Tour de Suisse

Mmmm... not much damage done...Looks like you and many others sat on their hands a bit. I went with just one transfer and a thin day... but... i ended up  11th for the day with just 101 pts.... that's rubbish scoring for the game with a sprint, as predicted.

I kept Lutsenko in as well for the 'safe' GC points and the likely 15-20th place on the stage. That went badly! 

If i did a second transfer it would have been Pidcock out for one of either Kung, Schachmann or Trentin. I got away with one there. I'm not sure about tomorrows stage with that climb so close to the finish... it actually looks quite like something Pidcock might enjoy if he gets the freedom.

Yes, I wish I'd sat on those hands! 

My opinion.  Three reasons today for no catch:-

Bora: Too many chiefs not enough Indians.  If you include Grosschartner as a protected rider, they only have 3 domestiques.

Teams with people like Matthews: If they pushed any harder on the climbs, fastmen dropped again.  Pointless catch - even if they had the riders to do so.

Make the catch near the final climb: Evenepoel or Fuglsang attack at the steeper, top part of the final climb, and the fastmen lose anyway as nobody is capable of bringing them back.

So far it's a race for which I've got no 'feel'. Just can't get a handle on the tactics after two stages. Doesn't help that I'm not able to watch it but I'm not sure that it would help from what you say!

2-4 minutes for the break has been the accepted gap for years.

It's not often realised that the gap was reciprocal... So if the break tried to speed up, or slow down, then the peloton did likewise..if the peloton slowed for a nature break then so did the break... and so on... The two were not independent of each other. It feels to me like that old agreement has gone in favour of what has more of a feel of a one day race about it with the break and Peloton being independent of each other. Some of the fantastic battles to get in the break are also becoming more common ... which kind off backs that up as well... just letting 3-4 riders roll off at Km 0 and a 2-4 minutes gap is becoming a rarity.

Not that i'm complaining because it makes for fantastic race days... but i definitely get the impression the game is changing... or has changed.

You are absolutely right. We are in a golden age of exciting racing but the fantasy game has become way more difficult (or I'm losing my touch!)

Well it is more difficult to predict. There's an awful lot of "Poggio" type finishes now that are really well balanced between sprinters, puncheurs and GC. This was stage 10 from the recent Giro... very similar to today's stage at the finish... and look at the GC men on that day... Giro d'Italia 2022 Stage 10 results (procyclingstats.com)

It'll be interesting to see what happens with the breaks in the early stages of this years TDF... quite uneventful looking profiles by recent standars... we'll see.

Looks like Hirschi v Schachmann v Williams.

Where did that come from?  Great ride.

Just brilliant... Brilliant all round really.... A great race for him, Schachmann and Lutsenko. The latter two are real road racers of the type i like. 

I know nothing about Williams.... can he repeat a day like today at that intensity?

Yes, I love Schachmann.  Such an entertaining rider.

If Williams is the same type of rider he was pre-injury, Itzulia, Romandie, and the first two thirds of this race are right up his street.  It's anybodies guess whether he can last until the TT in yellow though.

Correction: The TT is AFTER the two big mountain stages (forgot) so the question is whether Williams can last until those stages not the TT.

Looks like a great race coming up.