TdF Stage 11 – A Tough One [Spoilers]

exactly, keep your hyperbole till the finish Phil.

exactly, keep your hyperbole till the finish Phil.

…Do you know what hyperbole is? 😕

i’ll rephrase so you understand

exactly, keep your exaggerations and emphasis for effect till the finish Phil.

…Do you know what hyperbole is?

Do you know what mint condition is? 😕

LOL @ Yossarian! 😀

Could Froome’s attack have been a team tactic to see if Nubali would or could follow?

No i doubt it I just think he did it in the moment

The thing he has is a change of pace…Brad can grind at a very high pace but he cannot change pace

No longer sure which one of them is the best tbh
What did froome loose with the punture + if he had continued to attack?

it’s all pretty academic really if they were racing each other brad had the chance to drop him earlier in the climb when he(chris) struggled to keep in contact.

Fair point

TBH, it looks like Wiggins will win, but I won’t be rushing to buy the DVD, makes an Indurain tour look exciting…

Fair Play! I Really picked the wrong stage! what a cracker!

Err, can we talk about Froomes emergence as a world beater in two years, which have been plagued by injury and illness? If he was Italian we’d be ripping him to shreds, that radobank doctor is earning his beans…

My sky plus stopped recording with 4k to go

You can set it to overrun by 10 minutes

Blimey, those are some long legs that bloke Froome has! 😯

Glitchy Bump

Froome does look like he can win it one day

junkyard, yeah, tomorrow!

You can set it to overrun by 10 minutes

the kids had clashed it with Postman Pat!

Still hanging on to yellow by the skin of my teeth…..I’m going to miss it when it’s gone :0(

Bradley, get off Rorschach’s computer !

😉 😳

My sky plus stopped recording with 4k to go

My virgin tivo did the exact same thing (as did my mates). Really annoying!

It’s quite clever. Froome can attack and Nibbles will go with him, all these little digs will break Nibbles and Wiggo will just keep trawling on in his usual rhythm.

Thats exactly the points I was making when I said I’d like to see Froome attack.

wiggins/froome = hinault/lemond

so if froome continues to drag wiggins through the rest of the tour and stays in second and froome stays ahead of everyone else at the last TT (wiggins sets off last right?) do you think he’ll ease off and let froome take it as the rightful winner? seeing as how he does so far seem to be the better rider and presumably is being reigned in from stamping over everyone else to nurse bradley.

just an idea

do you think he’ll ease off and let froome take it as the rightful winner?

Not a chance. This is wiggins tour, froome will have his time.

cinnamon_girl – Member
Blimey, those are some long legs that bloke Froome has!

Smelling salts and a cold shower for CG

It’s quite clever. Froome can attack and Nibbles will go with him, all these little digs will break Nibbles and Wiggo will just keep trawling on in his usual rhythm.

I reckon it might have been discussed as a general tactic, then when the situation arrose the DS gave him an earfull and/or the wording was more “Nibbles has nothing, sit up” rather than “Wiggins has nothing, sit up”.

If they had gone the really interesting moment would have been whether Wiggins and Nibali would have worked together to catch him, or whether Sky would view the lesser of 2 evils to keep Nibali back from Froom and let Froom get close to Wiggins in the overall or try and catch Froom and keep the top 3 as they are.

Not a chance. This is wiggins tour, froome will have his time.

+1 Froom was dropper erlier in the stage (nothing to say if he’d done less of the work Brad or someone else woudln’t have been the one being dropped though?) and I don’t think he’d have 2 minutes in his legs, I reckon it was one last kick to see what happend or to prove a point I don’t think he intended to break away and stay away.

This is wiggins tour

well I presume rather than it being “brad’s turn” it was decided at the start that BW was the strongest all rounder and had the best chance of winning but froome (along with rest of team) seems to be doing most of the work, has energy left to spare and is pretty good TTer aswell, he may have been the better choice and is only in second due to team orders.

Not really expecting bw to give it up, just an idle though.

I would like to see Sky reach the point where they can drop ‘team orders’ between Froome and Wiggins and let them race. It’s clear Froome has a turn of speed that Wiggins can’t match but I’m not convinced yet[/b] that he’s the better all-round rider.

seeing as how he does so far seem to be the better rider and presumably is being reigned in from stamping over everyone else to nurse bradley.

Not sure you can be that certain this would happen
Wiggo dropped Froome on the hardest part an nursed him up so we cannot be certain what would have happened to Froome had he been dropped when he was struggling
Wiggo is still a far better TT than Froome

I accept it would be very close if they were in different teams but remember the same folk who “nurse” Wiggo up have also nursed Froome up. Had froome not cracked and had to lead Brad up then he may have “cracked” further up like brad sort of did. We dont know if Froome could have sustained it to the top either see Nibbles or cuddles for example

He does have superb recovery and he ha s change of pace that Brad lacks though
I assume Sky know who is actually the strongest rider [ froome said there was no chance Brad would be slower than him on the TT for example] though and I assume one day Froome time will come.

It’s clear Froome has a turn of speed that Wiggins can’t match

I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Wiggins doesn’t need to match it.

I would like to see Sky reach the point where they can drop ‘team orders’

yeah that’d be good but wiggins will likely kick arse in the TT, how much potential time has froome already lost by having to stick with bradley on the climbs? We’ll never know. I know it’s a team event but being ferried around the whole tour by your team mates then kicking botty in the TTs to win seems a bit…mleh when there’s another potential winner in the team.

BTW how much team help did evans get last year? I only ever watch a bit of the tour but what i did see he seemed to be mostly on his own where as Cav last year (and bradley this year) was surrounded by the team and wouldn’t have done nearly as well without them.

Aye but it is the modern way…gone are the romantic times when folk used to attack everyday and try and win every stage.
the other thing yo are forgetting is e dont know what effect it would have had on Froome to attack every day and how he would have recovered. Perhaps he can only attack because he has been “slowed” by nursing Brad. the team are also helping him.

the other issue is you build a team to let your strongest member win and the Wiggo strength is the TT and the rest is about not loosing time. in essence we will never know

seeing as how he does so far seem to be the better rider and presumably is being reigned in from stamping over everyone else to nurse bradley.

Indurain won his tours by doing this and to some degree so did LA though he could also win hilly days. as did Cuddles last year – Contador could do both
It is the best way to win these days if perhaps “unfair”

he seemed to be mostly on his own

he is strong on the mountains so did not need help from his team – have a look on the flats to see where his team are- you build a team to help you with your weakest area

Well, if BW is the best time trialler, it seems to make sense to make him the leader on a tour that’s fairly heavy on TTs and light on big mountains. Maybe if it’s more mountainous next year we’ll see CF go for it.

It will be interesting to see what happens later in the tour with regards these two.

By the way, Mrs Grips is now getting into this which makes me happy, I get to explain cycling to her, although I know even less about it than I do cricket and rugby which I also had to explain to her after we were married 🙂

It obviously makes sense to stick to the plan for Sky to win as a team, but how good would it be if they let Froome and Wiggins to race against each other? There would obviously be a risk of letting Nibali in (which is why they won’t do it), but it would suit everyone. Froome would get his chance, and Wiggins would be able to win without the doubt as to whether he was the best man or not. Does Wiggins really want that hanging over him?

I think if Froome had actually made the break he would have been allowed to go. Unfortunately everyone else in the group apart from Wiggins stuck with him, so all he would have done was bring their closest rival nearer to the yellow.If his break had worked and he’d dropped the group, leaving Brad with Nibbles, then I expect it would have been fine for him to catch up a few seconds on Brad.

The point is that Sky want yellow, and Froome dragging Nibbles closer to it is not what they want. Froome getting closer to it without helping his team’s rivals would probably have been fine.

how much potential time has froome already lost by having to stick with bradley on the climbs? We’ll never know. I know it’s a team event but being ferried around the whole tour by your team mates then kicking botty in the TTs to win seems a bit…mleh when there’s another potential winner in the team.

But he didn’t though, Bradley had to stick with Froome erlier in the stage.

If BW hadn’t then maybe………..

BW would have been in the group alone

CF would have been chaseing from a group further back

CF’s ‘attack’ would just have been bridgeing the gap to BW’s group and damage limitation on his standing relative to Nibbles.

Any GC contender would have needed help on the hills, that’s why there’s a team, if CF was leader then there’s be another climber to pace him and we’d be having the same argument with different names.

I like Froome but some people here need to get a grip, just because he briefly dropped Wiggins near the end of a tough stage doesn’t mean he’s much stronger and the rightful leader/winner. Wiggins is thinking about getting to Paris, any TdF rider gradually loses form over the course of the race – why kill himself going into the red at the end of a stage when he gains no real advantage from doing so. Clearly he was put into difficulty but he didn’t need to respond so we’ll never know if he was able to.

There’s a lot of is’ buts and maybe’s going on here.

how good would it be if they let Froome and Wiggins to race against each other?

Destructive I would think and no good for team morale.

Perhaps the ds said to froome that if he was 100% sure he can drop nibali then go for it. The last thing he would want to do is drag nibali with him taking time out of wiggins lead.

Froome for Vuelta win.

They generally don’t plan a race on the spot as it’s happening. It’s months of preparation.

Wiggo has won both the Dauphine and Paris-Nice this season. Froome has been ill or running over pensioners. Had Froome been pushing Wiggo earlier this season, added to last years Vuelta we may see a different plan from Sky. But we don’t so they’ll continue as they are (seems to be going pretty well).

Don’t worry about Froome, he’s 27 and has plenty of opportunities (this years Vuelta maybe), and Sky have a ready made team for him (to stay with). Wiggo’s opportunity is now, he’ll not have the legs in a year or two as Evans may have demonstrated yesterday.

Destructive I would think and no good for team morale.

Absolutely. My point was more about what it would be like for us spectators to watch, although I can understand why that won’t really factor in the team’s considerations.

The bigger point I think though is whether Wiggins wants this hanging over him. Anyone in the know will appreciate that it’s a team sport and that his win will represent a win for the whole team, but nonetheless there’ll always be a question over whether he was the most deserving. From a sporting point of view then surely it would be better for this doubt to be eliminated, and it seems to me there’s only really one way to do that.

possibly but it will never happen.
hinault and le mond 1985 for example
Hinault did not repay the compliment in 86 when le mond – the team leader was repeatedly attacked by Hinault who lost to Le mond eventually.
http://www.cyclingrevealed.com/oct05/top25-19.html

I suspect that Froome knows brad is stronger overall [ just but it will be close] but not on the hills. We would end up with brad attacking him on the flats and that could result in both being worn out for the next lot of hills and Nibali winning.

The bigger point I think though is whether Wiggins wants this hanging over him

that’s kind of where I was coming from but TBH it’s gonna be career suicide to give up being the 1st british(ish) man to win the tour.

Wiggo dropped Froome on the hardest part an nursed him up

yes jury is still out on whether froome is any better but has wiggins ever taken a turn upfront? the rest of the team are battering themselves at the front all day I’d expect the headman to be able to pull away at the end of the race. Like I said not seen a lot of the tour but I have twice seen froome lead wiggins up the majority of the hill finish and still have the legs to race off ahead of him for the line. could well be wiggins saving his legs when he can but it might be froome is better.

Froome is better at hill climbing but that is to where brad will win the race but it is where he can loose it.
if Froome was team leader that is where he would attack

Wiggo was upfront yesterday when Froome mini cracked and led the chase back to nibbles and when Froome rejoined [ could brad have attacked him then during his mini crack and would Froome have then had the legs and heart to respond] he then attacked

Vuleta [ tour of Spain] showed Froome is a far superior climber than Brad and would race differently to win.

i think if they attaced on the hills Brad would attack on the flats an they could burn each other out and neither win so Sky wont risk it.
i assume the stats from team Sky show wiggo to be the stronger over all or else they would support Froome as leader??

I am enjoying this one today – partly ‘cos DM is in the break & mostly ‘cos he’s on my team!!!