Godon has had a nice week for himself.

Emergency update! Visma is getting ready to start in the Giro Dickhead helmet! This is too funny, even if its fast.

You beat me to it. Helmet comedy on full display between Giro and Specialized. At least the face sock has gotten the ban hammer.

VLB made it look fast. We'll see if the Dickhead can bail Canyon-SHRAM out of starting with 5.

Interesting to see if return of Reusser can help SD Worx vs. the return of van Dijk at Trek.

Pretty windy out there...all the teams are getting blown around a bit.

Ug, was just giving Trek credit for blobbing up in front of Realini instead of going single file. Too bad about the crash. Looks like Elynor and Brodie are OK, though.

The Giro term I've been using is rude. I've decided going forward this is the Bell End helmet.

That was a major bummer on the crash and hopefully they can race on in the coming days. I have to say the best ride for m was Canyon SRAM. Multiple riders out sick, multiple riders starting while recovering from sickness and they still where close to the top. Zoe Backstedt was constantly on on the front taking big pulls. She has some big watts. Imagine if Dygert was there.

C Rod has that every day at the front of the race vibe.

If he can stay under 3 crashes, he will podium. I'm only sort of pink on that. That dude is hard as nails and the races he has finished after hard hits to the deck show his character. If he can get just a bit of luck I can definitely see him taking a podium.

The Giro helmet is even more absurd on the females. Their entire body fits inside it. It looks like they are able to tuck their shoulders up into the helmet.

enve 4.5 is UAE's road racing wheel for pretty much everything?
they don't go deeper for flat stuff like UAE tour? or shallower 3.4 for mountains?
do they use same tires for everything or vary 28-32 for different courses?

asking for a friend (myself) as I buy either 3.4 or 4.5 for road bike (I'll prob always ride 30) to replace old 5/6 (with latex tubes and 25 clinchers (28 on the front now).
i only ride 55 psi front wheel (I use a 28 tire now) / 65 psi rear with a 25. i weigh 136 (wet and somewhat hydrated).

I can't take hands off bars much in 20 mph winds with the 5/6 which has me thinking 3/4, but UAE using same wheel for everything must count for something!

thanks for all the intel! sincerely, rick

Ragin Del Toro is living up to the hype. Sheesh.

Last year for UAE ENVE’s lead design engineer built an algorithm that determined the 4.5 would be fastest on anything other than a sustained, super steep climb like the Angrilu https://enve.com/...s-started-months-ago With the new straight pull hub this year it dropped more grams. If memory serves UAE does 28/30 and goes up for cobbled classics (though they might have gone to 30/30 as daily drivers).

I have both the 3.4 and 4.5. The former I use on gravel bike and is very user-friendly. The latter is on road bike and 50 grams heavier but faster. It’s a little more grabby in bad crosswinds, but will be far more rideable than 5.6; it’s a different rim shape and also wider. I ride it with 32s and it’s a bit of a Goldilocks wheelset—fast, handles really well and fairly light.

So which one? Tough call. If you want the faster setup then 4.5. If user-friendly is greater concern then the 3.4. The weight difference isn’t significant enough to be a major consideration, IMO. I think Ferris rode the 3.4 only for Fleche and maybe a mountaintop Tour stage last year.

So I read some excerpts from an interview with Stef Cras about "that crash" in the Basque country. Yes, he says the road conditions were poor and the hazards not properly marked or covered up, but he's also blaming the gearing some guys are using. He mentions they were descending the Tourmalet at 100 km/hr and there were dudes that were still pedalling.

I can see the point he's making, and I wonder if restricted gearing could be something the CPA would possibly push for. Maybe at least on mountain stages and/or with exemptions for TTs.

I can see some riders not being down with this, but it does seem like it could be play some role in making the sport safer.

I meant to post this earlier ...

I had the early teams going off on Peacock, when D'Wife cam down for breakfast

"You're watching SPORTS, already??!!!" she shouted, surprised - I guess - that I wasn't making Sunday waffles yet
"It's not 'sports'" I countered "It's cycling, and cycling is an 'art-form'"
"Bullshit. If they sweat, it's sports"
"But I used the same argument when I watch surfing 'it's not sports; it's an artform' and you were perfectly OK with that"
"Surfing is at pretty beaches; cycling is on nasty mountains"

Towel = thrown

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I can agree with that. Though honorable mention to LIDL-Trek getting the fastest time while protecting arguably the weakest TTer amongst the top tier of GC riders - Realini. And they went to extreme measures to protect her. Not just not having her sit in the whole time, but placing a rider behind her most of the time (slight boost in draft), and having the riders in front of her spread out at times to create a better draft blob.

That’s interesting. Seems as though Shimano 54/40 is becoming fairly commonplace, and I think SRAM has a big boy chainring as well?

They have the big chainring so they don't have to use the "inefficient" 10t cog much, but the 10t is still there for the descents...

A classic example of women having to make do with something designed for men - I wonder if any of the teams have taken it up with Giro or Specialised.
Niamh Fisher-Black looked like she had a bathtub on her head and having a helmet that extends basically to the shoulders wouldn't be good in a crash.

She has a point.

My weekend racing experience.

Went to see the nephew at a local road race. Rainy, muddy they all came in looking very Roubaix warrior like. He gets 5th and then finds he was DQ'd along with many others. Apparently USAC put up cameras at a chicane (country roads, out in the woods) and DQ'd everyone they saw taking a too aggressive line through the chicane. Kind of arbitrary as the winner of the race wasn't DQ'd as he was "making an effort to stay right". Kind of wacky but the bigger picture is that USAC needs officials. They're hurtin'. I thought to do it but......all weekends?

On to the Athens Crit. There is a crash, one rider, relatively minor, about 25 laps left. There was a strong break of 6? with 15 seconds. The race is neutralized for some reason and the field rolled up to the break. Breakers not happy. Confusion reigns, Frankie Andreau is calling the action. He leaves the booth to go down to help? Not sure what Frankie was doing but whatever, its cycling, not the NFL.

I'm watching on Flo. BIG Saturday night at Chez McNulty. I see Mimi Newcastle head ref (who has been our local boss and a good one) in her trademark leather cowboy hat take control. You don't mess with THE HAT. She sorts these guys out and it's all good and back to racing.

Point being, Mimi is usually at our race, yelling at me for something, but she's in Athens and not at our podunky ass event. As it should be. She's good and I don't think the whole camera thing would have been a mess if she were present. The less experienced refs did their best, a thankless job mostly.

One of the reasons why I watch a lot of cycling is because of the pretty mountains. The ASO puts a lot of effort into the cinematography of their broadcasts- gotta give the local tourism boards their money’s worth for the fees the ASO charges them.

That's true, too; and castles, chateaux and villas

D'Wife just hates any sort of hills on the bike

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Vollering and Niamh super fortunate to crash about 2 feet past the 3k marker.

Though the crashes suck.

Great leadout and finish by Faulkner/Jackson in the crash-marred finish.

I think Action Jackson squeezed her teammate a little too hard & broke her arm (j/k, she was tied up in the 3K marker crash)

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I'm a massive fan of the 2 and that was a killer finish. Jackson has all the good vibes. I think she was the only rider on the team with the POC aero road helmet.

It's also red, instead of pink

I wonder if that's a Team Canada deal, to go with her National Champion jersey?

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin