Originally Posted by
Athens80
GC positions 2-10+ are far more concerned about not letting a
#16 GC rider overtake them and will work to rein in a break with a real GC threat in it. Sky can sit back and let the other teams do all the work there. All the other teams could be overtaken while Froome still held a three minute lead. So it'll (practically) never happen. That break will never be allowed. And as stated above, the rest of the attempted break will oppose a GC rider joining, because it crushes the chance for the break to succeed.
Cycling is is a great daily exercise of game theory. Teams don't devote energy to efforts with no payoffs.
^^Yup this.
If 16th went up the road tomorrow Sky and Movistar and BMC etc would not let them get that much time that he would overtake their top GC guys, plus the other break mates would be telling 16 to go back. This has happened before, guys took themselves out of a break and sat up because their placing was of too much concern to the top GC teams that they were chasing, so they sat up to not ruin the chance of the rest of the guys in the break who were way further down in GC.