Sort of like Horner’s broadcast skill level.

Roglic caught napping, great racing by Ineos.

I’m now interested to see if Carapaz gets DQ’d for sitting on the top tube. Hopefully not.

Edit: guess it’s a little moot now that he’s been caught.

Ineos went from looking formidable to being gone from the race.

Old man Valverde not doing any work at all. Rarely shows his face at the front of the group and every time he does he softpedals. He better not win this.

If Pogacar takes a flyer it’ll be interesting to see who blinks

The kid is unreal.

A TdF and monument while technically a U23 rider. The Killer from Komenda with a masterful ride

I thought the attack by the Paz was a helluva move but there was no one left to set up. A very pointy end of the race that was. The herd got culled (again) very quickly. I thought Kwiat might have had the legs to be there. Formolo also did amazing work.

Apparently he was DQ'd. Shows up as "out of the race" in the results.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

sounds like it'll be those 2 Chucklefucks for the Dauphine....

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"one eye doubles my eyesight, so things don't look half bad" John Hiatt

UAE will have a formidable TdF team with Formolo, Brandon Jimmy McNulty, Bar Hirschi, Majka, Trentin? They’ll be as loaded as anyone.

Pogacar is no longer going to get away with being a sniper. To have the confidence to take on Alaphilippe like that—and then pull it off... take a bow. For GC guys, he and Roglic have nasty finishes.

Outkicks the LFF like that, yes. A teammate says he’s like Ferris- everyone likes him and can smoothly do it all. He’s I think a bit lighter than Roglic which bodes well too.
UAE also apparently runs a very tight ship.

I actually love Horner. It's stream of consciousness from a GC rider's perspective and Bobke just there laughing. Maybe because I've grown up with overly serious commentators.

If I could pick a serious dream team (that will never happen) it would be Bruyneel for analysis and Daniel Lloyd for color. I still think Bruyneel is the smartest guy in the sport.


In other news, it looks like we once again have a race spoiler on the front page right in the thread title. I just don't get it. It is incredibly rude to people who might want to watch it later.

I'm mixed on those two. I do appreciate the casual, unfiltered two-old-pros-bloviating tone. But, man, sometimes Horner fixates on silly things, usually in a super negative way. Like Howes and his bike changes the other day (which Horner ended up being wrong about).

I really like Stephens/Lloyd.

Anyway, time to put away the frites and trappist ale for a few months, bring out the cheese plates and wine. It's stage racing season now. All in all that was a brilliant, electric classics season. We had long-range solo ICBM strikes, sprints so close that everyone had to go brush up on camera technology, old stars, lots of new stars journeymen striking gold (Stuyven). We couldn't have asked for much more (outside of a healthy Evenepoel, as this thread started with). The fall one-day season should be great too with P-R and the Olympics in the mix.

‘Twas

I will go with Strade Bianche and that fantasy team lead group whittling down to Bernal hanging with Ala and MvdP until he went supersonic as my favorite moment.

Maybe it's a country thing and what we're used to listening to. Bobke is entertaining with wacky anecdotes and quips but his play-by-play is hard for me to listen to. I'll take Robbie McEwan and Matthew Keenan, or Stephens and Lloyd over Bobke Horndog everyday. Sean Kelly is great and Magnus and the Brit woman (can't recall her name) are also a good pair.

Thanks for the culinary reminder. I need to put the cookies away and close the wine tap. At least for a week.

McEwan Keenan is awesome. I enjoyed Gerrans last year as well.

I loved seeing Stuyven stick the flyer at MSR. When a guy is that good and yet knows he has to go for a long one with all the stars lined up in order to win, and then he does it, that's pretty cool.

Other story (IMO) was Half-Pidcock being a player pretty much every time he was on the start line. Didn't expect that in first go-round.

My highlights were MvdP at Strade (and the whole trio really) and Pidcock out sprinting Wout (maybe even twice). Such an amazing spring. Wout wins 7 of his 21 starts and is on the podium 5 other times. Roglic in perpetual form. Pog winning monuments and grand tours. Anna van der Breggen owning everyone at will.

It has been a fine spring.

as it always seems...Spring Classics season went by way too fast....and there wasn't enough rain... :)

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"one eye doubles my eyesight, so things don't look half bad" John Hiatt

So true.

Low point is getting F'd out of Roubaix.

I'd agree, Strade was great. You couldn't really have picked a better set of dudes in that front group, all the favourites plus Bernal and Pidcock. In retrospect Pidcock being there isn't as surprising/impressive as it was at the time since it was still early in a season in which he would go on to establish himself as one of the very best spring classics riders. MvdP's devastating accelerations were thrilling.

Speaking Bernal, it's awesome how we're in a time where GC guys are also so competitive at 1 day races. Bernal plus Pog, Rog, Gaudu. Used to Nibbles was the only guy who could really do both, and his classics races were a little narrower in scope.

I was happy to Asgreen get one after looking so dominant and not having enough to show for it.

And I was happy to see the whole spring campaign not turn into Alien vs Predator. They didn't dominate like many of us expected they would, which ultimately is good news and it made for exciting and unpredictable racing.

On the downside, as other have said, I'm jonesin' hard for some Roubaix action.

Yup to the above. My long range forecast is a windy wet and epic Roubaix. We’re due. (Gambler’s fallacy but what the hell.)

Time to get our Giro on. The world’s most beautiful race, and usually kinda wacky.
Is Peto svelte and focused? Ineos is once again loaded. Will it translate?

Patience will be rewarded with a Ronde-style Worlds followed by Roubaix, and of course the spaghetti classics and Lombardia. Fall is going to be alright.