Not to be a party-pooper, but GvA really suffered and ended up eighth


I'm hoping the same. The number of mask-less fans on the road was a bit alarming to see, especially the ones who got up close and personal. If i were the health minister, I would not be amused to see this...

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On a separate note, I think this is one of the few races where I saw riders shoving down ice packs down their jerseys. I think someone did it last year at the U.S. Pro Road Race Championships as well (in really hot and humid Tennessee). Shows that both Jumbo and Bora have their logistics figured out. Also telling was that of GvA refusing a bottle with ~30 km left. He was already suffering on the sector before, and it's a bit daft not to take on more cold fluids.

Apparently GvA was vomiting from the heat/effort, so it could be he just couldn't keep fluids down, hence refusing the bottle.

Has anyone found live broadcasts or replays for Route d’Occitanie? Flobikes had it last season. The event web page teases live streaming coverage, but it doesn’t seem to be available in most countries.

This will sound harsh (and it is), but if he couldn't keep fluids down, then that's already a sign of bad planning. With proper cooling, one should never get to the stage of can't keeping down fluids.

Road racing doesn't require a lot of logistic considerations, but sometimes it does. Lemond snatching victory by riding on tri-bars is one of them (though ITTs generally require more meticulous planning). How 7-Eleven prepared Hampsten (and his teammates) for that really cold stage in the 1988 Giro is another example of how to deal with extreme weather. Conversely, one should make additional preparations for the heat.

I know that GvA has done well in the past under hot conditions (his win in Rio and stage win + stint in yellow at 2016 Tour come to mind), but those were "unassisted" efforts, so to speak. Maybe he really could tolerate heat better than his competitors do when unassisted by external cooling means, but yesterday was just brutal. No rain for three weeks, temperature around 36-38 centigrade and no shade, someone should have tried to convince him to accept external cooling; if no one tried, that's on the team. Maybe someone did, and GvA refused; in which case, that would be on GvA.
Maybe it was just a coincidence, but both of the riders who were shown to resort to ice socks ended up doing well. After all, that cooling does provide a tangible benefit, especially important on such a day of attrition

On a personal note (and this is going straight into peanut gallery land and be taken as not more than anecdote from a former cat-3 racer), I'm quite aware of all this, b/c I otherwise would do terribly without cooling aids. Even at my leanest, I was at 174 cm and 68.2 kg, with a 78 cm waist; that's a BMI of 22.5, and I def had a small amount of love handles as well. Which is to say, I would really suffer in the heat. To try to turn things in my favor, I 1) used ice socks, 2) carried at least one insulated bottle that's half-frozen, and 3) carried one more bottle than the distance would normally dictate (2 x 750 mL half-frozen insulated bottles for a 45 min crit or 1 x 1000 mL 3/4 frozen non-insulated bottle + and 2 x 750 mL fully frozen insulated bottles for 2-hr long road races). As a result, I was able to go toe-to-toe against riders whose physiologies (in terms of w/kg) were quite a bit better than mine at lower temperatures.

In the worst (in terms of conditions) race I did, the heat index was 88 F at the start and 95 F at the finish. For the last 45 minutes (in a 2-person break) of the 2 hr 20 min race, HR was 177 bpm average, whereas my normal LTHR is around 174, despite NP being 93% of FTP. Sure, I was suffering, but the 6 pound of ice I shoved down (didn't have a support vehicle like WvA and Schachmann) and the cold fluids meant that I felt it a lot less and a lot later than others in my race. Some poor dude in my field literally vomited and had to be looked after by EMTs. Where I really suffered was the longer races, as I had no one to hand me bottles in the feedzone, and the water that I brought along would have turned lukewarm (or even warmer) after 2.5 hours or so. Then it became a true slog through the conditions.

Is there such a thing as proper cooling while chasing Wout van Aert at 38C?

Of course not, but it was telling that WvA and Schachmann (and their respective teams) fully planned for 38C racing conditions. Both relied on external cooling during the long section of tarmacked roads of ~15 km or so (between end of Monte Sante Maria and ~23 km mark).

x2 with u here - if you couldn't tolerate the heat + nutrition at race pace then you didn't prepare the race properly.

or perhaps he got behind/ahead with his nutrition strategy and his body shut down - happens all the time in triathlon.

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The entire event (IM) is like "death by 1000 cuts" and the best race is minimizing all those cuts and losing less blood than the other guy. - Dev

Yeah. He Lionel’d

Yeah, I really, really try to avoid being the white middle age dude-hack 'splaining bike handling to the women. But dayum, Garcia was soooo tentative. I think she conservatively lost a full minute on those last few descents. Van Vleuten knows a thing or two about over-cooking descents, but she was full send.

WvA too. He did a lot of damage over the last 4 guys on a descent.

This is nowhere near that. Atrocious bike handling should to be called out, and doing so the way we have been doing is not sexist in any way. I used to rag on Evelyn Stevens, b/c while she had a good engine, she’s not a complete racer. i actually really ragged on her, b/c her story was seen as compelling, and many were willing to overlook her faults due to the Wall Street to pro racing back story. I wish Meg Gaurnier had gotten more publicity for her bike racing feats, but she routinely received less coverage, despite being a superior racer.

I think we all ragged on the Schlecks for their shyte handling abilities

Garcia's issue is coming from triathlon. ;) Super strong ride though despite her not knowing how to descend.

WvA is just a monster. He played it right too. He saw what happened a few years ago when he left it too late and couldn't follow on the hills. That said with the way he handles his bike and the way he laid down that power to go solo is awesome. Even if some of the others were with him the way he punched up at the end was almost unstoppable.

Haha in that case:
Sagan, Van der Poel, van Aert
Bettiol, Stybar

Sagan definitely wants MSR on his list and should be on good form. Stybar showed great form last weekend but he missed the boat a bit. Van Aert doesn't need any explanation, big engine and big punch, his coach said in an interview yesterday that even Sebastian Weber (INSCYD) was amazed by his 1-3' power for a classics rider which says a lot if he already put out 471W for 20' a few weeks ago.. Bettiol is in form, and an Italian at a home game is not to be underestimated. Van der Poel just because if he's there at the end and smells the line, the rest of them are screwed.

Not sure about the change of course though, I think there's a higher chance of the sprinters hanging on.

What will Gilbert do to try to win that last monument?



Damn, missed that. Thought he still ended up in 5th.. But indeed he said he felt sick when he came over the line, had to dig too deep so likely as ClayDavis said, he just couldn't keep anything in anymore.



That's what I also thought, van Vleuten would have caught her anyway but every minute later would make van Vleuten more nervous as well. That said, still a big effort and good that she got rewarded with a podium spot.

Wout did admit that it scared him a bit going downhill like that but it opened a bit of a gap, and then the short incline after it was enough for him to try to TT it home.

275W AP and 350W NP for 5h in 40 degrees C heat. 595W for 1'25" for his attack on the gravel sector.

The heat certainly was a big factor, but we're in bizarro world now and this was an "early season" race. Most guys (other than maybe GT domestiques) have to race to get into into real form. Carapaz in particular looked very human, Valverde even moreso. Lots of guys, really.

Animal. Geez.

Question. How do the zones work out once you have a winning pro racer? If their ftp is in the 400's, is their z2 literally like 275w? Or do the percents and zone ranges get different or wonky?

In other racing news, Team Novo had a guy get 7th in Getxo Spain. Pretty good showing. Not a huge race, but I like following them.

My podium is close to that as I think Sagan’s all in for MSR:
Sagan, van Aert, MvDP
Alaphilippe, Gilbert

None of the three can be counted out. Also, WvA is particularly fascinating, as he can also TT. He may not have the raw TT ability of Cancellara (then again, who does), but he can go solo if needed. So among his attributes, he can 1) do the sharp anaerobic efforts, thanks to CX background, 2) sprint at least decently for a classics rider, and 3) go solo. MvdP probably matches or exceeds him on 1), appear to be better on 2), but so far hasn't seemed to care much about TTs. Then again, his chasing back on in 2019 RvV and 2020 Amstel show that he may be talented in that arena as well.

In any case, I'm really excited that these two will go head to head.

Before I make my call (and not jeopardize my 0/5 record from Strade), I'm curious to see what the weather is like. Particularly now that the course is re-routed inland where it might be hotter than typical. (or hotter than atypical, really). Also two new uncategorized climbs, and it's now basically a full 300km. If it's hot, it could get more attritional than a typical MSR.

Definitely this, although my guess is that inland Liguria/Lombardia is more shaded than the region around Siena. It really shouldn't be too different from regular summer riding. The roads they used at Strade were completely exposed, though the gravel sectors actually had some shades. I also wouldn't underestimate the effect of dust kicked up by vehicles and motos on breathing in such situation.

A Belgian commentator called him the Roger de Vlaeminck of his generation considering his CX and (to be) Road palmares, but considering de Vlaeminck's ego and how humble van Aert is I'm not sure how much of a compliment that is haha.

He sure can TT! Not to toot the Belgian horn here but being the Belgian TT champ, you could basically call him the world champ in TT or at least top 3.. He beat Evenepoel, Lampaert, Campenaerts, De Gendt,.. quite convincingly. Except for Dennis, Roglic, Dumoulin, maybe Thomas of Ganna or Affini there aren't many of the top TT'ers left to beat.

We've been hearing about the rivalry between van Aert and VdP for years on now. Although there haven't been any actual battles on the road yet, the media here really try to hype it up too much most of the time.

Van Aert can also sprint, and doesn't seem to be bothered by heat. He was up there at MSR last year, if memory serves.

Looking down the road a little, Jumbo is going to have a ridiculous TdF team.

Some intrigue over at Occitanie with Bernal winning, Sivakov 2nd and Froome 5 minutes down.

Bernal also looked really good on the flat stages. He was finishing right behind the top sprinters. Signalling that he's fully ready to do what it takes to stay out of trouble in the TdF. While Froome was Cummings-style tail-gunning.

Edit:

Though Sivakov makes it sound like it was all planned, and Froome is purely a domestique for this race. Which would be classy of Froome, if true.

"Coming onto the final climb, Castro started off, then Froomey took over on the more rolling section in the middle and he went so hard he put a lot of the other guys in the red. Tao did a great job on the first part of the steep section to the summit and then I did my bit on the front to set up Egan for an attack. It was exactly how we planned it this morning. The fact that we performed so well together is good to see given what lies ahead."

He'd be a helluva domestique to have.

tru dat
we don't see it much in the pro peleton but its pretty common for any mid-summer tri

Talking about watts, on his most recent podcast Wiggo said he was sure he was losing Olympic TT. So ramped it up to avg 500+ watts for last 5k. That's after ~45 min, and as TdF skinny self. Gotta wonder what his spring classics palmares would have looked like had he skipped the GC game.