My feeling about Wiggins is that the TdeF may well be beyond him. Contador, Evans, Schkeck(s) all seem a little stronger, and it only takes one of them to be on form in any given year.
He definitely could have won it this year. With the form he was in going into the race, and a strong team behind him, he would have matched Evans in the mountains, as he showed in the Dauphiné. And he'd already outperformed Evans over the same TT course in that race. The Schlecks killed their own chances with indecision, Contador was knackered after the Giro and most of the other big names failed to show up.
Though admittedly a few of the other contenders could say the same thing - Brajkovic would probably have been up there competing for a podium spot if he hadn't also crashed out.
And I suspect Wiggo won't ever get as good an opportunity to win the TdF as that again.
(There's probably some younger riders, too, that I've forgotten about, who will get in the way over the next few years.)
Geraint Thomas, perhaps? Seriously, I reckon G would be a better bet for Sky in the long run.
There's also the likes of Tom Danielson, Rein Taaramae and Pierre Rolland coming up fast. And others, I'm sure, but they're just the first names that come to mind.
There are officially 3 "mountain stages" this week. 46s doesn't sound a lot in that context <goes off to find detailed profiles ... > Wiggo could do with a nice 50k ITT thrown in
In the previous mountain stages where Froome and Wiggo destroyed the field with their threshold riding, Cobo is the one rider who never lost any time to them. I can't see them closing the gap unless they can pick up a few time bonuses with a finish place. Maybe if the gap was just a little bit smaller, it might be possible to overhaul Cobo...
That team TT really was a disaster.
d.