I do enjoy the technical information and bike builds posted on weight weenies, lots of interesting builds and hacks people detail. They also tend to have some "semi" objective reviews on equipment failures and items to avoid. Their wheel building thread is very helpful. But, their road racing discussions are not constructive. Just a lot of misinformed viewpoints arguing for no point. You also have a lot of the old school campy is king crowd and Etap is the devil which can muddy the discussions.

another win for QS. I don't know how sponsors view ROI but all this winning is probably good.

Why are we talking about going off to other cycling forums on ST....that's like being in a bar and talking beside the bartender about why the other bar across the street is so much better!!!

OK, back to the topic of the Giro. I actually found the logistics of doing a bunch of grand tour stages 4 hour flight away from most teams and Italy!


http://www.velonews.com/...t-israel-back_465344


I don't know if any of you have ever traveled into and out of Israel with a bike case filled with your personal gear, but this Giro operation takes it to a scale of a complex military forward deployment involving customs and shipping all in th ecohttp://www.velonews.com/2018/05/giro-ditalia/operation-jerusalem-giro-went-israel-back_465344

For a world tour team, yes. Unless you have a guy like Sagan on the team who can command media attention through personality, winning is just about the only ROI metric that you can take back to the sponsor.

For a proconti team, being a breakaway billboard at the Tour/Giro works too, though they have smaller budgets

After getting nipped at Gent, it's cool to see Viviani get some. Great ride today, shouldering then winning. The race isn't loaded with sprinters but getting wins back to back is tough anyway and he gets a big confidence boost. Max Schachmann did the monster mash lead out. Stybar looked like he was going to puke trying to keep the pace high for QS. Nice that there were no ugly crashes in these two days.

a). it's not verboten
b). we are actually saying this place is preferable to many others out there...

I don't think the Jerusalem ITT is a very good crystal ball / predictor for other ITTs. This course was mental, always up or down and full of sharp corners and tricky sections. I walked the whole thing during the stage, you could see former ITT WCs already cooked at the halfway mark (Kiryienka, Martin). It was more Classics Finale than traditional time-trialling.

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

Back at it tomorrow. Lumpy fast stage. Who we like?

Gruppo compacto? Or Stickabreakatto?

Woods; b/c i cant stand Ulissi (a cheating scum)

OK, well feel free to speak your mind here....this thread is a safe place..:)
I like Wellens to go late after the break is controlled by BMC. Or maybe they let Wellens go? Or Woodsie, even better but they're not letting him go.

Still in week 1, and coming off a rest day, I think breakaway. With the first 30 km net downhill, my guess is this is going to be one of those stages where the first 40-50 km might be full gas to establish the real breakaway. This isn't a sprinters stage, and I don't think the GC will be motivated to chase down the break as they want the time bonuses to be eaten up before they get there.

Without the help of a sprinter team or a GC team, BMC is going to have a tough time controlling the break on this course by themselves. They could, but Wednesday's stage is no slouch for BMC to control either and they need to manage their energy. So long as nobody within 90 seconds of Dennis gets away, I think you'll see BMC happy to just keep the margin to the break manageable rather than bring it all the way back and have to also worry about a more frantic finish in the last 5 km. We may may also see a few guys take flyers with 50 km to go to bridge up to the break if they sense BMC won't bring it back.

X factor in this whole "wild guess" of mine is that if a potential young rider threat gets away, you may see other teams with young rider aspirations help BMC and bring it all the way back.

<fantasy>

C'dale might send Formolo up the road since he's an Ardennesy-type sprinter, and not a 2nd-tier GC threat like Woods. That way Woods can kick it back in the field and maybe clean up the mess if Formolo is caught.

</fantasy>

 
formolo is cannondale education first no more. alas.

GODDAMIT! I made this same mistake with ex-C'dale riders about 86 times in the Classics thread. I'm stuck in 2017.

I am finding all the logistics around running stages in Israel and moving the entire throng across the Med to Sicily fascinating. Maybe it's my old military deployment mindset getting more excited about that than the racing until they go up Etna on stage 6. I am particulary interested since there has been talk about kicking off the TdF in Quebec forever. The biggest obstacle seems to be the transfer back to France and all the riders potentially having to do a red eye flight in the middle of a Grand Tour. They really would have to run a direct day flight for the riders directly from Quebec to whatever airport in France is closest to the next stage on a rest day. If they leave at 8 am in Quebec, they get to France at 10 pm. That's still a killer transfer if you're going to do a stage the next day....if not, it is a 2 day gap. Same discussion about starting the Giro in Japan (which would be worse).

It was pretty cool having the Giro pop into Eilat....for those of you on this forum, that's the Red Sea resort that hosts the Israman Iron Distance event.











Looks like an awesome area to go riding!

JV raised Formolo from a pup and was not pleased when he went up the road.

Certainly the team doctors have that covered!

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Eliot
blog thing - strava thing

Love this pictures, that place looks awesome.

As far as Formolo.. c'mon in the middle of the Vualta it looked like the team was going to fold, you can't exactly blame someone for trying to get a job.

Keeping with the fantasy thought (and sorry that Formolo has left EF as already pointed out).

I sort of like the chances of Dombrowski getting into tomorrow's break. Definitely the win will come from the break.

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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.

A friend of mine works for Comcast, the local production company that basically organized the whole thing as contractors for RCS (and scored me VIP access to the start area, win). Months of work went into it, and to be honest we were quite skeptical at first: Anything from political pressure to our PM's tendencies to heat up Gaza when he's under pressure (and he has been, pretty severe corruption charges) to general police incompetence could've derailed it. Roads were resurfaced, months of public education about the race, a literal army of guards and policemen, an entire cargo 747 just for equipment and a fleet of rental cars painted to match team liveries. Even then, teams were hesitant to give bidons to fans out of fear of running out (and needing more water than expected in the heat of the desert). A truly incredible production, the biggest in the country's history - bigger than our recent anniversary Independence Day celebrations.

It was pretty terrific to watch the riders go on the very same roads I cycle and/or drive on a regular basis. Sadly, the organizers couldn't quite pull off the route they wanted - there was supposed to be a stage in the northern hills or proper mountains, which are very scenic, but RCS didn't want too hard a stage on the opening 3 days. I rode Be'er Sheva to Eilat - the 3rd stage - a bunch of times and that route is really fun. Too bad they opted for the "boring" finish via the main highway (the sketchy last 50km, always a backwind on that stretch) rather than descend via Route 12, which is the beautiful rolling hills of the Israman bike course. I guess that was just a bit too close to the border for comfort.

It's indeed a beautiful area for cycling, running and swimming - Dev, the Israman is quite your course, favouring the lighter rider and resilient, experienced runner. Post-race beers and reef snorkeling on me!

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

No, I don't blame him for moving on. But JV seemed to take it personally as he felt he really helped develop Formolo. But that's the business. If you want loyalty, get a dog.

[/quote]
I sort of like the chances of Dombrowski getting into tomorrow's break. Definitely the win will come from the break.[/quote]
i'd like that but i think he's sitting on until the high mountains...............insane finish today, BMC is going to be trashed..........there will be blood

Wellens perhaps to go early, with 3-4 km to go rather than on the final hill

good Lordy.................what racing..................WOODSIE.....thought he was going to come around.........Dennis has guts

had to burn a match to get up to speed to Wellens, who was just slightly ahead of the main group.

didn't think Wellens would have the kick, but he did. Bodes well for Woods