jumping back and forth - just saw Brambilla is out of Giro so Nibs crew is seriously depleted
going to make a choice and stay with Ronde mostly now

Jan Anton Pijl!!!

Didnt have the biggest engine, but a wily fox who gave it his all. Besides, loved seeing him do his arrowman celebration (a nod to literal meaning of his last name)

He’s fun. Laughs at the various bike racing absurdities and picks up on awesome stuff such as Sep! making a serious pro recovery up to the front of the race after crashing.

Alaphilippe being frisky. Though he may just be getting a head start on the Koppenberg

Alaphilippe may not be that protected OPQS rider and setting people up. Anyone drags OPQS back, the top lieutenants would have an easy race

ETA: wow, or maybe not, that's a healthy gap for MvdP and Alaphilippe

Now, Asgreen jumps, trying to bridge to the lead trio. That's bold (and smart) by DQS. Alaphilippe could sit on while getting a teammate on.

ETA: mooted for now. that sucks for Alaphilippe...

ETA2: CX battle resumes!

ah F#@k that hurts -on the radio and then the ground

now we'll find out between the two

Guesses as to when the CXers will start playing poker?

MvdP: you pull
WvA: I've already won two big ones this year, what have you won?

I missed what happened. I just see Wout and MVP in the lead with 28 km to go. what happened to The rainbow celebration boy?

Flecha just said that MvDP has to leave it to the Paterburg

that's not what I meant by too rugged for LFF....that just sucks.....

OK I just heard on the coverage that Alaphilippe crashed.

Alaphilippe was being slightly inattentive and crashed into a race moto;

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Throwbacks to the 2010 edition. Two strongest OTF

i think WvA might try to work MvDP over on the Paterberg....he just pushed him hard on the Kwaremont

Alien v Predator

Oh man, I just rewound and saw what happened. That really sucks. Outcome looks a lot worse than Froome and Porte going into the back of the Moto on Ventoux at slow speed. What a disaster. This plays into Van Aert's hands.

that was sick....they went up that smoother than is human

They looked like they were going tempo up a smooth newly paved 6 percent grade!!!!

they better not play around too much
just spinning and gap is under a minute now

3000m to go, gap 48 seconds. I think this is a 2 man race now. Would have been more interesting with the third guy kicking around

they'll probably let the gap dwindle to 20 seconds or so, but wouldn't let the second group back

Sean Kelly reminescing about losing to Adri vdP was great. And he was class about it, no bitterness, nor did he take Carlton Kirby's bait on whether Kelly would favor WvA based on what Adri vdP did.

This is great. It's not yet even 9 a.m., and I'm nice buzzed. The withdraw from this will be a bit hard to take. I had assumed that the classics season was gone for good for 2020, but instead we got almost all of the races we want to race. Small victories in an otherwise shite year.

I hope the rest of you enjoyed it as well. Be well, stay healthy and safe! To paraphrase the greetings of the Chosen People, next year in Flanders.

Wow that was a fantastic finish with the peloton kind of closing but still far back.

Surreal. No crowds and what a match for the ages.......wow.

I know blasphemy. But I almost wanted them to call a tie. That was so good.

Meanwhile in the Giro things are getting interesting.

This is an epic day of racing!