The biking thread

[Omnis]

Jumbo Visma is in another league to everyone else in this tour. The combo of Sepp Kuss and Wout Van Aert, both of whom seem to have no fatigue limits, and the tactics employed basically means that Jonas is never exposed, he's just shepherded all around the tour to select ~2km climbs where he can launch his 7w/kg attack. Take today - Wout went up the road in the breakaway and crushed the Tourmalet just so that when JV came over the top, he could lead him down the descent - and of course, Jonas had Sepp (+others) on the way up the Tourmalet. Jumbo Visma just seems to be everywhere all at once and literally all the other teams are just trying to react and hold on. Remember when Ineos/Sky used to be unbeatable? They might as well not even be in this race. UAE exists on the strength of Pogacar alone.*

*Edit: And sometimes that's enough. You can crack him on a climb occasionally, but you cannot get Pog down for long, a truly indefatigable spirit even when he is beaten.

It's always been Poggy vs the world. Dude is a beast and keeps getting better. Dropped Jonas hard yesterday. I think he was a little out of form after his accident at L-B-L, but looks like he's settled in nicely now. Dude wasn't even out of the saddle at all until he hit the jets on JV.

edit: In a complete twist, I found this nearby:

It's a biggun 61cm frame though. That reach is gonna be MASSIVE but I can throw my old TCR bars on it and maybe go back to the Velodrome without destroying my gooch. It would pay for itself in 40 rides if I got it. Lady doesn't know what she has.

Someone also put up a mint 58cm Madone 9.2 for only $1800.

Looking at the geometry, this thing looks like it would fit me like a glove as-is. I love that it has the Isospeed decoupler, but I'm not in love with the fact that it has 23mm tires and apparently only takes 28s. If I had money sitting around, I would totally have like 4 bikes right now

 

[Omnis]

So the person with the Fuji track bike basically has zero brain cells. Probably a bot or scam, because they can't even communicate like a normal person. Instead, I found this listing for a Cinelli Vigorelli in Kentucky whose owner, though from Kentucky, would seem to have a comparative abundance of brain cells.

I sent an offer for the bike without the steam, saddle, or handlebars. Thinking I can pull off something like this, but with fluoro yellow SMP saddle and matching bartape.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Track bikes are dope, but I have basically zero use for one. Perhaps wall art.

Brutal climb today at the TdF. However, I wasn't the biggest fan of it...for whatever reason they didn't allow fans in the last few KMs, so it felt pretty barren. Almost nobody cheering at the finish line. Good day for USA & Canada at the tour with Powless, Jorgenson, and Woods all animating the break and all featuring in the post race awards. It's kind of a shame that Sepp Kuss is locked into his climber-domestique roll, I think he could really be a contender on another team. Even though his only goal is propelling Jonas up the climbs and then dropping off, he's still in the top 10 overall, he seems to be remarkably consistent.

 

[Sertsa]

Track bikes are dope, but I have basically zero use for one. Perhaps wall art.

Brutal climb today at the TdF. However, I wasn't the biggest fan of it...for whatever reason they didn't allow fans in the last few KMs, so it felt pretty barren. Almost nobody cheering at the finish line. Good day for USA & Canada at the tour with Powless, Jorgenson, and Woods all animating the break and all featuring in the post race awards. It's kind of a shame that Sepp Kuss is locked into his climber-domestique roll, I think he could really be a contender on another team. Even though his only goal is propelling Jonas up the climbs and then dropping off, he's still in the top 10 overall, he seems to be remarkably consistent.

I liked it. My guess is crowds on that mountain were limited due to the narrow road without a lot of room to not fall off and perhaps the environmental impact up there. There were definitely plenty of people in the last towns the passed. (Edit: Also I've occasionally seen the parade cars that go through ahead of the Tour. Maybe they aren't allowed up the mountain, so not a lot of spectators are, either.)

I was hoping

Spoiler: result spoiler.

Jorgenson would make it, but the Woods climb at the end was impressive.

 

[Omnis]

Track bikes are dope, but I have basically zero use for one. Perhaps wall art.

Yeah, that's why I didn't want to spend a lot on one. The velodrome has rentals, and I would only want something that would pay for itself in 20ish rides. Maybe I should just buy a seatpost and saddle so I can ride without trauma.

edit: Cinelli offer declined. It's got like 25 watchers on ebay now, so will probably shoot up to 4 figures at the end of the auction. No thanks.

edit 2: Now I lost the auction for it, too. My uber hipster wallhanger dreams are over.

 

[Omnis]

For every eBay failure, there’s an eBay win. Stole some long axle R8000s with 3 sets of new cleats compared to what other auctions for the pedals alone ended at. I guess the seller is a fitter and her client went with Look or Speedplay instead

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Stage 12 -

Spoiler

So so close, again, for Matteo Jorgenson. At least he got onto the podium this time - the guy races with real heart. I'd really love to see Matteo win a spring classic. He seems to have the talent and skillset to pull it off and he has gotten close a few times.

 

[Omnis]

Hey @Eunos_Cosmo do you follow Thomas the cycling tattooist? Dude was in your neck of the woods yesterday:



I love how they transitioned from dreary horrible San Francisco to dreamland perfect-day Marin county

 

[Shaun]

Hey @Eunos_Cosmo do you follow Thomas the cycling tattooist? Dude was in your neck of the woods yesterday:



I love how they transitioned from dreary horrible San Francisco to dreamland perfect-day Marin county

Nice, I'm a couple of episodes behind of his US trip and look forward to seeing this one. 👍

 

[Greycap]

If I had money sitting around, I would totally have like 4 bikes right now

takes a look at his memento Stumpjumper, trail Camber, daily driver Rockhopper and collection flagship Chisel You mean everyone doesn't have at least that many?

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Hey @Eunos_Cosmo do you follow Thomas the cycling tattooist? Dude was in your neck of the woods yesterday:



I love how they transitioned from dreary horrible San Francisco to dreamland perfect-day Marin county

I haven't heard of this guy, but the video is great.

A few weeks ago I would have said it was a poor decision to cut the Marin visit short to visit Alcatraz...but I went a couple weeks ago for the first time and it was awesome. It would be fun to ride a bike on the island...

Mt Tam is great...but he didn't go all the way to East Peak! These days I much prefer the gravel climb up it...better scenery, waterfalls, and no cars. The real trick is to go up tam from the south and then descend north along ridgecrest...as good as the bay & city views are, the ocean and beach views from 1500' are ridiculous.

 

[Omnis]

I’m all set to be super obnoxiously fluoro yellow for whatever I build next. RIP Cinelli dreams lol. This combo would've been outrageous on the Roubaix I was originally looking at (and wayyyy too expensive) before I found my TCR:

That said, the Lite 209 is really, really padded. They weren't kidding. But it's a lot slimmer than I thought it would be. Might actually work well for me. I just don't want to disturb my setup on the TCR and there's no way I'm unwrapping my nastro tape on the Giant lol.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

TDF:

Spoiler

Rest day today...but man is this year's edition turning into a nail biter. JV & TP are so evenly matched that its difficult to predict how the race will finish. Tadej is unquestionably more explosive and has a better sprint. But Jonas seems to have more endurance on the longer climbs - and he also seems to do better on really hot days which is something Tadej has struggled with. The tactic that Tadej has tried to deploy in the last few mountain stages has been to ride tempo with either Jumbo Visma or UAE making the pace and then launching a full gas attack with around 1KM to go to the top to either close out the stage or pickup bonus seconds. This worked for a few stages, but I think Jonas is wise to it, and it hasn't been effective in the last two (partly because of the motorbikes in stage 14 and not great timing in stage 15). I think Tadej has to come up with a new plan or get his timing just right. But Jonas could probably crack Tadej on a long climb 2-3km from the top if he truly emptied the tank, which I don't think he's done since stage 5. This whole tour could honestly come down to the time trial tomorrow. They are both excellent time trialists so it will likely be a matter of who is having a better day. Nobody else in the pro peloton is seemingly in the same ballpark as these two though....maybe Primoz Roglic - but we won't see that 3-way battle unless he moves to a different team. I think some people were hoping Jai Hindley might be up there, but he can't compete with JV & TP when it gets tough. Remco may be able to compete, but probably not for a full Grand Tour. The rest of the GC contenders look like Cat2 riders when Jonas or Tadej launches an attack.

I think it deserves special mention to note that Sepp Kuss and Wout Van Aert are incredible cyclists. Stage after stage they are always there at the front of the Jumbo squad pacing the whole peloton. I've heard that Sepp Kuss has earned the nickname the mail man because he always delivers. The fact that Sepp could be looking at a top 5 finish while purely racing in support of Jonas Vingagaard is pretty extraordinary. If there was ever a particularly hilly grand tour, I think Sepp could win it. Nielson Powless has paid a heavy price for his early tour exploits and seems genuinely broken now. I hope he makes it to the finish, but I'm not optimistic he will hang onto the polka dots.

Who else is out there? MVDP, Julian Alaphilippe & Magnus Cort have had pretty unspectacular results thus far...I think the ridiculous pace set by the Jumbo Visma and UAE squads have made the Puncheur and Rouleur type riders basically redundant, they are simply dropped long before they can have any kind of impact. Unless you're Wout Van Aert who should have his own category - le Monstre

In other news, I finally put my Giant hybrid bike up for sale. I suspect that it will be a hard bike to sell, but we'll see what happens. I need to make room for two bikes: A 'round-town bike for myself (probably Surly Preamble) and a "standard" bike for my S.O. Anyone have good recommendations for the latter? Priority is lightness, flat bars, a sloping top tube, good tire clearance, and affordability - less than $500. I found a nice Bianchi cylocross bike from the 90s for $400 with a Tange steel frame. It has an old 3x drivetrain, but I'm thinking I could replace that with a Microshift 1x for pretty cheap.

 

[Omnis]

This might be the worst thing I have ever done.

 

[TB]

Your banana seat game is weak, @Omnis.

 

[Omnis]

So I rode for all of 5 minutes but my bent derailleur hanger was clackicky clacking and my saddle was a little too leaned back so I decided to just pack it in and go back home. One thing I never though about with this Lite 209 vs my Stealth is that the saddle actually sits you higher up over the cranks. I noticed myself toe-pointing a lot like I had gained 2-3 cm of seatpost height. It was definitely more comfortable than those Selle Italia models I tried. Since I have no desire to cut down my ISP any further, the SMP will be reserved for the eventual track bike.

 

[TheNormsk]

I think GT7 is bad for my cycling. Ever since I got hooked on that my cycling has taken a nose dive.

I have a number of bikes and even a, now pretty much abandoned, YouTube channel dedicated to mountain biking, but since moving away from mountains I think a confluence of things has happened. I moved away from an area I loved (due to family needs) and to prove that I could still bike I rode more miles and vertical feet gained last year than ever before. At the same time I think I got burnt out on it and also got board with my new riding area (it's so much more limited). Thed over the winter I found GT7.

I fell into that rabbit hole, buying rig, wheel etc and now spend my time I used to cycle on that instead.

Now I'm beginning to get back into the cycling as I'm now burning out on GT7! The pendulum swings back and forth...

My bikes are:
2022 Orbea Rise H20 eMTB - but massively upgraded and changed out
2021 Specialized Creo EVO Expert - Great for the broken road and paved trails around my city but not a lot of opportunity for gravel riding
2020 YT Izzo Launch Edition - I really should sell this as I just don't ride it now I got e-bikes but the US still has a lot of no-eMTB areas so I keep it for that.
2015 Motobecane Sturgis fat bike - also upgrade and I use it only in winter with studded 4.2" tires on our groomed winter trails.
2012 Santa Cruz Tallboy LTc - Used this heavily for 8 years but it just sits as a back up bike worn out. Not worth anything to sell so I should really sell the YT and keep this as the analog back up.
2010 Garry Fisher Presidio CX bike. I used this for "road/gravel" days before I got the Creo. I would sell it but it need a front wheel rebuilt which would probably cost as much as I would get selling it so not really worth it.

I also have an old 26" mountain bike made up of parts from several over the years. That is very old school geo and is never ridden. I should get rid of it and the frame of a Boulder Starship from 1997. That is just potential wall art now and my very bike was featured in a UK MTB mag over in around 2011 as one of the top 50 sexiest mountain bikes of all time.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Ridiculous. Almost unbelievably ridiculous. How does a scrawny guy beat Wout Van Aert by almost 3 minutes in a 22km TT that didn't have that much climbing?

 

[Omnis]

Did you see that helmet buddy was wearing? It's all about the aero.

On a serious note, Jonas got HUGE in the offseason compared to last year. His legs looked hyper diesel. Not surprised that he won, but my god what a ridiculous margin. Even Poggy's margin over the field is absolutely nuts.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Did you see that helmet buddy was wearing? It's all about the aero.

On a serious note, Jonas got HUGE in the offseason compared to last year. His legs looked hyper diesel. Not surprised that he won, but my god what a ridiculous margin. Even Poggy's margin over the field is absolutely nuts.

He put 2 minutes into WVA in the first 17km. The flat part. 2 minutes. On WVA. On the flat.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Spoiler

Kind of a sad day today at the tour...I've never seen Pogi completely fall apart like he did. The guy is fully spent...and hasn't looked well since before the last rest day. I kind of wonder if he is ill? Jonas just keeps going in his metronomic way. He's made Pogacar look like a Cat 1 rider (at least in this race) and the rest of the field look like Cat 3 riders...its quite insane.

 

[Omnis]

Didn't Poggers have covid or something? I feel like last years the teams were really dialed. This year, I don't know what the heck anyone is doing. Seems like there's no roles anymore (maybe the guys are that good?) and Pogacar just kinda had to go at it until he ran into a motorcycle or ran out of legs. The Yates twins have had more cohesive teamwork than some of these teams lol.

I went to the Velodrome today. Got yet another flat, but this time I went down hard on the banking. Knocked my head real good. If I didn't have a helmet I'd probably have a good soldier's sign and a big hospital bill. Luckily I fell into the steepest part of the banking so it wasn't bad and I just have some scuffed shoes and scrapes on my knee and shoulder from sliding down to the cote d'azur. My neck just whipped hard and smacked my helmet into the side of the track as soon as I hit. When we went from the straight into the banking I was like, "****, I have a flat!" and as soon as I finished my sentence, the front wheel just washed out and I low-sided it. While I was putting my pedals on, some other guy fell in the same spot and looked like he went top-side, had a nice abrasion and bruise on his abdomen from getting bar-gored. Said he was dizzy. I was like, dude, don't tell me those things lol. Sure enough, I went down a few laps later. The culprit was that the rim tape came away from the valve stem hole and the tube got punctured on the sharp edge of the drilled hole. I really don't want to ride rental bikes anymore. That's like 4 flats for me in 2 trips to the velodrome.

I think I'm going to change course from the track bike plan and instead save for an SB20. Too heavy for these skinny ass tires on such a steep embankment. 🤷‍♂️

 

[W3H5]

How does a scrawny guy beat Wout Van Aert by almost 3 minutes in a 22km TT that didn't have that much climbing?

High quality dope.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I think Tadej Pogacar has won over more fans by losing this TDF than he did by winning the first two combined. Weird how that works. I was really hoping to see him win one of the big spring classics (I mean, to Tadej's credit, he won three of them in a row) AND the TDF in one year. With Jonas around & training all spring just for the TDF, I'm not sure Tadej or anyone else could pull it off.

The cynic in me suspects that Jonas is far too valuable to Jumbo Visma in the Tour de France to let him race any of the one-day races in the spring, so I think its unlikely we'll ever get the Tadej vs Remco vs Jonas vs Wout vs Mathieu Ronde van Vlaanderen that everyone would truly love to see.

 

[Omnis]

They should just hold off on the TdF for one year and have a special world tour with these guys while they're all in their primes. Have a special cup with 1-day races each month in Colombia, Bentonville or Marin, Flanders, Southern/Eastern Europe, South African, and Australia. And you're only eligible for the cup if you compete in all races.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Spoiler

Tadej screaming like he won the whole tour as he crossed the finish line today pretty much made my week. Adam & Simon Yates finishing 3rd and 4th overall was also an amazing result.

I hope this Tour doesn't change his attitude towards racing and the racing calendar too much. Obviously doing so many spring one day races isn't great for Tour preparation, and beating Jonas is going to be a tall order even with the best preparation. We'll see. I really appreciate how this is all unfolding like the plot of Rocky IV or a Dragonball Z season.

edit: This quote (from Pogacar is too good) Asked what his worst memory of this year’s Tour will be, he laughs. “Probably when Marc Soler kept looking back at me on the Col de la Loze with his scary eyes.”

 

[Omnis]

This is going to be Marc Soler's Christmas card to Tadej this year:

In other news, I just learned that Lauf now does a DTC bike business. Their Seigla is pretty much exactly what I was always looking for. Road/Gravel with some kind of fork compliance and clearance for 57mm () tires. Wish I had known sooner. I swear I thought their stuff was ridiculous like $6k, but the have bikes for only $2,600. Nuts. Unless a used Cannondale Lefty comes around, I have to lose like 50 lbs lol.

 

[Moglet]

My new bike (Santa Cruz Hightower 3 CR) was finally ready for collection on Saturday after 44 days of patiently waiting for the frame to arrive! I got a very good deal on it so didn't mind waiting but my local bike shop gave me some free DMR V11 pedals as an apology for the delay which was a nice touch. I went for the translucent purple frame colour and I'm so glad I did because it looks stunning in the sunshine, and the "glovebox" system in the frame is a nice touch too.

Aaand it's already back in the shop with a horrible clunking sound coming from the front end and a general loose feeling from the bars. They haven't been able to figure out what it is yet, the headset etc. are all tight so they're working through the whole bike until they find the issue.

EDIT: It turned out to be an issue with the steerer tube being about 1mm too long, this was causing issues with the headset. It's been trimmed down and now feels much more solid. I'm curious to see what difference it has made to the feel of the bike!

 

[Dolph Drago]

So I got multiple days behind on the TdF and only finished it yesterday. I avoided coming here just in case of spoilers, which I'm now finding out wouldn't have been an issue with you guys using the spoiler tag. But I digress.

What a showing my Jonas. The man must be part bionic. Not sure how a human could do what he did...unless he got some good, undetectable stuff from Dr. Ferrari. The TT was out of this world. Poor Pog. The dude destroyed the rest of the field, besting WVA by a considerable margin, only to get crushed himself. That had to be a punch in the gut. Then getting dropped on the climb the next day, his yellow chance was over just like that. Congrats to Jonas.

It was awesome to see how well my fellow 'muricans did in the tour. Powless in the polka dots for a couple of weeks. Jorgenson nearly taking a stage. Sepp doing his thing and only losing his top 10 placing thanks to the crash on the second to last stage.

Overall it was an wild tour. Other than Philipsen taking (nearly) every sprint stage, there were numerous other stage winners, surprise breakaway winners, and photo finishes such as the thrilling 4 wide battle on the final stage.

 

[Omnis]

Oof, didn't think about spoilers. Sorry, Dolph.

In other awesome news, Jonas is going to be racing against Remco in La Vuelta.