Vuelta a España 2012 (likely to include spoilers)

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Good to see top riders going up hills (albeit bloody steep ones) looking like me going up hills..i.e. struggling to turn the cranks over.

9km/hr at some points apparently.

Try Bignor Hill in Sussex (not resurfaced like this one was).  The middle 300m of Bignor Hill will give you an idea of what this climb is like.  I bet the pros were happy they didn't have to ride down it 

[Honest John]

Woo-hoo! The Vuelta has so far been through places I've cycled through almost every day!

And, yes, there are hills that steep if you go looking for them. Fortunately, if you're trying to get from A to B with panniers, they can easily be avoided.

[Honest John]

I reckon Froome's had it.

My pick:

1. Rodriguez
2. Contador
3. Valverde

[Rig of Jarkness]

I reckon Froome's had it.

Sadly, I have to agree.

Perhaps next year Sky will see fit to give Froome the support - and race programme - required to enable him to get his first Grand Tour win.  It must be so frustrating for him knowing he used up his best form in support of Wiggins in France.

[David Martin]

Rodriguez looked remarkably fresh at the finish. Froome loked tired, but before we write him off, he still finished ahead of most of the other GC pretenders.

[Nuncio]

Another stunning stage finish. 

I make that five stage finishes where the top four contenders were in the top 5 of the stage.

[Exit Stage Left]

I reckon Froome's had it.

Sadly, I have to agree.

Perhaps next year Sky will see fit to give Froome the support - and race programme - required to enable him to get his first Grand Tour win.  It must be so frustrating for him knowing he used up his best form in support of Wiggins in France.

Do you know what the combined prize money for 1st and 2nd in the TdF is?

[David Martin]

About £700k? Quite a hefty chunk of change.

[JT]

Sadly I found it hard to believe in the credibility of Rodriguez's win yesterday - it reminded me of Ricardo Ricco.

Froome was gutsy again (and had good support from his team mates) but the attack he made after catching the leaders was totally pointless.

[Frank9755]

Quite. I think a few people have got a bit carried away with the euphoria of the TdF and Olympics and were expecting too much from Froome in this race.
...
Froome has done well so far but I'd now expect him to fade out of contention as the race goes on.

Either Brailsford, or someone else from Sky, said at the start of the Vuelta that they wanted to win all the Grand Tours.  And Froome has certainly been a credible contender, but your prediction above is looking like being borne out. 

Giving him the chance to be team leader has doubtlessly been a big learning experience for him.  There may also have been an element of giving him enough rope to hang himself in terms of showing him he is not quite the finished item.  Hence persuading him that he would be better supporting Wiggins' defence of the Tour than trying to find another team to lead next year.  Some of his decision-making in the heat of the moment has been suspect - in particular his attack yesterday and trackstanding with Contador last week: together they probably cost him half a minute or more, and he'll learn from that.
 

[clifftaylor]

Today should be a stonker.

[Honest John]

Sadly I found it hard to believe in the credibility of Rodriguez's win yesterday - it reminded me of Ricardo Ricco.

Really? Rodriguez is riding the way he's always ridden in the three years he's been on my radar.

Always fast and punchy on short climbs. I'd be suspicious if he managed to keep it up for 20km rather than 500m.

[Honest John]

I reckon Froome's had it.

Sadly, I have to agree.

Perhaps next year Sky will see fit to give Froome the support - and race programme - required to enable him to get his first Grand Tour win.  It must be so frustrating for him knowing he used up his best form in support of Wiggins in France.

On the contrary, now he's been given a grand tour to himself with full Sky backup rather than ridng as a superdomestique, he's failing, showing he's good, but not as good as Wiggins.

You might as well suggest Jens Voigt hasn't won any grand tours due to lack of backup.

[citoyen]

Sadly I found it hard to believe in the credibility of Rodriguez's win yesterday - it reminded me of Ricardo Ricco.

Really? Rodriguez is riding the way he's always ridden in the three years he's been on my radar.

Always fast and punchy on short climbs. I'd be suspicious if he managed to keep it up for 20km rather than 500m.

Yes, my thoughts too. And to put it in some context, I thought the pace up the final climb seemed pretty slow on the whole. It would be good to see some numbers to get a more objective measure of their performance.

If Rodriguez looked fresher than Contador and Froome at the end of it, it's perhaps because he rode much more cannily than them. He still looked pretty done in to me, just not as much so as Contador and Froome. Maybe it's naive of me, but I've always thought of Rodriguez as a rider you could trust. I hope that trust doesn't prove misplaced.

I suspect a fully race-fit Contador would have won that but it's good to see him looking human.

d.

[citoyen]

On the contrary, now he's been given a grand tour to himself with full Sky backup rather than ridng as a superdomestique, he's failing, showing he's good, but not as good as Wiggins.

It's mostly a young team, inexperienced at this level - Froome himself is still relatively inexperienced at grand tours, and it's his debut as team leader*, but Uran, Pate, Henao, Swift, Stannard are all younger than him and with even less grand tour experience. And they don't have Yates in the team car barking out orders. And Porte, like Froome, is showing the signs of a long, hard season.

This will be good experience for them all but they were never going to match the TdF performance.

d.

*remember the 2010 TdF - the first time Wiggo was team leader...

[Nuncio]

Yes.  I imagine the target set for Froome was to build up over the season so that he would be in top shape to support BW in the TdF. So it's a bit unfair to compare Bradley Wiggins' performance there with Froome's at the Vuelta. 

[Rainmaker]

Todays stage finishes at Lagos  Covadonga, I went up it last year, in a car I should add, but it is one hell of a climb.   IMO it is probably harder than many alpine climbs, it is not a steady gradient, it is very steep in places and there are even a couple of downhill bits in the middle of the climb.   I don't know if they go all the way to the very top because that is a bit restricted for cars etc., but it is a very hard climb.

[Honest John]

If Rodriguez looked fresher than Contador and Froome at the end of it, it's perhaps because he rode much more cannily than them. He still looked pretty done in to me, just not as much so as Contador and Froome.

Indeed, I've just watched it again as I edited my recording of the highlights and Rodriguez looks far from superhuman, only going full beans at the end when he had to get past Bertie. He's riding the same way as he did when he nearly won the Giro.

I suspect a fully race-fit Contador would have won that but it's good to see him looking human.

Very much agreed.

[Honest John]

Yes.  I imagine the target set for Froome was to build up over the season so that he would be in top shape to support BW in the TdF. So it's a bit unfair to compare Bradley Wiggins' performance there with Froome's at the Vuelta.

Except I'm comparing Froome in this year's Vuelta with Froome in last year's Vuelta, where he ended up with Wiggins riding as a domestique and nearly beat Cobo (who seems suspiciously weedy this year).

[Honest John]

it is not a steady gradient, it is very steep in places and there are even a couple of downhill bits in the middle of the climb.   

That's horrible.

[Peter]

Well, that was one of the most beautiful day's racing I've ever watched; fabulous scenery (the best I've seen in any tour),

(click to show/hide)

a successful lone breakaway and great sparring between the three main contenders.  Excellent.

[Rig of Jarkness]

Yep, the scenery was quite stunning today. 

[Honest John]

Bloody hell, that was steep!

[David Martin]

That was ridiculous. And the fans are absolute nutters. Can't spain afford barriers?

[Honest John]

That was ridiculous. And the fans are absolute nutters. Can't spain afford barriers?

I was going to say the other day the fans are particularly barking. I was just waiting for one of them to cause serious trouble for the riders. What if Contador, Valverde and Rodriguez were all brought down by a fan and the one who crossed the line first was the one who got back on his bike quickest?*

And there is an awful lot of pushing going on, even under the commissaires' noses.

Trouble with barriers is you need an awful lot of them to cordon off a road, and this one was also particularly narrow and 10 miles up a mountain. More Civil Guards would be a better idea.

* Somewhere I have a VHS tape of just that sort of thing happening in the TdF about n years ago. Gianni Bugno walloped the offending fan over the head with his front wheel.