save10

i'm not doubting that. and really that's besides the point. i'm just saying he needs to lay off the croissants. Frankly its not just cyclists, but too many ex-athletes pro and amateur. I have no doubt charles barkley could destroy us at basketball but not if his diabetes gets to him first.

grolby

The guy is 24, has won something like 13 races this year, including a Strade Bianchi where he made Sagan look like a Cat 3. This year alone, he finished on the podium at the Tour of the Basque Country, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Fleche Wallone. Oh, he also got top 5 at Amstel Gold and won the Volta ao Algarve. 24 years old. I guess if you've only seem him at the Tour, an event of a size and importance at which he has very little experience, you might be underwhelmed. But that's just a result of not paying attention. Whether he will end up a grand tour GC rider is unclear, but this is a kid who is already in the hunt for the win at Monument Classics like LBL. He's really not being oversold at this point.

Ygduf

Omg zip up your ****ing jersey

Grumpy McTrumpy

wut

abhirama

Hmm, I was wrong to judge him on his performance in this Tour.

hack

Poor Sagan...2nd again.

MDcatV

bob roll did a century around here a few years ago. i wasnt there but a bunch of our club members were. i think he rode everyone off his wheel at one point ... and bob roll was no greg lemond.

abhirama

There are a few pros who upload their ride data (with power, importantly) on Strava. Fun and a learning experience looking at the data.

Lars Boom from today's stage, for instance.

Ygduf

I started watching at like 20k and the 3-man move had 35 or 40 seconds. They're heading down a descent and looking like they are trying to stay away and one of the riders had his jersey unzipped and it was parachuting on him. He kept it that way until they got caught. So much drag. I was rooting for them and it killed me to watch him ride with a drag chute.

echappist

the stupid robert rolle commercials are really getting on my nerves

jmikami

I am losing my faith in sagan as a sprinter. He had good position before the sprint started, made his move with just under 300 meters to go to jump up to Kristoff's wheel and then with just over 200 meters to go let up just a touch to sit on the wheel just as Kristoff launched his final sprint. Restarting your sprint is soo hard, huge error at that point, especially since Kristoff had been in the wind longer at that point. Who knows how fast Degenkolb would have been since his team left him too close the barriers and he got cut off, but IMO Sagan would have won if he kept going right and didn't pause to get on a wheel. Degenkolb is likely upset as well as his team set him up perfectly until not leaving him space to finish it off so missed chance for him as well.

The armchair/backseat racer in me hated that way that sprint finished because of those two mistakes. Time to go race my bike ... luckily for me there will be no video tape of all my mistakes ... there will be plenty.

mattm

Sagan acts like he has some great sprint and can just start from way back... nope!

hack

I think Sagan has Tour of California-itis. When he was over here, hillier "sprint" stages that filtered out Cavendish and Degenkolb were his for the taking. He'd even have time to plan his celebratory wheelies. He's in a much bigger pond now with much faster fish. Degenkolb isn't Giant's primary sprinter and he was taking Sagan out on sprints at TOC.

jmikami

I think he was perfect at 300 meters. It was that slight pause at 200 meters that killed it. Getting too close to the front is not good, but if you are not the guy who was led out you have to go first, not wait. He waited.

oh well, just an armchair.

Ygduf

he looked boxed in today too. the guy who took it got a couple extra seconds before sagan could respond.

/* me talking about sprinting, so basically yeah

furiousferret

Sagan reminds me of a slightly better Hushovd. Not the best sprint, not quite a classics guy, but can make it work by playing it smart. That being said at 24 he's got better days ahead of him.

echappist

Gent-Wevelgem on a solo break
E3 Prijs Vlaanderent by outsprinting his three break mates
GP Montreal by attacking the descent and ITT to the finish
Top 5 in MSR, RvV, and perhaps PR as well?

that said, doesn't have the palmares for the classics with steeper gradients, though he did finish 2nd in Amstel

Creatre

TBH, he could just show up and do his top 5 thing and not wreck too much and win the green jersey the rest of his life. Hard for any sprinters to compete against a guy that can top 5 a flat stage, a hilly stage, and get in a break to get the sprint points on a mountain stage. It'd have to be a guy like kwiatoski to beat him.

MDcatV

some pretty damned good days behind him too.

his team looks disorganized to me relative to his competition, leaving Sagan to fend for himself. He appears to be free lancing and making tactical errors, but yeah, armchair and all.

Grumpy McTrumpy

My opinion on Sagan is that his legs are telling him that he can keep being a Jack of all Trades*.

But that carries a price*.

As others have pointed out, some of the great sprinters aren't "bad" climbers. They just choose to not push themselves on climbs because they know it will rob them of their primary race-winning superpower.

Add a little fatigue or maybe a slight respiratory issue and suddenly this becomes more pronounced.

MDcatV

^i think YMCA suggested this, but maybe his form is too good so his legs are telling his head lies.

Grumpy McTrumpy

Pretty anticlimactic to see Katusha bury themselves to bring back the break for Purito only to see Astana sit up for the climb and undo the whole thing.

carpediemracing 

This Tour has been so chaotic. No idea what is happening now but just in general.

Grumpy McTrumpy

Rodriguez dropped.... didn't see that one coming

I'm beginning to wonder if the heat is a big player today

Grumpy McTrumpy

Porte looks like he bonked