TdeF 2018, July 25, Stage 17: Bagnères-de-Luchon > Saint-Lary-Soulan Col du Portet

Melodeon

A thread for today.
More content shortly...

dastardly00

In the words of the legendary F1 commentator Murray Walker: "It's one light, two lights, three lights, four lights, five lights, and it's go, go, go"

From cyclingnews.com:

Like a ship in a bottle, route designer Thierry Gouvenou has slotted three mountain passes into the space of just 65 kilometres and then pulled the string to set up the most eagerly-anticipated Tour stage in recent memory. The Montée de Peyragudes, Col de Val Louron-Azet and Col du Portet combine for a total of 38.3km of climbing and 3,126 metres of altitude gained.

The top 20 riders are arranged into a Formula 1-style grid according to their positions on general classification, and the rest of the peloton lining up in four groups based on their order in the standings. This feature seems more of a gimmick than anything else – it is certainly hard to imagine Thomas and Chris Froome tearing off ahead rather than waiting for their Sky teammates.

Cruelly, the final part of the stage is the toughest, with the hors categorie Col du Portet bringing the 2018 Tour to its highest point. The lower part of the climb above Saint-Lary Soulan will be familiar – it has featured as Pla d’Adet in Tours past, but the upper reaches are a new addition: the final kilometres leading to the summit of the climb were only paved this spring.
The Col du Portet is 16km in length at an average gradient of 8.7%, and is, quite simply, a brute. A kilometre in, the gradient pitches to above 10% and continues in the same vein for the next four kilometres or so before the merest and briefest of respites. Midway up the climb, the gradient relaxes to 5%, but it kicks up again shortly afterwards and drags on inexorably towards the summit. The average gradients of the final three kilometres are 8.4%, 8.2% and 10.2%, respectively. There has been nothing as relentless on the 2018 Tour to this point.

Melodeon

HA!

I was wondering if someone was doing a thread, so I figured I'd throw up a placeholder while I knocked some content together and if someone else had one done they'd jump in

Anyhow, I expect the start today to go something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPcwE55t_f4

dastardly00

Melodeon wrote: »

HA!

I was wondering if someone was doing a thread, so I figured I'd throw up a placeholder while I knocked some content together and if someone else have one done they'd jump in

Yeah I was just about to post my thread and I just checked on the main page of the forum to see if anyone else had put up a thread

Dow99

What time does it get going today?

dastardly00

Dow99 wrote: »

What time does it get going today?

Not until 2.15pm Irish time unfortunately.

Inquitus

The Bookies Take on Today' Stage

MPFGLB

NIcolas Roche was sceptical yesterday that any of the top GC guys would tear off from the start

Geraint Thomas is the first off...what does he do ?....slow down for Kwaito & Rowe ??

Maybe this is the time Quintana could go for it ?

Could suit Dan Martin....Stephen Roche won a similar stage back in the day

Roglic seems to me to be the best bet though if they race flat out

Foorme could win a stage like today but can he attack the yellow jersey who doesnt need to attack ...just follow
Or will Froome chase down Roglic, or Quintana or Dumoulin ?? and then just keep going

dastardly00

Are there any time gaps between the starting groups? i.e. when the top-20 have started, is there any time delay before the next group starts?

Melodeon

It's a short stage, so the Time Schedule isn't too outrageously long today.
Subtract 1 hour for Irish Time:

Inquitus

Can this stage rescue a desperate Tour?

retalivity

Movistar have 3 in the first 20...so they should get valverde to gun it at the start to isolate the 2 sky lads from the domestiques behind.

Will he do it? Probably not. Would movistar ask for it? They are probably more concerned about the team classification the useless backstards

mloc123

Inquitus wrote: »

Can this stage rescue a desperate Tour?

I am not optimistic

Chips Lovell

Start is a gimmick I reckon. That doesn't mean that the stage couldn't go gangbusters right from the gun if lads really want to have a go.

neris

Really looking forward to this stage for the novelty factor however I think Im gona be disappointed and it will be just another day of drudgery as Geraint & the bots haul Froome over mountains while the rest of the GC just suck their wheels or blow up (i:e movistar & quintana)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksbCDgR3Oko

dastardly00

Inquitus wrote: »

Can this stage rescue a desperate Tour?

I don't think it's been a desperate Tour.

I am optimistic that today will be exiting

retalivity

dastardly00 wrote: »

I don't think it's been a desperate Tour.

I am optimistic that today will be exiting

I am optimistic that i too will be exiting after today!

Thud

dastardly00 wrote: »

Are there any time gaps between the starting groups? i.e. when the top-20 have started, is there any time delay before the next group starts?

from reading this I doubt the starting gaps will be any way significant:
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/tour-de-france/geraint-thomas-not-expecting-grid-start-big-impact-tour-de-france-stage-17-387938

monkeybutter

Inquitus wrote: »

Can this stage rescue a desperate Tour?

It's an endurance team sport, what do you expect? Excitement? The winner usually wins by mere minutes over 3 weeks.

Team wins, individuality only matters for short bursts. And if anyone individual exceeds this they are probably cheating.

Brian?

monkeybutter wrote: »

It's an endurance team sport, what do you expect? Excitement? The winner usually wins by mere minutes over 3 weeks.

Team wins, individuality only matters for short bursts. And if anyone individual exceeds this they are probably cheating.

You do realise that exciting Grand Tours happen every year?

dastardly00

dastardly00 wrote: »

I am optimistic that today will be exiting

retalivity wrote: »

I am optimistic that i too will be exiting after today!

D'oh!

buffalo

Top ten have an advantage, and in there are two Lotto NL-Jumbo lads, and two Movistar, as well as Dumoulin and Dan Martin who don't have great support teams. It'd be great to see if they took the chance to go eyeballs out and attack to put Thomas and Froome on the backfoot.

Dumoulin and Roglic along with Kruijswijk probably have the best chance of staying away in terms of pure power, but two Cat 1s and a HC against Bernal et al is probably too far.

I do wonder if the various non-Sky top ten DSes have been plotting though...

eagle eye

Well I'm fascinated by this stage. The grid at the start gives options before a train can be formed.
This stage isn't one that a team can look at and form a concrete plan.
Like if Sky tell Froome and G to hang on for their train you could have a group form and go from km 0 including a couple from Doumoulin, Roglic, Martin, Bardet, Kruijswijk, Landa and Quintana.

There is also those who might look at it and think of saving themselves for the last 20 km and try manage the time gap up to then.

Literally anything could happen today.
Of course they could all look around at each other and before you know it the Sky train will be formed and we can all have a nap and set an alarm to see which of the two sky riders win it.

Shoco83

Has anybody else's Eurosport disappeared from sky this morning?

Chips Lovell

buffalo wrote: »

I do wonder if the various non-Sky top ten DSes have been plotting though...

Ditch-to-ditch crash about twenty riders from the front.

buffalo

Shoco83 wrote: »

Has anybody else's Eurosport disappeared from sky this morning?

It'd be better if Sky disappeared from Eurosport. :pac:

Melodeon

Shoco83 wrote: »

Has anybody else's Eurosport disappeared from sky this morning?

Nope, British Superbikes and Live Fencing on at the moment.

dastardly00

According to that GCN video, 43 km of the 65 km are uphill! :eek:

Shoco83

Melodeon wrote: »

Nope, British Superbikes and Live Fencing on at the moment.

The box just changed channel by itself to one of the set up pages and when I changed it back the channels were gone! I've pulled the plug and restarted the box and they are back. Panic over!

check_six

When you see a stage like this you've got to wonder: What would Contador do?

It would definitely be interesting whatever it was.

monkeybutter

Brian? wrote: »

You do realise that exciting Grand Tours happen every year?

Not really, I often enjoy watching it, but it's not exciting. I've watched say the giro-tour-vuelta in a mix of highlights and live depending on holidays for decades

It's intriguing for the suffering, not for the excitement, to see people smothered into breaking

Stand out performances have probably been the result of cheating

It's as exciting as Sean Kellys voice

Oh will the break away stay away today... it's cruel really

equivariant

Inquitus wrote: »

Can this stage rescue a desperate Tour?

"desperate"????

Its been really good. How many tours have had 3 riders with a real chance of winning by stage 17? There have been several good stages - Roubaix, Alpe d'Huez, ..., probably going to have a new winner, and we have at least 3 stages left that could shake up the GC

Probably the best Tour in the last 6 or 7 years and it has potential to be an all-time great Tour if the next few stages go well.

Hurrache

There may be 3 riders within reach of the top of the podium, but the reality is that there's no real race to see who gets there first, it's a procession really.

equivariant

Hurrache wrote: »

There may be 3 riders within reach of the top of the podium, but the reality is that there's no real race to see who gets there first, it's a procession really.

I don't believe that at all. Dumoulin is almost certainly going to take substantial time in the TT. If he can get 20/30 seconds back on Thomas in the mountains he has a real chance. Also Thomas is the most inexperienced of the 3 riders in terms of winning a GT. If Froome was in yellow with 1' 50 on Dumoulin then I might agree (even still..) but I still think that Dumoulin has a chance here.
If Thomas cracks (I hope he doesn't) and Froome has 11s on Dumoulin going into the TT then Dumoulin will win.

dastardly00

equivariant wrote: »

I don't believe that at all. Dumoulin is almost certainly going to take substantial time in the TT. If he can get 20/30 seconds back on Thomas in the mountains he has a real chance. Also Thomas is the most inexperienced of the 3 riders in terms of winning a GT. If Froome was in yellow with 1' 50 on Dumoulin then I might agree (even still..) but I still think that Dumoulin has a chance here.
If Thomas cracks (I hope he doesn't) and Froome has 11s on Dumoulin going into the TT then Dumoulin will win.

Regarding Froome v Dumoulin...
Dumoulin only gained 13 seconds on Froome during the 34 km ITT in the last week of the Giro this year.

There are no guarantees that Dumoulin would overcome the current 11 second deficit in the ITT.

check_six

check_six wrote: »

When you see a stage like this you've got to wonder: What would Contador do?

It would definitely be interesting whatever it was.

He would eat a big steak for breakfast and then go solo for the entire stage and win

Lusk_Doyle

dastardly00 wrote: »

Regarding Froome v Dumoulin...
Dumoulin only gained 13 seconds on Froome during the 34 km ITT in the last week of the Giro this year.

There are no guarantees that Dumoulin would overcome the current 11 second deficit in the ITT.

You've used a 13 second winning margin to argue against overcoming an 11 second deficit.

equivariant

dastardly00 wrote: »

Regarding Froome v Dumoulin...
Dumoulin only gained 13 seconds on Froome during the 34 km ITT in the last week of the Giro this year.

There are no guarantees that Dumoulin would overcome the current 11 second deficit in the ITT.

definitely no guarantees, but I would make Dumoulin a strong favourite over Froome-11s. I think TD has looked very strong in this race - moreso than the Giro.

dastardly00

Lusk_Doyle wrote: »

You've used a 13 second winning margin to argue against overcoming an 11 second deficit.

Yeah I know.

I think it gives an illustration that there is very little between the two riders during an ITT towards the end of a GT.

MPFGLB

I agree the positions are interesting and the lack of certainty of who will win ....mostly the difference between the top 3 were achieved in the first or 5th stage

But the cycling has been very controlled

SKY controlled ...so not very exciting

Even the breaks with the exception of one or 2 have been inevitable when you see who is there

equivariant

MPFGLB wrote: »

I agree the positions are interesting and the lack of certainty of who will win ....mostly the difference between the top 3 were achieved in the first or 5th stage

But the cycling has been very controlled

SKY controlled ...so not very exciting

Even the breaks with the exception of one or 2 have been inevitable when you see who is there

I agree that Sky controlled the GC on most of the Alpine stages, but we always expected Sky to be strong in the mountains - we have yet to see if they will pay for that effort in the Pyrenees

Also the stages have had lots of good racing - Alaphillipe has had 2 really good stage wins and the Alpe d'Huez stage was a classic I think, even if the GC gaps for the top 3 were small there was a lot of attacking and counter attacking on the climb and I think that was the stage where Thomas really established himself as the main main for Sky. Also I think
that this tour has finally shown that Quintana is not good enough at the highest level. When the pressure came on he wasn't able to stay with the best climbers.

eagle eye

Imo this has been a great tour so far and today's stage has the potential to shake up the whole GC battle.
I think Dumoulin has looked really strong as has Thomas.
Thomas keeps tracking Dumoulin and has taken time out of him by doing that. If I'm honest I expect more of that today at the front of the race with Thomas taking the stage for more bonus seconds.
Realistically anything could happen today. This is a short cruel stage and it's possible that if somebody was on fire today that they could take up to five minutes out of the rest.

Lumen

Grid system, wut?

I don't like change. STOP HAVING IDEAS.

mloc123

Lumen wrote: »

Grid system, wut?

I don't like change. STOP HAVING IDEAS.

A LeMans running start would be good... maybe a 3km run to start... and maybe tag one on the end also the break up the finishing groups.. say 5km off the bike.

Chips Lovell

Leave their bikes in a massive pile at the start line. Everyone has to run 100m to the pile, pull their bike out and get going.

Hurrache

mloc123 wrote: »

A LeMans running start would be good... maybe a 3km run to start... and maybe tag one on the end also the break up the finishing groups.. say 5km off the bike.

Aren't they call duathlons?

mloc123

Hurrache wrote: »

Aren't they call duathlons?

Should I have included a troll face in my post

Lumen

It's like a cycling race format phoned in by someone who has never seen a cycling race.

This is a sport where the participants pee together out of courtesy.

Hurrache

mloc123 wrote: »

Should I have included a troll face in my post

I knew what you were at, I was trying to play ball :pac:

Chips Lovell

Lumen wrote: »

It's like a cycling race format phoned in by someone who has never seen a cycling race.

Is Carlton Kirby a consultant for ASO now or something?

mloc123

Hurrache wrote: »

I knew what you were at, I was trying to play ball :pac:

damn.. :pac:

Froome had already set a precedent here, covering part of that stage on foot... I still laugh when I think about it