Great racing today, I love this race! Best man in the race wins his first race. But again, what a strong race by Van Aert and what a beautiful style he has. Respect!

i missed it, did benoot ride right through those two?

---

http://www.PatGriskusTri.com USAT Certified Race Director
2024 Races: USAT State of CT Age Group Championship/State of CT HS Champs/ CT Club Championship - Sat June 15th (Oly/Du/Sprint) Hopkins Vineyard Tri at Lake Waramaug Saturday July 13th http://www.HopkinsVineyardTri.com

Bridged up, waited a bit to recover, and attacked over the top

Benoot looked like he was having on of those special days, he had the look that he was on fire. My picks were so far off its depressing. My only redemtion was thinking an early move would be key. Wout will start to get marked.

Does today change the way this race pans out? More climbers rolling the dice early?

Sagan and company looked like they checked out early, no serious chase.

Benoot oh so strong.

Funny to see not a single front-runner rolling disc brakes in the epic gravel conditions ;-)

well, Stybar was

I've followed him a bit since seeing him finish third in 2013 UCI U23 WC race in Louisville.

While he his 3x cyclocross WC, I had no idea he was this tough. See this clip from finale in Sienna -- how Bardet got away, Wout was just exhausted. Cyclocross WC does worst remount ever. Legs just failed him.

---

________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

He had to get off the bike because he was cramping. Obviously not easy to get back on the bike on a steep uphill with cramping legs.

It's hugely impressive he can go from building a year around 1-hour efforts to getting on the podium of a 5-hour race with stacked field. If/when he dedicates to the road, which seems likely, he could be a beast. Certainly nothing to be ashamed about getting dropped by Bardet.

Indeed. He rode smart too, didn't seem intimidated by Bardet at all. Fun to watch two 23 year olds right there. The Aussie kid Power was impressive. That's a really cool race.

Looks to me like he fell off the bike because he was cramping.

His mental toughness is incredible. He was fighting to stay on the podium.

But it is funny that the World Cyclocross champ tries a flying remount and lands on the rear tire. Ouch. His brain was saying go, go, and his legs said no, no.

Awesome race from those on podium.

---

________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

Van der Breggen won the women's race on a disc brake bike.

Benoot has been knocking on the door in recent races, yes he has arrived.
Is it too early to speculate Van Aert wearing the Quickstep kit in 2019?
Bardet rode away from a very strong group, chapeau for the 2nd place

---

res, non verba

I don't see Van Aert go to Quickstep because they require a full 100% focus on the road. He will get very few chances to do cross - like Stybar or before that, Sven Vanthourenhout, or Iljo Keisse on the track. Unless he is fully committed to his road racing career and willing to end his cyclocross career, I'd think he would go somewhere else where he will get more freedom.

Newest tally is accurate to Strade Bianch; link here

@noodle_soup was the only one who picked Benoot to finish in the top 5. @McNulty was the only one who picked Van Aert to finish on the podium (many others placed him in top-5). Feel there should be some type of bonus for this type of pick. Thoughts?

Also, anyone know what sort of code I should use to parse a non-entry? Right now I'm just putting in a zero (which it effectively is), but it would be nicer to have it show N/A but be converted to numerical zero. Perhaps some sort of IF statement (If any cell = "N/A", return value of zero)?

Kudos to the guy who picked Valverde, I think that if he and Sagen weren't playing the who pulls game he would gave won.

What in the world happened to Van Avermet and Vanmarke?.

---

----------------------------
http://www.instagram.com/cyclewise

When it comes to the Spring Classics, who owns the US TV rights?
I think most of them are RCS events. Last year, BeIn Sports had RCS rights here in the US and I got to watch most of them on my DVR.
I think BeIn dropped those rights, anyone have them now?
Waking up at 4am on the West Coast to watch a race on dodgy VPN internet on the weekends is not a good option.

Italian events are RCS; Flandrien events are Flanders Classics events; Roubaix, Wallonne and Liege are ASO events. Not sure of who all the U.S. rights holders are, but there are definitely two.

Or you can just use a VPN with connection to Belgium, and RTBF/Sporza will have broadcast of almost all (if not all) events.

Or you can just pony up for VPN and Eurosport, which gives you access to almost all events you'd care to watch. The only one for which they don't have access is the Belgian National Championship

Bike racing. :)

In Excel you can use the "=iferror(B1,0,B1)" In this example, I'm saying that if cell B1 is an error, then put 0. If it isn't an error, then use the value in cell B1. So you should be able to modify it to your needs

tru dat

Thankfully we have the treads about Zwift for entertainment until next classic.

Thanks; I'll go tinker with it


Tirreno Adriatico starts soon (Paris Nice already started).

Oh, I know, have been watching PN. But you should check out the Zwift angst threads, which give sprint stages a run for their money.

I think they just checked out and decided to be safe. No point ending a season with on a crash or getting sick before MSR. Sagan looked fine at the end, they just did not want to push.