Leinster

I think it's the unpredictability of the Vuelta that makes it more exciting. It's the traditional climbers' Grand Tour, that's been won by sprinters like Maertens, Kelly and Jalabert. The pure sprinters don't generally survive to the very end, but then Cipollini never finished the Tour de France either. I think people like it precisely because the top riders from the Tour might come to it and get badly beaten.

Who's to say Dumoulin couldn't ride like this at the Tour? The lack of TT on his year's route wouldn't have suited him, but the classics-type stages in the first half definitely would. He was coming in in good form with 3rd overall in the Tour de Suisse and 2 TT stage wins. I think this Vuelta might be a bit of a coming-out party for him and we'll see him pushing for GT honours over the next few years. As I've said before, give this guy 100kms of TT as in decades past, and it'd be a different race.

Ken Brown

The Veulta has been a bit disappointing this year but in previous years I have generally found it and the Giro to be more exciting than the Tour.

It does seem to be too much to win two grand tours in a row. It would be better to either try the Giro / Vuelta double or only the Tour. I would prefer that my favourite riders choose the Giro / Vuelta double.

Glad to see Quintana bounce back into the top ten today, but it would be a big jump to get to number 8, and really big jump to number 5.

Giacomo 1 

I guess I just don't see him doing this well against an in-shape Froome, Quintana, Valverde, Contador or TJ like these guys are in the TDF. Those top guys are at the top of their form for that race, not burnt out and just trying to get through the Vuelta like they are now.

Also, I think if you gave TJ 100kms of TT, he might also be a winner. It would certainly change the race and give a few other riders a chance at a TDF victory to...

PepeM

Really? I think it has been a great race.

Laggard

The Vuelta is my favorite GT.

gpsblake

One second. That's the difference between Aru and Rodriguez in the overall as of stage 15.

Leinster

Dumoulin didn't ride the whole Tour in the end, but he did build his season around the opening TT, so he was trying to peak in July just as much as the others. Who's to say he wouldn't have been up there with Geraint Thomas in the top 10 through the Pyrenees? He's 24, he's a completely unproven element, in that, we have no proof that he can't climb with the very best.

TJ's never been this high up, this deep into a GT. Dumoulin might still have a blowup (though if he gets through tomorrow without a big loss, I think he'll make the podium for sure) but he's breaking new ground for a TT specialist in these days of W/kg ruling all.

Gerryattrick

You could expand this argument and say that as the Tour is the big event of the calendar then why shouldn't the top riders just miss or take the Giro easier to save themselves for the Tour or treat it as a training ride.

Having the three big tours so close to each other obviously means that not everyone is likely to be at their best or can throw themselves fully into all of them but that doesn't lessen any of them imo.

If it hadn't have been for his injury I think Froome would have gone all out for the Vuelta and was in a decent position to do so.

Leinster

Well this year they didn't even do that; the Giro ended up being Contador v Aru and Porte crashed out. Anyone other than Contador and Uran who was going to the Tour with hopes of a win wasn't at the Giro.

With the Vuelta moving to the later part of the season, it has become kind of a season-rescuer for GC riders for whom the Tour didn't work out as planned (see Contador, Froome last year, Quintana, Valverde, Purito). I think for that reason you have to give Froome a lot of credit for even showing up this year as Tour champ.

Leinster

And again after 16. Purito's push at the end there gains 2" and means he gets to start the TT last on Wednesday. Dumoulin less than 2' down, he should make up that much and more on the top riders.

busygizmo

This could be real tight. Aru and Purito are pretty poor TT riders, Maijka took 1:26 out of Aru over a similar distance at the Giro last year and Dumoulin is a one of the strongest TT riders around.

Dumoulin probably has to be the betting favorite, 3 seconds per Km to catch Purito and Aru should be possible.

Hoping Purito can pull off the ride of his life. Feel bad for the one that misses the podium.

Of course always the chance for some heroics on the last mountain stage on Saturday.

As far as exciting the Tour really is even close in terms of a competitive sporting event, the stages are individually more epic but having 4 riders in with a legitimate shot of the win with 5 stages to go is pretty entertaining.

This is one time where watching a time trial live would be really interesting.

For a team that seemed a bit rudderless Trek has had a nice Vuelta so far.

Giacomo 1 

Wow, what a cruel looking stage today!

I'll defer to you experts, but I'm still not sure how a guy the size of Dumiloun with an engine to match can climb with the best climbers in the world in one of the toughest climbing stages I've ever seen. But OK, he's doing it and he is looking pretty darn good for the overall.

Loved watching Aru claw his way back to Purito at the end to keep it close. How deep did he have to dig for that surge!?

Frank Schleck! Yay for him. Biggest win in a long time, and yes, good for a floundering Trek team @busygizmo. You think he was gassed at the end?

diphthong

i prefer the scenery of the giro (and the inevitable crappy dolomites weather making for epic stages) but the racing in the vuelta seems better/more exciting to me.
say what you want about the insanity of the giro/vuelta courses but at least they mix it up and stay interesting. frankly, i generally find the tour to be boring.
then again, i prefer the afc/nfc championship weekend (usually one instant classic) vs the dog/pony show that is the 2 week super bowl hype machine frequently
resulting in a boring game.

Marcus_Ti

Cruel doesn't cover the half of it. I'm curious how roads that steep can even be paved. 20% is right about the point it gets hard/impossible to park a car on a road...nvm construction equipment to build roads.

Leinster

I won't call myself an expert, but at a guess I'd say a significant factor is the Movistar, Katusha and Astana teams all watching each other as much as they are Dumoulin. On 15, Movistar went all out to set up the stage win for Quintana, and ended up just playing into Purito's hands. Nobody wanted to do that today, so none of them were ready to attack Dumoulin themselves, and it ended up being Majka and Poljanski setting the pace on the final climb. Also, he's proving way stronger in the mountains than anyone had anticipated (his own team included or they would surely have brought someone who can climb to help him). His last 3 days have really been a phenomenal performance.


Oh, and Boeckmans is still in a coma, but showing "positive signs of recovery." https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/boec...s-of-recovery/

Ken Brown

I did say "a bit disappointing". Would have been better with Froome, Nibali, Teejay and the others, but I am still enjoying it a lot.

busygizmo

Certainly not an expert either but as has been pointed out earlier Dumoulin didn't just show up at the Vuelta without having some results prior. He was 3rd at Suisse this year one place behind another rider that apparently shocked people this year at the Tour with his climbing, Gerraint Thomas. Looking at the results from that race interesting that Dumoulin wont the time trial over a similar distance as tomorrow's and put 1:26 into Maijka.

Reading quotes it sounds like a lot of the riders were tired and there has been a lot of shadow boxing so if Dumoulin rode at his own pace and avoided all the accelerations he could limit his losses. I figured Aru and Rodríguez needed another minute from the previous day and only got half of that.

As was mentioned earlier I bet Giant wishes they brought some more climbers, they might have helped and if he ends up with a small lead the attacks the last couple of days in the mountains will be tough to control.

Rodríguez said he thought Movistar and Astana are too strong for him to attack those last couple of days without a summit finish but I doubt that applies to Giant. If Aru and Rodríguez are close they will try and distance Dumoulin. It makes for some exciting racing in the days ahead.

Saw the news on Boeckmans and that is encouraging.

Leinster

Majka apparently put something similar into Aru in the Giro TT last year. But it seems Purito's had a look at the route and thinks it isn't quite as flat as all that. And 3rd-week TTs are, allegedly, a different beast to 1st-week or in 10-day races like Suisse.

I don't think Thursday or Friday's stage are going to be hard enough to distance Dumoulin over the final mountains, but Saturday has 2 big climbs in the final 60km, and if someone really has a go and daredevils it down the back side he could be beaten. But that presumes that he takes the lead tomorrow.

I do like that Saturday's final climb actually has 7 flat kms from the summit to the start of the descent. So even if Dumoulin is behind by a few seconds on the last day, we might see him sneak off the front at the very top and TT away from his other contenders...

It's coming down to a proper, real exciting finish with 4 possible winners who could all be even closer than they are now after tomorrow. I think it could be even better if Froome was still around (and, as an Irishman, I wish Martin could've stayed in and maintained form throughout) but it's been pretty good so far.

busygizmo

Maijka is definitely in with a chance. Saw the quotes by Purito and I hope he is right, I guess I'm pretty much rooting for him to win one of these having led at least 3 of them late in the race only to have them fall through his fingers.

It's pretty amazing that the race is so exciting when you count the number of top riders that crashed out or got DQ'd.

Saw that Movistar boss saying that Dumoulin has qualities like his former star rider Big Mig. Of course in those days (way back in he early '90's), every year had over 100km of time-trialing and often more. Be interesting to see if a time trial friendly tour comes along in the near future and if Dumoulin can be the beneficiary although Froome would certainly be odds on the more TT mileage they add.

I'll be monitoring the coverage on cyclingnews and a little bummed I can't actually watch it. Hope it is as exciting as we hope.

Leinster

It's hard to work out who to root for. I may default to Purito, because it's surely his last chance, whereas Aru, Dumoulin and Majka have their whole careers ahead of them.

A Dumoulin/Froome duel would be interesting, but there's a 6 year age gap between them; Froome isn't going to get much faster, but Dumoulin is still younger than Indurain, Froome, Lance* among others were when winning their first GT.

The Wiki page for the 1985 Tour de France has a revised GC standings with all the TTs taken out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_T...ance#Aftermath
Luis Herrera was the "winner", with actual winner Hinault relegated to 8th. It's a different sport nowadays.

busygizmo

I have an admitted soft spot for Purito, attacks a lot and seems to wear his emotions on his sleeve and I've been following him for a while. Don't know much about the others personality-wise but they all seem very talented.

I agree, a Froome/Dumoulin duel is premature but he is going to take a lot of confidence from this Vuelta. How that will translate to the Tour when everyone is fresh and focused I don't know but I'll definitely pay more attention to him in the future. Will he be a someone who doesn't perform again at this level or someone that goes on from this to win grand tours.

That is interesting for the '85 Tour. They had a staggering 150 km of individual time trialing and another 70 km TTT. Can you imagine how much Froome would win by if they did this now?

Leinster

It'd be a very different field nowadays if they did. He'd be up against the likes of Martin, Cancellara, Kiriyenka, and other TT specialists all slimming down to climb, rather than the Arus, Puritos and Quintanas trying to strengthen up to TT. Luis Leon Sanchez would be Astana's unchallenged team leader. Froome's only consistent competitor across both formats would be Contador. And Tejay would still finish 5th or not at all.

diphthong

hahaha! right!??

PepeM

Looks like Dumoulin has got this.

PepeM

Three seconds to Aru, 1:15 to Rodriguez. This is going to be good.