Tony Martin, stage 6 - Vuelta.
 

Did you see that?

Nope, read it on the ticker. Still had my heart rate up.

Such an epic ride. I can't relate to time trials with all that expensive area bits and long walm ups. But this was road cycling, on a road bike. The most epic solo ride I have ever seen.

I watched that all morning here. Transfixed.

How Markov had the audacity to act like he did ANYTHING!!!! He just won a bike race. Everyone will forget the stage winner except his parents. Stayed covered and probably just spun 220 watts all day, did his little trackboy thing in the last 1km and caught the KING OF MEN.

Heil Tony Martin.

Martin likely would have survived to the line if Cancellara had not put in his final dig to close the gap. Odd thing though was that Cancellara was not leading out an RS teammate and didnt really have much chance of winning for himself with a line of the other teams sprinters in his draft, seems like it was a bit of a spoiler move.

Amazing performance by Martin. I have seen other races where a breakaway is caught on the line, but never a solo breakaway.

what a heartbreaker to be caught out of gas at the last 20 meters. 20 meters... may be less.

can anyone educate me on a couple:

1. at the last stretch, martin's cadence is dropping rapidly. if he had switched to a lower gear, could he have maintained the speed? or are the legs so tired that they can't spin fast even on the granny gear?

2. he held the same 9 seconds lead at 5km until under 1km. typically at other chase i have seen, that time dropped at a steady pace, like 1 sec for every 100m for example. wonder if the peloton simply held back from 5km to 1km to deliver a cruel blow to martin. could they have overtaken martin, say, at 3km if they tried?

1. Only Martin know's for sure, but he is among the top time trialists in the world. I'd guess he knows himself well enough to choose the most efficient gear.

2. At that point one of the teams probably could have taken the lead and dragged the peloton up to Martin, but then they would have blown themselves for a final sprint lead out. So they let him him dangle while the sprint teams get organized for the final charge. I do think in this case they under-estimated Martin a bit but for the top guys in the stage it didn't matter.

Markov still deserves the win. No need to lambast the guy because Tony Martin didn't quite win it. It still takes A LOT of effort to organize a leadout and pull through for the win in those last kms.

I see you're more a fan of the practical. There's nothing more boring than tactical bike racing, spinning with a heart rate of 140, using just enough bike handling to make sure everyone else gets the wind besides you. It's easy to find the watts late when you haven't done anything all day. In fact, I don't recall Markov's name ever coming up yesterday, ever. It was a tactical, boring, professional win of a bike race that had exactly one interesting participant. But you're a research lawyer, or an actuary, or a budget analyst, so the tedious, calculated precision with which Markov won really spoke to you.

And history will easily forget this win, too. This stage will always be "Do you remember when Martin road 100 miles by himself until "they" caught him on the line?"

He didn't organize any leadout. He followed Cancellara's wheel because he was as fresh as a daisy.

Yesterday was just a NASCAR race where the losers caught the faster car that ran out of gas.

Todays stage 7 a late break got away. The Vueta is a climbers tour, and the big time sprinters have not turned up and nor have their entourage. The peloton is not working in the way we are used to seeing in the Tour de France.

Also did anyone watch the 'world ports classic' day 1, the breakway took a short cut gainning 3 minutes and ended up winning. No race radios, confusion in the bunch, quiet funny.

Seems to me that the participating Vuelta teams did not bring along the top-tier flat stage sprinters this year. Cav, Greipel, Goss, Sagan, Kittel are all sitting out from the Vuelta. Without a top-tier sprinter, few of the teams are as commited to a race day strategy that sacrifices most of the teammates in support of a mediocre sprinter that has low odds of a win. The sprinters and leadout trains also just seem much less organized than the well-drilled final 5km efforts that were displayed at Giro and TDF.

Dream on. What Martin did will be forgotten in 10 years. All that will remain is the line in the record books saying Markov won the stage.

I'd give an example, but I can't think of one. Even I forget guys who try and gain nothing.

+1.
I was acualy pissed.

Some one else made a good point though that is was Cancellara who really spoiled it, Markov just happened to be behind him when he got spat out the front.

Agreed, although Markov will probably not be remembered at all; where Martin will be remembered as a winner of some great races, and some great efforts that almost worked... like Fignon... and Cancellara... and probably Horner.