ChinookPass
Posts:809
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| 06/22/2016 12:07 PM |
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I'll be trying to watch the stages this year. The past few years, I have just not taken the time.
Normandy
Massif Central,
Ventoux on Bastille Day (one day after a scorching 260kms in the south),
and some intriguing stages to Mont Blanc and in Suisse.
Rooting for Quintana and any Frenchman to break through but barring crashes and illness, it's Froome's to lose.
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79pmooney
Posts:3180
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| 06/22/2016 02:18 PM |
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My first choice is Contador, though I would be quite happy to see either Quintana or a Frenchman win.
Ben |
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Gonzo Cyclist
Posts:568
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| 06/22/2016 02:57 PM |
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Oh yeah!! Can't wait......Contador is my man, but I look forward to some of the others, Quintana, Bardet, Pinout, and Quintana to keep it lively
I am not a Froome fan, but that guy looked strong in the Dauphine. I like what Robert Millar was saying, the others will need to join forces to bust up the Sky train, and keep Froome on the ropes, keep him in check, don't let him run away early on |
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Cosmic Kid
Posts:4209
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| 06/22/2016 03:33 PM |
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CK's official prediction - Cake walk for Froome. Tour is all but over after the first mountain stage.
You heard it here first. |
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| Just say "NO!" to WCP!!!!
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Dale
Posts:1767
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| 06/22/2016 04:47 PM |
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Froome, who will be gawking at his stem for three weeks, will win.
The worlds most ungainly cyclist.
Contador is who I'll be pulling for but I don't think he'll go three week without a bad day |
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winterale
Posts:48
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| 06/22/2016 05:27 PM |
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| Contador please, but probably sky guy. |
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Orange Crush
Posts:4499
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| 06/22/2016 05:54 PM |
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What CK said. The Skybots are going to make this one boring.
Only hope is some brilliance from Quintana or three weeks of foul weather. <
And, not to send this to Dark Side, but what are we to make of the cleansiness of UK sports in view of recent revelations about UKAD and presence of docs that bear eerie resemblance to Ferrari and Fuentes?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/03/cyclist-at-centre-of-drug-cheat-claims-against-150-sport-stars/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/athletics/2016/06/14/anti-doping-chief-admits-grave-errors-were-made-over-controversi/
As well Operacion Puerto seems to be going to give us one last treasure trove, those 200+ names. Waiting to hear which tennis starts are involved :-)
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longslowdistance
Posts:2881
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| 06/22/2016 07:52 PM |
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Posted By Dale Dale on 06/22/2016 04:47 PM
Froome, who will be gawking at his stem for three weeks, will win.
The worlds most ungainly cyclist.
Contador is who I'll be pulling for but I don't think he'll go three week without a bad day
Yes. Booooorrrrrrinnng Skybots. Resistance is futile.
I am looking forward to Sagan poaching stage wins without a strong team. Rock star and brigand that he is. And curious if Cav has anything left in the tank. |
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longslowdistance
Posts:2881
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| 06/22/2016 08:02 PM |
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| Regarding Puerto: And redacted soccer players. |
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Red Tornado
Posts:159
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| 06/23/2016 11:59 AM |
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Posted By Dale Dale on 06/22/2016 04:47 PM
Froome, who will be gawking at his stem for three weeks, will win.
The worlds most ungainly cyclist.
Contador is who I'll be pulling for but I don't think he'll go three week without a bad day
LOL! You summed up my thoughts perfectly!
Remember reading about a tactic from bygone days where a number of contenders would work together to crack the favorite. Once that was accomplished, they would duke it out amongst themselves. If Quintana/Valverde, Aru & Contador, along with their teams, worked the Skytrain over I believe Froome could be toppled. An added benefit would be the lively racing to accomplish that! Unfortunately, despite whatever they say in interviews, these guys are all showing up to race for 2nd & 3rd.
IMHO it all started with Banesto/Indurain, prefected through the Lance years and continues withe Froome & Co. That tactic has basically ruined the Tour, for me.
My top 3: Froome, Quintana, Aru. Valverde will have his typical bad day or two and drop out of the top 3. Contador will drop off before the end as well.
Sagan wins the maillot vert. Cavendish hangs on for dear life, if he even finishes.
Still contemplating the polka-dot & blanc jersey's..... |
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ChinookPass
Posts:809
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| 06/23/2016 12:22 PM |
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Maybe all this will come true and Sky will dominate, but maybe not. That's why they race the race. Froome could crash out. It's happened before. He could get sick. He almost lost last year due to sickness.
Regarding the race being over by the first mtn stage: the first true mtn top finish is not until the 3rd Pyrenean stage although the first one is a doozy and just has a small descent after the d'Aspin, the kind of stage where a team like Sky can drill it and still have multiple guys left at the end. The Massif Central often throws a wrench into things and coming in the first week, if we are lucky, there will be rain there and some lucky break could have several minutes. I'd love to see one of those underestimated 30-minute jobs like Voeckler or Simon or Pereiro had to spice things up.
Collusion among contenders will not happen. It's a race of attrition and teams want to beat each other as much as they want to beat just the top guy.
Ventoux and TT back-to-back is where the race will be decided, I think.
I just hope we don't have to listen to endless doping accusations for the next month. Let 'em race and either catch them or don't but if journos don't have real info by now, they should just shut the hell up.
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Gonzo Cyclist
Posts:568
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| 06/27/2016 08:02 AM |
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I hope not CK, but that has been Froome's ace in the hole, kidney punch his rivals on that 1st summit finish, put them all a minute in the hole right off the bat. I hope Froome's rivals decide to unite, beat the hell out of him and his sky train, then lets have a GC Fight!!
+1 OC,British cycling has taken some hits, and c'mon, Brailsford was the head guy at CSC during the doping heyday, does anybody really think they are squeaky clean? Or does anyone question Columbia? No doping controls there, one of Puerto's main guys is from there, Quintana decides to stay home for some "Altitude Training" uh huh, sure...................... |
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79pmooney
Posts:3180
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| 06/27/2016 12:48 PM |
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Posted By Kenny Gonzales on 06/27/2016 08:02 AM
.... Quintana decides to stay home for some "Altitude Training" uh huh, sure......................
I am going to give Quintana a pass on that until I hear a reason to think otherwise. Wanting to spend some of his season at home may be a part of a life that is bigger than just cycling. A passion of his that probably comes from his very early days is doing all he can to improve the lot of women in his home country of Columbia. I think being the best husband and dad to his (I believe) girls is a part of that. And of course, his home IS the high mountains of Columbia.
Speculation here. When Quintana came into winter camp a few pounds overweight and struggled a couple of years ago, it might have been from an off season of public events, television time, etc., not as a bike star but as a visible athlete using his visibility to promote women's causes. Apparently, since then he has better balanced his two passions. But staying home for a month before that three weeks that are so intense that no more than a few phone calls home happen might be part of a life that is bigger than we know.
He is a hero in his home country. And what he does on the bike is less than half of it.
Ben
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stronz
Posts:447
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| 06/28/2016 11:32 AM |
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| hmmm Ben you may be right, or you may be a naive wanker. hope youre right but hard to really know. Been fooled a few times by cyclists who publicly proclaim a cause that they want to champion and generate awareness/funds/yellow wrist bands to further the cause all the while cheating like a mofo. I do Like Quintana and would love to see him beat Froome. I think hes the only one who can do it this year. |
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79pmooney
Posts:3180
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| 06/28/2016 03:34 PM |
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Quintana doesn't make a big deal out his work. Most outside of Columbia have no idea.
Like you, I hope he is on the square.
I just had a thought. Quintana reminds me of the former Portland Trailblazer (back when they were the "Jailblazers", Brian Grant, the power forward with reggae locks and the unenviable task of guarding the greats. He was assumed by many to be another one of the pot smoking misfits of that crew. Few knew that his passions were visiting and befriending kids with cancer and raising awareness of the need to give blood and sigh up as a potential the bone marrow donor in the black community. (Bone marrow transplants must come from a donor with a similar race as well as the other typing requirements. No donors on the list for your race and cancers stemming from the bone marrow are a death sentence. This is close to my heart. I have walked through my days knowing I had to stay healthy so i could donate platelets every two weeks to keep a cancer patient alive. Several times. I knew their name, their hospital and room number and got an update every donation from my nurses who had often visited that patient. I didn't learn for decades that black patients couldn't benefit from my donations because there would be no bone marrow for them.)
Few here in Portland knew much about what Brian Grant did off the basketball floor.
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Orange Crush
Posts:4499
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| 06/28/2016 05:03 PM |
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Quintana seems to be doing a lot of good and I like the guy.
As to Columbia in general, it is well known that the domestic racing circuit is about as dirty and dangerous as it gets. When at same time one sees a whole bunch of cyclists from one country coming to the fore, that has got to raise some ?
http://cyclingtips.com/2015/10/death-threats-doping-and-disillusion-the-troubling-state-of-cycling-in-colombia/ |
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SideBySide
Posts:444
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| 06/28/2016 05:38 PM |
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| I am only mildly interested, because I am afraid it will be a snoozefest. |
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longslowdistance
Posts:2881
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| 06/28/2016 09:13 PM |
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Agree
goofy skybot with nose pegged to power meter probably will win.
Ban the radios.
Ban the power meters.
Re-introduce Intuition and L'audace to the skills needed to win Le Tour. |
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Orange Crush
Posts:4499
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| 06/28/2016 09:29 PM |
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| First and foremost you need smaller teams to bring some audacity back. |
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stronz
Posts:447
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| 06/29/2016 09:59 AM |
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| Ben - very interesting - didnt know any of that. |
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jookey
Posts:197
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| 06/30/2016 06:17 AM |
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| The reason this has usually become a snore fest is that they treat it as a race of attrition. When you are battling against a rider/team with a grip on the Tour (~Lance, Indurain). Most just were satisfied with 2nd or 3rd and hope the favorite faltered. If the contending teams attacked the leader over and over, eventually you will crack the team. But, likewise, you might crack or it could be one of the other contenders that gets away. It's a gamble they didn't want to take. You can't be afraid of losing to win. They were happy with 2nd or 7th or whatever. This is evident when the sixth place rider is up the road and the fifth place team goes to the front. Or you send your top domestique up the road. If they let him go, he could win (Cunego way back when!) |
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Red Tornado
Posts:159
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| 06/30/2016 11:30 AM |
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http://www.cyclingnews.com/blogs/author/oleg-tinkov-blog-we-will-kick-team-skys-ass-at-the-tour-de-france/
As always, OT trying to liven things up a bit.
Green jersey for Sagan? I could go with that.
Yellow for Contador? I don't know...... |
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Nick A
Posts:625
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| 06/30/2016 12:32 PM |
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I don't follow all of the ins and outs of pro racing anymore, but at least I haven't heard any doping allegations about Quintana. So at least I can root for him and be naive. Plus, I've always been partial to climbers.
For other fellow cable cutters, last year I bought the iPhone Tour app, and could watch every second of coverage for I think like $20. I recommend it.
Nick |
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79pmooney
Posts:3180
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| 06/30/2016 12:42 PM |
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More on Quintana and a good read:
http://velonews.competitor.com/2016/06/feature/who-is-nairo-quintana_411674
He grew up at 10,000 ft. He has to descend 400 meters just to get to the highest point in Europe a road bike can get to. The Tour's "high passes"? Not for that guy!
I love that he is a complete bike racer. I have been noticing that the past couple of years. Rode was it Flanders? to get cobble experience. And finished OK with no issues at all. That article talks about his both skills and confidence riding with the "big boys", both figuratively and literally. Unlike that Kenyan who Sky should protect like a precious gem (not protecting him on a flat early sprinter's stage cost Froome/Sky a Tour), Quintana can fend for himself. And the peloton knows that.
I'm hoping Quintana doesn't get caught out early in say a crosswind or behind a crash like two years ago. Apparently Moviestar is down one strong flat ground rider and this could be critical for them the first week. May no one except Contador come between Quiintana and yellow in Paris. Both are champions. Both are class acts. And both are a lot of fun to watch!
Ben |
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Nick A
Posts:625
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| 07/02/2016 07:32 PM |
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| For the sake of completeness, I must un-recommend the viewing app. They've jacked up the price to include other races, and worse, they force you to set up an account with NBCSN, where apparently they spam your e-mail. I might still be desperate enough, but felt compelled to share this. |
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