surely the other teams should play poker and force him to bury himself. What for instance had Sanchez at stake to be leading a fast descent earlier

Andalucia

Froome showing himself to be a classless rider with this performance, pays the $$$ to Astana and sucks wheel, Contador is a proper bike rider

Inquitus

pelevin wrote: »

Went back to see start of stage on ES player. All the work of Contador. What a fighter. Haven't noticed Froome ever at the head of the chase. Surely the other teams should play poker and force him to bury himself. What for instance had Sanchez at stake to be leading a fast descent earlier

Lopez did Trojan work for Froome early on, but without much help the gap only went one way, OBE and Astana want to protect their GC positions, if they left Froome to ride on his own the gap is only going to have ballooned out to ridiculous amounts, and everyone in that group would lose large amounts of GC ground. The main bunch are 25.5 minutes back lol.

Inquitus

Andalucia wrote: »

Froome showing himself to be a classless rider with this performance, pays the $$$ to Astana and sucks wheel, Contador is a proper bike rider

That's nonsense, what's he going to do? ride on the front on his own for 100km and pull back a 15 man break?

Sensible riding, let the others protect their GC ambitions and follow wheels, save something for the final climb, and try and limit his losses.

Andalucia

Inquitus wrote: »

That's nonsense, what's he going to do? ride on the front on his own for 100km and pull back a 15 man break?

Sensible riding, let the others protect their GC ambitions and follow wheels, save something for the final climb, and try and limit his losses.

he could take a turn, highly unlikely Astana would be protecting 9th on GC without $$$

retalivity

Astana riding for scarponi when chaves, yates and froome are all there is a joke

Inquitus

retalivity wrote: »

Astana riding for scarponi when chaves, yates and froome are all there is a joke

I'd say they'll all start to lean on Froome very heavily, very shortly.

smurphy29

Astana riding for Scarponi, who can't seem to handle the pace being set? Hmmm...

JK.BMC

Andalucia wrote: »

he could take a turn, highly unlikely Astana would be protecting 9th on GC without $$$

That's bullxxxx - Froome is part of a wider GC battle and no doubt he absolutely has to take a turn at some stage. He will eventually.

What we are watching is an excellent demonstration of the difference between instinctive bike riders with racing instinct in their blood versus lab-built athletes who spend their professional lives plugged into machines telling them what to do. Modern life in microcosm- Live from La Vuelta. It's bloody brilliant Sir Dave....

JK.BMC

retalivity wrote: »

Astana riding for scarponi when chaves, yates and froome are all there is a joke

Not sure what you mean.
But given that it's stage 15 of a hard tour, there is just the small but likely possibility that the guys in group #2 are actually shagged. It might be as simple as that

smurphy29

I think what he's getting at is it's hard to see what Astana's motivation to ride as hard as they have is, taking it at face value. They have burned up quality riders to defend 9th on GC.

velo.2010

Everyone is bolloxed from yesterday but clearly some are more bolloxed than others.

Quintana doing the work now but he has Contador to thank for today.

retalivity

The young katusha lad is gonna snipe this

EDIT: what timing!!

SwissToni

JK.BMC wrote: »

What we are watching is an excellent demonstration of the difference between instinctive bike riders with racing instinct in their blood versus lab-built athletes who spend their professional lives plugged into machines telling them what to do. Modern life in microcosm- Live from La Vuelta. It's bloody brilliant Sir Dave....

+1

Best stage of all three grand tours this year.
I've cancelled that order for a Power Meter and I'm going to have raw steak for me dinner.

Burial.

Quintana is monstrous strong and Contador's plan and effort today is what'll make him a once in a life time cyclist and peerless in this era. Great day for cycling.

Inquitus

3min37sec for Froome to pull back between now and the finish, and here's what we have left. if he takes 2 mins in the ITT he still has to take more time in the remaining 2 MTF stages, have to say it looks like it's Quintana's to lose now, but anything is possible.

Stage 16: Alcañiz → Peñíscola (156.4 km, Flat)
Rest Day 2
Stage 17: Castellón → Llucena, Camins del Penyagolosa (177.5 km, High Mountains, MTF)


Stage 18: Requena → Gandía (200.6 km, Flat)
Stage 19: Xàbia → Calp (37 km, ITT)
Stage 20: Benidorm → Alto de Aitana, Escuadrón Ejército del Aire (193.2 km, High Mountains, MTF)


Stage 21: Las Rozas → Madrid (104.1 km, Flat) (URL Limit)

pelevin

Great performance by Quintana particularly when he rode the final however many km's on the front on his own, & had done his turns thru the stage. Well deserved win for Brambilla, the only one still with Quintana, & had attacked from the gun. Contador though even with lesser legs than he'd like after his heavy crash, still ends up the man who has caused the most defining stage of the race. What a gutsy, instinctive rider. That's what racing should be all about. A very big chapeau. The machine took a kicking! Death to the machines!

irishrover99

Jesus Laura 😱

Inquitus

93 Riders over half an hour down and outside the Time Control, unlikely they'll be eliminated though you'd think.

Burial.

Inquitus wrote: »

93 Riders over half an hour down and outside the Time Control, unlikely they'll be eliminated though you'd think.

Yeah you'd imagine Froome and Brailsford will be invited to a special UCI meeting to debate the apparent standard practice that is to DQ anyone outside the limit and win. #marginalgainzzzz

DDC1990

Inquitus wrote: »

93 Riders over half an hour down and outside the Time Control, unlikely they'll be eliminated though you'd think.

This includes the whole Sky team bar Froome.

No way will they be eliminated.

Inquitus

Burial. wrote: »

Yeah you'd imagine Froome and Brailsford will be invited to a special UCI meeting to debate the apparent standard practice that is to DQ anyone outside the limit and win. #marginalgainzzzz

Generally speaking this large a group of riders is never excluded for being outside of time, just because people hate Sky isn't a special reason to change the way this rule is applied.

MPFGLB

What I don;t understand is how htey can all lose so much time...The groups ahead of them were smaler ...did they all just say f*** it

Eamonnator

MPFGLB wrote: »

What I don;t understand is how htey can all lose so much time...The groups ahead of them were smaler ...did they all just say f*** it

Pretty much, I would say.

L'Enfer du Nord

For once I'm looking foreword to hearing a Brailsford post stage interview.

Burial.

No DQs, which is a joke ruling but no surprise considering Sky are one of the main teams affected by it.

DDC1990

If they disqualified all but the 71 riders or so that actually made it inside the 32 minute time cut:

Movistar would have 8 Riders, Tinkoff and Cannondale 6, Astana and Lampre 4, Orica plus a good few more on 4.

Sky would have Froome and Direct Energie would have 0.

90 riders finished 22 minutes behind the allotted time. Serious disrespect for the race, considering they have a rest day coming up tomorrow (I think anyway).

EDIT: Nothing official but some tweets that there are no DQ's

godtabh

Burial. wrote: »

No DQs, which is a joke ruling but no surprise considering Sky are one of the main teams affected by it.

nothing to do with sky. Happen a lot when so many people are outside the limit. If it was one or two riders they'd be gone but have the peleton not a chance

pelevin

ITV4 at 7pm looks worth a watch.