Wonder if he’s going to the Tour? Pinot, Martinez, Pogacar and TD’s chances could all take a step up depending on how serious things are with Bernal and Roglic.

I don't know. Sure looks like Tejay rode himself off the TdF squad, so maybe there's a spot.

wow - what a street fight.
the no train (Jv or ineos) to pull all contenders along made for a slaughter fest.
pinot couldnt have ridden harder overall but he could have picked his spots better.
team france (other than alaphillipe's well timed pull when peeps could max out the draft) was pretty useless
esp. compared to pogacar's constant pace help and even sivakov when kuss left.

when roglic and bernal are gone - i get it - it must be tough to figure who is strongest and must be followed - but martinez and pogacar had to be pretty obvious.

add higuita back to the mix (and maybe uran will get a little better??) and ef has some serious colombian climbing power.

the wild card now seems to be who will crash when and how bad?? this may also mean train to final climb philosophy is not worth it - who knows how many engines will crash?? how many leaders the engine was pulling for will crash??

is it worth a thread about what might stem the crashing epidemic? my opinion - slow the bikes - something like everyone has to ride the same 36 spoke wheels....i have whiplash after 4.5 months no cycling - this is overload. enough great races for months worth of action and enough crashes for a decade.

to be fair, two of the crashes occurred at places where one would expect crashes. That descent from Muro di Sormano is known to be treacherous, and a few riders went off and plunged below the road in 2017. There's also the gravel Dauphine descent yesterday. Some times, it really is about picking safer routes, perhaps at the expense of "action". Personally, I could do without the Muro, as it's a selection from behind process, rather than selection from attacking. If that would allow for better routing, all the better.

There's also the fact that many riders have had only a few weeks of racing after coming back. Maybe seasoned pros don't need as much time to have their skills sharpened, but that could be a contributing factor.

You mean King Kung?

I'd LOVE to see Higtuita, Uran and Martinez. I don't think they will commit both Higuita and Martinez to the same race though.

Testament to their skills. Traveling at motorcycle speeds but without the protection...

Also, please up your quoting game :p

On the WeDu Il Lombardia edition Lance allunded to 4 months of the guys being out of competition and then going full bore into classics and the TdF prep races resulting in a lack of feel for everything that goes on the peloton (in a different way similar to what we all complain about when Zwifters show up with big watts and can't ride straight). Its like F1 or fighter pilots who need to be at the cockpit at speed in combat simulation to really get the feel back.

But your idea has some merit. Slow down the gear so there is overall less kinetic energy in the peloton....maybe shorten the stages a tough to compensate. If the peloton is going 5% slower, its 10% less kinetic energy during crashes that has to be dissipated, or you have 5% more temporal margin to deal with the same stuff, avoiding having to dissipate 10% more kinetic energy with your body when the body hits the ground. Its partially for this reason that I prefer to train with slow gear (tires, tubes, wheels, clothes, helmet). Its just less kinetic energy if there a crash (and it also makes all downhills shorter since you have to start pedaling earlier and all uphills longer). Somehow I doubt that this would be accepted by teams and manufacturers who sponser teams and want pros on the fastest gear they can put under them.

But for our own training, slow gear is good thing...watts are watts.

In a normal season, you're starting out in Australia or the UAE or such on what are not terribly technical courses and the riders have a chance to get a feel for the road and bike handling skills back in place after winter break in scenarios where there are not typically huge consequences if someone screws up a line on a descend just a little.

But in 2020, we are indeed dropped straight into some pretty tricky parts of the race calendar and the legs are willing but the handlebars are wiggling too much. I wouldn't be surprised if the first mass sprint finish of the Tour is going to be even uglier than usual.

yeah, UAE tour the roads are wide open, smooth and free of most road furniture too. Don't know about Australia....also in the case of a normal season, a lot of the peloton is a bit more out of shape (on average let's say) so they have time to get used to each other on better roads doing less aggregate peloton wide cumulative wattage, on "less important races". Now they are right in the midst of the classics and monuments which mean a lot and the TdF build up races all at once (or as Lance pointed out, San Remo and Lombardy on back to back weekends rather than 7 months apart). So big stakes, big watts on the road, big layoff, no time for the pilots to get back into flying in formation at Mach 3 speed. We would not want rusty pilots flying F-18s at high G forces in a dog fight with no "warmup time"

re - minimizing the crashes
i cant imagine we have access to data on different approaches (this is the first time we have a season with a 4 month lacuna before HUGE races). it sure would be interesting to see what trying some suggestions might do.
i think the 'toughest' parts of the race are ridden SO FAST/SO MANY WATTS that
every easier part of a course is a premium to stay in the race
e.g. mollema and ciccone on the civiglio descent - they buried themselves to get to 14 secs at the top - if they get back to the lead 3 w/o having to do way more watts than the lead 3 - at least mollema is back in the game. that made that descent super important such that mollema took some risks and if didnt overcook 2 turns he might have closed enough to draft into the final climb and maybe get 2nd.
i think this is also true with sidewalks and edges of the peloton as they approach pinch points - cobbled climbs/arenberg forest and the like.

is auto racing an analogy - who gets access to 1 wide corners when theyre drilling it to get to a corner (is the horsepower/aerodynamics of the vehicles vastly different?). in pro cycling it seems like its the dude who takes biggest risks and brakes last w/o crashing. cyclists used to wait when a big leader crashed (or peed) or had a flat - now that kind of difference is enough to make or break a race.

i feel if they don't find a way to lower the risk - the sport will really suffer - what sponsor wants to sink money into something where their stars could crash at any race?

Right. Probably more money in the sport now than at any time outside of peak Armstrong.

Now do football.

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Eh, as far as Lombardia goes, I think that’s bike racing in the big leagues—gotta be able to go uphill, downhill and hopefully not sideways. Want to try and descend with Nibali? Bring your A+ game; he’s racked up quite a tally of guys who have crashed trying to stay with him. The Dauphiné is a different story though. If the road was in that bad condition plus unexpected gravel on it then that doesn’t seem reasonable. Splitting hairs here but the Muro is known to be treacherous while the Dauphiné stage sounded like it was a surprise.

Hope everyone heals fast. Hate seeing that kind of carnage.

Did anyone see Sepp's power file from the Dauphine? For a guy so light that in some nasty power.

...and the young Vlasov wins today. Amazing trajectory. I need to train with Astana so I can up my game. :)

In sort-of-defense of Astana, Superman and Lutsenko seem more than human so far, compared to last year.

As compared to Jumbo-Visma where seemingly every rider is on fire.

Link please?

Check Velonews.

That is fair.

Both Froome and Thomas not going to the Tour.. Ow snap

Gotta know when to fold 'em

Carapaz and Sivakov mixing it up with Dumoulin and Bennett should be spicey

If Jumbo gets back to full strength, we should have a really interesting battle on our hands. I’m looking forward to seeing attacks and tough decisions as opposed to the Sky train just keeping everyone in line.

Obviously neither of them have shown much in the way of great fitness lately, but still Wow!

And Froome relegated to the Vuelta. Ouch.

They’ll field a young team but still have plenty of talent. Will be interesting to see how J-V goes at them.