LMaster

Prophetic. Except it was cows and just a smidge too late

jyl

I did some searching, can't find record of Pantani ever riding la pierre st martin. The climb from the French side had not been used in the TdF before. In 2007 the Tour climbed the Spanish side.

LMaster

1) Nibali was MUCH better today than yesterday. Today he road 5.7 w/kg up the Tourmalet, doing some of the leading, whereas yesterday he cracked after 10 mins of 5.5 w/kg. No top end for Nibali though, as when Mollema picked it up the rest of the guys have chase at a little over 7 w/kg and Nibali was instantly off the back.

2) I'm almost wondering if he doesn't have some low grade illness or something. Being bad is one thing, but to come out and die at 5.5 w/kg after 10 minutes, a pace Nibali should normally be able to do for 2-3 hours in training is so far below his normal level I can't explain it other than that. The guy is damn near 15% worse than he was in 2014.

3) Majka was excellent today. Gained time on the leaders, who weren't screwing around, on Tourmalet; which means he was in the 5.8-5.9 w/kg range after being in the break most of the day. I'd consider that similar form to Gesink yesterday, perhaps even an intrinsically better ride.

4) At least tomorrow we get back to the fun, with a truly mountainous stage ending in a slightly longer and steeper climb than yesterday

jyl

Your point 2 is what I'm thinking. Nibali himself seems bewildered about what's wrong with his body.

DLBroox

Can you give a quick explanation of how you know their wattages? I've been watching the tour for ten plus years but am not a pro rider so I'm afraid I'm at a loss.

LMaster

Up a climb you can get a pretty decent estimate just using Ferrai's method or CP method. Wind conditions could screw with this a little bit, but it's rarely incredibly windy on climbs

Fortunately this tour we can get an even better estimate, we've had Gesink so far hanging with the lead group, and he shares his power data on strava. So on a climb if Gesink is doing 5.8 w/kg, so is everyone else, +/- maybe .1 w/kg given the marginal effect drafting makes at the low speeds of the climbs.

jyl

Slightly funny.

Pinot and Uran both saying they will undergo tests to find out what is wrong with them, because they can't understand why they don't have legs.

Nibali says he doesn't understand why he doesn't have legs, Vinokorouv says he "needs a mechanic for his head".

Contador says he doesn't understand why he didn't have legs, hasn't said if he's going to have tests.

Froome says he will undergo tests to show what is right with him, because you can't understand why he has legs.

Quintana doesn't say anything.

Blue Belly

I agree 100%. However, if Froome & Porte can both outpace the whole lot of ya, what is the point? You might be better off to take the Oscar Pireiro approach & comgradulate them & hope they get caught doing whatever it is they Are doing...

Blue Belly

nairo is watching his power meter. He knows he can't sustain more than 500w. Froome is pushing 600w & doesn't want anyone else to know. The rest of the guys are suffering from "the other guy is faster than me so I feel slow" syndrome

WCroadie

Yeah you are correct, I googled it at work and it returned a list of winners with Armstrong, Pantani and Frrome listed, must have been Ventoux or something.

PepeM

Very good ride indeed. Dan Martin looking really strong but just like in Mur de Bretagne, his tactics/luck have prevented him from grabbing a stage win. Hope he gets one at some point as he has been working really hard for it.

I know everyone is disappointed at Froome's advantage, but I really enjoy race days like today's.

bici_mania

A couple of questions;

Pondering the last two days, it seems that the last few tours has one person who absolutely dominates in the mountains and everyone else is sucking wind.

It seems that more often than not, these racers have at least one person on their team that seem to be nearly as strong as them and together they leave everyone in the dust, much the way we saw Porte and Froome ride yesterday.

I believe races/games are won in the off season. Everyone is training hard.

I am curious what others think about this, about why/how we can have one team leader dominate so much over rivals and how that dominate rider seems to have that indispensable team mate.

SpeshulEd 

I have days where I feel I might need these tests.

HardyWeinberg

That is funny. I am a Q fan I hope he is not doping. He is closer to the edge of demonstrated normal physiology, but still over it. But he has demonstrated Andean heritage.

bauhaus92

Kwiatkowski's Strata Data - 63 MPH going down Tourmalet = Insane

Jseis 

Where do you get their weights or are they estimates? Weight is a huge variable per day even if they are sucking down fluids and sweating it out. I've always thought that was Froome's advantage and he sure looks sub 63 kilos. Well that and heart/lungs.

LMaster

Most riders have published weights. Gesink for instance is 70kg, give or take a kilo on each side. Weight certainly varies day by day, but usually not by more than a kilo. No, its not perfect, but's close enough for most comparisons to have decent meaning. Truth is though, you only need one riders weight; in this case Gesink, and then from there you can just compare w/kg across the board. Put another way, if you know Gesink's height and weight then you can figure Froome's w/kg without knowing either his weight or power.

Froome is definitely not 63kg, he is 67kg. Sky/Froome has actually published some stuff where they said his weight his entire career has been 67kg +/- 900g.

Nairo can't sustain 400W, let alone 500W. For Nairo you're looking at maybe 350W and that's being generous. Froome probably around 450W.

The rest of the guys probably are suffering from that, but objectively many of them are going pretty slow. Pinot is dropping off like 5-10 min into climbs at fairly tame paces. Nibali couldn't hold 5.5 w/kg yesterday, and today was totally gassed after climbing the Tourmalet.

It is definitely amusing, especially all the talk of testing to verify bad legs and good legs

It's a bit odd that so many of the GC guys are going so poorly. Pinot is just hopeless, Uran is pretty bad, and Nibali was hopeless yesterday and today managed to upgrade to just "bad by his standards".

Contador probably knows why he is doing bad, the Giro.

Blue Belly

obviously, I was embellishing. Nairo 350w??? Really???. I could sustain that when I was a fit man. & these guys are a hell of a lot stronger than I was. & froome looks to be pushing. Lot more than 400. No?

WCroadie

Quintana is like 128lbs, 350watts at 128lbs is very powerful. I can sustain 350watts as well, but I weigh a lot more than 128lbs

phat ham

Anyone think maybe the heat is taking its toll on the riders? From what I understand Europe is in the middle of a heat wave right now.

Blue Belly

What is it about cycling? EuroSport paying homage to Pantani. I love Pantani but, seriously?

jyl

Eurosport UK seemed to have lost Kirby and Kelly for most of the last climb, and some of the onscreen graphics too. Just ambient noise and time gaps for 10 km.

Interesting that the other GC guys seem to be slowly getting their legs back, while Froome + lieutenants didn't seem quite as dominating as in recent stages, with Porte OTB. Q and V were the only ones trying attacks, they seemed more like like "testing" probes than "all out" efforts. AC, TvG seemed to keep up without too much drama. Nibali finished with the yellow jersey group, I think. Still, while CF couldn't or wouldn't, anyway didn't, get away on his well-telegraphed attack, he did mark all the others' attacks.

Happy to see Purito take the win.

PepeM

Good race today. Joaquim Rodriguez is an excellent rider. Few of the top guys tried to attack but Sky could control everything, they have a very strong trio, will be impossible to beat them if they keep riding like that.

jyl

I guess I'm more hopeful (for a real battle for GC). On Tuesday CF was great, Q good, TvG and V okay, AC and VN bad. On Wednesday the gaps in form seemed smaller. Today they all seemed similar, VN still trailing but didn't blow up. Sky had only one lieutenant with CF at the key moment, Porte finished 6 minutes down on the yellow jersey group. Maybe this is Sky weakening and the others improving. There's still a lot of racing left.

PepeM

I think some of the top guys could have pushed those attacks a bit more, especially when Thomas was dropped. I don't think there was much time to be made though, so they probably just decided to wait for the Alps instead.