Originally Posted by
tso:
“Im a newbie so dont understand how it works
”
As a general rule of thumb it works like this........
On the flatter stages most of the riders stay together in a big bunch and all get the same time........they only time them seperately if there's a discernable gap between riders
I think today Sagan officially gained 1 second because there was a length or so between him and the 2nd
From the 2nd downwards all the ones in that bunch got the same time because they finished grouped together
So you can see that on the initial prologue time trial Sagan lost 24 seconds to cancellara.........it would take him 24 wins like today to get that back !
On these flatter stages which produce bunch sprint finishes the timings don't change much.....they don't really affect the overall outcome of the race as far as the yellow jersey is concerned
The yellow jersey is decided in the mountains and in the longer time trial stages........that's where the time gaps open up.
Think about it like this...........let's say there was an athletics competition which consisted of 20 races of which 19 were 100 metres and 1 was a marathon
Usain Bolt takes on the current marathon olympic champion
Usian Bolt wins all 19 sprints by 4 or 5 seconds each and at the end of the 19 sprint stages he's 1 minute 35 seconds up on the marathon runner
Now we come to the marathon stage............you see where this is going !................
Bolt loses that one stage by 45 minutes and is slaughtered in the overall standings !
The mountains and time trials are the equivalent of marathons where people like Cav will lose 30-40 minutes on one day....the odd seconds at stake in bunch finishes are pretty irrelevant in the overall competition