Yeah, I thought Griepel signed with Israel Startup Nation...same team as Froome is heading to after his Vuelta team leadership (tentative) at Ineos. I would have preferred to see him lead the the Giro team but I guess they figure he has no chance of form by then.

By the way, how many extra grams of metal does Froome have holding his body together? Is it affecting his power to weight, or is it just his power is down compared to 2018 pre 2019 accident version of Froome.

I don’t think it’s the metal. That difference would be incremental at best.

Since ICA seems to be throwing money around to aging stars, they’d do well to sign the likes of the Gorilla. Can do dom work, lead out, and is a great locker room/ team bus presence. School the young guys. Maybe throw Cav a bone too for a farewell lap to a few races.

This is taking a lot of interest away for me now, my 3 favourites out, is one of them Yates brothers in at least I can get behind?

Adam is in this year's TdF lineup for M-S, supposedly targeting stage wins vs a GC placement. Then he's off to Ineos for next year.

Simon has resigned with M-S for the next two years, and he's supposed to ride the Giro this year. I'd be willing to bet some money on his chances.

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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.

I’m more interested in this year’s TdF than any in past 5+ years. J-V aside with 2 cards to play, it’s shaping up to be much more of a mano-y-mano slugfest between Bernal, Roglic & TD, Pinot, Nairoman and Pogacar as front runners. Then there’s a second tier of guys like Landa, Carapaz and Buchmann who could factor in.

I think the Tour could be great. I really think Ineos is much weaker than people realize. Bernal has looked OK, but never stellar. Carapaz was aiming to peak in October and not may people can show up to the biggest race of the year and ride into shape anynore. Two weeks of getting your head kicked in probably isn't the ideal way to be sharp in week three. Rowe looks so so and was rumored not to be on the team when Thomas and Froome were expected to do the Tour. Kwiakowski has only been OK the last couple years. Really only Castroviejo, Sivakov and maybe Amador looking really sharp.

In contrast Jumbo looks unstoppable and I don't see them running out of steam anytime soon. Assuming Roglic didn't get too badly injured in that fall I would think he will crush everyone in the Tour. Last year he won every stage race he entered in the spring and made everyone in the Giro look stupid until he got sick in the last week. I can't imagine he is over cooked after about 10 days of racing this year. Then they also have Tom D, who is the person I think will be really coming into form in week 3. Imagine Jumbo catching everyone knapping in a cross wind this year. Martin, Van Aert, Tom D and Rogic doing a TTT. It would be game over for any GC guy who missed that train.

Then there is always the Corona virus wild card. I expect at least a couple teams will get taken out. Keeping 200 riders, the staff, and the rest of the Tour circus healthy for 3 weeks seems unlikely. Racing season is only 3 week old and there are already some cases popping up.

Plus cases in France are way up halfway to their spring peak. By halfway into the TDF covid19 likely gonna be ramping close to spring peak and mainly people in 20-39 age group....so likely it spills over to rider bubble with the your de France moving circus. So probably a few teams get tossed. Any team of contenders will have to keep a clamp on riders and staff which is going to be really hard the more the TDF circus grows stage over stage. These guys and staff are staying in 22 hotels in 23 days.

This will be an interesting test for pro sport. Cases in France are about to get back in the same range per day as Florida or California but France is double the size but in any case the virus is alive and thriving in France so it feels like it's just a matter of time before it hits the TDF bubble. But at least deaths are single digit. I just hope we get a full tour.

Me too. The two rider limit for positive cases is going to hard when two riders share the same hotel room. Sad to think that one of the factors for making a Tour team could be a rider with a positive antibody test. That guys bunks with your GC rider.

Haha....the other solution is 21 nights at Alpe d'Huez resort hotels in a completely sealed off bubble. Enough roads around there for mountain and flat stages and enough capacity on mountain for the entire TDF caravan. Then transfer to Paris for the final Sunday lol. The plus is sleeping 21 nights at 6000 feet. Flat stages end of the valley in bourg d'oisans, some mountain stages end in the valley, some end at the top of All, some end 20 percent up to the top. .....pink font optional....but some 3-7 day stage events could happen like this next year to limit team interactions with public. Closer to the NHL or NBA model.

It's not going to be fun having teams tossed because staff brought the virus into the bubble. Riders have limited opp if they are curfewed after each stage.


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I will one-up you. I think the tour is supposed to start outside France in even year. How about 20 stages in New Zealand and fly back for the ride into Paris.

From what I understand you can fly into the UAE now and do the Covid19 test at the airport and if you test negative you can just freely interact in society. So let's split it with a week in New Zealand, a week in UAE and a week at Alpe d'Huez haha then over to Paris!!! Optionally Iceland has the same system as UAE.

On that note I did not follow but is there a new location for UCI worlds or is it cancelled

Not yet. They're looking. September 1 is apparently the drop-dead date for an announcement of a new site or a cancellation.

OK, fingers crossed!!!

Completely lazy on my part, but can Kuss TT?

I agree and per our earlier speculation about bizzaro year, there will be lots of surprises, new guys hunting stages, no dominant train crushing dreams, no sprinter domination. Even the JV killer bees will have other teams' riders embedded in their front group. I'd just like to see not so much carnage, s'il vous plait.

Hmm...looks like Schleck-grade TTer based on results. I assume for most of the stage race TTs he was just trying to stay near the time cut. But even domestic races he was trying to win, he wasn't that great.

Maybe something he can work on in the future.

At the moment, GC doesn’t sound like his jam: https://www.cyclingnews.com/...-a-work-in-progress/

Personally I wish more guys like Sepp and Bardet would stage hunt instead of finish 3-5 overall. They could rack up some serious wins and probably grab polka dot jerseys along the way.

He is listed at 180cm, 64 kilos. He may be a touch light to TT well (barely 140 lbs). The only guy I recall who could TT well at that weight was Contador, but only when he was fully jacked up on outside assistance. Richie Porte is similar weight, but smaller so he punches less of a hole in the wind. So I think your Schleck analogy is roughly correct. At some point, this becomes a BMI related physics thing. You need X kilos at Y height with Z watts to TT well. There are some physics involved with the smallest aero position for your Y height rider with X kilos and Z watts. There are physics involved with why riders like Andy Schleck, Andy Hampsten or Nario Quintana don't TT that well. Same reason we don't normally see thin lightweights winning any freestyle swim races in elite swimming. You need some mass to generate enough watts to overcome the resistance you create. Maybe physics works against Kuss on the TTing front and the same physics helps him climb.

I think he can improve that, given his leap forward thus far. He was a high cadence mountain goat in Utah a couple of years ago when he punked everybody and is now marshalling WT climbs. It'll be fun to watch.

Dont know about the weight Froome is taller, like 185cm and weighs in just a couple of kgs heavier. On the other hand, Fuglsang is same height as Froome, was a decent to good TT’er when he was heavier than now

https://www.velonews.com/...a-powerful-position/

He claims he has never formally been fitted, until just now.

Which suggests a good deal of his potential is still unrefined. Based on JV's monster team TT capabilities, I would love to see them help develop this as part of his arsenal.

Anyone catch glimpses of the Dutch Road Race championship? 7.3 km lap, with a small punch of a climb per lap. Frankly looked like a CX style "climb". Not surprising then, that the CXer wont it, except by attacking that climb and then soloing. Pretty impressive.

Also, I was looking forward to the Belgian Road Race National Championship, but it's apparently not this weekend?

Remco Evenepoel is a little shorter and quite a bit lighter with solid TT results. Unfortunately we won’t have a chance to see what he could have done this year:(

Hey guys....we can argue this to death but there is a finite watts per kilo a rider can produce, and less kilos means less top line watts.

But here is the simple physics. To turn a set of wheels at 50 kph takes the exact same watts whether you are Andy Hampsten, Andy Schleck, Thor Hoshovd or Fabian Cancellera. So once we subtract how many watts it takes to move the wheels around the course, the remainder is left to move the bike frame and your body. the less "remainder" watts you have after moving the wheels, the less you have to move your body and frame. This is why a 115 lbs athlete will generally TT more poorly than 230 lbs athlete. its not really rocket science. Its just simple math.

There is a reason why no pro cyclists are 115 lbs or 230 lbs and they converge in a fairly tight range, but there is a wider range in cycling than marathon running because there are more disciplines to be rewarded. Nevertheless physics is against Quintana becoming a top TTer and its against Taylor Phinney being a good climber. In the middle there are some people who are good in both (they are basically real grand tour contenders all the time vs when the parcours is selected to de emphasize TT's on purpose because the national hero won't win a TT heavy course).

Sounds like MvDP demolished the field. European championships start tomorrow, I think, but haven’t seen anything about who is lining up.