Might be a few years but we've gotta have hope...

The games/tactics of Eli/Michael haven't worked out for them the past two races. They must have peaked at the beginning of the season.

very true. seems iserbyt's time at the top doesn't have much shelf life to it. i sort of enjoyed the tactics earlier in the season, but its not fun when they just go with the 1-2 punch routine every race. today the strongest rider won because of the course...that was a fun one to watch.

I though Koppenberg was a premier CX venue. How did it get demoted from the CX World Cup?

It was similar last year, if memory serves. Eli was tearing it up until the three musketeers got off the couch. Van der Haar looked pretty game today too.

I think that was the result of the drama of 3-4 years ago when the UCI wanted cyclocross to expand a bit beyond being a Belgian thing, so they mandated that half the World Cup events must be outside of Belgium.

The Belgians went nuts. And I think that was when the Koppenbergcross first moved over to the X20 Badkamers series. (I do love the rubber ducks).

Though I love to bash the UCI, I have to say maybe it was a good thing. We may not have seen CX World Cups in the U.S. the past two years if not for that rule change. And with the X2O and Superprestige series, we still see a ton of top CXers duking it out on all the iconic Belgian courses.

Speaking of qualifications and street cred

Was just flipping around and stumbled across a nice 30 min piece on SBT GRVL that was on Outside. Saw your fingerprints

Good stuff! Very well done.

Somehow, in the middle of all the Phillies and Eagles domination of the mediasphere, Philadelphia Union have made it to NSL Finals vs LAFC ... and no one noticed

---

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

Thanks for mentioning, glad you liked it. We had to change things up last-minute but tried to still pull a theme all the way through with what we ended up having to work with. Really the kudos goes to Ben the filmmaker, I just chipped in with ideas and leg work.

I think Lambie will be retired from all cycling soon. He is on that pseudo team (Jukebox) but he is not being competitive at any of the races he's entered. Just can't see what value he's bringing them or any of his sponsors at the moment. Seems as though he is sort of at a cross-roads and perhaps just over the stress and rigors of competitive cycling - which is fine - just going to be hard to find someone to fund a hobby unless he can really step up his marketing presence.

Note I say all this not knowing if he is injured or has other things going on, more just from following his results this past year looking forward to see what he might be able to do by stretching all that power out. Answer so far is finish with the AGers.

---

"It's good enough for who it's for" - Grandpa Wayne

Yeah, your analysis seems reasonable. I just have trouble wrapping my head around being the absolute best in the world (with Ganna) at any sort of skill, and then just deciding not to do it anymore at your peak. When the rest of us are lucky to be the best at something on our neighborhood block.

I'm not criticizing. All sorts of life issues, stresses, and pressures that we might all be unaware of. Whatever makes him happy, and in one sense he indeed had nothing left to prove in IP, having beaten Ganna head-to-head and held the WR. Though that clearly wasn't Ganna at his best in the head-to-head.

Vos x PFP x FvE should make for good CX racing. Meantime, Piddles hits the dirt in a fortnight while Toon continues dealing with menopause. Cross season is heating up.

Cav to ISM, or did I get suckered in? https://www.instagram.com/...?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Isn't this an almost guaranteed TDF invite ?

That'd be interesting. Because it's not clear to me if IPT is a high probabiity TdF invite if they indeed are unable to deploy lawyers capable of fending off relegation. Though IPT signing vets on their last legs checks out. Might as well grab Quintana too.

In the Grand Tour domestique battles, Vine breaks contract with Alpecin for UAE.

Lol yeah signing a rider in the twilight of their career is certainly on-brand for IPT.

Not sure if having Cav would lead ASO to invite them to the Tour over a French team though.

I do think they have a case for avoiding relegation. There are a number of races, and thus a significant number of UCI points, that they don't have access to because of anti-Israel boycotting, so they definitely have an argument that it's not a level playing field.

The ISM Masters Team of Froome + Cav would certainly make a compelling case for invite, given their history with the Tour. Could/would ASO pass up on such a compelling storyline with Cav? Guess that'd be the question. Unfortunately for Cav, there aren't a great deal of opps for sprinters, and some of them certainly favor the likes of Wout (what stage doesn't), Matthews, Sagan, etc.

 

Sounds like Cav is playing the media with his photo ops

Maybe. But the announcement from B&B Hotels (or whatever they'll be called next year) seems officially overdue.

If those guys ride together there has to be a lot of, "I've been traveling a lot with work" and "I had the kids graduation last weekend" and "can't, she booked a beach house for that week" and "I've got this hip thing going on".

And hot stock tips.

Fem keeps the hot streak going over in Namur. Nice to see Alvarado back in the mix.

fun to see Puck doing one handed wheelie crossing the line in U23

Thibeau Nys was doing aerial tricks off a jump in the middle of the race in Wisconsin. Fun to see him not be super serious and trying to be dad (which he will likely never be, though he might develop into a regular top-3 guy).

Puck-Fem looks like it's going to develop into a great rivalry. Puck needs to learn to cool her jets a bit in the first half of races.

puck is my homegirl. one-handed wheelie across the line for the win, while wearing the rainbow jersey ... you gotta admit it takes panache.

she's got astonishing skills but my feeling for the moment is that fem has the motor for success on the road. puck's such a punchy rider, but fem has that big diesel power. will be really curious to see how they go as they age up.

---

____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

The men's elite race is a proper mud-fest! Super entertaining. Everyone's going to go down at some point.