I'm going to need a nap after watching the climb.

Roglic was impressive...any idea of weakness after the jacket debacle is over for now.

Dan Martin continues to impress. Normally these extended climbs put him in trouble, but he's been clinging near the leaders every day.

Quite the counter punch by Roglic on Carapaz. Decked him. Not easy to do to the Paz on a climb like that.

You are right about Dan. He is mitigating losses on climbs that traditionally hurt him more. ISN is riding and intelligent race I think. They don't have the strength but they've been clever enough.

Roglic rode it at 25:00 minutes, so ~6.3 w / kg.

Sick. Those are Zwift numbers.

I like Carthy. Kid has moxie. They were saying he went too early and maybe, but he sure went after it.

And Kuss is like, hey man, it's all good. What are you guys up for after dinner? If he can ride in support like that his whole career, he's going to have a long one if he doesn't get bored.

haha not even as good as Zwift numbers.

I like how Carthy has been riding, but unless I've missed something his whole career, he does not TT well.

He's 6'4" and British! He's got Boardman, Wiggins, wind tunnels, and vast chatrooms full of TT-splainers. He's got no excuse for not putting a passable TT together.

Joking aside, I wonder if EF has lost a lot of its TT institutional knowledge now that all the TT greats of their past years have departed.

one Mabra racer could apparently do 5.8-6.2 w/kg at ~70 kg, albeit this is for a 20-min effort in an hour long race. One would think that if he were to do even 90% of 6.2 w/kg for FTP, he would be on a real pro team, rather than on a really strong regional amateur team.

ETA: he apparently couldn't even finish in the top half at the climbing stage at GMSR, which make that 5.8-6.2 w/kg number quite suspect...


love it

I stand corrected. He went sub 25 and it looks like it took 6.5 w / kg. Still very likely he couldn't win a Zwift race.

 
"one Mabra racer could apparently do 5.8-6.2 w/kg at ~70 kg, albeit this is for a 20-min effort in an hour long race. One would think that if he were to do even 90% of 6.2 w/kg for FTP, he would be on a real pro team, rather than on a really strong regional amateur team."

Oh, I think I may know who that kid is. I think there may be some serious stage mother stuff going on with that him. Nice kid, btw but not pro.

I gotta say, today was a proper attacking battle by the top dogs, maybe better then what we had at the Tour or Giro, and Roglic sure looked super strong and determined, and Kuss, wow!. he was sitting there on Mas's wheel looking like he was out for a coffee ride.
It looks to be a really good 4 man fight, but as mentioned Carthy can't really TT and I dont think Martin can either, but I'd say the Vualta is shaping up as perhaps the best GT of the year so far.

It's issues like this that give Zwift a massive credibility issue. It's not there aren't people among us who genuinely can do 6 w/kg for 20 minutes, it's that we know who they are, given that they invariably rise to the top. There's a Canuck here on slowtwitch who could do just that (Jordan Cheyenne), and he's a known quantity in the North American racing scene due to his exploits.

Like I mentioned last week, save for one person, the ladies who are supposedly better than Chloe Dygert had squat-all to show for when they actually raced in Europe. Granted, IRL racing, especially European classics, places much higher demand on handling ability and tactical nous, but their supposedly superior w/kg should at least compensate for a bit of that (as was the case of Evelyn Stevens), and yet, almost all on Tibco went missing...

And back on the topic of Mabra racers, there are two with quite mediocre IRL racing history who nevertheless could somehow supposedly do at least 4.8 w/kg for 20 minutes on Zwift. Both could supposedly do ~335 W for an hour, but neither can go much faster than 26.5 mph on a TT bike. Either both are as aero as a a brick (would imply CdA of ~0.29) or both have PM that are so off as to render their power numbers meaningless. One of the two and I both showed up to a 8-mile TT, and each of us happened to have done the course twice: his two efforts on the TT bike, one of mine on the TT and one on my road bike. For our respective best efforts, I literally faster than him by a minute. For the respective slower efforts (mine done on my road bike), I was 15 seconds slower, and my effort was at 295 W, for an average of 25.6 mph (to his 25.8 mph).

onto more interesting stuff, De Gendt came out with an autobiography: https://www.cyclingnews.com/...imate-autobiography/

There are somethings in there to which I can relate (not the winning part, of course)

I'll be interested to read this and I appreciate that he is willing to lay some more difficult subjects out there.

Someone posted a picture of Carthy riding their local 10 from back in his development team days (Maybe his team was like Ralpha/Condor), So, ya, he should have been learning the TT trade from the best in the business. Nevertheless, after reading a interview he gave recently you get the feeling that he isn’t sufficiently OCD to be a good TT rider. He sounds like a guy who races his bike then gets off and does other thing besides looking up the latest chain-waxing techniques.

Unfortunately, I think it's Dutch only for now. Maybe release in French at a later time


that's what the team is for. I mean, Dave Zabrieski is probably bored out of his mind in retirement; hire him as a consultant and get cracking.

Hell, once upon a time, Rigo Uran was a top-notch grand tour ITT contender. It's not as if people can't learn how to prepare.

So how do we feel about the Sammy Ben relegation? On one hand I can't help but to enjoy the agitation of Lefevere. I can't root against a good Irishman though.

I have to hand it to Lefevere that he defends his guys. Even if there's no consistency in his moral outrage.

I didn't think the shouldering was all that bad. And it was the Trek guy who got caught in no-man's land. I could go either way - if they're going to call it that tight consistently, then fine.

You are right and I do commend him for backing his boys always. Most times I do think he is whining, but I don't see a huge issue with this. This is not some crazy deviation of his line and this is not odd for a sprint. I'm with you though; I've no issue with this if it is consistently applied.

I think sprinters need to realize we're in the post-Fabio times now (as opposed to, say the Robbie McEwan era) and the commissaires are less tolerant of argy bargy. I don't think Bennett's move warranted relegation, but I'm not at all surprised, given the current climate.

Chris Horner does and in-depth take on the sprint. Find it hard to disagree with anything he says.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d32P3PDbc6c


Been bumped like that loads of times in US crits and CX (Open Masters, stacked with former pros and US champions). You learn which wheels to avoid. #1 rule: Never, ever mix it up with a Polish guy. They all raced the Tour of Poland in the 80s and their handling skills are at another level. They're also mean as a snake when they're on a bike.

BS call.

Saw it live and they were banging, for sure. But to quote the little thug Kenard, "It's how they do."
I didn't think it was beyond the industry standard, hard ass nature of a WT sprint.

Just watched Horner's Youtube. It's very good. But I still disagree. It didn't affect the outcome. Maybe scarred the Trek guy for life, maybe made him better.

It seems a little harsh for Bennett to lose a stage win over that, but he definitely didn't need to do any of that bumping. The Trekkie wasn't really moving over hard or boxing Bennett out; he was just caught out in the wind and hoping to find a little shelter. Seems like the commissaires decided to send a message.

I like Horner's videos but he should make them half as long or less. I rarely watch them because he just goes on and on sometimes. Seriously, he spent almost a minute talking about the guy with the broken helmet and never once uses the work "concussion".

I had to cringe a little bit when the team directory was proudly displaying the broken helmet out the window of the car. Dude, might want to make sure your guy is really OK before showing off that you sent the guy up the road and don't even know if he was given a concussion check.

Most folks who haven't had one or two don't take concussions seriously.

By the way, I'm blaming previous concussions for my work/word typo above. :-)