Saturday, July 14, 2012

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 13

Cadel Evans, Jurgen Van den Broeck and Nicolas Roche: tiny little dig on Mont Saint-Clair

You May be Right, I May Be Crazy. 
Ok, I'll admit it, I was partially wrong yesterday. Today's stage had more than 10 minutes of action. It had 12. Still, not much to be said. With the "climb" so far from the finish the GC contenders didn't do much, except for a small acceleration by Cadel Evans and Jurgen Van den Broeck on Mont Saint-Clair.

I expected more craziness from Vinokourov

Alexander Nikolaevich Vinokourov.
Crazy Vino put in a nice dig along with Michael Albasini at the end of the stage and it almost paid off, but for Lotto-Beli-Soul Train.

The Final Sprint.
Lotto-Belisol pulled for the last 10k at dropped the last remaining weaklings that were still hanging on to the tail-end of the peloton after the final "climb." Greipel looked to be in the best position with the strongest lead-out train (with Sagan just behind as a sneaky stowaway.) But at some point with 2 or 3 kilometers to go, Lotto disappeared off the front and Wiggins started to lead Boasson Hagen out. Then, the Gorilla woke up and beat Sagan on the line. Good sprint, good finish to another bore-fest.


The Gorilla barely beat The Tourminator. God, those are awful nicknames.

The Pyrenees!
The high mountains return tomorrow. Three categorized climbs, two of the them 1st category. The first one, Port de Lers, is over 11 kilometers, but my guess is that the fireworks won't start until the main group get over the summit.

If I were Nibali. 
If I were the leader of Liquigas-Cannondale, I'd go on the attack as soon as the descent of the first climb starts. Put Team Sky on the defensive from early on. Give it full gas and try to get a minute on them by the time the Mur de Péguère starts. While shorter, this climb is steeper and this should help Nibali, since Wiggins isn't the best in this type of ascents. It's almost 40k to the finish from the top of the Mur de Péguère, but most of it is a technical descent, once again favoring the Italian.

If I were Evans. 
Well, if I were the Australian, I would pray. First, I would pray and Froome and Porte have a bad day. I'd pray that Nibali doesn't have the balls (or legs) to do what I described above. If my prayers were to be answered, I'd send a few teammates up the road (maybe even van Garderen), attack on the last climb, catch up with them go balls-out to the finish.

If I were Froome.
Simple: I'd put some serious laxatives on Bradley's breakfast porridge and destroy everyone on the first climb.

Hopefully Evans and Nibali will attack Wiggins.

2 comments:

  1. Froome does give the impression that he could just crush everyone if he had reason to.

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  2. he does have a reason, he just won't do it. i just don't see him staying in Sky for another 2 years.

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