With the Criterium du Dauphine finishing on Sunday night (AEST), with Chris Froome once again showing his dominance. But still, the Dauphine raised plenty of questions ahead of the biggest race on the cycling calendar – le Tour de France.
Let’s have a look at the key questions coming from the Dauphine.
Can anyone stop Team Sky’s three-week victory parade around France?
Since 2011, the Tour has been the domain of Team Sky, apart from 2014 when Froome crashed a few times and abandoned the race, allowing Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) to take victory.
Based on what we saw at the Dauphine, nothing looks like changing.
Sky have an incredibly strong domestique train, signing Mikel Landa, who finished in third place at the 2015 Giro d’Italia behind Alberto Contador and his then-Astana teammate Fabio Aru.
Landa has effectively replaced Richie Porte, who is now riding with BMC and has his own leadership aspirations.
Landa will be equally as strong for Froome as Porte was, meaning nothing will change from one Tour to the next except the name of the people in the black and blue train.
If Landa isn’t enough to suggest Team Sky are once again the strongest, they also have workhorse Wout Poels on the books and Colombian climber Sergio Henao, who was third at this year’s Tour Down Under and sixth at Paris-Nice.
With all that strength, it is going to take brute strength and a rider with a team at the peak of their game to stop Sky. No one has a team quite as strong, although Etixx-Quickstep did their best to dispel that theory on the last stage of the Dauphine.
In answer to the question though, no one will be able to go with Sky on a team-for-team basis, and it is going to be down to individual rider tactics and attacks if anyone is to outclass Froome.
What is the best strategy to attack Team Sky?
If anyone is going to beat Froome and Sky, it is going to happen with attacks – but not just an attack a few hundred metres from the finish line or on the final climb of the day.
The attack to properly put Sky on the back foot has to come on the big mountain days, and a long, long way from home.
Alberto Contador’s attack on the final stage of the Dauphine was almost the perfect example of how to put Sky under pressure, even if some half-hearted descending meant it didn’t end up working.
Contador used all the good work of the Etixx-Quickstep team, who had led the peloton all day, to put in a monster attack over the top of the Category 1 climb. Just 15 kilometres from the finish line, with a Category 3 climb still to come, Froome’s teammates were around a minute behind.
However, they made their way back and the final climb was as uneventful as the 21st stage to Paris usually is.
With the final mountain of the Tour this year coming 20 kilometres from the finish line, with a descent to follow, attacks must be backed up.
The bottom line is you won’t break Team Sky without long-range, persistent attacking, possibly from more than one rider. Think outside the square or Sky will win because they are the strongest by some distance.
Did Nairo Quintana miss a trick by not racing the Dauphine?
One rider who was forgotten during the Dauphine was 2015 Tour de France second-place getter Nairo Quintana – and that is probably just what he wanted.
Quintana enjoys avoiding the spotlight, but you have to wonder if training for a race like the Tour de France at an altitude camp in Colombia, before racing the Route du Sud, is the best idea when your rivals are at the Dauphine.
Generally speaking, the Dauphine is the biggest lead-up race to the Tour, and the one to be at if you want to win in July – in fact, it’s hard to remember a winner of the Tour who hasn’t been to the Dauphine.
While training at altitude made sense for the Giro d’Italia, where there were climbs to 2700 metres above sea level – just ask Alejandro Valverde how much he enjoyed that – the Tour doesn’t go above 2000 metres more than twice.
Avoiding the Dauphine doesn’t seem the right option for Quintana, when the Tour will be on from Day 1 and race form is pivotal.
What the hell is going on at BMC Racing?
Richie Porte, who was signed from Sky in the offseason for the BMC squad, led the team at the Dauphine, with Tejay van Garderen currently riding the Tour de Suisse.
While the team say the pair will share the leadership at the Tour, Van Garderen placed outside the top 50 in the Tour de Suisse Stage 1 individual time trial – a discipline he would be aiming to make up time in at a race like the Tour.
Porte has been in solid form, able to follow most of the attacks at the Dauphine, but there is still a lot of improvement to be made given he just followed wheels for a week and couldn’t launch a single attack.
BMC must work out their tactics in a hurry or risk having split resources at the Tour, which never ends well.
Why is Fabio Aru racing so badly?
The Astana leader’s form coming into the Dauphine was under a major question mark, which he changed to exclamation points following the term ‘terrible’ following the lead-up race.
Aru was dropped nearly every time there was a chance to be dropped, and even though he managed to crack a breakaway on the second-last stage, he was dropped even out of that before long, as climbers who are well below his level rode away from him.
Astana could be left frustrated at the decision to send Vincenzo Nibali to the Giro, even though he won. The team’s focus is getting results at the Tour, and it doesn’t look like Aru has it in him to finish within the top ten.
Will a Frenchman stand on the podium in Paris?
If the answer to this question is yes, then the name will be Romain Bardet of the Ag2r La Mondiale team.
Frenchmen last stood on the podium in 2014, with both Jean Christophe-Peraud and Thibaut Pinot, and they last won the event in 1985 through Bernard Hinaut.
After crashing early in the Dauphine, Bardet went into a long-range attack and managed to claw back nearly all the time he lost, despite some strange tactics with Thibaut Pinot in the same move – rest assured Pinot won’t be anywhere near the top of the leaderboard based on form.
Bardet ended up finishing second overall and is a serious threat for the Tour. He is a strong climber and was a major animator at last year’s edition.
He won’t win the race, but don’t be surprised to see him somewhere on the final podium.
Can Orica-GreenEDGE do damage at a second straight Grand Tour?
Our little Colombian-Aussie, Esteban Chavez, finished second overall at the Giro, and it was only the class of Nibali that stopped him from donning the pink jersey in Torino.
The Australian team’s focus now switches to Adam Yates, who looked the goods in the Dauphine. He finished seventh overall, but managed to come back after being dropped a few times, and finished just a few seconds behind Julian Allaphilippe for the white jersey – some better descending and he might have won the young rider’s classification.
While he will get little support at the Tour, as the team focuses on stage wins, Yates could be one of the key aggressors in the mountains, knowing he won’t have support and there would be very little point just trying to hang on.
Watch for a top-ten finish for the Briton.
Does Alberto Contador still have the legs to go for three weeks?
Alberto Contador proved on the last day of the Dauphine he still has it, in a big way – but that came after some strange tactics and a bad day where he lost over half a minute as Richie Porte and Chris Froome rode away like he was standing still.
The big question for Contador is whether the 33-year-old can still go for the whole three weeks.
As long as he’s riding, El Pistolero will be a threat, as evidenced by the fact his performance went downhill on the penultimate day of last year’s Giro d’Italia, but he still managed to win the race. Although he didn’t factor at the 2015 Tour – granted, he was riding back-to-back Grand Tours.
Roarers, how do you see the Tour de France playing out? What other key questions need answering?
Don’t forget The Roar will have live coverage of each and every stage of the 2016 Tour de France.
Follow Scott on Twitter @sk_pryde
delbeato
Roar Guru
Cadel was isolated on Alpe D'Huez where he lost the 2008 Tour. He was double-teamed by Frank Schleck and Carlos Sastre (from memory, definitely Sastre). Schleck was wearing Yellow, but it was Sastre who attacked. Cadel decided to stick with Schleck, his direct threat on GC. Unfortunately Sastre rode away and into Yellow. But this case was exceptional as CSC had 2 GC contenders. If Sastre was not in contention and just a domestique, Cadel could have just let him go and focused on Schleck. I don't think that Cadel having a teammate would have helped him there. A Lotto rider could have chased after Sastre. What difference would it make? Sastre was aiming to put GC time into Cadel. It wouldn't have made any difference if he was chased by Cadel's teammate.
Rob Gremio
Roar Pro
Well, in Robbie's case, that would certainly be true! :) However, I think the point is that having team mates with you, as opposed to being isolated, adds two things: 1) a psychological advantage - you're not alone and have help with pacing back if you are dropped. 2) you have someone who can chase down an attack for you and slow them down, allowing you time to up the cadence without smashing yourself in the process. But heck, I'm not a pro cyclist, so I can't really speak from experience. I agree with you about the lead up, but they also smash a high cadence up the climbs, belting away the main GC rivals' team mates, explicitly to "isolate" them. then you get back to my two points above. I think it also means they believe that, mano a mano, their GC leader is stronger if everyone is isolated.
delbeato
Roar Guru
Good points Rob. One point I'd question though is being isolated in the high mountains, which is a bit of a cliche. I could never figure out the disadvantage and watched Robbie McEwen commentate what I've long thought - having a teammate next to you while grinding uphill makes little difference. What Sky does is make the race hard leading up to climbs, so any weakness in Froome's competitors will show more on the climb. An easy lead-up makes it easier for a weaker rider to bluff his way over the climb. But this all depends on Froome being stronger in real terms. Making the race harder doesn't work unless your man is the strongest.
delbeato
Roar Guru
Forgot about Thomas - he looks the goods.
Rob Gremio
Roar Pro
Great article. My two cents: Both the year that Cadel won and when Nibali won, one notable thing was that they took opportunities to gain time on early stages, usually with punchy finishes. Remember the stage in Yorkshire that Nibali won - Stage 2, I think it was. Cadel won a punchy uphill at around Stage 6 or something. These wins gave them a bit of a mental boost, i suspect, so perhaps the trick to beating Froome is to attach him early on stages Sky might not be anticipating anything. Sky does well in the high mountains, grinding competitors' teams into the dust with a high tempo. Once the leaders of the other teams are isolated, that gives Froome the change to attack. So teams need to hurt Sky as early as they can so that when they get to the high mountains they are not as strong, and Froome has to chase time, rather than put time between him and the rest. As for BMC, it seems fairly clear that Richie is the stronger of the two riders at this point, after TJ had a poor ITT and got dropped on a key mountain stage (even though he bounced back well to win the Queen Stage - the damage had been done), whereas Porte is looking as strong as ever. Let's just hope he doesn't have one of his traditional "bad" days in the mountains. I think Quintana was smart to go to the Rota Sud. He got to ride some of the key climbs in the Pyrenees, including the Tourmalet,was able to avoid the limelight (which he prefers), and get some good climbing KMs into his legs.
Freycinet1803
Roar Rookie
Is Thomas riding the Tour this year?? I'd imagine Landa and Thomas both would have tickets on themselves if Froome crashed out early. Astana had two to three riders in or near the top 10 of the GC in the Giro.
delbeato
Roar Guru
Froome looks the goods again but he is no lock-in. We've seen what a single mistake can do when you crash. As strong as Sky's support cast is, I don't know that they have a genuine alternative to Froome if he falters. Maybe Landa. I think the race is still wide open. Quintana is a threat. Contador should not be written off. And Porte rode strongly in the Dauphine. Aru can do damage on his day. You can't pay too much attention to form in early June. Riders have different approaches to ramping up to July. They aren't all necessarily showing their cards yet either.
Jono
Guest
I wonder what the plan is for Yates. I'd guess Plan A would be to look at the White jersey, but maybe if he loses time early the question would be if he has the legs to take a real crack at the KOM.
Diggs
Roar Rookie
Team Sky look too powerful with Movistar possibly the only team strong enough to beat them. Quintana has to ride aggressively, and if not for time losses from the second stage, could have won last year. Not sure if Valverde is racing the TdF this year, he would be a huge help to Nairo if he is. BMC's leadup seems strange. They are planning a twin pronged attack for the first time in the teams history, yet instead of using the Dauphine as a testing ground for tactics and building some racing time with Tejay and Richie in tandem, they split them up. I think Aru will be lucky to be top 5 this yea, with Yates finishing higher than Fabio. Contador will struggle to podium as well. Just doesn't seem to have the climbing panache he had in years past.
Scott Pryde
Expert
Thanks for that Damo, Yep - it's time to take the fight to Sky, and not just sit back and observe. Quintana showed a glimpse of it last year, but had Valverde to perform the 1-2 so not sure how that will go this year. And you are deadset right - has to be day after day of taking it to Sky to crack them, not just put everything into a single day. And yep, what's to lose when you are only going to lose anyway!
Damo
Guest
Great write up Scott and happy to see I'm not the only one that questions tactics vs Sky. Just hope someone or some team takes the risk to try something different, not just on one stage but over the whole tour. It might not work but neither are the current 'traditional' tactics that teams are trying to use.
Scott Pryde
Expert
That it is Paddy, but jeez let's hope for the good of the Tour someone else stands up and really takes it to them.
Scott Pryde
Expert
They do look strong - it's going to come down to how Quintana and Movistar ride it.
Patrick Effeney
Editor
Your first question is the key one Scotty, and the one that determines whether I continue to stay up late after the first set of mountains!
Andrew Graham
Roar Rookie
Sky look unbeatable don't they! The only thing they have to worry about is Froome crashing late in the race. That's it. Otherwise the race is for Sky to lose.