THe others have no chance to win barring wiggins accident as there is still a long tt to come.

There are only four guys who have the determination and belief they can win: Evans, Nibali, Menchov and JVDB2. The others, like Zubeldia, Monfort, Roche, Costa, Taaramae, are content with placings and will therefore not take risks to sacrifice placings.

The race has to brutally hurt all the riders, the kind of pain they didn't experience since the time they first rode the Giro.

One of these contenders needs to attack on the first Cat1 or CatHC at the bottom and ride at 470-480-490 watts and wait for Team Sky to catch them. Then the next of the four needs to go and do the same, all the way to the summit. Nibali needs to lead each descent with Evans, to put pressure on a gap or a crash. Then they need to do the same up the next mountain. Team Sky need to be under constant unrelenting pressure. They need to force an extra 10 watts out of Team Sky the whole way, and to cause constant stress and unease in the minds of the domestiques and DS'.

Is it realistic? No. But if unrealistic is allowed to happen at Team Sky, then hopefully we could find these overwhelming feats of strength in other teams and riders. Clearly we should be expecting The Avengers and the X-Men on bikes nowadays.

This needs to happen on Stage 10 Grand Colombier, Stage 11 Col ed la Madeleine and then the 3 mtns that follow, Stage 16 Col Aubisque and the 3 mtns that follow, and Stage 17 Port de Bales and the final MTF. It needs to be like the Rasmussen Contador duel, only 4 times as many days...

This is needed because, in my opinion, a head start of 4 minutes is the minimum allowable gap on Wiggins and Froome coming into the final TT. This means that :

Rider	GC	Gain on Wiggins	Gain on Froome
Cadel Evans	01:53	06:00	04:00
Vincenzo Nibali	02:23	06:30	04:00
Denis Menchov	03:02	07:00	05:00
Jurgen van den Broeck	05:20	09:30	07:00

The problem is, it is inconceivable to imagine gaps on Wiggins and Froome of this size.



In 2009 the extremely difficult Le Grand Bournard stage had 4 cat1 and 1 cat2. Wiggins, then a fraction of his current self, finished only 3 minutes down on stage winner Frank Schleck. I think it's fair to say that Wiggins is 3 times better than he was in the 2009 TDF. On this kind of stage he would probably only drop 1 minute on the leader. But the question is which leader? Who is the mountain goat rider who could create such pressure? Jurgen van den Broeck is the only possible guy for this role, and he is not even that good at it. Further, do Stages 10,11,16,17 even compare to that stage?

Maybe stages 11 and 16.

But in the 2009 stage the climbs got harder. Here, the climbs get easier.

So let's assume a miracle happens and Wiggins/Froome drop 2 minutes. Where are the remaining 2 minutes on Froome and 4 minutes on Wiggins going to come from?

They're not going to come from anywhere. Simple as that.

...

...unless...





It's the only hope.

there are 3 ways to go about as a team and 1 other chance

The alliance

Get together with a team to try and isolate Wiggans and attack him.

- they never work really they might for a while but then the self interest takes  over, the only way Leaky and BMC get together and really work hard and well is if SS and Nibs have signed for BMC next year.

RaNT are working for themselves ( which may well be good for other GC Guys not called Froome and Wiggins)

Jelle will try and inflict damage but may blow a carriage off the rails or even 2 but the engines will still keep a rolling.

the hail Mary

the long range do or die attack it takes balls, planning and luck, but you must also be willing to break the 1st rule of a modern day GC contendor - you must not lose the GT worry about winning later.

1st you need team mates in the break with appropriate form and skills, you need other members of the break to help in some of the work and you need the stage to isolate the race leader and other GC contenders, you also need the appropriate stage profile to do this.

the chip away approach 

look at taking small amounts of time regularly constantly putting the team of the leader under pressure weaken the team isolate the leader. You need luck and appropriate stage to do this as well as form improving and never having an off day.

Dipping into Krebs suitcase of Chaos

here is where complete mayhem for all GC contenders , climbers puts the team and the leader to the sword, no one knows which attack will win and hope that it is yours

So which will work maybe a combo

1st Evans and Nibali need to make up 4 - 5 minutes to make the last ITT really interesting on form we saw yesterday.

stage 10 may work but you need rain , I think Froome is the person who may lose time here - which will make it more advantage to Wiggo in the future.

TJVG and RaNT are a great advantage now to Evans, Nibs Chaos is the thing that may be the downfall of Sky, 1st break the engines then attack the leader.

RaNT will go bonkers as they except Horner all seem are riding for themselves they need stage wins but are close enough on GC to worry Sky , same as TJVG, Put TJVG to the sword even talk to Coppel say we attack together or even Rein for that matter.

the only way to win from here is to be willing to lose it all. so it is a done deal

-   

but also to out-sky Sky.   Burn off All the helpers, from all teams ... till there is only the big guns left.

Rely on the fact that Cuddles, Nibbles, Menchov and JVDB are all better in the really high stuff than Wiggins and Froome, and risk it all to win.

The risks of course is that all the other helpers will be burned before Sky ... even when their is 3 teams of them working together, or that even once its just the GC'ers, that Wiggins and/or Froome will be as strong as the alliance.

Even if they manage this - will it gain them enough time?   

As bicing showed, in the past when he has cracked, he has only lost a minute or so at a time.  And there is only 2 or 3 stages that are hard enough for this to work

there are 3 ways to go about as a team and 1 other chance

The alliance

Get together with a team to try and isolate Wiggans and attack him.

- they never work really they might for a while but then the self interest takes  over, the only way Leaky and BMC get together and really work hard and well is if SS and Nibs have signed for BMC next year.

RaNT are working for themselves ( which may well be good for other GC Guys not called Froome and Wiggins)

Jelle will try and inflict damage but may blow a carriage off the rails or even 2 but the engines will still keep a rolling.

the hail Mary

the long range do or die attack it takes balls, planning and luck, but you must also be willing to break the 1st rule of a modern day GC contendor - you must not lose the GT worry about winning later.

1st you need team mates in the break with appropriate form and skills, you need other members of the break to help in some of the work and you need the stage to isolate the race leader and other GC contenders, you also need the appropriate stage profile to do this.

the chip away approach 

look at taking small amounts of time regularly constantly putting the team of the leader under pressure weaken the team isolate the leader. You need luck and appropriate stage to do this as well as form improving and never having an off day.

Dipping into Krebs suitcase of Chaos

here is where complete mayhem for all GC contenders , climbers puts the team and the leader to the sword, no one knows which attack will win and hope that it is yours

So which will work maybe a combo

1st Evans and Nibali need to make up 4 - 5 minutes to make the last ITT really interesting on form we saw yesterday.

stage 10 may work but you need rain , I think Froome is the person who may lose time here - which will make it more advantage to Wiggo in the future.

TJVG and RaNT are a great advantage now to Evans, Nibs Chaos is the thing that may be the downfall of Sky, 1st break the engines then attack the leader.

RaNT will go bonkers as they except Horner all seem are riding for themselves they need stage wins but are close enough on GC to worry Sky , same as TJVG, Put TJVG to the sword even talk to Coppel say we attack together or even Rein for that matter.

the only way to win from here is to be willing to lose it all. so it is a done deal

-

Hope against hope  ..eyh 

The answer: Make the racing hard and keep it hard. Week 3 is the key. If all the other GT riders are aiming to peak later in the Tour, then it stands to reason that they will overhaul the Sky boys in terms of form at some point. Whether that translates into time is a different issue.

Remember Evans matched a dominant Tony Martin in the TT last year in week 3. Yesterday he was a pale shadow of that rider. Maybe his best is yet to come. Wiggins is already at his best.

Froome is the joker in the pack. No-one knows what he's capable of, including himself probably.

Capt, Wiggins and Froome have swimming training so they are at peak all season long. Evans, Nibali and the rest are only able to have short peak only in the 3rd week. 1 week peak cannot compete against 3 week peak. They won't overhaul anything. Maybe Evans will create a smaller time gap on Wiggins but he won't beat Wiggins who will still be in his swimming training perma-peak. The same goes for Froome. Froome knows what he is capable of, and that is 2nd on GC.

If the 3 week peak is as high as La Planche des Belles Filles, and the 1 week peak is as high as the Col de la Madelaine, then extra swimming may not be enough.

I understand what you mean, but the 3 week peak is as high s Madeleine and the 1 week peak is high as Plahce des Billes Felles. The swimming is everything and more.

inring look at how to win from here

http://inrng.com/2012/07/how-to-beat-team-sky/

I'm waiting to see if Evans and JVDB call a ceasefire for the time being.

The race is not over. As the usual cliché goes: Paris is still far away. Crashes can always happen and Wiggins can be involved in one. And if that happens, suddenly the race is wide open again: Froome might be the best of the rest in TT'ing, but he did not look strong on the mountains sunday. Evans and Nibali can break him, I'm quite confident of that.

However even with Wiggins not crashing out, it's not over yet. There are so many people with interests running against those of Team Sky. Evans and Nibali could form a great alliance together, with VDB as one of the most interesting jokers in the race. VDB has been looking very strong, and he has little to lose. He has the pedigree not to be content with anything less than a top-5 finish, so he will take risks and with Vanendert he has the support to back it up. If Evans and/or Nibali can jump with VDB somewhere, Sky will have their hands full trying to minimise losses. And since, as I said, I believe Froome will collapse, that will mean Wiggins will have to do the work himself.

Then there's the two weaknesses of Wiggins: Descends and explosiveness. Imagine Evans and Nibali doing a punchy attack just before the top of a climb. Both have shown they can do those attacks. Wiggins can't really match that and will need time (and likely Froome's support) to get back to them. However, once over the top Nibali hits it in the descend with Evans on his wheel. Ideally they'd catch up with an earlier breakaway during or just after the descend (Basso and Van Garderen? Or even VDB after an early launch?) and work together during the final climb. Wiggins would be forced to chase alone since it's unlikely anyone else would help him. He could easily collapse in such a situation, and that could cost him minutes.

I know this all is fairly hypothetical, but there are many scenario's like this possible. Evans in his third week TT will not lose as much time to Wiggins as he did yesterday. Nibali will likely lose more, but even he can limit his losses. And Menchov is still a complete unknown: we haven't seen anything of him, positive nor negative. Should he hit top-form, he could match even Wiggins in a TT, and he should be the better climber too.

And, of course, there still is the possibility of a complete wild card. What if Zubeldia and/or Monfort manage to get into a breakaway, will Sky do all the chasing? Will other teams support him to ensure their placements?

There's so much that could happen in a GT, especially the Tour. It's not over until the riders cross the line in Paris. I agree that Wiggins has been the strongest so far. It will be hard for the others to gain enough time with a TT still coming. But nothing is impossible. This is cycling: heroic attacks, unexpected collapses, terrible crashes, heavy rainfall and even something as simple as forgetting to eat. It could all decide the race and any point. So no, the Tour is far from over, even if Wiggins has a big advantage now.

Posted this in the other thread but saw this was probably better:

It is down to everybody but Sky to make this a stage where they can possibly gain time on Sky because 4 minutes or even 6 minutes in VDB's case is a very tall order to overcome and it can only be achieved if they take every opportunity possibly. The key is to squeeze Sky until they are dry because currently the prospects look very bleak for the other contenders. They can achieve such things by either attacking which will force Sky to chase but doing so is risky as it will leave them vulnerable if Froome drags Wiggins up to them and they will be bereft of any energy to take the fight to Wiggins and he will be able to put time into them. Furthermore though it will mean that they will be vulnerable to losing their GC places to their fellow challengers and this is where the co-operation is so vital because if all the challengers are too concerned about their own GC position and attaining a podium rather than going for a win than they all will be too scared to attack, they need to rather have the guts so just go for it and if they all do that and forget their fellow challengers then they will be able to co-operate effectively and they will have the optimum chance to possible put time into Wiggins

To sum it up they need to banish the typical RANT approach and go for all or nothing because that is what desperate circumstances have forced on them.

It'll take someone turning their brain off and just riding like a madman, forgetting about 7th place and instead trying to get 1st.

Of course, it takes courage. That is why I was so shocked when Andy went for it last year. I was ecstatic, of course, but I can't imagine what it took to convince him to attack earlier than 3 kilometers away! 

It'll take something like Andy last year to really get this Tour going.

Indeed the course has been designed brilliantly exactly for a showdown like this and now it is high time the riders deliver, so far with attacks on Stage 8 by VDB and Evans there have been promising signs.

It'll take someone turning their brain off and just riding like a madman, forgetting about 7th place and instead trying to get 1st.

Of course, it takes courage. That is why I was so shocked when Andy went for it last year. I was ecstatic, of course, but I can't imagine what it took to convince him to attack earlier than 3 kilometers away! 

It'll take something like Andy last year to really get this Tour going.

I guess past GT winners might be more likely to have a go

Just noticed roche is still hanging around what the.

Roche FTW. 

Just a thought; but Roche's hanging around may possibly be down to the fact that there have not been any serious mountains, as I said just a thought.