Miguel Indurain agrees with you. Lemond likely does not like Indurain's engine that got "massive" suddenly

Pleased that Spratty got second. Took a chance and was rewarded. Not seen any interviews with Corine Rivera so no idea what she was thinking trying to ride off the front. The ease with which Anna VdB caught the break on the climb was stunning

wish they would put more of the womens' UCI races back on TV. We haven't had a lot of the races since Evie Stevens' last year of racing. Next year will be exciting to see how the new Trek team do in the mix with Canyon, Boels, Sunweb, MS and the others.

you can catch almost all of women's racing on Eurosport

Anna VdB went through that break like a hot knife through butter. Spratt was going at tempo; the rest were going at threshold. Didn't take much for VdB to catch them.

Rivera should be applauded for going OTF (in contrast to and better than U.S. doing their miserable Skybot impression); too bad her teammates didn't have the legs to breakaway.

My picks Roglic, Kwiato, and Alaphilippe

Wild card picks, Adam Yates and Dan Martin

Alaphilippe
Old Man Valverde
Kwiato

Wild cards are Sagan and Nibali because you never really know with those two

all i had to do was cut and paste ......

its awesome to hear that from Tom. Tomica, the guy who podium'd PR with training wheels but could still drop the peloton (and his own teammate!!) 10 years later. Tom won with the biggest engine, he won with the best tactics. I'd listen to that guy.

is that Tommeke's sister?

Moscon
Roglic
Kiwato

Wildcars

Sagan and Valverde

I think Valverde has too much in his legs. Ala will be marked the entire race.

Still love him attacking his own break that was away and where he would have won the sprint easily. Studly, and dashing. Didn't work, made little sense but what the hell. Would have been cool. That's panache.

Speaking of dynamic, I'm going with Sagan tomorrow as a darkish horse, longish shot. I know, he's not suited, etc. But,

1. We've seen him bury himself and climb when it was do or die. He will defend the hell out of the champ stripes.
2. He's lives for this stuff. If he's close to the front group at the summit of Hell Hole Hill, they're going to be very unhappy on the way down and in.
3. He'll be light and rested. He wasn't racing for GC or green in the Vuelta so form should be right on. Endurance will be there as will the boom shaka laka which is always there.
4. 7 hours of racing, controlled by the faves. He can and will be invisible almost all day. Then he can descend like no one else. Maybe Nibs.

Alaphillipe of course, Rusty Woods, Kwiat, Chris Horner, Nibs.........going to be very interesting. Maybe Pinot?

Go Peto Go. Best thing to happen to the world tour since podium girls.

Pinot... good idea. Don’t mind if I do.

I heard an awesome story about Evenepoel today. Probably shouldn’t share too much but let’s just say it includes Mrs. Merckx eviscerating him and his dad, which is probably not a way to start your career.

Van deer Breggen adds WC to Olympic championships, Flanders, LBL, Amstel Gold and Giro among others? That’s ridiculously impressive; there isn’t a contemporary dude that comes close.

Yeah, amidst everyone saying Sagan can't win on this course, he considers the rainbow stripes to HIS, and isn't going to give them up without a fight. I don't think he's likely to win, but there's definitely a chance the race goes his way.

could be. I only do Phlegmish in Fonetics.
and they're both #1 with fritos.
or something like that.


I love these threads.

grigio or noir?

----------------
as for Anna VdB, she closed that 1 min 10 second gap in 2 min 45 seconds (though maybe the GPS time gap wasn't fully accurate). That'd suggest she's going at ~28kph while the break was going at 19kph; even if the gap had been only 40 seconds, she'd still have gone at 24 kph... Went past that break like hot knife through butter.

The only person as impressive would be Vos back in the early 2010s, as both could climb and sprint. VdB, however, has a time trialing engine as well, which Vos didn't have. Vos is quite the multi-discipline rider though, having achieved success in both MTB and CX (and track as well, IIRC)

and speaking of pros and other disciplines of cycling, truly amazing what they could do. I picked up MTB recently, and I'd bet some seriously out of shape dude can give me a run for my money in cat-3 MTB races (as in, lowest level of MTB racing). In contrast, the pros seem to navigate the technical demands of MTB with ease...


i'm just messing with ya :p

while we are on the topic of alcohol, who else is gonna join me in some early morning beer consumption? got a bottle of la Chouffe in the fridge.

then. now. I'm in.

man, if Peto could win this ...... shoot.

I might have been drunk and hopped up on frites and mayo when I picked them, so don’t blame me if it goes sideways

It’s Noir season.

I have MTB and CX skill envy.

Let’s see: I’ll tune into race around 6:15 here in Cali. Beer? Yes. Which means later I’ll have to put my bike in the back of an Uber and drive around for 35 miles or so to keep up Strava game.

Well if you are right that would be totally awesome!

Whatever it takes. By any means necessary.
The weather and setting are surreal. 115k to go and guys are being dropped. Petos bro out dee back. Great fans. Reminds me of Roth. Hup! Hup! Hup! Whoops, mentioned triathlon. My bad. Won't happen again.

Kirienko gone already! I don’t know how anyone other than a light climber can be there at the end. This is hard. Warren Barguil is out on a mechanical then just slid out trying to get out of the cars and back on. That sucks for Alaphillipe Gilbert, but he has others.
Ireland has 2 guys in the break. That’s cool to see. Great kits.

how are we watching?

---

Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

VPN and Eurosport.

My Sagan theory is shot. He popped at 92k. Wow.

wouldn't it be funny if Juraj Sagan won today?

Apart from AvdB's very good ride, it was pretty amazing team-game from the Dutch squad. Van Dijk gets dropped off the break, as soon as she's caught van Vleuten strings everyone out, and as soon as that's neutralised van der Breggen goes off the front. The Dutch squad proceeds to ride 3-abreast at the head of the peloton, just to screw up any hopes of catching AvdB.

---

ZONE3 - We Last Longer

When was last time Sagan rode in trade team jersey? He was Slovak national champ for a few years at least before he was world champ.

Rob Britton still in the break. What a ride.
I hope D Martin shanks em all.