Degenkolb is better at lumpy courses than Cav, who exceeded expectations by only losing 10 seconds on stage 3. Giant's sprint train misfired on stage 4, but Cav is faster than Degenkolb in a flat sprint anyway.

Cav remains the fastest pure sprinter, against anyone but Kittel. He wins most of the time. The best of the young guns like Viviani are close, they beat Cav occasionally but not a majority of the time. Sagan isn't a match for Cav or the other top sprinters, in a pure flat sprint.

Against Kittel, Cav hasn't had any success so far. Kittel has the power of Griepel but seems to be able to sustain it longer. Giant also has the best lead out team, by far. Cav's lead out was not good in 2013 and if I recall he was on slightly less than top form. We never had a chance to see much of his lead out in 2014, due to his crash, and for some reason I thought he looked a little overweight in the first half of the season. The members of his train keep changing with Petacchi given the boot and only Martin and Renshaw as stable members.

My impression is that Cav is as fast as Kittel in the initial acceleration, but cannot sprint from as far out, while Kittel hasn't shown the ability to improvise when the trains get chaotic, and is even worse at climbing than Cav is. The two of them are a notch above everyone else.

Edit: I read an interview with a member of Kittel's sprint train, who said Kittel pushes 1900 watts vs Griepel's 1800. Cav has said he does 1600. Someone else, maybe Kittel's coach, said in another article that Kittel can sustain top power longer than others. Looking at photos, Kittel's position looks lower than Griepel, though not quite as low as Cav.

So if Kittel pushes well more top power, sustains it longer, and has a fairly aero position, and a great sprint train, that makes him hard to beat. If he starts at 300 m, I don't think Cav has a good chance trying to sustain a drag race side by side; he has to try to follow Kittel and come around him late. If they both get launched by their lead outs and go side by side from 150 m, I think Cav has a better chance.