The biking thread

Jumbo Visma has ridden this tour with just brutal efficiency. Kuss, Van Aert, & Vingegaard (and Roglic when he was still in the race) are like a navy seal squad. Makes Ineos look like a bunch of middle school kids and and Pogacar might as well not even have a team. :lol:

Surely Tadej will demand better teammates for next year?

I'm still...perhaps even more now...suspicious of the Bahrain Victorious team. Mohoric was so competitive last year and at classics races earlier this year. He's done absolutely nothing in this Tour De France, sitting 85th overall and down nearly 4 hours. As far as I can remember he hasn't been a contender on a single stage in this race. The disparity in performance is interesting.
 
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Totally amazing stage. I think this perfectly illustrates all there is to professional team cycling. WvA pulling Vingegaard to drop Tadej at the end was a thing of beauty. Like a perfect checkmate.
 
Assuming Vingegaard doesn't end up with Covid before he gets to Paris, this one is over after today's performance. Wout continues to impress every stage. How many times can a man get into a breakaway and still come back to help his teammate every time? Where does he get the energy?

Meanwhile Pogacar has to be running on empty. That's what happens when you're forced to constantly attack because all your teammates are gone. Well, pretty much everyone but McNulty. He was a BEAST on Wednesday's stage.

The mountains are gone. Only a flat stage, time trial, and Paris remain. It's been a fun tour to watch.
 
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And another stage for Jumbo. These guys are ruthless. After the Paris Nice domination, it should have been clear that this squad could do some damage at the TDF.

I hope that Bernal is able to recover fully so that Ineos has their #1 GC guy back. And then we need Mathieu van der Poel to move to Tadej Pogacar's team. And I also hope that Alaphillipe gets well.

Trying to image a TDF which has Pogacar, Roglic, Vingegaard, Bernal, Alaphillipe, Van Aert, van der Poel, and Magnus Cort all in good health. Maybe Remco Evenepoel & Tom Pidcock too. Ineos is missing an all-purpose man like Van Aert - Ganna seems too fragile and not very effective outside of time trials - they seem to have settled on a strategy of multiple GC riders. But I think Jumbo has shown that having a "big man" to just do damage throughout the tour is more useful. That effort in stage 18 was just legendary.
 
Did perhaps my most intense ride I've ever done over the weekend. Little less than 100km but nearly 5600ft of climbing, almost all of it off road with surface conditions ranging from "Cadillac Gravel" (1/10 difficulty) through "Rock Gardens" (5/10) to Rutted Hardpack Nightmare (10/10) with splashes of pine needle carpets and a lot of unexpected mud. It was a blast. Crashed once (minor) on the rutted hardpack section, simply picked the wrong line and ran out of room to correct. This was the bulk of the dirt section:

map.JPG



I was holding things around a tempo level, but I still beat my best time on the major climb by 45 minutes. :lol:

Unfortunately the Marine layer was thicccc so no Ocean views. But being above the fog has its own charm and the north end was pretty clear.

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There were some heavy crashes today in the second stage of the Women's Tour De France Femmes. One rider went flying over the top of a pile up when she couldn't stop in time. Two more went tumbling down into a ditch. Scary stuff.
 
Jezza819
There were some heavy crashes today in the second stage of the Women's Tour De France Femmes. One rider went flying over the top of a pile up when she couldn't stop in time. Two more went tumbling down into a ditch. Scary stuff.
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Stop in time? She didn't even bother trying to stop! Crazy.



Apparently she admitted that she thought she could thread the needle. What a moron - never seen such a reckless move in pro cycling (while the outcome was a lot more severe, I don't think even Groenewegen's move on Jakobsen in 2020 was as reckless). I think a suspension is easily warranted.
 
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Eunos_Cosmo
Stop in time? She didn't even bother trying to stop! Crazy.



Apparently she admitted that she thought she could thread the needle. What a moron - never seen such a reckless move in pro cycling (while the outcome was a lot more severe, I don't think even Groenewegen's move on Jakobsen in 2020 was as reckless). I think a suspension is easily warranted.
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That looks horrible! What a crazy decision !
 
Eunos_Cosmo
Stop in time? She didn't even bother trying to stop! Crazy.



Apparently she admitted that she thought she could thread the needle. What a moron - never seen such a reckless move in pro cycling (while the outcome was a lot more severe, I don't think even Groenewegen's move on Jakobsen in 2020 was as reckless). I think a suspension is easily warranted.
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I had not heard that she admitted to trying to thread the needle but that is very reckless to have done that. Race officials should definitely look into punishing that.
 
Wow, that's the sort of thing you see in a D grade criterium not a pro race at the highest level. Stupid just stupid.
 
Didn’t bunny hop high enough.

I can’t say it without sounding bigoted, but women’s cycling lacks the pedigree of the men’s events.
 
In better news, my Lakes came in and they fit LIKE A GLOVE! I'm SO stoked about this. I was so nervous that it was a hundred bucks out the window. They may actually be my most comfortable footwear lol. Never put something on that is perfectly matched to the shape of my foot like this. Can't wait to get bike fitted now. Love it, love it!

1659485046424.png
 
So I set a new commute record. Previous best on my 25 mile, 1112ft route was 14.9mph average. Today I managed 15.6mph (and was 5 minutes faster). Averaged around 200w for 1 hr 40 mins. It felt good. Well except for the part where I was absolutely demolished by pro cyclist and notorious QOM Isabel King (P8 in 2021 Unbound Gravel) on the climb up to the golden gate bridge. I was doing probably close to 300w and I was passed like a piece of roadkill. :lol: The worst part? I could tell she wasn't even trying, just calmly chatting with her riding buddy (who I'm pretty sure was the ex-boyfriend of Moira Wilson, the girl who made national headlines after being killed in Austin a few months ago), probably because she had just set some ridiculous times up the local mountain.

edit: Ok there was some real weapons in that group of riders that went up the mountain today, including former Trek Segafredo rider Peter Stetina who finished the Tour De France twice and unbound winner Amity Rockwell.
 
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That's awesome. My instructor does 190W for 3 hours on the regular for tri training, and that's with a pelvic stress fracture. People that were D1 college athletes in any sport are just insane.
 
Omnis
People that were D1 college athletes in any sport are just insane.
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That’s what interests me in pro tour cycling. Many of these guys (and gals), even if they’re on a small team, are still amazing compared to the average human. Some athletes are just beyond human.
 
W3H5
That’s what interests me in pro tour cycling. Many of these guys (and gals), even if they’re on a small team, are still amazing compared to the average human. Some athletes are just beyond human.
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Last night I finished watching the Women's Tour de France and the final stage ended with a climb up La Super Planche des Belles Filles and Annemiek van Vleuten who is 39 YEARS OLD!!! just powered up the climb to take the stage and was the overall winner of the Tour de France. She changed bikes 4 times I think and still won the stage.

She did the same thing the day before on another climb where she just left everyone behind. It's just amazing what these athletes can do. I would have trouble just walking up the thing.
 
The Vuelta and the Giro organizers need to seriously take note of how well the TdF is both marketed and broadcast - the TdF youtube channel provides absolutely excellent stage recaps without spoilers and they do a fantastic job of making the event feel like a big deal. The Vuelta and Giro equivalents are borderline unwatchable from what I remember and I find it hard to take them as seriously. To be honest, a lot of the 1-day classics feel more prestigious than the Giro or Vuelta.
 
Eunos_Cosmo
The Vuelta and the Giro organizers need to seriously take note of how well the TdF is both marketed
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This came apparent once more today. As the Vuelta was still close to home, my dad and I decided to go see the second stage too, but mostly for the marketing caravan. Well. There was a parade of electric vehicles, called the Green caravan, replacing the old school parade that throws Chinese made promotional crap that you kinda want to have as a memorial token or something. Nothing. But I wanted something from the Vuelta, as I already have the Tour and Giro stuff from when they passed through Utrecht*. We decided to drive to the finish after the riders and vehicles flew by. We got there, there were (as far as I could see) !!2!! stands selling goods. One selling the Vuelta shirts, caps and Bulls. And the other selling the team merchandise. And that was it. Unbelievable.

But, have a close up video of the riders and their support cars, and a really close up with a Movistar Volvo, we were sitting in the obvious circle on the picture.



etappe-2-route.jpg


Edit! Merchandise!

DSC_0459.JPG


The plastic bag was the only piece of merchandise that had the 2022 on it, clever marketing, sort of poor marketing.

*Utrecht is the first city to have the Tour, Giro and Vuelta passing through it.
 
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My finger is hovering over the mouse button to buy this:

p6pb21973264.jpg


edit: Well, this thing is mine now. $2.5k. Nothing else in that price range had a power meter and carbon wheels. My fitter is going to be SO mad at me. Literally the opposite of a robust endurance bike.
 
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