Dang. You went there.

To be fair, Cancellar’s sprint (due to physiology or tactical nous) improved later on in his career.

But comparison to Boonen is probably apt. I think his last major classics win was either 2012 or 2014, but he was still relevant for quite a few years afterwards.

For sure, at PR especially. Second to Hayman in 2016 and then was I seemed to remember sat on by a group in 2017 when GvA won. Meanwhile, 3rd behind Sagan and Cav in Doha WC and had a great ride in Richmond in 2015 when Peto dumped everyone.

The Triplets of Belleville is available on Hulu, if anyone is interested

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

omloop picks:
turner / wellens / kung - dark horses - mohoric / and back on the sagan bandwagon (john lennon asked - please, 'don't let me down')
didnt see myself saying this a few years ago - but ineos is stacked - options on options. so is tjv but they havent shown any cards yet.
if (ok, when) sagan let's me down (again) - i'm picking de lie in every race he enters going forward.

the prelude to omloop has been incredible racing this year.

Haha, I see what I did there, and you did better.

For sure. He always had the big engine, while Boonen relied on his sprint earlier in career. Towards the end it was interesting to see how much closer their skill sets became.

Laporte, Pidcock, Stuyven
Lampaert, De Lie

Calling for a 5-15 person group sprint

Masterpiece.

yeah, pieterse is racing omloop!

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Just for grins, taking a different tactic on the picks; going with riders who haven't been mentioned yet:

Meeus, Senechal, Turgis
Van Moer, Tiller

Oooopening Weekend!!!!

Omloop:
Wright, LaPorte, DeLie
Cosnefroy

Aaahh....van Baarle doing van Baarle things. Gonna be a nail biter, though.

JV is the new Quick-Step, apparently.

Don Ogre to go ape-shit apoplectic

Good pick with DvB. Hard to decide in advanced which JV rider would win.

DvB was a great pick and what a ride. De Lie put in a ridiculous ride that should scare a lot of people. The amount of work that he did with LaPorte sat on and then being able to sprint that long was incredible.

He basically secures a disproportionately high number of points for Lotto

Also really odd to see Wellens not in a Lotto jersey

I don't think he stays there long unless magically that team gets a bigger budget and much better support riders for him. Last year he did mostly smaller races where of course he dominated with a very high strike rate. I've been eagerly waiting to see him in these bigger races.

   
dvb and de lie both very impressive. jv looking ridiculous.

all smiles and encouragement in the quick step bus

kbk

milan/phillipsen/kristoff

lampaert/sheffield

Man, Flo's women's coverage was a disaster. Join in at 16K. No commentary until 10K. Cuts out from 1.2K to like 500m. Great job by SD Worx, though.

KBK


Fabio, Fred, Phillipsen
De Lie, Meeus

And they still charge an insane amount per year for the coverage.

yep they do charge way too much; too bad they have most of the Classics this year- and the women's coverage was iffy
t
thanks for clarifying where to see start list - gad i've gotten old because i never realized/saw the drop down box to change classification

thanks CS - believe WannaB had him also

DvBaller just rode the field off his wheel. Pretty simple. JV had it all covered w LaPorte.
I'm not a big fan of the pulling through then stall. Bigger fan of the stay out of the way and sit on. Seems more pro.

KBK

Fabio
Jasper Phil
Jasper Stuyven

Turgis LaPorte

Alright, KBK:
Jakobsen, De Lie, Laporte
Kristoff, Ballerini

I’m basically going with something very similar

Jakobsen, De Lie, Laporte
Kristoff, Phillipsen

Head says mass gallop, heart says maybe someone like Mohoric might slip away