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Tour de France Discussion
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| ryant |
Posted on 16-04-2021 11:52
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I think we can regard this week as being pretty successful for us. Every stage we've been in the top 10 and we also have a podium. Enger has been pretty consistent for once which is good to see even though he doesn't have many opportunities beyond this. His good GC placing I imagine gives him some extra points that we need as well.
With the next stage not being too selective and the TTT to come we could be looking at Meintjes sniffing around the top 5 GC which is what we need really for us to have a good time later on I feel.
 John St Ledger in Team Bunzl-Centrica and Team U25Red Bull Driver in RFactor
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 07-12-2025 01:12
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| cio93 |
Posted on 16-04-2021 12:14
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Congrats to Evonik on the win!
knockout wrote:
Getting a day (or maaaybe 2) in yellow is obviously a very sweet bonus that was not expected.
It was not expected because it is not deserved. 
I do take 12th from Herklotz though as that adds some points to his tally, particularly with Ahlstrand not in the Top 5 and Saber not in the sprint at all.
MVS should have made the decisive push for the jersey here, but I happily take any bonus ranking points from that classification at the end of the race.
Looking at stage 3, we shouldn't be hit hard by losing the leader bonus in terms of positioning, and I hope we won't need the potential form bonus either.
If the Mur was too hard for the sprinters, I'm optimistic tomorrow will be too hard for them as well.
That does make the stage win more achievable, but the risk of losing valuable bonus seconds to our rivals if we don't get it increases significantly as well.
Spilak got very close on stage 3 and Madrazo on stage 6, so I expect both to want to improve by one spot on this finish.
The one outcome we need to avoid at all costs is watching Spilak win while not making the Top 3, as I think that is the only possible scenario that would jeopardize being in yellow after the TTT.
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 16-04-2021 13:57
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Nice one MVS 
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant."
[PT]  Xero Racing
5x  x5
1x  x1
2x  x2
2x  x2 |
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| knockout |
Posted on 16-04-2021 15:54
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Grand Tour Champion
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cio93 wrote:
Congrats to Evonik on the win!
knockout wrote:
Getting a day (or maaaybe 2) in yellow is obviously a very sweet bonus that was not expected.
It was not expected because it is not deserved.
I won't disagree with you
But i also feel like i suffered so often from not getting deserved gaps on stages where we forced selections on flat roads (echelons,...) to not feel sorry about it 
Thanks cio, SotD & jandal!
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| OlegTinkov |
Posted on 17-04-2021 03:56
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I will definitely remind my riders of this first week of the Tour de France during contract renewals!
Stage 1: 23rd Zakarin
Stage 2: 69th Zakarin
Stage 3: 13th Chernetskiy
Stage 4: 87th Samolenkov
Stage 5: 79th Samolenkov
Stage 6: 34th Mamykin
Stage 7: 102nd Samolenkov 
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| cunego59 |
Posted on 17-04-2021 09:01
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Honestly, the complete absence of Samolenkov from any sprint has been maybe the biggest mystery to me of the race so far. Really don't know what's going on there, especially with guys like Santos, Soupe or Jakobsen competing regularly.
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 17-04-2021 09:17
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Another decent sprint by Madrazo. Cool fight for the yellow between Herklotz and MvS.
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| knockout |
Posted on 17-04-2021 09:20
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5th is lower than i hoped for but this was the one early stage where i feared that the final climb would be too tough so i guess this is alright for me. Important that Herklotz doesnt get full points then as we defended a bit of a gap this way while Puma can probably be satisfied with getting yellow back.
A bit of a mockery to get into the lead of the teams classification right before the TTT, cant believe that we will have any chance to stay up with the focus being on MVS in the squad selection.
A bit more annoying is that Chiarello is already outside the top 30 with more than 3 minutes lost after 8 stages which should have suited him more than the average top 15 contender. Really hope that he will go into breakaways immediately with stage 11 being the first stage where i need him to join it.
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| cio93 |
Posted on 17-04-2021 10:20
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So you're saying Herklotz needs two more points in hill?
Sicard remains a thorn in our side after already getting the better of us in Hallstatt, and I can't say I'm entirely satisfied to miss out on another stage win by half a wheel, but at least it wasn't Spilak at the front in the end.
And ending the first part of the race with two stage wins, another podium and a handful of days in yellow is much better than I could've hoped for.
Taking yellow for the TTT is more of an aesthetic bonus than one on the road, as I expect the entire team to give 110% anyway considering we've heavily centered our lineup around tomorrow's stage.
Spilak at 41 seconds is the only realistic threat to the jersey, but considering the long-term implications of letting him get close, I hope we can not just stay ahead, but limit our losses to Generali to the absolute minimum.
Madrazo has a better team around him than in Suisse, but it should still lack that little bit of top end to be ahead of us if we do our job well. In an ideal world, I was hoping for an advantage of around a minute before the climbing starts, and that looks doable now with only 12 seconds to go.
Jasha, Nils, Rémi and Filippo, I'm counting on you!
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| SotD |
Posted on 17-04-2021 10:23
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Well that was a horrible team performance. I can’t complain with the effort though. Sending 3 riders to a break in a Stage that would normally end in a BotD win 80% of the time was the way to go. Not a single breakaway win after 8 stages. That’s something alright!
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| knockout |
Posted on 17-04-2021 10:47
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cio93 wrote:
So you're saying Herklotz needs two more points in hill?
No.
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| roturn |
Posted on 17-04-2021 10:50
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Not losing time was most important but still a missed opportunity. If Alarcon can reach 4th, Olivier could have attacked the podium clearly.
From 4th on the other stage to no where near the top25 when the climb started shows the problem here. He passed quite a few in the end avoiding a time gap but positioning did cost him here a potential top3-5 I guess.
Hopefully he will place himself a bit better on other important stages. |
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| Bikex |
Posted on 17-04-2021 12:13
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Very disappointing performance from my team so far. There is no reason really why Gidich shouldn't be able to hang on with the first group here. Considering his strengths he probably should be in white already for some days. However, my riders have beaten cio's team closely already some times before this season, so I don't mind Cavagna in white too much. |
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| cio93 |
Posted on 17-04-2021 12:59
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Bikex wrote:
However, my riders have beaten cio's team closely already some times before this season, so I don't mind Cavagna in white too much.
That's very kind of you! 
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| cio93 |
Posted on 18-04-2021 09:38
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Arghhhh...
Second on the day is an amazing result and 60 more points that are very welcome, but we only gained five seconds on Madrazo, and that can't be what we brought this lineup here for.
(it says 6 in the stage result, but he went from +48 to +53)
Though, that was more on Gazelle than on us, well done! And of course congrats to Generali, they delivered.
Thank god Herklotz did so well on the hilly stuff, otherwise we'd be in a lot of trouble starting tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow, it could very well be the second most decisive day of this TdF already, and I hope all the work we've done up to now to get into yellow and carve out as big of a gap as possible on all our rivals will be put to good use.
Silvio has shown in Switzerland that he can leverage his GC lead in the mountains to follow the important attacks and counter in the final km, and hopefully he has the legs to repeat that tomorrow.
I'm not entirely against a breakaway win if Madrazo turns out to have the better finish.
We've successfully been on the offense up until now, let's see how good we are on defense!
(and to Rémi: enjoy your last day in white, you've raced brilliantly!)
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| roturn |
Posted on 18-04-2021 09:46
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Feel the team underperformed a bit here. There were like 7-8 teams below on paper but a few of them did beat the team by 10-20 s in the end.
Guess one reason is that it`s the GC captain Olivier being sub average in TT while other teams around same strength had a stronger TT GC rider.
Anyway. Less than 3min behind with all TTs done. Not too bad and now the better stages must move him into the top10 again I hope.
Last but not least...being beaten by Evonik though sucks in a TTT, even if their lineup was a bit better than usual, it still was a shit TTT lineup. |
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 18-04-2021 10:07
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Solid TTT! Madrazo reaches the mountains in a good position, having gained time on some important contenders.
Now we enter a grueling war of attrition. Let's keep the break at bay and fight for some nice stage results.
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| tsmoha |
Posted on 18-04-2021 10:58
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Solid TTT, nothing special - as for the whole race so far.. Kinda expected that we wouldn't get any stage results until this point, but it still hurts. Since it's a trademark for all our GTs this year. Where we actually had GC contenders.. Morton definitely needs to get results in the mountains. I don't want to finish behind someone like Sicard (no offense) again.
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| ember |
Posted on 18-04-2021 11:07
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This first part of the Tour has been poor for Galta, but as cunego writes in the TTT report, it all comes down to what is possible in the final week. He'll need breakaway luck to make this race a success for us and for him. Pedersen is sitting pretty in the KoM classification, at least until the next stage. Have to be happy with that, as that's the good thing we've got from these first days.
Intriguing battle at the top regarding the GC. Great to see Spilak bounce back from his disastrous Giro. As it stands, Herklotz is obviously the big overall favourite, but with the margins this small, the other contenders only need one bad day from the wonderkid to turn it all around.
Thank you for your stellar reports, cunego. Looking forward to the continuation! |
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| knockout |
Posted on 18-04-2021 11:27
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cunego59 wrote:
| 20 | Aegon - Peroni | s.t. | | 21 | Volvo acc. by Spotify | s.t. | | 22 | Swisslion Cycling Team | + 1'29 | | 23 | ISA - Hexacta | + 1'32 | | 24 | Isostar - Specialized | + 1'51 |
roturn wrote:
Last but not least...being beaten by Evonik though sucks in a TTT, even if their lineup was a bit better than usual, it still was a shit TTT lineup.
I'm sorry. Gonna make sure that next year's lineups are worse again. Nobody deserves the humiliation of being beaten by an Evonik TTT team 
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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