And Paris Tours tomorrow for Phil Gil ballin one more time. Pretty good field.

He mentioned with better legs he would have done just that and I believe it. He didn't have a great Tour or World Champs by his standards.

Yes, was pretty awesome!

Have to say, being there on site it did not feel like a let down. Apparently, if he had had the same atmospheric pressure as Bigham had, he would have gone 200 m further, which is mighty close to 57 km. Seems there would also be scope for aero gains, if Ganna was prepared to adapt his position more...

That would have been fun to be there.

Anyone watching Gravel Worlds today? Does anyone have any idea of who might win this? I'm surprised with some of the guys lining up. Superman being one of them. Vino being another FFS.

I'll take Slik or MvdP, without much of a good reason besides Slik has been good all year and MvdP totally F'd his late season goals so this should be redemption time.

Watching now. The parcourse seems to favor a GvA or Sagan type but who knows this time of year and its all new. Seems kind of Roubaix ish with sectors of paths and plenty of pavement. Doesn't really seem all that great from a gravel perspective, but they've got the stellar field for sure. I'm kind of spoiled as I have hundreds of miles of gravel roads through open, Piedmont countryside literally out of my front door. Maybe Worlds will be here someday.

I've been getting my first taste of real gravel the past year and it is glorious.

This does seem like a GvA, Sagan Roubaix kind of race. Vermeersch and Oss currently hammering it off of the front and I could see them staying away.

These front two are going to take this. After all of the work Oss does for Sagan and others, I'd love for him to score this.

Yes. Oss is a beast. Hoss.

Did your feed just drop out?

I had to move from Eurosport to Youtube and all is fine again.

it would be awesome for Oss to take this but they are starting to drive in the back -
more bike path way course with its various surfaces - I think its this course for 2 yrs ??

GCN has lost the feed but Flobikes has helo view

Wow! Vermeersch dropped the hammer down. Where is Oss?

I love Oss blowng kisses to the crowd as he took second place. Kudos to Vermeersch for that win as well.

Yeah, they missed the most important moment of the race!

Oss blowing kisses was cool - a little bit of gravel ethos in it being OK to celebrate when you're not the winner - little rarer on the road.

It was especially nice because a win would have been incredible for Daniel, but he still got to celebrate his own result and the wonderful tifosi.

I'm still unclear whether there was some sort of issue with Daniel or Vermeersch just rode away.

Daniel gave such a positive post race interview. He said the length of the breakaway and fatigue basically did him over in the finale. What a great performance.

 

bit of a snoozefest i thought, though a very beautiful route.

not surprising to see wt roadies all over the top results. wt is where all the talent is, just like itu in tri.

leads me to wonder - with dumoling, wout, and primoz all being decent runners, and thomas and porte being rumoured to be tri-curious, which wt team could start 3 racers at kona and have the best (albeit long) odds of pulling a mapei?

By virtue of Wurf actually finishing 11th at Kona, you'd have to go with Ineos, along with Thomas and Porte. (assuming we can still call Porte Ineos even though he hung it up already).

They drop the Norwegians in a 3-man TTT, developing a 20-minute lead into the run, and hang on. There is a big scandal about drafting non-calls in the TTT. After 9 months of arbitration and lawsuits, Ineos prevails on grounds of though it *looked* like they were nose-to-ass for ~5 hours, it can't be scientifically proven.

hahaha

Definitely Ineos. Porte has serious triathlon credentials as a junior and very very fast run times from that age. He has continued to swim throughout his cycling career too which helps. I haven't seen him say he will go to Ironman, though Wurf has said he discussed it with him. Both G and Froome (though not on Ineos anymore) have discussed their intentions.

Besides Porte the most serious candidate is Campanaerts as he came from a swimming and triathlon background. He's been to Kona to spectate and cheer on his Belgian bros. Formolo also intends on trying his hand at long course, though I'm not certain of his run and swim pedigree. We've certainly seen some good athletes like Talansky and Hanseeno not be able to translate their engines to top level triathlon.

Michael Woods said he would do IM. He's from a running background
Hugo Houle started in tri and he is committed to doing IM. He promised his brother. His wife does them.
Valgren said he would do one as well. Apparently he swam as a kid.

 


woods wouldn't survive the technical descent down mahukona tho. /s

houle, interesting, didn't know he came from tri. very good tt too, tho doesn't always get to show it. and he's been hitting some real good form last 2 years. pre dauphine crash i'd be more hyped for froome, but i worry his best is sadly out of reach now.

i knew both porte and campanaerts were still swimming offseason, and i think they have to be top of the list for wt riders that might surprise at kona. i admire wurf, but i've often thought that if he can place as he as, there have to be other riders with the swim/run package in the wt that can do better. for some reason i thought id read that de gendt had some swim/run in his background but i can't find anything now.

i agree it looks like ineos is the top pick for my kona-mapei challenge, but if the jumbo guys can get some swim chops i think there's a challenge there.

Woods being from a running background is a little understated! Houle and Valgren would be great (Houle's win and the background at le Tour was tops in my book for this year).

Thankfully Mike's handling skills would still put 95% of triathletes to shame. :)

Wurf has a few elite traits in my mind that far surpass most of his peers: His clear ability to absorb and handle work as well as his teachability. To swim pretty damn well and run the way he does is fairly amazing, given the age where he really began doing those things seriously. He is a very impressive all around athlete.

I scrolled through the replay because it was such a snoozer, pretty lame course for a gravel race. More like a flat, fall edition of Strada without trade teams, which made it easy for break to stick.