Vuelta Short Stage - Sunday (lots of early action)

JK.BMC

retalivity wrote: »

Astana riding for scarponi when chaves, yates and froome are all there is a joke

Not sure what you mean.
But given that it's stage 15 of a hard tour, there is just the small but likely possibility that the guys in group #2 are actually shagged. It might be as simple as that

smurphy29

I think what he's getting at is it's hard to see what Astana's motivation to ride as hard as they have is, taking it at face value. They have burned up quality riders to defend 9th on GC.

velo.2010

Everyone is bolloxed from yesterday but clearly some are more bolloxed than others.

Quintana doing the work now but he has Contador to thank for today.

retalivity

The young katusha lad is gonna snipe this

EDIT: what timing!!

SwissToni

JK.BMC wrote: »

What we are watching is an excellent demonstration of the difference between instinctive bike riders with racing instinct in their blood versus lab-built athletes who spend their professional lives plugged into machines telling them what to do. Modern life in microcosm- Live from La Vuelta. It's bloody brilliant Sir Dave....

+1

Best stage of all three grand tours this year.
I've cancelled that order for a Power Meter and I'm going to have raw steak for me dinner.

Burial.

Quintana is monstrous strong and Contador's plan and effort today is what'll make him a once in a life time cyclist and peerless in this era. Great day for cycling.

Inquitus

3min37sec for Froome to pull back between now and the finish, and here's what we have left. if he takes 2 mins in the ITT he still has to take more time in the remaining 2 MTF stages, have to say it looks like it's Quintana's to lose now, but anything is possible.

Stage 16: Alcañiz → Peñíscola (156.4 km, Flat)
Rest Day 2
Stage 17: Castellón → Llucena, Camins del Penyagolosa (177.5 km, High Mountains, MTF)


Stage 18: Requena → Gandía (200.6 km, Flat)
Stage 19: Xàbia → Calp (37 km, ITT)
Stage 20: Benidorm → Alto de Aitana, Escuadrón Ejército del Aire (193.2 km, High Mountains, MTF)


Stage 21: Las Rozas → Madrid (104.1 km, Flat) (URL Limit)

pelevin

Great performance by Quintana particularly when he rode the final however many km's on the front on his own, & had done his turns thru the stage. Well deserved win for Brambilla, the only one still with Quintana, & had attacked from the gun. Contador though even with lesser legs than he'd like after his heavy crash, still ends up the man who has caused the most defining stage of the race. What a gutsy, instinctive rider. That's what racing should be all about. A very big chapeau. The machine took a kicking! Death to the machines!

irishrover99

Jesus Laura 😱

Inquitus

93 Riders over half an hour down and outside the Time Control, unlikely they'll be eliminated though you'd think.

Burial.

Inquitus wrote: »

93 Riders over half an hour down and outside the Time Control, unlikely they'll be eliminated though you'd think.

Yeah you'd imagine Froome and Brailsford will be invited to a special UCI meeting to debate the apparent standard practice that is to DQ anyone outside the limit and win. #marginalgainzzzz

DDC1990

Inquitus wrote: »

93 Riders over half an hour down and outside the Time Control, unlikely they'll be eliminated though you'd think.

This includes the whole Sky team bar Froome.

No way will they be eliminated.

Inquitus

Burial. wrote: »

Yeah you'd imagine Froome and Brailsford will be invited to a special UCI meeting to debate the apparent standard practice that is to DQ anyone outside the limit and win. #marginalgainzzzz

Generally speaking this large a group of riders is never excluded for being outside of time, just because people hate Sky isn't a special reason to change the way this rule is applied.

MPFGLB

What I don;t understand is how htey can all lose so much time...The groups ahead of them were smaler ...did they all just say f*** it

Eamonnator

MPFGLB wrote: »

What I don;t understand is how htey can all lose so much time...The groups ahead of them were smaler ...did they all just say f*** it

Pretty much, I would say.

L'Enfer du Nord

For once I'm looking foreword to hearing a Brailsford post stage interview.

Burial.

No DQs, which is a joke ruling but no surprise considering Sky are one of the main teams affected by it.

DDC1990

If they disqualified all but the 71 riders or so that actually made it inside the 32 minute time cut:

Movistar would have 8 Riders, Tinkoff and Cannondale 6, Astana and Lampre 4, Orica plus a good few more on 4.

Sky would have Froome and Direct Energie would have 0.

90 riders finished 22 minutes behind the allotted time. Serious disrespect for the race, considering they have a rest day coming up tomorrow (I think anyway).

EDIT: Nothing official but some tweets that there are no DQ's

godtabh

Burial. wrote: »

No DQs, which is a joke ruling but no surprise considering Sky are one of the main teams affected by it.

nothing to do with sky. Happen a lot when so many people are outside the limit. If it was one or two riders they'd be gone but have the peleton not a chance

pelevin

ITV4 at 7pm looks worth a watch.

Eamonnator

pelevin wrote: »

ITV4 at 7pm looks worth a watch.

can't wait

JK.BMC

Today's race was reminiscent of a Ras stage from the good old days of yesteryear - top 10 riders blown out the back and losing half an hour; riders in grupettos all over the road and a gang of county men trying to beat the time limit ahead of the broom wagon. Magic stuff.
Imagine actually throwing out the 90 odd riders for being 'en delai' I know it won't happen but by God it would make for an incredible final week.
There will be popular calls from the grassroots to try make these races interesting- commercial interests dictate of course but smaller teams would be an immediate improvement. We dont need 200 riders in a GT to make it epic. In fact the smaller teams might lead to safer finishes

retalivity

Konig kennaugh & boswell were the last 3 to finish today, right at the back of the bus. Must have been completely shagged

Brian?

Best stage of the year.

Contador orchestrated the entire thing. Just brilliant. Shame he worked way too hard to challenge for the stage win.

velo.2010

Froome is showing signs of his 2012 Vuelta form. He might struggle to finish on the podium let alone challenge Quintana. Chavez is maintaining his form well. I don't think anyone actually 'improves' toward the end of a 3 week race, rather, they slow down less than their rivals.
Podium for me...
1 Quintana
2 Chavez
3 Contador

I'm looking for highlights of the start of the race. Missed it completely.

irishrover99

While I'm delighted about today's results other than contador losing time at the end, my respect increases all the time for froome. I have to say he's won me over in the same way Sagan has. How he limits his loses so much is really impressive and I k ow he has s great team and also had help today but you can't help admire his greatness.

pelevin

Contador afterwards:

"I knew it was a dangerous gamble, but we got a great result. I had no idea, though, who was following me when I attacked.
I got cramps in the last kilometre, but it was a nice spectacle. These sorts of stages are the kind that create a fanbase in the sport."

Too right! Also the kind of thing to excite you out on your bike as it motivated me to do. However when I looked out the window twas after starting to lash rain so I gave it a miss.

velo.2010

For those interested I found the start of the race about 3km in. The bunch already strung out after a fast start. Contador does some monster pulls early on. At around 100km left you see Movistar start to attack Froome presumably to upset his rhythm but also to maintain the gap to the following group with most of his team-mates.

Ps. its in Russian!:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl__xUYiepY

terrydel

retalivity wrote: »

Konig kennaugh & boswell were the last 3 to finish today, right at the back of the bus. Must have been completely shagged

Or ordered to stop trying and save themselves for another day, knowing they wouldnt get dq'ed because of the oul safety in numbers trick.

smurphy29

irishrover99 wrote: »

While I'm delighted about today's results other than contador losing time at the end, my respect increases all the time for froome. I have to say he's won me over in the same way Sagan has. How he limits his loses so much is really impressive and I k ow he has s great team and also had help today but you can't help admire his greatness.

Hmmm, it certainly was remarkable how he managed to limit his losses today, for sure. Having the best paid domestiques in the world is certainly a help, and being able to give them the afternoon off so they can saunter in 55 minutes down on their sunday spin while buying another expensive team's services for the day is even better. Not sure how admirable it is though!