And the 2019 men's road race is on right now.

US-centric question here: I see the NBC sports gold schedule generally says UCI worlds is included in the pass but with two days to go, there is no schedule posted. I am hoping it is due to the quick venue pivot but am growing concerned because, as a US fan, the most important race for me to watch is the Women's TT where I hope to see Chloe defend. I am assuming that if for some reason NBC doesn't have that, I would need a VPN and work around geo restrictions? Just want to figure this out so I don't miss out. Thanks for any advice!

---

808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo

I assume this is due to NBC’s broadcast rights and it will be available for US viewers in the Gold package.

Just checked the app and it's now showing on Gold schedule.

Hey, we're a month away from end of October...I'm thinking pro cycling makes it to that date!

OK, that stage racing nonsense is on hold for bit.

Worlds predictions- Men's is super hard to call with TdF miles in so many legs:

Women's TT: Dygert, van der Breggen, Leah Thomas
Men's TT: Dennis, Ganna, Campenaerts
Women's RR: Dygert, Vos, Cecile Utrup Ludwig
Men's RR: WvA, Fuglsang, Woods

One other thing is that if most of the riders come out of this unscathed (and I hope UCI/ASO aren't sweeping anything under the rugs), it also gives me greater confidence to ride outdoors




I think Alaphilippe is cooked; WvA should be okay. Fuglsang is definitely a good bet.

Worlds shouldn't be too much of an issue, given that San Sebastian usually takes place one week after the end of the Tour

Anyone has the startlist for the men's TT?

Let's assume the riders are all Covid19 free going into the TdF and maybe they catch it along the way from team support after daily racing or from roadside fans. We had 23 days for this thing to spread like wildfire in the peloton if it could indeed be transmitted outdoors without physical distancing. All you need is 1 rider breathing out at 100% FTP in the middle of 20 and theoretically based on all the scare mongering, the entire peloton should get infected in a few days.

So either nothing jumped from fans into the peloton infecting all 180 riders quickly, or nothing from the staff jumping into peloton infecting all 180, and even if it got from outside the peloton into the peloton it never spread beyond the initially infected single case to all 180 riding in close quarters.

So this was a good non scientific test.

I would like to see the startlist for the worlds ITT.

I assume Tom D, WvA, Porte, Pogacar and Roglic are all on deck in addition to Thomas from Tirenno.

Is STer MTM racing the ITT for Denmark?

I don't think anyone went remotely that far. Main concern, by far, was the accumulation of incidental interactions with maskless fans on hills, where the idiots can literally run alongside a rider for a good ten seconds while shouting and breathing hard. It's also a time when riders are breathing in more air. Then another idiot fan takes over. Meanwhile, the first idiot fan, after recovering from the 10-second sprint effort, bothers someone else two minutes later.

Of course, the Tour has only been over for only a few days, and incubation is usually ~5-7 days. So let's wait until all the results come in over this weekend, but in the mean time, I am optimistic.



MTM is indeed doing the ITT. List is difficult to suss out, but here it is https://www.uci.org/...-imol-me-entries.pdf

I'm all about Ganna for the men's TT and I do think Dygert is a favorite for the women's TT.

Mens/Womens Time Trial and Road Race are all airing on the Olympic Channel

what I am getting at is if one rider got infected by roadside screaming fans or from staff, he would have given it quickly to all 180 if this thing works outdoors like some peope hypothesize. After week 1, no rider got it from the external world and spread it to all 180 in spite of riding at high intensity in close quarters for 4+ hrs per day. Then in week 2 this did not happen either. Now we await the fallout (if any from week 3) of riders infecting other riders after they pick it up from fans/staff.

Realistically, this has been going on at the Dauphine and Tirenno also. Its not definitive, but we're getting pretty close to being able to say that riders moving at 15-75kph cannot pick it up airborne from the roadside. We may or may not be able to say that an infected rider gives it to other riders or not, because it seems we have not had infected riders riding long enough in close quarters to know if they transmit it in enough density to make an impact.

On a separate note, in my city, indoor pools operating for 2.5 months either 12 or 16 swimmers in the pool at a time, swimmers breathing hard at each other at the wall after intervals constantly, zero cases of community transmission when in a city of a million 0.33% of the population have been recorded to have been infected. So either none of the infected swim, or those who have swam while infected did not transmit. Not enough to really know any relationship but its comforting the more activity that is out there and there are no cases arising directly from that activity, giving people more confidence what can and cannot be done with statistically low risk. It seems pro bike racing is statistically low risk so far based on data at hand (vs. projections).

I like the choice of the specialists for TT. Agree on the women's picks, going: Ganna, Dennis, TD for men.

Gotta think about rr more. On paper it's a good course for WvA (what course isn't) and Alaphilippe. Roglic could be dangerous as well.

I wonder if this will favor the likes of the specialists. Unlike past years, when there were two days between the ITT and the RR, there is only a one-day rest between the two events. Could one recover, probably. But it could also really sap energy.

Agreed, that'll be interesting. It's curious how a TT effort opens some people up while putting hurt on others. However, worlds is short at 32k and flat. It looks like one for the pure specialists, and not one likely to take a lot of recovery.

Related to TT, I don't want to devolve into a doping conversation but will bring up Pog's win. Yes he was the best climber in race and yes he's a semi-accomplished TTer, and yes, TD was definitely not on his world champ winning form. Still hard to believe? Also yes.

But then what about Chloe's win last year? She won by a bigger margin on much shorter (time-wise) course and one that vDB is more evenly matched on (than Pog's climbing prowess compared to TD). So should that be in doubt? Or Fabian beating TD at Olympics by nearly a minute?

I'm in the camp that Pog riding the climb without a power meter was probably a good thing--Chloe didn't use one at worlds last year and many classics guys don't race with them either. The numbers don't matter at all and can influence performance for good or worse. He went all out by feel and came up big.

Of course it's natural--and unfortunate-- that we're back to this point with a "was it too good to be true?" performance. Sure hope not. It's also disappointing if he's clean that he'll face that scrutiny for rest of career. That's all.

I sort of cast some dispersions earlier but I'm of the opinion that the UCI has done a stellar job overall in changing the "industry standards" from back in the day. And the racing really benefits. It's seems more human overall, with big fades and upsets and a young crop getting real opportunities to make it stick in a race.

I'll be curious to see van der Breggen and Dygert's time splits. I have to say, van der Breggen has the most perfectly still TT posture I have ever seen. I'm not sure I've ever noticed it before. No snaking, no head movement whatsoever. She is just rock solid.

Boom! Chloe looks great.

Good lord that woman is strong!

Hope she can stay on the gas.

Oh f***

What happened there? Rolled tubular?

Jesus I hope Dygert is okay.

I couldn't really tell, but it didn't really look like a rolled tube to me. I guess we will see.

This seems like a looooong wait for any information. Hope shes ok....

---

Me: https://carnivoreendurance.blogspot.com/...ever-comes-next.html

Latest: Colorectal Cancer is in the News Again. Don't Blame Red Meat
https://carnivoreendurance.blogspot.com/...news-again-dont.html