hobkirk

I know nothing about pro racing and I'm fat. But why let that stop my big mouth? So there seem to be two main possibilities:

1. Quintana is worse
   • Quintana's coach had him lose weight and he was 6% (?) body fat
   • The #1 factor for climbing success is usually defined as "Weight" (e.g., Lance gets CA, loses 9#, and starts winning [for the sake of argument, I posit that many of his competitors were also doping]
   • But there are a LOT of other factors, including fitness, power, stamina, etc. It seems quite possible that less body fat might have hurt his stamina (or power or whatever). I'd bet his coach follows general guidelines, but it seems we humans have a lot of variability.
2. Froome is better
   • It seems to me that Froome is simply crushing Quintana (and everyone else). It seems that Froome is riding so well that it must demoralize Quintana to find his best acceleration is easily (seemingly?) matched by Froome.
   • Froome's training and/or thinking seems better. I was very impressed by his new downhill expertise (how is it possible that he was the only one to pedal in the tuck?) and his superb intelligence in today's time trial.

I think Quintana is absolutely outstanding, but he's fun into Superman, and his focus on matching Superman has probably cost him time to Mollema and Yates. I.e., if Froome were not there, it seems possible Quintana wound be leading.

alathIN

3. Froome has a Killer Team

I think both the factors you mention above are likely. Just to add, it always seems like toward the end of stages Quintana or whoever else has dropped all their teammates, and now struggling by himself to keep up with Froome and his two or three teammates. All this time, Froome has been handing off his water bottles to his buddies, drafting off of them, generally relaxing, and then all the sudden he attacks the guy who was just hanging on by the skin of his teeth.

MinnMan

Definitely true. But the time trial success is all his own.

work4bike

Yes, the fight for yellow is over, but the tour is far from over; I'm still stoked about watching for the fight for the podium.

I can only imagine how Porte would be positioned now if not for his flat.

DiabloScott

I always find the stage wins to be more interesting than the GC anyway. Like the best reason to have a grand tour, is to have 21 great races all strung together.

sprince

The green jersey winner was never in question. The polka dot is pretty much decided baring a crash or withdrawal, only Port and Bardet are anywhere close to 3rd place overall with one mountain top finish remaining. What podium fight is there to watch?

MinnMan

You are leaving out Quintana, who remains in 4th, though perhaps his "allergy" will hold him back.

I really want to see Yates on the podium. If Froome's victory seemed foreordained, I think we can agree that the other podium contendors, Mollema and Yates, are a big surprise.

alathIN

99% agree, but still, if Froome spends a day where his teammates are doing all the pulling and counterattacking, while he's hanging back with a couple of domestiques (any of whom would probably be team lead anywhere but Sky), listening to Jimmy Buffet and passing a blunt around, then he's going to be crazy fresh for that time trial the next day.

No diss to the Froome, because he's clearly awesome, but his support system is as much an outlier as he is.

Stadjer

Mollema is a local boy for me and I'm probably a bit prejudiced, but it is a team sport and you have to earn the team you get. Froome has excellent support, but he deserves it because he makes it count. Hopefully, with this years performance Mollema will get a better team and have a better chance next year. It takes several years to become a tour winner and showing you're good enough to have the whole team just working for you is part of that.

bikecrate

I'm rooting for Porte and Yates for podium spots. They have shown some grit. Now if we could only get Phil Ligget to stop calling Adam Yates "Simon".

HardyWeinberg

Quintana Bardet & Porte are all in striking distance of Yates & Mollema.

jefnvk

Simple question: Froome goes down, takes teammates bike, but the team car can't get through traffic to him to get him his. Why can't (or don't) they give Froome's replacement bike to the teammate whose bike he took to take up to him?

DLBroox

Wow what a day! I really feel for all those riders that were put out by this crazy stage. Although Doumalin's crash looked like one of those silly ones where guys just tangle with each other's wheels.

I can't believe that Roland got back up and rode. Theses guys are really made of something special.

Caretaker

Because he's so far behind, on a bike that's not his and without team mates to help he just would never make it.

jefnvk

Makes sense, I guess, it just seems to me that the cars in that situation wouldn't be picking through that traffic any faster than a cyclist, why would he even be expecting the team car to make it to him (maybe he really wasn't, just going off ITV commentary)?

In any case, impressive that he could GAIN on his lead in those circumstances on a teammates bike!

HardyWeinberg

All of them, especially Contador. I was off my bike for 2 months after twisting my knee. They would have gotten right back on and kept going.

Caretaker

Bad for Tom Dumoulin, one day you're riding great in the TT and the next you crash out through no fault of your own.

Good to see Dan Martin still active in the peloton. He looks to be holding his form to the last and should finish in the top ten.

Great ride from Bardet.

Froome looks to have survived with just some road rash but it could have been curtains. Hopefully it will be dry tomorrow and we get loads of action on the final climb.

fietsbob

Roads are slick when they are wet and You dont win by not taking risks in Pro Bike racing.

USAZorro

I never cared for Superman either.

alathIN

If Froome has a Kryptonite, I have yet to see it.

alathIN

Gerryattrick

At least I've got something I can do as well as Froome. Ride over paint lines on a wet road, downhill, on a bend, and fall off.

But I can't get up and carry on as well as he can.

DeceptivelySlow

Well, great race on the front end today. Congrats to Jon Izaguirre.

Team Sky manages to protect Froome and squelch any entertainment for the podium race on the last climb.

DLBroox

I was super disappointed to not see any podium challenges. Quintana gets third for just sitting there.

Why didn't Yates or Porte even try? Yates was well within striking distance of Qunintana and far enough down on Froome to try.

Chicago Al 

I have just been thinking I needed to find or make a meme like that...or a gif better yet, but in the meantime I'm stealing that one! Thanks!