His spring season team has been super strong so not sure what you mean by that - what do you think his one day racing team needs?

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The entire event (IM) is like "death by 1000 cuts" and the best race is minimizing all those cuts and losing less blood than the other guy. - Dev

Yeah, van Baller, Lasporty, Benoot, Tratnik, and Kooij probably make up the premier one-day supporting cast in the World Tour right now. Last year they just got rolled a few times by other-wordly efforts from Pog and MdVP.

Me, even though I'm not a big WVA fan, I'd love to see him win either P-R or Flanders.

Easy to forget that Laporte is right there with WvA fighting for the win at PR if he doesn't have terrible luck.

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Tech writer/support on this here site. FIST school instructor and certified bike fitter. Formerly at Diamondback Bikes, LeMond Fitness, FSA, TiCycles, etc.
Coaching and bike fit - http://source-e.net/ Cyclocross blog - https://crosssports.net/ BJJ instruction - https://ballardbjj.com/

+1

More TTing than last year, but there are still only just under 60k of TT miles in this year's TDF. Compare that with, for example, the Armstrong era; in 2000 there were 145kms of TTing. 168 in 2001. Both years had single TTs that were themselves right around that 60km mark, plus a TTT. That is a discipline that the TDF has clearly decided they want no part of anymore, unfortunately.

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Tech writer/support on this here site. FIST school instructor and certified bike fitter. Formerly at Diamondback Bikes, LeMond Fitness, FSA, TiCycles, etc.
Coaching and bike fit - http://source-e.net/ Cyclocross blog - https://crosssports.net/ BJJ instruction - https://ballardbjj.com/

And now MJ.

But your point makes what Pog did at Flanders all the more impressive; JV could have had 25 guys that day and they’d still have gotten rolled. MvdP was on a similar level at Worlds—nobody was going to stop him.

mvpd if you watch careful ALWAYS save his best effort for the right moment - Even Chris Horner in his show has said this multiple time. Not taking a pull here and there, hiding in the climbs here and there so when he attacks he usually has the fresher legs.

Pogi MSR and flanders was trully on another level - attack after attack until he broke the competition (close in MSR and of course he won flanders)

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The entire event (IM) is like "death by 1000 cuts" and the best race is minimizing all those cuts and losing less blood than the other guy. - Dev

50 days and counting.......

https://www.instagram.com/...MTljYW9ra2oydWFnMQ==

I still get chills every time I watch that. Bring on the Spring.

Ultimate strongman performance

MJ?

Jorgensen.

Also, looks like Aussie Road Nats (which is often quite an entertaining race) looks to be the first casualty of the demise of GCN. Not that I'd watch it live anyway, but if, say, I wanted to watch a replay I don't think there's a legit way to do it.

Wout to race one more CX and then call it a day for the CX season - Interesting...

he didn't look happy after his last third place so perhaps something is not going the way he wanted.

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The entire event (IM) is like "death by 1000 cuts" and the best race is minimizing all those cuts and losing less blood than the other guy. - Dev

Too bad that the Big 3 (2.5?) will not have any satisfying final battle.

Though quietly lost in the MdVP death star ray that makes everyone look slow is that 22 y.o. Pim Ronhaar is slowly becoming very, very good at CX.

Yeah it's been good to see Ronhaar and Nieuwenhuis really rise to the fore this cx season, adding some extra competition into the mix of usual suspects. It's somewhat made up MvdP's dominance.

And as someone mentioned earlier, the women's field has been really competitive with a resurgent Alvarado and a dangerous Brand adding the the expected Puck and Fem show. Also looks to be some good young talent on the come-up too which should bode well for the coming years.

New year, same Mathieu.

I hope the nose from the women's race is OK! The face-plant is one of least fun ways to fall off your bike.

Yeah at this point with Mathieu it's just the suspense of trying to predict which course feature he's going to use for his orbital nuke. I predicted the right one this time.

Scary fall. Especially after separating her shoulder over the summer.

Not the body part you want to land on.

Unfortunately, I can relate (the Ti hardware in my mouth costs more than my Ti Hampsten/Bingham frame).

At this rate, Pieterse could probably pop a manual on her way to defending her driekleur.

Also, what happened to del Carmen at Gullegem? Trailing riders she really should be leading before DNF.

back problems. not uncommon at end of kerstperiode

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Tech writer/support on this here site. FIST school instructor and certified bike fitter. Formerly at Diamondback Bikes, LeMond Fitness, FSA, TiCycles, etc.
Coaching and bike fit - http://source-e.net/ Cyclocross blog - https://crosssports.net/ BJJ instruction - https://ballardbjj.com/

Back problems bad enough to DNS Zonhoven. What does the overall World Cup look like now?

that nose f'ed...

I feel bad for her cause she was having a solid season after the shoulder issue.

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The entire event (IM) is like "death by 1000 cuts" and the best race is minimizing all those cuts and losing less blood than the other guy. - Dev

oh man, spoke too soon!
lucinda out with a broken nose (i think?)
ceylin out with back pain
fem out for 2 weeks of recovery/training in spain
vos now out (again!) with covid
shirin out with broken ribs

it's a long season, for sure, and a few other girls also seem to be getting fried too. rochette cancelled some races to return to canada at christmas to recover. hope we get everyone healthy and firing for world's!

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