Pro Cycling Discussion 2021

Reckon we'll see much today or an attempt at softening up? I got the impression Bernal wasn't super comfortable yesterday looking at his demeanour so things could happen!
 
Bet all the track riders thought, oh it's great to be able to compete again at the Euros and didn't expect them to be cancelled due to a significant diplomatic situation, hope they can be rescheduled so we can see where the form is prior to the Olympics!
 
Appetizer to tomorrow with some luck, it's definitely not all done, although looked relatively controlled from Ineos to have confidence on what they needed to do when Yates attacked. Well judged by Yates, but he's going to have to do something special to get almost 3 minutes back!


Could have been very different if DQS made that gap stick earlier in the day!
 
See who pays for their efforts today, and even today you can’t go super deep with that TT on the final day. No hiding there and a collapse could lose a lot of time.
 
That was some showing by Martinez and then carried on to finish 3rd,wonder if he'll move above bardet tomorrow into 5th. Not sure on their comparative tt's but bardet never been that strong in the past. Good to see caruso giving it a go, thought Yates would do more today but tough day got to him it seemed. obviously it's bernals to lose, but you never know!
 
Just in case you were wondering how much power they still have at the end of 3 weeks


Damiano Caruso, stage 20 power:

Full stage. 4:27:42
Avg power: 288w

Passo San Bernardino:
01:08:04 at 334w

Splugenpass:
24:15 at 382w

Alpe Motta (finish):
24:10 at 410w

Weight 67kg. Source: Strava
 
Incredible for caruso to finish off the giro with a good tt. Almeida was solid, his tt phenomenal. What it'd be if he didn't have a bad few days in the cold and have to be remcos carer. That sprint for Martinez over bardet on the Saturday gave him the top 5. Just!

Dauphine been good so far with breakaway wins. Tt results yesterday were very unexpected. And that finish today was incredible. No way on earth did they not plan it.
 
SoliD said:
Incredible for caruso to finish off the giro with a good tt. Almeida was solid, his tt phenomenal. What it'd be if he didn't have a bad few days in the cold and have to be remcos carer. That sprint for Martinez over bardet on the Saturday gave him the top 5. Just!
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Gotta agree, after that first week of the Giro I really thought Bernal had it nailed on. So pretty cool that things got closer and closer - even without him having a particularly 'bad' day. Compare the GC week on week it really proves how much changed over that, the top 10 seemed to get shaken up every couple of days as those latter stages where so brutal! Still, think the best 'GC' rider won, but with riders like they have on their roster to support it's hardly surprising. Martinez was superb to watch & if he sticks with Ineos really will get some fantastic results, but equally riders like him and Carapaz are quite hard riders to see sticking it there for long if they're not given enough opportunity!? Maybe that's just me thinking that.

It was great to see riders like Taco van der horn, Nizzolo, Dan Martin and various others getting great long-overdue wins.

But will admit I enjoyed the first week more than the latter stages. Not sure why, maybe more unpredictable with the bad weather and mix of stages without high mountains? I was the same last year - enjoyed the Dauphine more than the Giro and this year is already proving the same - it's been great.

Maybe slightly biased but really enjoying Ineos' racing this year, far more exciting than the 'mountain train' we've been used to - which they can still pull off - but good to see other teams also trying that (Movistar) with varying results. Maybe Ineos doing it less, or the more varying courses so far, or other teams able to sit on them when they do it making it less decisive. Still impressive to see - but when you have more 'racer' types like many of their guys now it's more fun to see them compete as racers.
 
As for the GCN app probs - totally agree, mine is flaky at best, but usually when first 'starting' a video when it's already casting (from Android to Chromecast). It just hangs there, I have to either end the stream and it instantly starts on the phone, then re-enable the cast and it works flawlessly. Or I have to go into Google Home and kill the cast from there and restart the GCN app before it'll do anything. Never have any issues once it's playing. But I am casting from an old handset (S7) with nothing else really open, when I cast from my active phone (S10) while doing other things would regularly get some buffering.

I watch a lot of the Long Highlights for the midweek stages, then will watch the Queen/weekend/decisive/big stages in full over several nights. Really enjoying GCN+ far more than I ever did the Eurospot app coverage, it just seems much more polished and organised. Without the adverts or bits 'missing' (even there are occasionally). Only thing 'missing' from the Long Highlights would be some additional commentary covering bits not shown in the stream if some key bits get missed (like they do in the really busy stages).

Sean Kelly is getting worse. Brian Smith is getting better. Carlton Kerby is getting funnier and Adam Blythe with Dan Lloyd are amazing together! I laugh inside so much when Dan calls him 'Mat' and they just ignore it and continue on! :cry:

Drop SK and get David Millar back.

Watched 'Tro Pro Leon' or something one of the Giro rest days and it was good, really brutal and great commentary. Not sure who did that (Orla and some guy?) but they where really good. Good to watch some of the 'lesser' races, although the couple of times I've watched CX I don't really get into it like road racing...
 
I was listening to the Ned Boulting & David Miller podcast ("Never Strays Far") today.
Roady said:
As for the GCN app probs - totally agree, mine is flaky at best, but usually when first 'starting' a video when it's already casting (from Android to Chromecast). It just hangs there, I have to either end the stream and it instantly starts on the phone, then re-enable the cast and it works flawlessly. Or I have to go into Google Home and kill the cast from there and restart the GCN app before it'll do anything. Never have any issues once it's playing. But I am casting from an old handset (S7) with nothing else really open, when I cast from my active phone (S10) while doing other things would regularly get some buffering.

I watch a lot of the Long Highlights for the midweek stages, then will watch the Queen/weekend/decisive/big stages in full over several nights. Really enjoying GCN+ far more than I ever did the Eurospot app coverage, it just seems much more polished and organised. Without the adverts or bits 'missing' (even there are occasionally). Only thing 'missing' from the Long Highlights would be some additional commentary covering bits not shown in the stream if some key bits get missed (like they do in the really busy stages).

Sean Kelly is getting worse. Brian Smith is getting better. Carlton Kerby is getting funnier and Adam Blythe with Dan Lloyd are amazing together! I laugh inside so much when Dan calls him 'Mat' and they just ignore it and continue on! :cry:

Drop SK and get David Millar back.

Watched 'Tro Pro Leon' or something one of the Giro rest days and it was good, really brutal and great commentary. Not sure who did that (Orla and some guy?) but they where really good. Good to watch some of the 'lesser' races, although the couple of times I've watched CX I don't really get into it like road racing...
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Hannah Walker has been doing some commentary for GCN/ES and I think she is very good. Sean Kelly annoys me as well, almost every time he speaks he starts with "Yes, well...", though I might be in the minority as I like Carlton and even appreciate Rob Hatch's "native" pronunciation (which I've seen people moaning about). I love Adam Blythe when he gets all excited when the racing is kicking off.

The GCN+ app on Amazon Firestick works well and saves faffing. No doubt Amazon will drop the price of them when it's Prime Day later this month.

On another note, does anyone else listen to Ned Boulting's and David Millar's podcast (Never Strays Far)? Extra long one dropped yesterday reviewing the Dauphine but they also start talking about the history of Girona which I found quite interesting. I had a good chuckle when they announced they had a new animal nickname for a pro-rider. Froome is now the Canary. Harks back to the days of taking a canary down a coal mine. If the canary fell off it's perch, you knew things were going to get bad. So when Froome is seen getting shelled out the peloton, it's just getting going on the front and everyone is about to start suffering.
 
Been listening to ned and David since they started doing the tdf casts. It's a really good podcast and not just cycling. The rambles they go on are hilarious. Not listened to the latest one.

Dauphine finish was tense, good for porte to get the win, but Thomas looked so strong smashing it on the front. Was a strange thing to see him wait but incredible to see. Hes gotta stay upright though, was a stupid accident to have and that descent once again highlighted Richie portes complete inability to ride a bike downhill.

Bahrain have looked very very good this year, loads of wins in big races! Padun backing up 2 days in a row was amazing. Compared to a poor year last year.

Cav finished 2nd yesterday just behind merlier. Was an off sprint as cav just kept looking left at merlier. Just focus on yourself! But still so good to see hom back in the mix.

Everyone needs to watch tour de suisse today. Last 10k was great viewing.
 
Just browsing some pictures on cycling news of the unbound gravel race. Picture of his wahoo showing 238w avg for 10hours. If that is true it really shows the absolute mad level these guys ride at!
 
How is pidcock riding and doing pushups already. That bike looked an absolute mess last week! Suisse has been good so far, nice and tight still, lot of strong riders all up there. Be interesting to see how they try to drop MVDP today.
 
SoliD said:
How is pidcock riding and doing pushups already. That bike looked an absolute mess last week! Suisse has been good so far, nice and tight still, lot of strong riders all up there. Be interesting to see how they try to drop MVDP today.
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How he was riding a TT bike in that area of the world baffles me to start with.
I done two training stints there in my running days and honestly, if you weren't going up sharply, you were going down sharply. The thought of riding a TT bike there sends shivers down my spine.
 
Belgium Tour is where it's at!
Don't see people coming to a complete stand still because of cramps in the fancy boy races :p Belgium is carnage, they race stage races like back to back one days haha.
 
xdcx said:
Belgium Tour is where it's at!
Don't see people coming to a complete stand still because of cramps in the fancy boy races :p Belgium is carnage, they race stage races like back to back one days haha.
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I couldn't decide which action to watch yesterday, so kept with Tour de Suisse (downside of GCN+ - too much cycling now!).

Just looked at today's timings:

Tour of Slovenia : 12:00 to 14:00
Belgium Tour : 14:15 to 16:30
Tour de Suisse : 14:40 to 17:00

Will major on Belgium for some proper blow-ups today then :D
 
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