van Baarle looking good too, out for a pleasant training ride.

Politt pulls a pretty good pain face too.

This race is just befuddling to me, it seems like there is no will to bring this back.

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Powder dry for the weekend. That my best guess.

Strong ride from DvB. With a nice assist from Ethan Hayter.

I feel ashamed. I actually want this to happen.

Yeah, Stuyven and GvA were like sharing jokes with like 10k to go when it was clear van Baarle was a legit threat. Have to think they weren't taking it very seriously.

They just threw half hearted attacks at each other and never bothered to trade pulls and bring it back together. It shouldn't take too much for a group like that to bring a lone rider back.

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saw that, wonder what was said ? 'we'll cut loose on Sunday, huh since Ala and MvdP can't even stay with us on this training ride'

Yeah, perplexing. Probably 10 guys who can win Sunday so a lot of others keeping powder today for no reason.

WvA’s stock rises after this. No idea what the chase group was thinking. Study in confusion and follies of cat-herding.

DQS does usually boss the front, yet it was the second time in a week they failed to get any sort of representation. As you said, perplexing.

Also perplexing was the women’s race, with Liv doing eff all to help with the chase, despite having three riders in the second group. I get the need to keep your own powders dry and eat off of the plate of others first, but there were two other riders OTF, and that wasnt the time to pin it all on Trek.

With about 50 K to go Dan Lloyd was talking about how every race is treated by the teams so importantly nowadays with Covid, the uncertainty of teams being not able to race, etc.

And then the remainder of the race was the exact opposite of that.

I’ve been watching racing for a long time and never have I seen a race of that stature (semi classic) that seemed like no one really had the will to win.

I was watching the chase group and I thought, if this were Sunday these guys would have rolled van Baarle up by now.

Guys were working and then not. I think they were going for Strava segments....

I saw Kung sit up and spin in at 15k to go. I think a lot of DS's were saying that's enough to their guys.

I think GvA was trolling poor Warren Barguil. Barguil put in a big, hard pull on the flat to try to help close down van Baarle. Flicked his elbow for GvA behind him, and GvA casually pulls a snack out of his pocket, sits up, and casually eats.

I went back and saw that. He did everything but shrug.
GvA looked to be having a nice session. Locked and loaded for Sunday.

On Sunday all but 1 of those dudes in chase group (or beyond) are going to think taking today off was a good call...

2 things that kind of jumped off the screen in my mind yesterday.
GvA is looking very good so far this spring, but so far does not have a result to back it up, but he deserves a good win soon.

Barguil!...man it was cool to see him mixing it up on the cobbles yesterday.

Thought same. He has been up in a main group near every race.

Don't know if you saw/read Naesen's thoughts yesterday. Let's just say he agrees.

Going back to yesterday. Not sure it was heat, or just some gamesmanship. Ala claims he has not been feeling/training well. MvdP said he didn' really have it (I don't buy that, he already won Dwars, think he just saing his energy).

But if they truly off, and,or teams work really hard to isolate Wout/MvdP like they were able to E3, this may set up for Sagan/GvA.

I did not, where was he quoted? cyclingnews?

 
https://www.cyclingnews.com/...-poel-van-aert-bias/

"After that we went full throttle with Mathieu, but Wout was out the back, and of course he is the darling of Flanders, so if you dare to do something like that, it's very naughty, huh? "


Great stuff from Ollie.
Game on.

https://www.colnago.com/en/colnagov3rs-dv/


Looks like Colnago is doubling down on disc brakes for twice up Mt. Ventoux--Pog should have unfair equipment advantage now... ;)

Aaand, game delayed. P-R moved to October.

That's pretty funny.

Hell, it may even be none of those dudes in the chase group(s).


Took me twice to get the joke. And it is pretty clever.

They also have a good interview with Bettiol. I liked the comment about the smell of frites and beer. :-)

Bettiol seems like a very likable guy. Just wish he could be switched on more regularly, because the talent is certainly in there.