I didn't see any pictures of him changing a wheel, maybe tightening something on his bike and a push.  Hasty decision by the officials.  Just saw the announcemt to the media and the official seemed delighted.  Remember when Quintana passed under the red flag conditions last year on a descent on the snow stage, basically won the giro right there and didn't get DQed or penalised.  I also see people saying Contador took his helmet off during the race the other day as well.

bad weather will come into play over the rest of the week

The weather is always a factor, however unless Contador crashes or suffers an untimely mechanical, it'll be the same of each rider and should not have a great influencing effect.

No mate, he was way too short, and I thought that -- under previous time gaps -- there would be far better opportunities to recover Bertie into the original Bank position during the ITT, so I let the post shoulder injury lays remain as red. Unless the unthinkable happens, I won't recover my losses on Bertie and will take my first GT GC market loss in five years. Now, I just need to chip away with the stage betting bank to recover, and try and finish ahead or even.

paid out by VC as well

He wins unless he crashes imo. I'm not backing at the price but I just can't see who beats him. The two people I could possibly see taking time off him in the mountains Uran and Porte have already lost loads of time and Uran who has started strongly and has a fantastic team has started to show signs of weakness as well. I'd rather lay than back at that price, but it would be without knowing exactly who was running for me and hoping for unexpected events in week 2-3. I'd be more interested in him not keeping the jersey all the way to Milan.

I think Aru would need about an additional minute or even two, going into tomorrow's ITT to hold onto the Pink jersey.

Earlier on, when I asked nugget what we learned in Romandie -- it is clear that what we should all have remembered is that there is no place to hide in the ITT. I mean, in Romandie Froome was yo-yo-ing like a court jester on the back of the peloton on the climbing stages and keeping in touch when things eased up in front. Come the ITT, he had no place to hide against the clock and he was thoroughly found out as the suspect out-of-form rider he was showing he was on the climbs that preceded it.

I therefore think that Alberto Contador might have quite a poor ITT, even though we know he is quite strong in the discipline. Initially, I was convinced he would blow up over this course because of the tricky first part being so flat and perhaps he would push himself too hard, and then pay for it at the tough climbing parts closer to the finish. Now, I'm not entirely confident he'll blow up now, but I am still convinced he will perform poorly.

He has come to the front here and there so far in the Giro, but really an in-form Contador would have blitzed some of those parts or opportunities where he flexed his muscles thus far, and so imo it's almost like he has been bluffing -- doing only as much as required to suggest he is the in-form Bertie who will win this Giro easily. Then add the fact that he thought he needed to fox with his "injured" shoulder to gain an advantage by forcing the GC contenders to attack, and I would suggest that we see that there are weaknesses in his condition, both physically and mentally.

In the ITT, weaknesses are exacerbated and since I am convinced he is weak than I think we may seem him struggle. Having said that, there is no one close-enough to him to take advantage of the possible time gains on offer, and then hold their own in the Dolomites. So, it looks like Contador may get away with it, but I'll feel like my analysis has been solid in this Giro (even though I'm likely going to lose on Contador) if Contador flops in the ITT tomorrow.

nugget, we're all here to reach consensus and achieve profitable outcomes! I understand you feel you look like a bit of fool after you provided your self-important reply earlier, but that is no reason to subject the forum to your negative derailment attempts at reaching a solid foundation of understanding for how the GC men will come out of the ITT.

I wish the market would remember what you do about Contador so that he would be in the 5/2 range of my laying him heavily. As it is, at 8/1 or thereabouts, I'm not willing to take him on -- actually looks like good value, but I am still convinced he will perform poorly.

SwingingPick

"nugget, we're all here to reach consensus"...


So we should all come to the consensus that Contador will perform poorly in the time trial.  If you disagree you're trying to negatively derail peoples understanding.

I'm thinking along the same lines as peter, Contador will ride within himself and do what he needs to do therefore less chance of him blowing up.  Contador still has all the hard mountain stages in this giro and also the TdF to think about.

I actually hope you're right about Contador SP.  It would make for more a eventful race in the 3rd week for sure.  He did mention he got a bump on the knee in yesterdays crash where he lost 40secs so I guess he could be lining up an excuse there if he is hiding bad form.

Contador smashes the TT. I guess he wants an easy 3rd week so he can set his sights on le tour and the elusive double.

The GC takes another spin. Contador regains the Pink jersey as expected, but rides very powerfully, which I didn't expect. Aru rides with some improvement perhaps, but loses the Pink jersey, and the gap is beyond his ability to regain in the Dolomites on a man-to-man basis with Contador.

Contador	GC Leader
Aru	+2.28 secs

Landa gets his stage win as anticipated.  He looks set for a podium position now.

Even before his bad luck, he looked as if he had zero chance of putting any time into BERTIE. In fact, was hanging on a bit in the stage before his crash.

After stage 16:

Contador	GC Leader
Landa	+4.02 secs
Aru	+4.52

I think Contador just did too much work in bridging solo to AST on the Motorilo, however Landa showed his potential when opening up 30 secs very easily when attacking Kruiswuijk and Contador toward the finish. Held 38 secs on the line, but Contador had excuses and with such a big lead I'm not sure there's too much to excited about with Landa, at this point.

Porte was looking strong and patient to me, Clay.

what would today's stage with AC's puncture have looked like with Porte still in contention for GC?

After stage 20:

Contador	GC Leader
Aru	+ 2.02
Landa	+ 3.14

I know it's in dispute, concerning AST's tactics on the penultimate stage in setting-up Aru for stage victory whilst losing the KOM with Landa. However, every time Aru looks at this GC, he sees he is only 2 mins behind the best GC rider in present time. What a confidence boost for a rider on your team who is signed till the end of the 2017 season. I think AST have a future GC winner in Aru, whilst more short term gains would have given them a 60/40 shot at this stage victory and the KOM.

Clear sailing for AST and their future GC winner in Aru.

Should have posted this on here really:

Yes well in guys. It's been a fantastic GT and we've had some excellent discussion on here throughout. The BF guys said they would give us a cycling forum as a trial originally and see how it went. Reckon we've easily done enough to make sure we keep it. Hope you've all made some decent profit and enjoyed it as much as I have. Looking back through my records I'm up overall from this race. I didn’t have any bets in the GC and my one bet in the points classification (Lobato) was a disaster, but I’ve done well in the stages despite some big ups and downs.

My profit came largely due to Kiryieka's win (25/1) in the Stage 14 time trial which was a pretty big bet for me. I also had a winner on Greipel Stage 6 (5/2) and some smaller bets at big prices in play that won, such as Ulissi Stage 7 (IP 66/1), Zakarin Stage 11 (IP 100/1). I also had some placed bets at biggish prices like Hofland (25/1) on Stage 2, Chavanel (200/1) Stage 5, Lobato (16/1) Stage 7, Landa (28/1) Stage 8, Uran (100/1) Stage 19 and Uran again (40/1) Stage 20.

The low points were Stage 4 (Formolo – I was all over some of the punchier riders like Bling and then threw good money after bad by laying Formolo in running). Stage 9 (Tiralongo) was another in-running lay disaster and to make it worse I also had Elissonde in break 300/1 6 places and he came 8th. Another shocker was not backing Gilbert for Stage 12 despite thinking it was perfect for him. Finally, not taking Astana’s superiority in the mountains and amazing recovery powers seriously enough meant I missed out on some big prices on Landa and Aru’s two stage wins each both before those stages and in-play and overall I haven’t actually fared that well in the mountain stages. Some of you guys were well on board with the programme by that stage and it tells me I need to analyse who is strongest a lot more carefully, as well as think about team tactics and dynamics in these situations in future. It will be interesting to see what Astana are capable of in the Tour when they bring their first team!

Next up for me is the Critérium du Dauphiné which starts a week today and I started work on the fred this morning.

Final GC:

Contador	GC Winner
Aru	+ 1:53 secs
Landa	+ 3:05

A really great and highly enjoyable Giro to watch. Unfortunately for me, it represented my first GT loss in several years. Had Bertie as a banker from the start which would've meant a small -- calculating -- profit, given how the race was developing with his strong form impact and prospects, however I laid him to field red on the research surrounding his shoulder injury. I then contributed to my potential loss on him by laying him even more, on the understanding that Porte would be his equal and anchor his price to a certain range, even if the shoulder was to come good or if it was just him foxing, which it was. Once Porte was effectively out of calculations I was holding big red, and whilst I recovered a little here and there, the main sizeable chunk of it was absorbed as a significant loss.

Ante-post stage bets never proved profitable to cover the stage ante-post bank, however my IR stage bank covered those losses and I came out ever so slightly ahead, but not enough to really recover any of the GC bank, so on the whole this Giro was a significant loss for me. I think Porte being unlucky was the only real contributing factor to my experiencing such a loss, since I always factored recovering up to a half of my then potential losses on Bertie by his sporting involvement.

I essentially wagered on Bertie's shoulder being bad and wrongly thought I was getting in ahead of the market swing, but when it was seen that he could ride on it, I should have recovered for a small loss with the understanding that I just wagered wrong. Instead, I made it worse thinking I had a 'Plan B' with Porte, and once Bertie's price fell out the bottom on Porte's ill-luck, I had no 'Plan C' in the GC, and so a loss for me since taking Bertie's price by adding zeros would've been just plain stupid.

I also want to offer my appreciation to MC for his great work, and whilst I don't usually like to comment on the forum during viewing, for fear of missing crucial things, the overall intelligent input and involvement by forum members made it an enjoyable experience, and I will be considering being more active. I think it might beneficial for us (the cycling forum) to discuss what we want out of making IR comments, since some of it might be derivative and/or repetitive.

Cheers,
SP