Eurosport is working for me

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Also MvdP is out of the race. Due to show up in court on Tuesday…

Abandoned early. Pretty bananas series of events.

Scot McGill repping both Mabra-land and rim brakes. Also a bit surprised to see three riders in the break riding rim brake bikes.

Need to watch out for those native Australian animals, they are dangerous.

I think McGill and a few others will get dislodged for good on the next climb. Good showing by him.

Powless could do well here. ETA: completely forgot that he placed 5th last year.

ETA: big front group with some big hitters (few strong Frenchmen and Remco).

Smart riding by the two U.S. riders. Sticking close to Remco. Let's see if Powless has it to go with Remco.

If the move goes with ~30 km to go, it has a good chance to stay away.

ETA: Remco not so smart there, burning matches

oh shit, here he goes. ~going solo with about 25 km left. He did something similar in Liege, could he replicate that effort?

Not seeing the peloton catching at the moment. But Evanepoel needs to keep support as he's not going to do this solo this far out, that would give advantage to the chase group.

He's gone. Just look at how aero he is. And he's got an engine as well. With this gap, he'd be able to withstand even a mechanical or normal crash.

I don't recall a hilly men's World Road Race Championship where a solo move went from 20+ km out. Certainly nothing in the last 20 years...

Yeah, that comment didn't age well, already.....

Where's that edit button... ;-)

Bardet group lost this though by not working. They were well placed to come back I thought.

Lucky they put all those barriers up for the sprint finish.

And Keegan Swenson finished, even ahead of Sheffield. Well done.

Sagan (Peter), in 7th, nice sign of life.

Yes. Just watched the last 2 hours and no mention of him. Didn’t know he was racing.
Maximus is king.
LaPorte still riding great. Baller ride by Lutsenko. If he had not attacked twice and just followed Mini Max one wonders if he could have hung on.

Twenty-seven riders in the "sprint" for second place, though.

Good for them. But I'd have had a hard time staying fired up for that sprint being someone like Matthews, thinking "So close, yet so far."

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

I should note that the only reason why the first chase pissed away its advantage was due to bad gap-checks. The group was given gap-checks that were out-of-date by quite a few kilometers (IIRC, was told it was 1:45 after the final climb, when in fact it was less than 1:00).

I'm all for the removal of communications from team cars, but it really feels like a general safety and info broadcast should be allowed. How UCI hasn't contemplated this is baffling.

I haven't seen any race for a few weeks and just heard from a friend that Remco did another Remco and won. Without watching it I have no idea how it went down. Was this just beautiful tactical racing, pure power or the peloton making a mistake? (Or some combination?)

We are with family in the Vosges mountains; I thought I heard an explosion coming from the direction of Belgium. Now I know why. ;)

What a year for Remco. His solos are exploits I thought would be gone from the modern peloton, particularly someone of his caliber being able to do it despite everyone knowing he keeps winning like this.

My take it was closer to a hammer beat down than great tactical racing.

When the original break was getting close-ish, Remco got away on Mt Pleasent with a group of 25 that had no other A-list favorites, but good representation from France, Italy, Netherlands - and a couple other Dutch riders. The other A-listers either couldn't follow or (more likely) decided to stick with WvA.

Remco was not subtle in that group, he just hammered it. And in my opinion some in that group weren't very smart, taking turns attacking, which only served to soften each other up before Remco dropped the hammer. I get why they were attacking - the group was too big and at risk of stallling. But Remco predictably attacked. And it again was not subtle. He just went to the front in clear view of everyone who knew exactly what was coming, and then rode everyone but Lutsenko off his wheel. Lutsenko only lasted a lap.

Hindsight is 20/20, but it did seem like a mistake by the big teams. But it's a tough gamble because if they had dedicated all their guys to keeping Remco under control, then WvA was just waiting for his turn. I guess they were banking on Remco being tired from the Vuelta, and WvA being the true first option of Belgium. And it was obviously a bad gamble.

Quinten Hermans is the unsung hero. He did some good work disrupting the chase of Remco by the break as soon as Remco got away. He was the unlikely "most significant cyclocrosser" of the day.

I appreciate the breakdown.

Herman's has had an awesome CX and road season. Wanty was shitty to not take him to The Tour. I hope he rests, has a good late winter and kills it for his new team next year.

Hey now, we still have Lombardia and Nibalia's ciao to the peloton.

And oddly enough, the Tour of Guangxi might be worth watching this year.

I think it's cancelled (at least according to procyclingstats)

And yes, still a few more races to go, and then it's cross season! I'm actually looking forward to spectating Trek Cross (~50 minutes away from me).

Lance
George
Cav
Wiggo
Jan
Johan

You should NOT expect in-depth analysis 😎

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

Healthy Jan is the highlight for me. That was a fun video.

Johan has a staggering strike rate by the way. I'd love to see stats, but his picks for a few years have been consistently right and his analysis (not to be found in the Move) is top notch. Second only to Lanterne Rouge IMO.

I watched the race this morning. Remco was a deserved winner and the lack of race radio played in to it. I think if radios were at play he'd have been brought back and Wout would win the bunch sprint. Still, it was a fair win and he did it within the racing parameters of the day. Aero aside, it's interesting seeing Remco and Tadpo who despite their GC capabilities, have the raw power to do something like this in one day races. These guys are incredible.

Wiggins's haircut was distracting, and does Cav ONLY wear Plain White Tees when he's not racing?

In the middle someplace there's a take that Evenepoel ran a 1:10 HM?
I checked on that; it was actually 1:16, as a 16 y/o and had played a full soccer game the day before [with the Belgian National Team, I believe?]

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

1:16 I believe. He did it with football training only, while he was supposed to be resting a minor injury the day after a full match. It was a "fun run."

His team doctor (Anderlecht or Eindhoven, I don't remember) talked about it a while back and mentioned the run and back story. His comments were that he had physiological numbers in lab tests that far surpassed all of the pros and were unlike anyone he had personally tested. Which, should come as a surprise to no one.

I cracked up at Jan's joke about Remco staying away from the winter parties, as he himself obviously had a long sordid past with in many ways.