Grand Tour Preview 2018 (In SEPTEMBER)

Way Way Way Too Early Grand Tour Preview 2018

Ok so I couldn’t resist writing something about next year.

And yes I know the routes aren’t out yet, but the Giro route is going to come out September 18 (I’m writing this on Sept 12)

Obviously all the talk is about what Chris Froome will do now that he’s won the Vuelta

And now the big talk is whether or not one day he will try and win all the grand tours in one year

When he was asked about it he said “I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, nothing is impossible, but it would be difficult.”

Let me tell all of you what is going to happen

The Giro route is going to be announced

It’s going to suite Froome perfectly because they want him there

There’s gonna be a 2nd and 3rd week time trial and a maybe a TTT in the first week

With roughly 5 summit finishes

One time trial is gonna be 35-40 k and nearly pancake flat

The other is gonna have a short and sharp climb and is gonna be like 25-30k

The TTT is going to be long enough for Team Sky to be dominate enough for Froome to want to go, so they’ll bring Kwiatkowski, Kyrienka, and Moscon to help Froome

Then Froome will ride the Tour, and if he somehow pulls of the double, he’ll go to the Vuelta and try to win

Honestly if there is one team and one rider that can pull it off it is Sky and Froome

Let me put it this way, if the Giro is at all like what I said, Froome will train hard for the ITTs and less for the mountains so he can be fresher for the Tour

He’ll try and do what Dumoulin did, just try and stick with the climbers for as long as possible and then smash them in the ITTs

Of course Dumoulin could go to the Giro and ruin the party but I feel like he would want to go to the tour fresh

Alright so I could be way off, obviously Froome wants that 5th tour, he's said that that is the priority but he hasn't ruled out the Giro for next year

But also he's spoken about how when he retires he wants to be remembered for giving all the grand tours a good try

I have more reasons why Froome may go for the treble, but I think I'll post a video describing why he could do it and why he might try. I'll announce when I put the video up on youtube, my channel is ProCyclingAnalysis.

Ranking The Best Grand Tour Riders Ever

Ranking Grand Tour winners

Just decided to do this, basing this off wikipedia facts for winners

1. Eddy Merckx- 11 grand tour wins, most of anyone, winner of all grand tours, 5 time tdf winner, checks almost all the boxes
2. Bernaud Hinault- Almost put Hinault higher but I just couldn’t, 10 gt wins, winner of all the grand tours twice, the badger has 5 tdfs to his name
3. Jacques Anquetil- For such a great rider he’s the name we hear the least, 5 time tour winner, winner of all the grand tours and has 8 to his name
4. Indurain- Would’ve been in third had he been able and willing to win his home grand tour, 5 tdf wins, 2 giros, gets the nod ahead of the other 7 grand tour owners because of his success at the tour
5. El Pistolero- 7 grand tours, 2 tours, 3 giros, 2 Vueltas. Gets the nod ahead of Coppi because he’s won all the grand tours twice
6. Fausto Coppi- Also 7 time grand tour winner, fun fact, he won his first grand tour in 1940 and then was forced to wait 7 years because of WWII to win his second, 5x giro winner + 2 tours
7. Chris Froome- 4x tour winner with a Vuelta as well, placed at the top of the 5x grand tour winners because of his tour dominance and because of the Tour-Vuelta that he completed 4 days ago, funny how in 3 months he went from one trick pony 3x tour winner to 7th all time
8. Gino Bartali- takes second among the 5x winners for the second most amount of tours out of the group with 2, along with 3 giro wins
9. Felice Gimondi- The forgotten winner of all the grand tours, 1 tour, 3 giros, 1 Vuelta, takes 9th ahead of Binda for his tour win
10. Alfredo Binda- 5 giros, only reason he is ahead of all the guys with 4 is because none of them have multiple tour wins
11. Vincenzo Nibali- Takes first among the 4x gt winners because of his tour win, also has 2 in the giro and 1 in the vuelta, will probably end his career in the top 10, I think he can win one more grand tour, but it’ll be tough
12. Tony Rominger- Ahead of Heras because he won the giro, another 4x grand tour winner with 3 vueltas
13. Robert Heras- The man who capitalized off of Lance’s lack of caring about anything other than the tour, of course Armstrong would have had Vuelta wins stripped but as we know, nobody ever cares enough to re-award grand tour victories
14. Greg Lemond-Takes the top step among 3x grand tour winners because of the drama he went through along with the competition. At first having to beat Bernaud Hinault with him as a teammate attacking him, and then getting shot, recovering and winning 2 more tours
15. Louis Bobet- Sneaks into the top 15 because of his three straight tour wins, also because the other 3x tour winner won them in the very early 1900s, less signifigant

World Championship ITT and TTT Preview

World Championships

Men’s elite TTT: This should be a race between three teams, BMC, Quick Step, and surprisingly SKY
The reason I say surprisingly is because they've never produced a great TTT at the worlds
Sure they've done well at grand tours but they’ve not gone all out at the worlds
Until now
This team, in my mind, is the strongest one they could put together
Geraint Thomas
Gianni Moscon
Vasil Kyrienka
Owain Doull
Michal Kwiatkowski
Chris Froome
I mean come on
Other than Doull that’s like a who's who of top Froome domestiques + Froome
Although we can’t count Doull out, he won a gold medal for team GB in the olympics in Rio on the track last year and Sky wouldn’t have just put him on this team of teams for a laugh
Individually this team is stacked
Polish National champ
Italian national champ
Former world champ
2x bronze medalist in olympics
At least 5 grand tour itt stage wins
63 yellow jersies
(oh yeah and 5 grand tour wins but whatever)
Then we have BMC who were the 2x reigning champs until Quick step upset them last year
Rohan Dennis
Stefan Kung
Daniel Oss
Manuel Quinziato
Silvan Dillier
Myles Scotson
Ok so obviously Dennis is one of the most powerful men in the world, he’ll be a huge asset as long as he doesn’t blow everybody else up
Stefan Kung had a couple good results in the tour with a top 5 in the opening ITT and then ninth in the stage 20 ITT which included a hard climb which proves he’ll be alright with the hill they have to go up
Daniel Oss is just a beast, sadly for BMC he’s switching to Bora next year, Oss and Sagan together in the classics is scary
Manuel Quinziato is the old guy, good power, team captain, he’s just so smart, should be strong
Dillier won a stage in the giro this year, he’s also the swiss champ if my memory is correct so he’s done well in the past and has been a part of at least one world champ team
Myles Scotson is a new name for me but apparently he has a track team pursuit background which is so similar to the TTT they could be twins, we’ll see what he can do.
Quick step
Niki Terpstra
Bob Jungels
Yves Lampaert
Julien Vermot
Jack Bauer
Philipe Gilbert
A very strong and experienced team, but the big question is how will they be able to function without Tony Martin
I think they’ll do alright
Jack Bauer is as strong as they come and I hope I don’t need to talk about Gilbert
I’ll say two words
Stud Muffin
This is a team that includes some riders from the Vuelta team that lost to BMC in the opening TTT, half the team actually, but Vermont, Bauer, and Gilbert add some power they didn’t have at the Vuelta
That being said, considering BMC only had two of their guys in the vuelta ttt, and we can assume the other guys they picked are stronger than those at the Vuelta, they have to be the favorites. Also, quick step had Trentin and Alaphilipe, two very strong riders, in the Vuelta so quick step might not be able to defend their title
Sky are really the question mark
As studly as their line up is there are some questions
Originally I wasn’t sure about Kyrienka, Thomas, and Kwiato but they all had good performances in the Tour of Britain ITT so they should be confident
But is Froome too tired from the double?
How is Moscon post his first grand tour?
And simply, Doull?
My predicition: BMC win, SKY second, Quick Step take the Bronze

Mens elite ITT
Favorites:
Dumoulin
Froome
Dennis
Martin
Kwiatkowski
Zakarin?

I just put down some names that popped out to me on the provisional start list, 

Obviously the big favorites are Froome and Dumoulin
Martin is the defending champ but the 3.4 k climb at 9.5% at the end of the ITT will probably kill his chances
Going down the list, Dennis pops out to me, he rode the Vuelta but didn’t do much, could he be carrying some form? He did pull out of the Vuelta with a “respiratory infection” but pretty much didn’t wanna risk getting any sicker in the last week
Obviously I already talked about Martin
Now Kwiatkowski is honestly a little bit of a dark horse
He did very well in he tour tts this years and can definitley climb, we’ll see how he goes
I put Zakarin on there because he climbed so well at the Vuelta and also had a pretty good ITT
I bet he’ll be tired but a top 10 isn’t beyond him
In my mind this is a four man battle
Kwiatkowski
Dumoulin
Froome 

Dennis
Kwiato just finished up the Tour of Britain and will be somewhat fresh going in
He finished 7th in the Tour of Britain time trial so he obviously has some decent form, he probably can’t win but a top 3 isn’t out of the question
Dennis is kind of a question mark
He has the most amount of power out of these guys so he should take some time leading into the climb
But the problem is that the climb is so steep it’ll be hard for Dennis to compete
Froome is undoubtedly the best climber of the group, he shold have good form coming off the vuelta but the question is how tired will he be. Also will he be able to stay with the other guys while the course is flat and then make up enough time to win on the climb
Dumoulin is my pick to win, although Froome is a better climber, Dumoulin is the freshest out of the favourites and should be able to get enough of a gap on Froome on the flats
Also, Froome hasn’t ever won a grand tour ITT not in the third week and hasn’t won a non grand tour ITT since 2014
Think back to last year’s olympics, on a course that suited Froome he lost to Dumoulin and Cancellara (and would’ve lost to Dennis had he not had a mechanical)
Froome is the best in three week tours because he, as a great grand tour winner, handles the fatigue better than Tony Martin in the third week.
He isn’t as good when everyone comes in fresh
My pick: Dumoulin 1st, Froome 2nd, Dennis 3rd

Love to hear feedback from you guys