Yeah, there are entire teams left from several countries. Lot of powder still dry.

Damn that came back quickly once they went.

Will be interesting if everyone’s isolated after this. Solo move could stick.

glad the rain has held off so far - last climb coming up and its anybodies race

All sorts of bike racing going on in this last lap!

Hirschi is going to be a classics beast.

What a superb finale. Unfortunately for Hirschi his reputation precedes him and no one is going to let him make a move.

2020 ..... shitty year producing some quality TV

LFF has guts.

Amen.

I'm in a French household watching on https://sport.francetvinfo.fr/cyclisme and everyone is going bonkers. :)

Of course I'm the voice of dissent hoping LFF is reeled back in.

Alaphillipe sure isn't used to not having a radio!

Go Julian!

haha yeah he is twitchy trying to figure out his gap.

In other news the chase group has fucked up.

This house just went fucking ballistic. What a scene and what a feeling here. That was a deserved win.

That was sick, chapeau.

WvA leads himself out for 2nd, gets a taste of Sagan treatment to come.

chapeau

it's the card he has and he's got the guts to show up and play it.

interesting difference to MSR.

Oh boy, might get unbearable. Imagine if France were to win Euros next year. At least we can all count on PSG to fold like a cheap suit :p

Jest aside, congrats!!!

That was great. @trail will hate me for bringing it up again, but game theory on wheels at its finest!

Definitely deserved after all his bold but mostly frustrating work in the TdF.

Chase definitely screwed that up. Everyone was playing games except maybe Wout. I get it, though. If you help bring Wout to the line, you're getting 2nd anyway.

Very happy with the results. JA is such a fun rider to watch. WvA is a beast. And the future for Hirschi is bright.

And I definitely need to go visit Italy. So beautiful!

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Going to be awesome to see him line up with stripes on all year! Such a suitable ambassador.

Yep. JA is awesome to watch and a rider you have to cheer for. That said, man did the American riders show some weak sauce at the worlds (Chloe Dygert will get a pass here).

There is only one Panache Boy!

Goosebumps over here. Second only to Sagan in Richmond for me.

So well deserved, great for him, for France.
As soon as G Martin attacked the whole group sat up and went, where's JA? Brilliant.

Peiter Serry is a beast. I don't know how he led up those climbs so late.
Belgium crushed it. Beautiful shot of them rolling across that ridge as a team.
Wout is just too strong for his own good. A little more savvy and I don't think he follows that move around 18k.
That said, if he had just a little more help in the chase, he's in rainbow stripes. Those guys were cooked.

We had the same eruption going on in my house today and when he took the yellow jersey. This time, he had a lot longer to go and needed the chasers to also start playing poker. Pretty cool he won this a few months after his dad passed away, but too bad his dad was not alive to see all this.

Do we know what racing he has on deck for the rest of the season. This worlds was one of the best ever. The course did not favour any particular type of rider and you have all those coming off the TdF Block and those doing their Giro build. It looks like those coming off the TdF were the ones who were strongest once the race got into its 6th hour though.

I think Alaphilippe was also luck that Van Aert was in the chasers. Had he not been in the chaser group the other 4 riders would have likely done way more work to close the gap, but with Van Aert there, it was half hearted, because then they would have been working for him to take the gold medal. Had Van Aert been dropped, on that climb, then everyone probably works that much harder. Kwiatowski + Hirschi + Roglic combined should be able to close the gap on Alaphilippe. All these guys are probably better TTers than Alaphilippe and unlike the Tdf Stage 2 or Milano San Remo there was a lot more riding on the flats to do after the descent.

Also Pogacar blew it. he should have done his attack at the same time as Alaphillipe, not the lap before. 40km + was just too long to hold off the full peloton.

Had he done his attack on the final lap on the final cimb, I think he would have won it.

Pogacar was almost certainly coordinating with Roglic. Roglic had leadership on this one.