Careful, you could start down the dark, dark path of making your own bookie odds for the whole field! I like it, though. MdvP is clearly "different."

Some good races in Hoogerheide, today! The course conditions were a bit crit like - headwind on the long road climb resulting in neutralization among big names in the front, and chasers frequently getting back on. And the return of some fresh faces to the front.

At this point MdVP winning a CX race isn't really a spoiler. Amusing to watch him conserve energy, letting the battle between the pride of Lions and Iserbyt play out before finally losing patience and dropping the hammer late.

I say he who administers the pick'em sets the rules.

What are you thinking for the following scenarios:
-finishing in top-5;
-finishing on podium;
-placing first?

Old scoring was 1, 2, and 4, respectively. Another alternative is to halve the bonuses and make it 1, 1.5, and 2.5?

Really good race. Nys looked like the 2nd strongest rider, just one unfortunate turn.

The thing is, Nys has a lot of those unfortunate turns, typically when he's in the red.
.
Not sure, but I don't think that was the case when he was racing juniors? Wouldn't he dominate whole seasons at a time? Jumping up to the elite has seemed difficult for him, but I'm not sure if that's all psychological...

I think that’s true. He has been up and down, and at times blown up from going too deep too early or made mistakes. He’s also young, and racing at an “unfortunate” time against the likes of MvDP and Wout. Hopefully he can put together a few good years.

He's had some success on the road, too (more than Sven ever did, no?), so I'm not too worried about Thibau.
In some ways it reminds me of watching Puck. Mad skills, but maybe not quite the power, so back to those skills...

Lifetime does a great job with this series and while it doesn't make much marketing sense to dump it all on YT at the same time in a random order it is great for a long ride on the trainer.

The Strade Bianche routes have been updated and look pretty interesting. The men's route goes from 11 to 15 gravel sectors. Goes from ~180km to 200+ km with the unpaved distance now going from 63km to about 70km.

 
oh yeah, just seeing him racing is a success! i was mostly thinking just of all the "what could have been". but i jumped the gun with my pessimism. RR looked strong, and he says "I had nostalgic feelings during the match, because I felt like the Egan of the past again. I thought: I'm just going to give it my all now. I didn't care if I was fired. We just pushed hard on every climb. That's how I always raced before, without fear. I think I rode without fear for the first time again," he responded afterwards at Ciclismo Colombiano."

so fingers crossed!

in other races, the kids are looking good!

Speaking of gravel sectors, time to warm up for the 'Loop with some CX Worlds picks?

FVE
Brand
Pieterse

Spoiler: Blanka Vas

Would like to have Alvarado in there, but looks like her back is still bothering her.

MdVP
Iserbyt
Nieuwenhuis

Spoiler: Nys

MvdP seemingly would have to incur a disaster for him not to clean up at worlds.

That’s going to be a brutal race for the hard men.

Speaking of the white road, stage 6 of the Giro will tackle some of the Strade race sections.

MvdP, Nys, Nieuwenhuis
Spoiler: Ronhaar

Fem, Puck, Brand
Spoiler: Alvarado (if a former world champ can be can considered such)

Not sure what was up w/ Pieterse, but she didn’t look good last weekend. Similar for del Carmen Alverado, though that’s more down to her aching back. Brand looks good otherwise.

I wondered about Puck as well. I only saw bits and pieces of the race, but she was going backward fast toward the end.

No idea, but I wonder how many people were racing on tired legs last weekend. I got that impression of MvdP -- that both days were "measured efforts" in middle of a training block. Makes sense when Worlds is the big goal, I guess?

   

brand/fve/pieterse

alvarado

(edited since kbv is out)


mvdp/nys/vanthourenhout

van der haar

After such a long period of racing (going back to 2022-23 CX season), perhaps tired? She really didn't get that much time to recover between racing various disciplines.

Hopefully, she can concentrate on Olympics MTB this year (don't recall the rules for securing a starting spot in the first two rows).

according to the post-race interviews, she had some sort of nasty stomach bug while she was training in spain. only just got back on the bike the day before the world cup. thought it was still worth starting to see how it went.

hopefully she's healthy for worlds - would just be so exciting to have all the girls on form and duking it out.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

I kept expecting Van der Poel to come out of the field and ride away from them

Pretty much what I'm expecting.

In other news, protesting French farmers have been showing their strong early season form of disruption.

Rant Alert.

Frustrated yesterday, and this is the collective where I prefer to share.

Was off yesterday. Mid 50's and sunny where I live. Glorious day. I have always been selective about my ride times. Never during school or work commutes. Pay attention to where sun is. Well established local routes that lead out of town into more rural neighborhoods with wide bike lanes and well accepted cyclist traffic.

Over the past several years, the population growth and construction boom has increased. I would say every season, another large plot of rural land falls for the sake of 200-300+ more housing units. I had two definite instances yesterday where pick-ups deliberately did not give space. I am on wide shoulder, no oncoming traffic, and they insisted on revving, and then not shifting even a hair left so that I could feel them buzz me. Also on ride, oncoming dump truck (headed to a construction neighborhood), well on opposite side and my Varia was clear behind me, as he approaches sticks a middle finger out the window.

Whatever. I am not giving up outside riding. But, it is really starting to feel when not if.

Sorry to hear that.

You might want to consider recording your rides. It might not be worth much, but getting people's behavior caught on camera might make a difference in at least certain circumstances (e.g. people rolling coal).

I’ve noticed similarities here in Bend. We’re just NW of town in the more country area but the past few days it has seemed like an endless parade of trucks. Not unusual (and expected) out here during growing season and harvest, but definitely annoying to see that much more construction-related activity.

Sorry to hear that. It's improved for me since moving from urban CA to rural Nevada. I'm in a place that's politically very different, but close passes are rare, and so far in well over a year, I've only had once instance of overt hostility. Not only are close passes rare, but people tend to go to completely the other side of the road. 10 feet instead of 3. It's nice. In California cyclists are kind of invisible, here you're "seen" as a person, and not seen as a participant in some sort of culture warfare simply for riding a bike.

I am going offroad a ton more, but that's just because here the offroad terrain is, as the kids say, amazeballs.

This is where/why I think things seem to be getting worse. Mostly, it used to be just indifference - drivers acting like you're not even there and close passing, and worst case scenario had the attitude of "you shouldn't be on the road, so it's your own fault if you get killed". Now it seems to be becoming much prevalent to exhibit outright hostility. As in, "I'd be doing the world a favour if I took you out" kind of thing. Based on things I've heard yelled at me and also heard people say out in the wild where it's not apparent I'm a cyclist, there are a few factors here:
1) Dressing in spandex, I must be gay, and as such am part of the LGBTQ+ agenda that is attempting to brainwash their kids
2) The fact that I'm using active transportation instead of burning carbon means I probably believe in climate change and as such am part of the global climate hoax perpetuated by the elites in order to steal your freedom
3) Given that I obviously live a healthy lifestyle, there's a good chance that I probably vaccinated myself and family against COVID, so am also part of a separate but related global conspiracy by the elites to steal your freedom
4) Given all that, let's just assume I'm a communist too

The tribal mentality we have now has parents actively indoctrinating their kids with these beliefs too now.