Not seen much of yesterdays stage but sounds like it followed a familiar pattern with a break getting chased down mostly by Etixx QS. A first World Tour win for Magnus Court Nielsen of OBE though, it’s been quite a good vuelta for them, will they be able to cap it off with a podium place too?

Well today doesn’t carry quite the significance that it might have done following Contadors raid on stage 15, dragging Quintana with him and giving him a buffer of over three minutes going into the time trial.

A quick reminder of GC…

I can see Froome maybe putting 2 minutes max into Quintana barring any disasters, and I can’t see him making the rest up on tomorrows stage when (other than stage 15) there’s only been seconds between them on the big finishes.

Chaves’s podium looks under threat and it’s likely he’ll swap places with Contador today, though if he can stay reasonably close he may well be able to snatch it back tomorrow as he’s looked better on the climbs.

Yates and Talansky is probably the same story. Talansky a good time trialist and could possibly make up a minute and a half on Yates, though Yates would likely snatch the place back on tomorrows stage. Sammy Sanches can go well too.

Top 10 will be starting around half three today (times here).

And we’re off. Live text feed…

http://live.cyclingnews.com

According to which, a giant green inflatable has just collapsed on some Katusha rider.

Can’t really get excited about time trials. will keep half an eye on the times and just watch the interviews at the end of the itv highlights later. Hope froome does pull back a decent amount of time.

Listening to tour of britain instead today!

I love a good time trial 🙂 Quite surprised to see De Ghent putting in a strong ride, thought he’d be saving it for the break on tomorrow’s stage. Some Sky riders rolling in like they’re on a club run.

Quite an interesting article with Ian Boswell about stage 15…

http://velonews.competitor.com/2016/09/news/boswells-first-hand-account-of-how-sky-lost-the-vuelta_420234

About Brailsford post stage…

We were disappointed. It was a pretty quiet bus ride home. We didn’t get chewed out, as if it were an American football team. The most positive person was Brailsford. He said, ‘OK guys, we made a mistake. We all know what happened. Let’s not get down. We still have five, six days of racing left to go. Let’s go down fighting.’

good article that!

From cycling news feed…

“It’s a very hard course, lots of headwind, lots of up and down, technical, and you have to keep your concentration,” Lampaert tells Eurosport from the hotseat.

Should be good for Froome.

Top 10 starts in about 15 mins.

Tobias Ludvigsson just put in a huge ride to take the hot seat. Big day for Giant Alpecin as Calpe is where they were based for training back in January when they had the big team head on collision.

Froome is away. Quite tense this.

LOOK AT THE TIME!!!

He’s put 40 46 seconds into Quintana over the first 12.5k (about 1/3rd of the way). Has Froome gone off to quickly? Is Quintana starting steady?

Nuts!!

Looks like it’s going to be close enough to make tomorrow interesting 🙂

Quintana not looking that smooth on the twisty bits either.

Blimey Froome has almost caught Chaves for 2 mins already.

Edit.. though TBH unless it’s well under a minute I think Quintana is still pretty safe for the Vuelta win.

Is it on telly anywhere?

thought Chaves was going to side-swipe froome then!!

Eurosport molgrips.

Contador already has a minute on Chaves so securing a podium.

Cancelled my sub.. damn.

or links to streams on steephill

1 minute 15!!!

1’30” now it seems. 1’32” at the second checkpoint after 23k, another 14k to go.

Looks like Yates may well lose a place to Talansky too.

Looks to be about 2 minutes now. Froome coming in to finish… smashes the stage win. Incredible ride.

Froome can really animate races. It’s brilliant

So, did Quintana ride conservatively so he’s got it in reserve to defend any and all attacks, or did he have to ride as hard as he could for fear of losing it all.

Looking like it could be an interesting day tomorrow…. can’t see Froome doing it but I hope he tries – win or die trying.

WOW! 2 minutes and 16 advantage, so 1’21 to make up tomorrow (I think?)

Doable on the last climb or not?

Tomorrow will be interesting but Nairp is the favourite

Hard to see how he will lose that short of exploding

Quintana over the line, loses 2’16”. So ahead on GC by 1’21”.

So, did Quintana ride conservatively so he’s got it in reserve to defend any and all attacks,

Difficult to say how much he paced it. He would have had the time gaps. I think he’s still safe with that sort of gap.

Doable on the last climb or not?

There’s been only a handful of seconds between them previous summit finishes so I doubt it. But then that last climb tomorrow is 21km long and not stupid steep, maybe suits Froome. Sets it up nicely, it’s definitely not over.

Can’t help but admire Froome, his ride to stay in it with no team support on Stage 15, and that ride today. Blimey.

It’d have to be a great team effort tomorrow. But I hope they do something, and I reckon they will. Hope we’ll see some (more) proper balls out racing to silence the moaners about boring tours.

What a performane by Froome

Don’t think he’ll win tomorrow but what an effort.

Team Sky to turn up in TTT gear and burn everyone off from the go, driver of the Sky bus to sideswipe the peloton just in case, and Britain’s favourite Kenyan to be drinking Cava on the top step on Sunday night.

I could do Dave B’s job (yes, i know Dave B doesn’t do day to day strategy really)

But I hope they do something, and I reckon they will. Hope we’ll see some (more) proper balls out racing to silence the moaners about boring tours.

Agreed.

Sky train onto the last climb, suddenly fans out across a narrow road and goes slow while Froome attacks effectively blocking Nairo’s counter.

Perhaps.

A long hard stage tomorrow…

Almost 200k. A lot of climbing. And a big long summit finish.

Big gaps could be a possibility.

Current GC….

Literally park the bus, Ulrika Green Hedge style.

If Froome does make that time up (on an unlikely) solo attack tomorrow, then he will deserve it. If there is a team sky attack, then they have to look back at the rules where most of the team finished outside the cut off on that previous stage.

Half the peloton would have been ejected including most of Movistar, Tinkoff, OBE and Sky. Some teams would have been eliminated entirely.

Interesting to hear Froome, along with most of the main GC guys, saying the rules should have been upheld.

Personally think they should have ejected them. But then teams and sponsors would not be happy to lose a whole week of coverage.

I thought most of the movistar team had finished within the cutoff.

Actually I think you’re right on that one, Movistar only had one or two in that 50+ minute group.

It is an interesting point of discussion though. There’s plenty of prescedent for being lenient with the time cut, happens all the time. And riders know that and if the grupetto is big enough they know they’re most likely safe and will not push to stay within the time cut. A lot of people would like to see the time cut upheld and that prescedent reversed.