The Moment The Race Was Won: The Dauphiné

Chris Froome Dauphine 2015 Valfrejus

Chris Froome attacks Tejay van Garderen on the final climb of the final stage. The American is in yellow and has been marking Froome on the climbs all week, letting Froome go and then patiently trying to reel him in. But this time there’s just a few seconds to save the race. Van Garderen lets Froome go, holds him within range but the gap stretches out: five seconds, six seconds, ten seconds and then Van Garderen cracks. This was the moment the race was won.

The race began with a testing circuit race around Albertville. A move went on the last lap and Peter Kennaugh took flight to claim a stage win just ahead of the sprinters. Apparently he’s about to re-sign with Sky and we’ll surely see him in their team for July, the only question is whether he wears the same jersey again but on this form it looks possible.

The sprinters, or rather the handful who started the race, got their chance the next day. Nacer Bouhanni won and by two bike lengths. It’s hard to see him bettering Mark Cavendish and Alexander Kristoff in the Tour de France but he did what he had to and it’s all an improvement on the early season struggles. He’s on two World Tour wins now; zero still for Cavendish. Everything is going in the right direction for Bouhanni, his team rode well in his service and his second stage win in Sisteron was impressive as he made the cut over the final climb and was with the best on the stage to Villard de Lans until late too, he’s versatile.

BMC Racing won the team time trial to take the jersey off Sky’s Kennaugh. A dress rehearsal for the Tour de France it featured some uphill drags and many teams were down to five riders by the finish. The course was the undoing of several, notably Team Sky who finished sixth with Froome surrendering 35 seconds to van Garderen. Rohan Dennis took the yellow jersey as part of a solid week but he’s still got room for improvement in the high mountains.

The first summit finish was all about the descent that led to it. Romain Bardet attacked over the Col d’Allos and gained a minute on the bunch before riding to the stage win Pra Loup. You can’t underplay this win for Bardet, he’s spending all his days in search of perfection and is highly-rated but for all the work he’d yet to win a World Tour race. Now he got the joy of a victory salute and satisfaction from seeing his performance all week, he was matching the best on the climbs but says he’s at 90%. Will he have a beer this week? He has “the theory of beers” where it is ok to drink a beer from time to time in celebration of a result but a rider who has more, more often isn’t doing their job properly. With the Tour coming, you suspect le perfectionniste Bardet will stick to a Perrier.

We then got a transition stage to Villard de Lans. It was never going to be an ordinary procession given Villard de Lans rhymes with cycling history and crossing the Vercors plateau means a climb to get there and difficult terrain. But add a summer downpour and aggressive racing from the start and things went wild, a stage to rival this year’s Gent-Wevelgem for intensity and drama. It was normal that many tried to escape but unusual that the big names got in the mix with Tejay van Garderen, Vincenzo Nibali and Alejandro Valverde going clear early on. In time Nibali got away with Rui Costa, Alejandro Valverde and Tony Gallopin and the group behind was cracked with few team mates left to lead the chase. This was vintage Nibali, opportunist and bold knowing many of these moves don’t pay off but still going for it. He rode into the yellow jersey with Rui Costa taking the stage win.

Sic transit gloria as they said in Rome, glory is fleeting and Nibali’s grip on the overall lead was undone the very next day with the Alpine Queen stage. Sky set a hard pace from the middle of the stage onwards hoping to exploit tired legs and both Nibali and Valverde were cracked early on the final climb. Froome and van Garderen were left comparing Watts-per-kilo ratios. The two were working together on the climb, probably no combo just self interest with both knowing there was something to be gained, the stage win for Froome and the race lead for van Garderen.

It set up the final stage with just 18 seconds between Froome and van Garderen and a summit finish to come with a time bonus at the top too. The tactics were obvious: set a fierce pace to isolate van Garderen, weaken him and then Froome attacks to take time. Easier said than done especially with such a short summit finish without that much gradient. But Sky controlled the stage and Wout Poels set a fierce pace before the inevitable Froome attack. As he’d done earlier in the week van Garderen didn’t follow right away but tried to reel him in more gradually but this time it was too much. It was agonising to watch, Froome in that awkward style while van Garderen could see the race lead being lifted off his shoulders.

Van Garderen did look isolated in the mountains but by the time he was reduce to racing Froome there was nobody else around anyway so the lack of team support wasn’t that big a penalty; besides the team won the TTT and put half a minute into Sky. Here’s the top-10 overall with and without the time bonuses. It’s just that, an arithmetic exercise because you can’t switch off the bonuses and since riders know they exist they feature in the tactical considerations. As you can see Chris Froome’s win was built not just on distancing van Garderen but in beating him for the stage wins.

What does the Dauphiné mean for the Tour de France? Remember time bonuses are back for the Tour de France this year. Extrapolations from June to July are risky, last year Nibali looked out of sorts only to win the Tour. But as bold as his ride to Villard de Lans was I thought he looked worse than last year, take Pra Loup where he had fresh legs but lost two minutes on this relatively short ski station climb when last year he only lost around 30 seconds each time on the Col du Béal and the Emosson dam climb. He said felt “engulfed” by allergies. Chris Froome delivered a reassuring ride for Team Sky and gets a big win in an otherwise blank season apart from scalping Contador in the Vuelta a Andalucia so all looks back on track. Van Garderen’s form bodes well for July, he is regularly climbing with the best now although he is a regular rider rather than a risk-taker, an upmarket Jurgen Van Den Broeck if you like. Beñat Intxausti was cautious too, less agressive than Valverde but excellent in the mountains and fourth overall to show for it. Rui Costa had a good ride but can he translate his customary June form into July when Lampre usually go missing? Simon Yates and Romain Bardet could be rivals for years to come, both had an excellent race with Yates climbing very well.

All predictions will be scrambled by the first week of the Tour with its crosswinds, Paris-Roubaix cobbles, spring classics climbs and more, especially if the weather turns nasty.

Daniel Teklehaimanot

MTN-Qhubeka get a laudable mention. The wildcard invitees have resembled a team of sprinters but only one win to show among them by Edvald Boasson Hagen. Instead Daniel Teklehaimanot won the mountains jersey thanks to several breakaways, not easy to escape every day yet alone keep sprinting for the points and it’s earned the Eritrean a spot in the Tour de France. Louis Meintjes was climbing with the best of them too and Stephen Cummings kept the jersey on TV for the final stage too.

The Verdict: once again an excellent race with the overall victory decided right at the end. The race was packed with action and the only regret is the relative lack of TV coverage with only an hour a day which meant some of the action and plenty of the scenery was missed.

The focus swings to Switzerland now with this week’s Tour de Suisse. But the upcoming weekend also has the Route du Sud which will be televised for the first time. Alberto Contador had talked about riding but the certainty is Nairo Quintana rides and we’ll see what he’s got in the mountains.

 

105 thoughts on “The Moment The Race Was Won: The Dauphiné”

    • Froome, Contador, Nibali, Quintana, Van Garderen, Pinot, Peraud, Bardet, Rodriguez, Yates, Martin, Talansky, Barguil, Kelderman…its impossible for it NOT to be exciting!!! There’s such a high quality that there will be no easy places in the top ten, let alone the podium. Out of just the above list, 4 will miss out in a top ten place!!

      Im a little bit pumped.

    • Indeed let’s hope that all the favourites stay upright and the race is in the balance in the 3rd week. We haven’t had a really good Tour GC battle since 2011.

      The Dauphine delivers a great week of racing yet again!

  4. An “upmarket Jurgen Van Den Broeck”, harsh but probably true.

    I hope Rui Costa goes back to his old method of losing time in early in the TDF and then going for stage wins, rather than trying to ride to Zubeldia-esq 8th on GC. He’s an exciting rider but not in the top grand tour tier.

    • I was quite excited to spot Zubeldia at one point during one of the stages

      Its a rare occurrence, so you have to make the most of it 🙂

    • “An “upmarket Jurgen Van Den Broeck”, harsh but probably true.”
      I laughed out loud!
      Probably even more harsh is that this makes Van Den Broeck the poor man’s TJ Van Garderen. And that is not high praise in anyone’s book.

        • Notwithstanding a possible TTT stage win in the Tour, I cannot see Van Garderen winning any other stages and thus he will probably suffer with time bonuses to his GC rivals.
          Sky will surely be looking to improve their TTT also ; both here and at the Giro they have lost significant seconds. It would be difficult to make that up with so many top class rivals vying for stage wins / time bonuses.
          I think that Sky would not want to lose say more than 10 seconds to Tinkoff Saxo, Astana and Movistar on the TTT, especially with the unpredictable first week of the Tour as noted.
          Many thanks for all your efforts Inrng, just recently had the pleasure of joining up and a very good read.

  6. Superb win by Froome. Let down in the TTT by his team (and some bad luck), but performed brilliantly over the weekend. Van Garden rode well, and could see what was coming, but i don’t think he could have stopped Froome yesterday. Interesting that he would have win without time bonuses, though – I see that the bonuses encourage riders to go for the stage win, but they can also confuse spectators. I’ll be interested to see how they work in the Tour, but I’m glad they’re only on the flat stages and hence shouldn’t affect the overall!

  7. Bouhanni: “but he did what he had too” — should be “to”.

    Great writeup as always! That photo of Nibali/Valverde/Costa/Gallopin is fantastic.

    Looking forward to the Tour; to me the compromise of time bonuses in the first week seems a good one.

  8. @INRNG: what do you make of Nibali talking to Froome before pulling on the front and chasing Valverde down when Froome was running out of team-mates? A deal being done?

    • Just to clarify: if you watch the video, shortly before Nibali goes to the front, he pulls alongside Froome and there is a conversation.

      • Probably just a normal catch up. For a deal to be done, both party needs to have something to offer on the table. Help in this finale of Dauphine is what Nibali could offer but does that count enough? The problem is that can’t see much potential for Astana/Sky collaboration in the Tour. Froome probably would attack come mountain stage if he’s in any shape and he’s certainly not going to wait/help Nibali. Neither is Nibali likely to wait for Froome or Astana going to help shepherd Froome during the first week.

        That said, they could do something in the first week. Arguably, Sky & Astana have a stronger classic team than Tinkoff (well, well, well dear Sargan, not sure what you could do to help AC on your own) & certainly Movistar. Maybe they could conspire to distance Contador & Quintana on the cobble stages together? Or a joint attack on an early hilly stage like what happened last Friday?

        It certainly isn’t in Sky’s style to do such crazy things and try to pull a Contador on Contador himself, but who knows. In 2012 Vuelta, somebody said here that hell would freeze over if Sky put somebody into a break. The next day Fletcher was in a break.

      • A more straight forward interpretation is that Nibali was attempting to set up an attack from his teammate Scarponi–ill fated as that may have been. Building up good will among teammates at this point can pay off later.

  9. I’m fine with the time bonuses and I think most riders are too. Sure, you can make the argument that results would be different without them, but riders do learn to take advantage of them. Froome lost out to JJ Cobo in the 2011 Vuelta due to time bonuses, but he has learned from that and used them to his advantage here.
    Vangarderen may not be as punchy on the finish, but he too will learn to race with bonus seconds in mind. Generally they make for more exciting racing and I don’t believe they eliminate certain competitors from overall victory as was the case with Hesjedahl defeating Rodriguez in the 2012 Giro

    • hopefully the BMC DS will now be addressing one of the key takeaways from this Dauphine is the potential GC win TJVG would have got, were it not for the time bonuses. Should be a wake up call to stay attentive in the finishes come July.

      • I think it’s being looked at already. But it could be different in the Tour. If we saw Froome and TVG as better than the rest last week chances are there’s more competition for bonuses among Contador, Quintana and others so the bonuses are shared around more and less the preserve of one rider over another.

    • “Generally they [time bonuses] make for more exciting racing …”

      I think Tejay Vangarderen’s beating Chris Froome would have been more exciting.

  12. ” (…) I would like to say Froome is clean. Believe me, I would like to write poetry about the beauty of cycling rather than write about power numbers! But I am still waiting for that moment.” A. Vayer, Velonews, 25 feb. 2015

    • I have no idea whether Froome is clean or not

      However to cite Vayer who chucks it around about basically every rider (inc Pinot at last year’s Tour) except Peraud who he used to coach…is pretty funny

    • humhum, formal Festina Trainer? And from 1995 ~1998? Certainly somebody who made history. Oh well.

      The guy said his method is about +/- 1% accurate and he’d like to see a Tour raced at 10W less. Did he realise that +/- 1% of around 400W is about 10 W?

      Also, if he’s guy is close enough to Froome so that he can make an very accurate estimation, doesn’t that mean his guy’s doping as well?

      • Eeehm, 10W is 2,5 times more than 1% of 400watts.

        But more importantly: Taking into account a well trained person can do 300 watts….. Then that 100 watts extra compared to the 90watts he would like to see (and considers believeable), is a stunning 10% difference. This 10% is his 10watts and is probably what leads him to his doping conclusion.

    • I’m not sure what sort of poem M. Vayer might write which includes the beauty of cycling in same stanza as Froome, but it did strike me as interesting to see the protagonists from the Villard de Lans stage blow up so spectactularly the following day… which suggests either that they were using the race as training for the Tour (possibly for Nibali, but unlikely for Valverde) or genuinely hadn’t recovered from their efforts on the preceding stage.

      Point being, I don’t think we would have seen this 10 years or so ago, which suggests something has changed for the better – especially if you take into account Nibali’s dubious team and Valverde’s dubious past.

      Thoughts?

      • I always find it interesting when commenters mention Astana’s past, yet none of the past riders are still on the team. Armstrong, Contador, Kreuziger, and most of the former Postal etc now are riding for other teams or retired they were the Astana of the past. When Contador won the Tour in 2011 the police found empty blister packs of Micardis an antihypertensive drug and gene modifier in their trash. So does that mean that all riders from the former Rabobank, Blanco, Lotto Jumbo are still doing it? Two of their highest level riders had to sit out GTs due to low blood cortisol levels and Rabobank purchased a blood analyzer just like the UCI had so they could stay in the safe zone. Is every rider at Tinkoff suspect due to their past DS and individual history? Chris Froome was on high dose oral corticosteroids last year at the Dauphene due to a “respiratory infection”. It’s amazing that these are used to help lose weight without loss of muscle mass. Consistency of thought would certainly be appropriate.

    • Vayer’s math can be pretty dodgy at times. Claims of such precision are nonsense, and in any case tell us nothing about a rider’s doping status.

      • There was a time when doubting about LA was severely reprehended by all means. Just evoking unclear aspects was sanctioned as treason (like posting on this kind of forums here).
        Now, today the “new” riders are all clean and the “new” teams behave. Frankly, the question is not wether this or that athlete is cheating – at these stakes, the question is, why shouldn’t they take undetectable performance enhancing drugs (etc.)? We continue to admire these performances but we don’t want to look behind the scene…
        Let ME follow Chris Froome one year long 24/7, let me freely testify, let me freely observe and measure – then we’d know what the tricks are and what we want to believe in – magics or sports.

        • “Let ME follow Chris Froome one year long 24/7, let me freely testify, let me freely observe and measure – then we’d know what the tricks are and what we want to believe in – magics or sports”

          Well, Sky did allow David Walsh just such access for a year (cant; remeber offf teh top of my head which year – I think 2013 ?), and he found nothing untoward. Bearing in mind Walsh is the arch sceptic who consistently called out Armstrong from very near the beginning of his Tour domination years – I’ll continue to believe in Sky/Wiggins/Froome as clean.

          … Still prepared to be disillusioned again, as I was by Armstrong in the end, although in his case the drip-drip “no smoke without fire” had me sceptical long before the endgame.

        • What are you going observe? Every moment of his waking/sleeping life? Are you going to watch over his bed when he sleeps? Is it fair that he’d need to sacrifice his privacy just for the zealous of some fans?

          How are you going to observe 24/7? If you or one of your observers fell asleep during your watch, is that proof that Froome used the precious/unpredictable window to dope? How can you trust guys you hired to observe was doing their job? How do you know they haven’t been paid off by Sky? Also, even if he isn’t using needles or pills, how do you know they haven’t mixed drugs in his diet? Are you going to test all the food etc. he ever eat? Are you going to check the origin of every chicken/pork/beef and put a full doping control on those animals as well? Are you going to have people observing the rice field that grow the rice he eats?

          What about performance data? What are you going to measure and how do you know what’s probable and not probable? How do you know where the improvements come from when there are thousands of factors that may contribute? Not to mention the fact that you power measuring tool may not be precise enough.

          Now, who is this ME here? Do you mean general fans or just yourselves? You are pretty confident that you will find evidence of doping here, but what if you can’t and you are convinced that Froome/Nibali/AC/Quintana or whoever you are shadowing is indeed clean? What next? How are you going to prove to other fans that this rider is indeed clean? Aren’t they just going to say that you are a blind “fan boy/girl” and doesn’t know what to look for or that you’ve been paid up by Sky/Astana/Tinkoff etc.?

          I think the consensus here is that no one knows whether any given rider is clean, but the crude power calculation is no where enough in indicating a doping case. Using them to smear the rider you don’t like with dirt is certainly not contributing to cycling as a sport.

        • If you look at Vayer’s interview, he himself can’t even name the datas he would like to see and the thresholds of those datas at which he would consider a rider is doping. When asked, he merely said that what Sky released is not enough.

          Vayer would like to present his argument as well structured scientific experiment. But for a scientific experiment, you need to know that your environment is controlled and the only contributing factor is doping in terms of performance improvement. This is far from the case in reality.

          For a scientific experiment, you also need to have hypothesis but more importantly, criteria to test the hypothesis. But instead of criteria, all people like Vayer is saying is that gave me the data and I will interpret it. Any such interpretation is pretty subjective. They can and will (sometimes unconsciously ) spin the results their way.

          • ME stands in for just my person and the hope of more insight to gain confidence in the hard but true spirit of cycling. Of course there are limitations etc. and of course you can’t dictate such an observatory and hope it would protect cycling from doping. On the other side we could cynically accept power and endurance by any means – show time! – and dissociate pro cycling, it’s rules and values it stands for, from my buddies’ evening rush.

            Concerning Vayer’s scientific qualities, I wonder who else is questioning (not accusing) the achievements of the best athletes. I am not aware of other voices, trying to be as objective as possible …sick of the silence that builds up over every “new” cycling generation!

  13. I enjoyed the final battle between Froome and Van Garderen, but I would have enjoyed it more if I could have seen more of the faces of both as they fought it out. It’s lame how every 5-7 seconds they would both look down at their little screen (to check power numbers, I assume). Racers used to droop their head in defeat and fatigue – now it’s become a means of reassurance…?

  14. It’s interesting that you mention Kennaugh’s defence of his British Champions jersey. This years Lincoln GP doubles as the British Championships. Kennaugh has won in Lincoln in the past so has a good chance of winning the jersey again, however Sky has had a habit in the last few years of not allowing the Tour team race the nationals.

  15. The point at which the race was won was when Nibali took over as the point man of the Sky train. If he hadn’t done that stint, Froome would have had to use Poels too early on the climb and not be able to push TJ into the red at the point ‘the race winning attack’ took place.

    • Mu assumpion was that Nibali was trying to mess with the head of Frome and Moviestar saying “im just doing a low intencity traing pass up the last climb of the most mountainous race of the season and doing my watts – while killing your teams AND hurting you while your racing to win”

      • Possibly.
        There was a brief conversation between the two men, see above also.
        Nibali is a very canny operator, he claimed illness but was still able to put in some outstanding stints.
        Then he’d turn it off, whether by design or he really was ill, we shall see in July.
        I think, on reflection, I am expecting him being in tip top shape and this race was nothing more than an “experiment” to test his preparation.

  16. It’a a torture to see Froome going hard on a bike. Rigid torso and arms, shaking from right to left like a snake, with is bike doing the same square dance…. Loosing a few watts at the same time… And going for the win anyway.

    • +1 The days when the top guys all looked great on their bikes are dead and gone. First nails-in-that-coffin were the ghastly, sloping top tube GIANT bikes, the ones that came in three sizes, “too small, too big and close enough”. Now pretty much all of ’em look like that and riders who look good on ’em are few and far between. And when a guy like Froome is beating them all, it’s hard to argue that form follows function. Aesthetics are pretty much a thing of the past. 🙁

  17. Agree that Teklehaimanot was impressive at the Dauphine. Having been in (back in the day) and followed pro cycling for a long time, I can’t ever recall a black rider in a leader jersey. Perhaps others can recall this? I’ve been surprised that there hasn’t been more written about this because it really is significant. Cycling is among the least racially diverse sports, and while a handful of riders don’t make a trend, it’s encouraging see some diversity on the sport’s biggest stage.

    • If cycling experiences the same as athletics in terms of the rise of Africa, then the peloton is going to be very different in a couple of decades. Of course, there’s a much higher economic barrier to entry in cycling so the change will probably more gradual. It would be good to see it as a more global sport though.

    • It might be more significant if anybody else in the peloton cared a whit about the jersey.
      There was absolutely no competition for it in this race and it became – as so often – a glorified ‘who can get in the most breakaways?’ jersey.
      Maybe all KOMs should be sponsored by Gianni Savio.

      • Hmmm. Wearing a jersey is always an honor I think. And getting into a break day after day is no easy feat. I guess you’d need to ask the guys in the race, but my guess is most wouldn’t be flippant about winning a KOM jersey, especially at a race as prestigious as the Dauphine. My broader point though is that the pro peloton doesn’t have much diversity and it’s encouraging to see this beginning to change, even if it’s in a small way.

  18. Froome appears to have worked on his explosiveness on the climbs. He normally climbed with steady spinning, that would real in say, a Contador attack. The last two stages of the Dauphine, he launched away with explosive attacks, a la Contador, while van Garderen would do the steady real-in spin.

    Should come in handy for the Tour.

    • Surely he had some quick accelerations, but he also remained seated which limits the jump. I think it just looked impressive because he was spinning away from van Garderen. He’ll have a much harder time getting away from Contador in the saddle.

      • As mentioned elsewhere Sky will have looked at what is the optimum way that Froome can put in a spurt – and maintain it. He clearly isn’t Bertie who is very comfortable out of the saddle. However my understanding is that whilst out of the saddle generates the most watts over a short distance maintaining it is another thing. Most of the specialist climbers tend to get away only after making several stinging attacks. The pattern tends to be attack -> recovery whilst the others grind their way back -> attack -> recovery whilst only a few grind their way back -> attack -> recovery but no one can make it back. Froome seems to be aiming for attack hard enough to gap his opponents and then keep going. It will be interesting to see if it works vs the top top guys.

  20. As an American viewer, it was great to Teejay out climbing just about everyone except for Froome. Teejay’s game is to gain time through the ITT and TTTs and defend in the mountains. Very similar approach to Sir Bradley. As far as ability he seems to be between Wiggins and JVB currently. Also, Wiggins had a massive Sky train to conduct him through the mountains, whereas BMC seems to be lacking in the climbing domestics that some of the big teams have which hurts a rider like Teejay. So I think this was a preview of how Teejay is going to have to race with the current make up of BMC.

    A podium finish would be fantastic given the competition. Top 5 is more realistic.

  21. how much of a thing is this mountain train thing?. For TVG surely he can just hitch his wagon on the Sky/Movistar/Saxo/Astana trains to suit him. Admitedly he can’t control matters, but for a ‘long but unexplosive pull’ merchant, surely tagging onto the megateam train while they shed everyone bar the top 10 suits him down to the ground. Where he stacks up in that top 10 in the final 3km of the hill is down to him anyway…

  22. It did come down to the strongest man winning the race.
    Congratulations Froome you were put behind the eight ball a bit with the bad TTT. Never the less you prevailed with pure strength.

    Nice that TVG not blow it… Second place for that week of work, against quality GC guys bodes well for him in the TDF.

    Would of liked to see Dan Martin not have a flat past Saturday late in the race. He might of presented a bit of catalyst for different outcome if he was able to stay with the group and AT.

    Thanks Inrng for all your wonderful work.

  23. I actually warmed to Froome a little yesterday, he knew what he had to do and he bloody well did it, so hats off to him. I despair at his all elbows style but as Dave Millar said in commentary, style is pretty much what your born with, like it or not.

  24. Tejay actually lost the race to Froome the day before the final stage when he did way more work than he needed to at the very end of the race. Had he not traded places with Froome to the line he would easily gone at least six seconds faster in the final stage, possibly limiting his losses and gaining the second place time bonus.

    • “He would easily [have] gone at least six seconds faster” – how easily those words trip off the keyboard; how hard to prove or disprove their reality.
      The Keyboard Warrior is the new Monday Morning Quarterback.

  26. I’ve never agreed with time bonuses “awarded” for crossing the line first. If a rider wants time on his competitors, then earn that time on the road, by dropping them.
    Time bonuses are a false economy and distort races, when they don’t need to.
    If it’s argued “it makes racing more exciting” then design a course that reflects that, rather than taking cheap options.

    • +1. Although I’m not systematically opposed to time bonuses, what you say is that’s basically what the thinking should be. But it implies having courses that create gaps, including between leaders, every single day. But such demanding courses (or racing choices) would, I guess, cause the likes of the Secret Pro or Cancellara, to rush to say they are unacceptable, inhuman, and dangerous for riders’ health and well-being, and that cycling “doesn’t need it” to be spectacular.

      • Both in this race, and the Tour of California recently, time bonuses have really added a dramatic edge to the races. I view them as a positive, and an incentive to seek the win / podium rather than riders be content to shelter within the peleton.

        • The dramatic edge would have been in this race anyway. It would still have been Froome looking to make up time on TJ in the mountains that he had lost in the TTT. In that sense, they simply altered the arithmetic for better or worse.

          What they often do is make the overwhelming majority of stages a race between the big boys. They’re break-killers, again for better or worse.

          • I don’t think the extra seconds are the reason breaks fail. When it comes down to it these are the top guys (= consistently fastest) in the race who are trying to beat each other regardless of bonuses on the line. They sit behind their teams until the last 10Km then go hell for leather. In the process, on most stages, they happen to overtake the guys in the break who have been doing their share on the front for most of the day.

          • I understand your point Anon.
            It would be interesting perhaps is someone / Inrng could look at stages with bonus seconds on offer and analyse how many breaks have been succesful.
            To counter your point, however, the stage with the Nibali break was a high class breakaway.
            In that regard, it may encourage some of the bigger players to chance their arm more often ?

          • @ Special Eye
            You can argue that the break would have happened bounce seconds or not. Should Nibali been in form & targeting the race, that breakaway wouldn’t happen anyway.

  27. Interesting to read elsewhere that Trek factory Racing were bottom of the prize list with a measly 300Euros. Talk about peanuts. Team SKY were top with 26,100euros.

  28. The Moment the Race was Lost, from TJ’s POV was when he saw the two riders catching up near the finish and that they would rip the six and four second bonuses away from him.

    • Double edged sword that one – in the end even the 2nd place bonus still would not have won him the race, and I personally think Yates/Costa pulled him a couple of seconds closer to Froome than he would have been on his own. Pure conjecture I know 😉

  29. I’ll take your Roman Bardet and give you Simon Yates (and his brother, who might be the better of the twins, who knows)

    I like Bardet, not sure how he will progress, either of the Yates twins seem to be a bit more solid all-round.

    Either way – future looks bright for those of us that like attacking climbers. (no dis-respect TJ)

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