Double d’Huez

In any competition, when you are playing catch up, you have to take risks. Alberto Contador has been known to be a risk taker when he’s behind. In last year’s VueltaaEspana, everybody thought that Purito Rodriguez was just waiting for the fat lady to sing. But on stage 17, Contador made a bold move that that no one foresaw that netted him the Vuelta.

Yesterday, entering stage 18, a double climb to Alped’Huez, it was expected that he’d attack on the descent of the Col de Sarrenne, a very narrow, twisty, rough and long (reminds me of Manipis, butalmost 30km long!). Attack, Contador did, but he was clearly missing his legs as he easily caught.

But why attack on the descent? Well, it’s the general notion that Chris Froome is not as good as Contador in high-speed descents. But I think that the notion I wrong. Why would Froome risk crashing when he knows that 1) he has a 4+min lead and 2) he has Richie Porte? Froome is not a bad descender, he’s just playing it smartly.

tack with 9K’s to go that dropped Contador, but not Nairo Quintana and Purito Rodriguez, wasn’t very smart. 9K’s is still a long way to go solo, and as I have said, he only needed to defend, not to attack.Remember that attacking uses more energy than just riding in a rhythm.

Then 5K from the line, he had a hunger knock. Luckily, Porte was there to help by taking an energy bar from the team car. It was illegal since the last legal feed zone was a K earlier. It created a mini-controversy, but you have to do what you have to do. What’s a 20sec and 200 Swiss franc penalty when he could have possibly lost the Tour and millions of Euros in endorsements?

In the end, Froome lost 83sec to Quintana and Rodriguez, including the penalty but he still have a 5+min buffer, a lot but not really a lot.