Van Emden and Kruijswijk?

Not on account of anything else other than they’ve both been with the outfit for years (6-7 at least, for both riders)

I’d say van Emden, simply b/c he’s been riding as a domestique for a long time.

ETA, no clue on the actual race though. And what do you know? He’s a one-team man. That’s a rarity.

What a baller. That move almost never sticks.

TJV is like a bored cat toying with a mouse, thinking what should it do to amuse itself today?

Answer: tilt the playing field against itself and then try the move with low chance of success. And somehow, it still catches the mouse.

Belkin at the Tour of Hainan 2013? van emden?

Another trivia, who was the last single rider that swept all stages in Europe.

 
bingo, 2013, kruijswijk and van emden.

hope i didn't jinx them for the repeat.

@Engner66 off the top my head, i have a vague memory of demare doing that at a smaller french race?

or maybe van vleuten?

Yup, Demare in 2018. He was in league of his own sprinting, but I it was cool when he showed us that he could put a solid TT ride for the win when he had to.

predictions for tomorrow vuelta 3 climbs w/finish on tourmalet?

i think there will be interest in a break and some swings by folks like vinge and soler but i think remco and anyone he has left will be able to stitch things together for final climb of favorites. roglic for 30 secs on remco for another 30 on kuss/mas/almeida. i think ayuso might suffer from crash 2 days ago. i think vinge might suffer a lot (and might make a few attacks beforehand). the 20k or so 2-3% grind from bottom of climb 2 to bottom of tourmalet could be very interesting if jumbo can get someone ahead and one of their big 3 gets away from remco. wilco drilling sepp or vinge to a 2 minute lead on tourmalet would be big.

canada prediction is boring cuz he's been killing it - madous / gee / (peanut butter and) Skjelly

No doubt, it's a sweet one. But gotta throw down some major wattage to make that move stick.

I'd love to see them try to fire Venga up the road on that second last climb, but I feel like the GC teams are all going to save it for the Tourmalet. I'm not sure whether there will be a real GC shakeup other than I feel like UAE is going to have a much clearer picture of who they're riding for after tomorrow, and my bet is it's Almeida.

GPQ tomorrow... of the two Quebecois races GPQ is more punchy/sprinty, so I'm looking at De Lie, Strong, Matthews, Laporte, Cort, maybe Aranburru. Climbier types waiting til Montreal. But who knows, could also see someone like Wellens or Healy go a little longer. Would be stoked to see a resurgent Jungle Bob do something too.

The fam and I will be in Montreal on Sunday. We're all a little disappointed no Tadej or Wout this year but a strong Ottawa contingent to cheer for in Woods and Gee.

My prediction is that Venga is not fully fit, hence why he was fetching water bottles today. I think he will be working tomorrow too.

Would be interesting to see if Remco can keep up on a big mountain pass racing the best of the best.

I agree with Kuss comments about the Tourmalet not being too decisive as it is just a continuous 7-8% climb so likely a small group going for the stage win.

Someone did kilo moves at Quebec before. I think Uran was the last one, going back to 2019? Otherwise just a chaotic sprint. See Gesink’s win in 2014. Lanky climber with the most unlikely of sprint wins.

   
for quebec: de lie/matthews/teunissen
montreal: skjelmose/yates/bilbao/

over in spain, while i'm really hoping for kuss miracle or roglic, i have a suspicion jonas is gonna smack everyone at some point, maybe today.

when i was thinking about the sweep question, i was wondering if the answer was allan davis. when i first started cycling, we was like mr. tdu. seemed like he won everything. but no full sweep it seems, looking back.

am also a bit surprised someone like matthews or sagan never pulled it off, as both could tt and win on a lot of terrain.

Griepel was like that too for a few years. They then finally added the Willunga Hill climb, and now sprinters have to climb at least a little bit.

I was also wrong in the previous post. Uran won in 2015, but he did pull off a kilo attack. Gesink won in 2013, not in 2014. Middle age does funny things to memory.

 
im no huge remco fan, but i sure hope he's ok. there's been a few riders who just can't get their health in order in the last few years, and it would be awful if he was one of them.

He’s definitely suffering from some kind of illness today, or so it seems. Hope it’s not too serious long-term.

I hope Lefevre allows him to withdraw. This isn't conducive to his long term performance.

Sad sight...

Been a busy week so just getting on this thread now, let me tell you, it was HOT!!, standing outside for a few hours under the baking sun with no shade was tough.
My 7 year old couldn't hack it, so I had to put him in some building near the finish that had AC running, my 10 year old on the other hand absolutely loved it, we parked ourself about 200 meters from the finish line and caught the 4 city laps, he also did the Wahoo challenge at the expo.
Overall it was fun.
I got to chat with one of the Corrotech - Sella Italia riders and he said that the race was very hard, and at one point Trek went to the front and just ripped the race to shreds and that if you weren't near the front when that happened your race was basically over

No Mas for Remco, he’s done. I sure hope JV rides for Sepp now.

 
almeida 'hey guys remember when grand tours had 100k tts? that was so cool'

Well, so much for my prediction that Almeida would emerge as the strongest of UAE's riders. Lots of drama early on today, will be interesting to see what gets said about Remco after the stage (assuming he finishes). Does seem like illness.

At this point it's looking great for Sepp, even more likely now that JV rides for him all the way. JV could be eyeing a podium sweep, which is not great for the sport. Hopefully UAE can keep it interesting.

GC KUSS!!!!!

Absolute masterclass from TJV today.

YEAHH!!!!

Massacre. They've been rolling the cycling world lately.


Pretty good times up the Tourmalet. Sub 51 minutes for the top guys.

Wow, I think everybody, including Sepp now realizes he can win this thing. Sepp brought back about 30 seconds on Jonas in the last kilometer!

Amazing. Sepp looks like the best climber in race. I hope he sticks this, well-deserved for his tireless work for the team.