The Giro 2020

Sluffy wrote:Video of the Thomas fall where a discarded bottle (bidon) from the Bahrain team got trapped between his spokes and brought him crashing down.

pic.twitter.com/ajLvG5bGbT

— Salvatore Bertuccio (@salxber) October 5, 2020

Did someone from the Bahrain team throw it at his wheel? Presumably the decor of the bottle identified it as a Bahraini bottle, but was foul play suspected and if not, how did it get into his spokes?

wanderlust wrote:Did someone from the Bahrain team throw it at his wheel? Presumably the decor of the bottle identified it as a Bahraini bottle, but was foul play suspected and if not, how did it get into his spokes?

Try watching the video...

Geraint Thomas pulls out of Giro d'Italia with fractured hip

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/54434120

Season over for him then I would imagine.

Unlucky but such is cycling - anything can happen - and often does!

Sluffy wrote:

Try watching the video...

Ah - saw it at the third time of asking. TBF there were a few water bottles on the road.

Another great finish, fancy having to wait for a photo finish after 140k.

Before my interest started this year i always thought the Pelaton was a bit player full of the riders who couldn't go with the pace, how wrong can you be, If i am reading correctly? the race is directed by the pelaton, they decide if a break away can go, they decide if the breakaway needs to be brought back, the team work including the race directors is a well thought out process that needs to be executed and when it works it really is something to see. 

Add to that the races within a race for the sprint or mountain stages etc  it becomes quite enthralling.

The Bora cyclist Mateo Fabbro put a couple of shifts in the last two stages.

Yes you've sort of got it but it is a little bit more refined than how you describe it.

The peloton basically means the 'main' body of the racers and you've got it spot on in what you say about most of it but remember they aren't all equal in the peloton and they all don't necessarily want the same things at the same time.

For instance teams with riders in the breakaway won't help the peloton chase them down in fact they may even go as far to try and slow it down, for instance in a narrow stretch by putting their remaining riders to the front of the peloton and riding slowly so that nobody can pass them and the breakaway gains a few more seconds.  Or if there's a chase on and the peloton is a long string of riders, then deliberately 'losing' the wheel of the rider in front of them, so causing 'breaks' and disrupting the 'rhythm of the rest of the riders, etc.

But generally speaking and throughout most of the day there are enough teams with the same interests (say to catch the days breakaway) for them to achieve it despite the 'defence' the other teams are putting up to prevent it.

The peloton can vary in size to from being the whole field to say eight or ten riders or so towards the end of races on the mountains for instance.

It's a balance if you will between working together for shared interests and working against everyone else for your specific teams objectives.

There is, although no one will admit it, national interest too, where riders from the same country but on different teams may well help each other out.  You will sometimes see for instance a rider in a breakaway up a mountain and being caught by a GC rider making a breakaway from the other GC's 'suddenly' get a second wind and be the lead-out man for his fellow countryman so as to give him a vital breather for half a minute or more as he spends what energy he has left giving his mate a 'tow' up the hill!  The other GC riders from other country's don't seem to get lucky with getting a free tow when they catch up with remnants of the breakaway who are not fellow countrymen!  The French are particularly bad for doing this, especially on the TdF where the whole nation is desperate for a French win after having non in about 40 years!

Similarly you will see French teams on the front 'driving' the peloton on for no apparent reason for themselves but it is saving another French team using up their energy chasing after a GC contender who has broken away!

It's all wheels within wheels, games are being played alliences made when it suits and broken when it doesn't, rivals work together to bring another rival down, then in a later stage of that Tour work with the one you brought down against the bloke who helped you bring him down!

The peloton isn't bothered about brining breakaways back, their concern is what is best for their individual teams.  So if it is say a sprinters stage, the sprint teams will work together to bring the breakaways back and the GC teams do nothing but ride at tempo at the front of the peloton but not work in the chase - the reverse is true if it isn't a sprint stage but a GC stage instead.

Incidentally the reason why GC riders still ride at the front even though it may be a sprinters stage is for 'safety'.  In simple terms if there is a crash in front of you, you might not be able to avoid it and crash yourself.  If it happens behind you, you wont be effected - and that's why you will most always see the GC riders towards the head of the peloton on any stage.

I've rambled on a bit and you did have more or less a good understanding to begin with but I wanted you to know it was quite that black and white as you may have thought.

Bad incident today, one of the TV helicopters flew too low near the riders near the end of the race a blew an unsecured barrier into them.  Reports are coming out that one of the riders may have broken his back.  Hope not.

#Giro ATENCIÓN: Informa el equipo italiano @ZabuBradoKTM que su corredor Luca Wackermann se retira de la carrera porque fue impactado por una valla que voló a la vía por el fuerte viento. Pronta recuperación. pic.twitter.com/agnKrdpR6L

— ColombiaSports.net (@colombiasports) October 6, 2020

Thanks Sluffy good to put more detail in the mix, i am getting there slowly and i do understand in general the complex things that are going on so i do follow your explanation.

To be honest the thing i struggle with most (dont laugh) is understanding and picking up the finer points from the commentators, this is due to all the terminology that comes so easy to them ie the Italian routes and mountains added to the team names that they sometimes say in full and confuse me and all the riders names being primarily foreign, it all becames a complex muddle lol.

I realise this is my lack of understanding and has the knowledge grows the easier it will be, just at this minute it really is hard to pick up on all that's happening. or maybe i am a bit slow lol.

No, not at all, it takes some doing trying to learn foreign names, foreign places, understand the sport itself from scratch and follow what commentators are saying which let's be frank, is for the ears of seasoned cycle watchers and not newbies like your good self.

I think you've done remarkably well understanding so quickly what you have, don't forget I've been into cycling for forty odd years or more!

It is actually a good season to start because it is a changing of the guard really from the Froome and Thomas era into the younger generation of Pogacar, Ganna, Hirschi, Wout van Aert, Remco Evenepoel (who you haven't even seen yet - he's the one who had a bad crash and I posted up a video of his team manager removing some package from his back pocket), Bernal, and several other new or newish kids on the block!

Don't worry about getting mixed up with names or places, all that will come in time, just continue to enjoy the theatre of it all as I do.

Just for information but there was a ladies version of Liege - Bastogne - Liege and a British girl won it!

I'm not a big fan of ladies races but you might find it to your liking -

Yes your right of course it will come with time, with two Daughters and 4 Granddaughters , i guess i should watch it lol.

Ganna showed he's much more than a time trialist, awesome, i recorded the programme and watched the last 40k just as he came around the final corner the bloody recording stopped!!!!  seen the results and more to come today. That was a mega distance yesterday to shows Gannas range another talent to watch.

Ganna is from the same 'school' as the likes of Wiggins and Thomas in that he's come from a 'track' background and posses a supreme engine and natural body shape to time trial (individual pursuit its called in the velodromes).

Obviously the race distances are hugely different from indoor to the road but you have to remember he doesn't ride them all in TT mode. Just like the GC riders are given a 'free' ride until they are needed at the end of the race, Ganna is only wheeled out when he is needed to which in this Tour was to chase things down when required to keep Thomas in GC contention.

As Thomas is out, Ineos strategy is now to target stage wins and it's fairly clear they saw an immediate chance to do that on yesterdays stage. It was no coincidence that Ganna had a fellow team mate in the breakaway with him - to chase things down for Ganna if need be and help him in anyway he could - and the training and performance Ganna has shown away from the actual races would show what he is capable of doing on the road, given a chance.

The course is obviously crucial in the strategy, he's unlikely to TT away at the end and beat the chasing group up a mountain as he could over a flat finish - so it was all calculated that if he could reach a certain point in the race and hadn't taken too much out of himself getting to that point that on paper at least, he stood a good chance of winning - which he did.

Wiggins and Thomas went on to slim themselves down in weight but crucially still retain their power and transformed themselves into GC contenders - the ones that win big time in the TT's and defend in the mountains.

I don't know if that's the career path for Ganna, some recent TT riders like Cancellara (the one I put up a clip about him having an engine in his bike!) and Tony Martin haven't for what ever reason but if he can then he's going to be a formidable GC rider for the others to beat.

As for missing the endings I've done that loads of times back in the good old video recorder days!!!

Glad to hear that the helicpter incident the rider is recovering, I recorded the highlight show and saw the finish, i only missed possibly 1 minute.

Allthough i can see how all the tactics are bing played out and that some riders not in GC contention may have a day out of the lime light then go for the stage win, i still find it surprising that despite only 6 stages two riders have won 2 stages, yet they don't figure in the top 10 GC positions despite showing well during the tour, against the riders who are placed 2nd, 3rd and 4th who i have hardly noticed at all ? (i know it's me, just hard to figure whilst watching)
Scratches head lol 

Being a newbie i can see what an awesome sprinter Peter Sagen has been, do you thing he is losing his powers ? 15 months without a win and despite being placed well for a couple of stages found someone quicker?

It's all about the daily course and also what the riders objectives are.

Ganna and Demare are not after GC but simply after stage wins - so on some days there's simply no reason for them to try and stay in GC contention timewise, those in GC places now are either serious GC contenders or those who have not lost too much in the TT and what mountains have been climbed so far.

Ganna also would almost certainly not been allowed to go for his second stage win if Thomas had not have crashed out as his job would have been to supporting him and preventing anything untoward spoiling his day rather than being up in the breakaway hunting for a stage win.

Demare is simply a sprinter he won't work on stages he can't win GC, so he won't be up there on best aggregate times over the last six days he probably lost a huge amount going up Etna for instance.

I'm not familiar with some of the top ten GC names at the moment but I'd expect Kelderman, Nibali, Fuglsand,  Kruijswijk and Majka to be there at the end if they get round possibly Pozzovivo and Konrad probably too with one or two dropping out and Yates getting in even though he's three or four minutes down already.

As I say it's more about the daily course and what your objectives are, until recent years the TdF used to basically set the first week for the sprinters, so it was unusual to see even the eventual Tour winners name not even being in the daily top ten GC riders until the second week of the Tour.  Now however (and because flat sprint stages are mostly boring apart from the finishing few minutes) Tours have started to put in stages where GC's have to ride for fear of letting their rivals gain time on them of they don't and have to be aware of side winds and 'echlon's' (you've not met them yet!) and have to be more involved with the flatter stages too.

Sagan's powers are waning with age which is only natural but he is good enough to still win if things go to plan for him.

There's no Alaphilippe, premier, 'classic' one day type racers in the Tour (Mathews is his closet rival for that I would say) and he's been up there with the best sprinters over the years and the ones to watch in this race Gaviria has shown nothing, Viviani's form has fallen off a cliff and Demare usually beatable by Segan, there's no reason not to believe he is not capable even still of getting his debut Giro Tour win by some means or other, He certainly deserves one in his career.

You might find this of interest in how the sprinters were ranked last year by this cycle magazine -

https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/ranking-the-top-10-sprinters-of-2019/

As for Echelons, fist an explanation, second video the even happening in the 2016 World championship in Doha (I don't think the video titled lives up to its claim though - but it does shows you what does happen in real race situation).






And finally just for your information Paris - Roubaix (one of the monuments has been called off again and now cancelled this year due to coronavirus going up again in France and the new imposed lockdown there by the French government -

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/paris-roubaix-2020-has-been-cancelled-472132

I must be getting keen i knew the Paris race was cancelled,  Having to watch most of this later at night, just watched stage 7 and once again Demare had to much for Sagen, sure his time will come, totally understand your explanation on the GC standings thank you .

Will watch/read the links, Todays daft question?

I understand the top teams compete, and each team have 8 riders? I expected each team to have a GC rider and a sprinter then depending on the stage tactics dictate.

 However some times i get confused because the commentators some times talk about Sprint teams and GC teams ? so do some teams only concentrate on one dicipline whilst other teams have contenders in both?

You have to remember the reason for some of these teams existence to understand their aims.  Many of the Belgium, Dutch and Northern French teams have their roots in the classic one day races run generally on flat courses with a few sharp and steep hills, their sponsors come from around these parts too (I assume) and want to be associated with their victory's in the classics/monuments, so the simply don't need to have mountain specialist riders on their rosters but do want the Alaphilippe/Sagan type riders and the best sprinters and build their teams accordingly.

Spanish and Italian based teams tend to have mountains on their doorstep and therefore more naturally have riders who are better suited to the races they have in those country's and have produced some of the great names in mountain riders in there times.

Chuck in the Germans who true to form are very regimented and thorough but lack that spark of genius and other continental country's such as Switzerland, Portugal, Luxemburg, Poland and Ireland and you've really got the core of cycling that had been going on from before the first world war to about the mid 1980's when you started to get a few English speaking riders from Australia and the USA involved and with them a sort of birth of interest from a world wide audience for the first time.

This started to attract American cycling teams with the aim of winning the big prize the TdF and to build teams specifically for that purpose - Lance Armstrong - US Postal for instance.

In recent years Sky has thrown a huge amount of money to win the TdF year on year and random country's such as Kazakhstan (Astana) and Israel entering the sport too.

So you really have a bit of a hotchpotch of teams coming from different directions and priorities all joining together at the big Tours.  

They all know that there's really only a handful of riders capable of winning Tours and they cost millions per year in wages, so for instance you build your squads around them - such as Ineos and Jumbo have - but the best one day team in the world Quick step who pay their big wages to the Alaphilippe's and whoever is the world's best sprinter at the time - and so can't carry the wages of  Chris Froome or Bernal as well.

So you will get teams purely at Tours for GC and you will get other teams purely to win sprint or 'classic' type stages.  Teams won't automatically carry a sprinter, a GC rider, a TT rider and so on with their 8 man squad for the Tours, they will pick the best team they have for the teams objectives they set themselves based on the squad they've picked for the season.

Most teams have a back up plan if something goes wrong with their main aim - for instance in the TdF when Bernal failed they targeted stage wins with Kwiatkowski winning one and Carapaz coming so close to others, in the Giro they got Ganna to ride for his victory when Thomas retired - but really not winning the Tour or even getting on the podium is an utter failure for Ineos, but at the same time Quick Step who never had ang GC hopes did have a marvellous TdF with Bennet and Alaphillipes stage wins and Bennet's green jersey.

Most teams however are somewhere in the middle of the worlds best sprint team and the worlds best (probably not now though) GC team Ineos and whose aims are probably away from the Tours themselves and more towards the day races but want their shirt on the TV at the Tours to please their sponsors and will have a top 10 GC contender or second/third place type sprinter in their teams for the Tours.

It isn't a given that you pick a team like you do at football - keeper, centre backs, wing backs, defending mids, attacking mids, winger and strikers - you could simply pick say star sprinter four others for his 'train' to lead him out a couple of big engines to get him to the peloton or breakaways if he has need to and an all rounder to cover the train riders or engine's depending on form/crashes during the race.

That's the beauty of Tours, everybody seems to want something different from them and there are several races within races going on in them at the same time, it's like a 'who's done it' you are never sure what's going to happen next - as you've been finding out yourself!

Cheers (again) it's like being on a crash course for cyclists lol, really appreciate your input, your early years explanation makes me understand how it evolved and i can relate to the era from Armstrong going forward so i can see now how it all fits and why the teams are structured as they are. So that explains quite a lot thanks.

All though i have not really followed cycling it automatically becomes a sport of interest, there seems to be a kind of link between athletes and cyclists, many of my running mates have also tried cycling, some are members of both codes, and of course the advent of the triathlon again brings us together, we also have members in a Tri club, my club actually organises a triathlon so i have seen the cyclists up close, Horwich each year holds a full day of races featuring both codes, i found out recently that Jason Kenny raced it as a junior. 

I also used to do a race against Horwich Cyclist a course was set that had fast road bits and equal amount of cross country to even it out, interesting to say the least.

Aged 17 i raced in a cross country in Namur Belgium, and it struck me back then that Cycling was such a huge sport in Belgium it was advertised all over the place. So i guess i was always goig to be drawn in at some point. sorry i'm rambling on.

I ramble on all the time mate!

I guess the thing that connects track athletics to cycling (and swimming) is they are aerobic sports where you constantly are moving and can't 'rest' until you get to the end.  Football, Boxing, cricket and everything else I can immediately think of have 'break' and rest periods built into them.

I watch all the other sports but it's the races within races, and teams and riders often having different aims to each other (whilst being in the same race/competition together) that sets cycling apart for me - that and all the twist and unexpected turns that take place - for instance just this morning we have this!

Giro d'Italia: Simon Yates out of race with Covid-19

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/54490539

Wonder how he caught that as he's been in a secure bubble from before the race started and what and how it might (will?) effect his team mates and other riders?

It's all just pure theatre to me with beautiful scenery often thrown in for free!

Yep i saw that this morning, was worried it would effect the race? i guess they somehow keep the riders isolated between stages ? you would think the whole team may have to quarantine. So he was tested and pulled out whilst the team are all negative such a fragile position to be in.

Been wondering why he hadn't figured strongly he sat at the back yesterday now we know why. Will be recording today's stage to watch late on. A match to watch today !!!!

wanderlust wrote:Jumbo-Visma sign off......

Kruijswijk, the rider I tipped to finish second to Thomas had already tested positive and obviously his team have now pulled out to as did earlier Yates team after he tested positive before the rest day.

I was really surprised the TdF got through it all relatively unscathed and it makes me think if Italy which as a relatively lower infection rate has now two teams pull out what might happen in the Vuelta in Spain where their rate is considerably higher?

Guess we'll find out soon enough though.

I would think both races might be in doubt, not sure if there are any rules that apply but can they continue if to many teams pull out? 

 The Vulta maybe lucky to start they are saying that the countries operate differently with Spain more local government involvement so harder to get acceptence to ride through differrent districts. shame really it's the world we are currently living in.