Stage 16: Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux -> Gap - 162.5 km

[steve]

Stage 16: Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux -> Gap - 162.5 km It’s the start of the final week. The race heads into Gap, crosses the Col de Manse, then drops down again into the finish after completing a small circuit. As we’re heading towards the Alps, this stage is not flat, which is what you would expect, but it isn’t too hard either as it just rises steadily throughout. It will suit a rider in the mould of Flecha or Garcia Acosta, that is to say one of the wily old campaigners who can cope with the climbs pretty well. Be aware also that something often happens after the second rest day, and it may be something completely unexpected. In 2003, for example, in order to avoid crashing into the prone figure of Joseba Beloki, Lance Armstrong opted, on pure instinct, to indulge in a bit of cyclo-cross over an Alpine meadow.

Stage 16 Map
Stage 16 Profile
The Last Km's
General classification before stage 16 1 Thomas Voeckler (Fra) Team Europcar 65:24:34 2 Fränk Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek 0:01:49 3 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team 0:02:06 4 Andy Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek 0:02:15 5 Ivan Basso (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale 0:03:16 6 Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:03:44 7 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Saxo Bank Sungard 0:04:00 8 Damiano Cunego (Ita) Lampre - ISD 0:04:01 9 Thomas Danielson (USA) Team Garmin-Cervelo 0:05:46 10 Kevin De Weert (Bel) Quickstep Cycling Team 0:06:18 11 Rigoberto Uran Uran (Col) Sky Procycling 0:07:55 12 Jean-Christophe Peraud (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:08:20 13 Rein Taaramae (Est) Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne 0:09:02 14 Pierre Rolland (Fra) Team Europcar 0:09:20 15 Haimar Zubeldia Agirre (Spa) Team RadioShack 0:09:50 16 Peter Velits (Svk) HTC-Highroad 0:10:01 17 Arnold Jeannesson (Fra) FDJ 0:10:05 18 Nicolas Roche (Irl) AG2R La Mondiale 0:10:56 19 Sandy Casar (Fra) FDJ 0:11:54 20 Jelle Vanendert (Bel) Omega Pharma-Lotto 0:12:06 21 Rob Ruijgh (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team 0:12:56 22 Jerome Coppel (Fra) Saur - Sojasun 0:13:03 23 Vladimir Karpets (Rus) Katusha Team 0:15:11 24 Yuriy Trofimov (Rus) Katusha Team 0:16:43 25 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Team RadioShack 0:16:48

 

[steve]

Stage 16 News

 

[limerickman]

Weather is very very changeable on this stage : pouring rain, then sunshine, pouring rain, then sunshine.........................

Breakaway has a six mins lead with 42kms to ride

 

[limerickman]

I'm hoping that Roche being in the breakaway will move up on GC - if they can stay away!

 

[limerickman]

miserable weather : contador/schleck/voeckler all attacking and working.

 

[sopas]

Contador is back!!
They did not take time on him in the Pyrineees when they could, and now I'm afraid Contador is going to crush them all in the next days.

 

[steve]

Contador is back!!
They did not take time on him in the Pyrineees when they could, and now I'm afraid Contador is going to crush them all in the next days.

Agreed! Nice ride by cadel and Sammy too.

 

[jhuskey]

Thursday should be "hammer time". I am already hurting just thinking about watching it. It will be a good day to send riders like Hincappie, Jens Voight etc in a break for support of their captains later in the stage.

 

[limerickman]

Originally Posted by sopas .

Contador is back!!
They did not take time on him in the Pyrineees when they could, and now I'm afraid Contador is going to crush them all in the next days.

I'll agree about his rivals not taking advantage in the Pyrenees when Contador was not at his best.
I'm not sure that I agree that he's back solely based on today though.

 

[limerickman]

Originally Posted by jhuskey .

Thursday should be "hammer time". I am already hurting just thinking about watching it. It will be a good day to send riders like Hincappie, Jens Voight etc in a break for support of their captains later in the stage.

All of the remaining stages look difficult in my opinion, JH.

If Evans can stay with the Contador, I think he'll win the TDF this year.

Thor was very impressive today. Voeckler did another good job defending his jersey again today.

 

[jhuskey]

Originally Posted by limerickman .





All of the remaining stages look difficult in my opinion, JH.

If Evans can stay with the Contador, I think he'll win the TDF this year.

Thor was very impressive today. Voeckler did another good job defending his jersey again today.

Tomorrow doesn't look devastating unless someone makes it so but Gabilier will be tough regardless.It looks to me to be the best day for AC to make up big chunk of time with a sustained attack.

 

[Andrija]

I would like to be fly on the wall of that fancy Leopard bus.

Bloody steak!

 

[slovakguy]

Quote:
Originally Posted by jhuskey .
Tomorrow doesn't look devastating unless someone makes it so but Gabilier will be tough regardless.It looks to me to be the best day for AC to make up big chunk of time with a sustained attack.

the way in which this tour has fractured, anything goes. sanchez has the weakest team support. contador has a hard giro under his belt. voeckler has no history for this sort of effort. evans has a team which might just falter in the clutch. but, after today's effort, the burden has shifted truly to leopard-schleck. and my oh my, how the leopards must be growing desperate. it strikes me that the peloton have decided to take turns hitting on the schlecks, sort of like that scene in "airplane" where they line up to calm down the hysterical passenger. figuring that spartacus was saving himself for his itt effort, leopard have to be considering an all hands on deck moment on the alpe d'huez. this is getting very interesting.

 

[pennstater]

I never expected to see time gaps this big between GC riders on a stage like this, especially after they matched each other so closely in the pyreneese. Great result for Evans, and I'm really getting behind Sammy as well. Contador has said he will be going better in the Alps, after his crashes in the first week resulting in a sore knee. The alps are going to be really interesting.

Also, it looks like Frank Schleck is the Leopard team leader in my opinion. Looks much better than andy so far and I think he is a better time trialist, but both are pretty poor against the clock. They were really terrible in the 2011 Dauhpine TT, which is the same route as this year's tour, but they may not have been putting too much effort into it.

 

[Andrija]

Originally Posted by pennstater .
They were really terrible in the 2011 Dauhpine TT, which is the same route as this year's tour, but they may not have been putting too much effort into it.

Please, man, think twice before you post.

They are poor time trialists, that's true.

 

[swampy1970]

Originally Posted by slovakguy .

Quote:

the way in which this tour has fractured, anything goes. sanchez has the weakest team support. contador has a hard giro under his belt. voeckler has no history for this sort of effort. evans has a team which might just falter in the clutch. but, after today's effort, the burden has shifted truly to leopard-schleck. and my oh my, how the leopards must be growing desperate. it strikes me that the peloton have decided to take turns hitting on the schlecks, sort of like that scene in "airplane" where they line up to calm down the hysterical passenger. figuring that spartacus was saving himself for his itt effort, leopard have to be considering an all hands on deck moment on the alpe d'huez. this is getting very interesting.

Voeckler has a very storied history of efforts like this. The 2004 Tour was Lance Vs Voeckler for at least a week and the stubborn French guy just hung on until the end of the mountains. His ride to Plateau de Beille was epic, an heroic effort. I expect he'll do something similar in the next day or so. Lance has recently said that Thomas has a crack at winning the Tour...

I found it odd that given Contador's struggles on the first Pyrenean stage, that Andy's attacks on the following mountain stages were rather brief. Sure, they were pretty darned fast - but at about 10 seconds a pop they were almost doomed to failure.

Forget the big hills in the middle of tomorrow's stage - the finale is very much like today's... I'd expect more of the same. The race for sprint points should keep the first half super fast, depending on the break away attempts.

On the following stage with the three alpine monsters - it's either going to be all out attrition or more "Plateau de Blah". The Lauteret that leads up to the Galibier isn't all that hard - only 4% to 5% and that side of the Galibier isn't all that long at about 8km... Someone would need to kill it on the Izoard. If Contador could gap the Schlecks on that hill and make sure that Cancellara is well and truly out of the picture then it's a twisty descent and a drag race up the Lauteret. The start of that stage isn't going to be slow either unless a very big break goes - sprint points. I can only dream of someone lighting the touch paper to the powder keg on the Agnel and blowing things apart and the Izoard is hard enough to where any team help would be of minimal value

The good thing about hills like the Alpe that approach 8% average is that help is often of little value other than moral support and the hope of a super fast wheel change. If Contador is feeling good and it's all together at the bottom, all the other guys could have 50 team mates each and it ain't gonna matter.

I reckon that if Contador's dicky knee really is feeling better then he'll take a chunk of time out of both the Schlecks in the TT.

 

[pennstater]

Originally Posted by Andrija .

Please, man, think twice before you post.

They are poor time trialists, that's true.

Did I get my races mixed up? Ok, it was the Tour de Suisse. I'll make a truly diligent effort to curb the inaccuracies in my posts from now on/img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif