I was standing near the last turn onto straightaway, and when Sagan attacked I thought buildings might fall down. Already looking forward to Montréal but probably not as much as Ferris.
Good picks. I’m going Remco, Kung, McNulty. There’s a little bit of climbing so Primo could be a dark horse for medal.
It looks like Visma has locked Wout up for the rest of his “active cycling career.”
Wonder if Red Bull was trying to poach him.
Why wouldn’t they? It’s worth a shot
I wonder if Redbull will keep sponsoring non-Redbull-Bora athletes now that they have the team. Seems a little weird to do both, but if you can’t get the likes of Pidcock and Wout on the team, they’re still good athletes to have under the broader umbrella.
As for worlds TT, it’s got to be Remco. Kung seems to be in a good spot, as does McNulty. I’m not sure of Tarling’s form at the moment - he would have been someone I thought was ready to contend this year.
I just checked Red Bull’s page for sponsored cyclists, and Piddles is the only roadie on there right now. No Wout. Not even Zoe Backstedt or Blanka Vas, who’d be less affected by the Red Bull men’s team. The pure XC/CXer Evie Richards is still there.
Maybe Visma was a hard no with Wout wearing the other team’s sponsor, even for off-road stuff? (though I fear we might never seen Wout in CX again).
I wouldn’t want my star rider in another helmet, at least for road season. Could see how that would be part of contract, and financially worth it for Wout.
seems early for Worlds TT picks - but that’s never stopped me. I fear things could change a lot before sunday - hopefully roglic avoids tummy issues and no crashes! I didn’t see any dutch names on the start list i saw? with remco it almost certainly doesn’t matter:
Remco / tarling and McNulty for podium (sorry king kung and campanaerts)
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Daan “ace in the” Hoole for the Dutch right now. Starting to show impressive results (4th at Euros), but doesn’t yet make my podium.
He had a bumpy year with Roubaix DQ, puncture in Paris, off the pace opening Vuelta TT, and then crashed out. Would be nice to see a banging ride this weekend. I hope he doesn’t get lost in the dysfunction of Ineos over past few years with leadership and rider turnover. Tons of talent, deserves attention and mentorship.
Ineos does seem to have lost its rider development mojo. Ethan Hayter got 9th in road Worlds and 4th in Worlds ITT (with a dropped chain) in 2022. Looked like he was going to turn into a mini-WvA. His 2023 and 2024 were lackluster at best. Could name a few others. Pidcock, of course, has been very vocal they’re not supporting him well. But of course there’s a whole other discussion with him.
Ineos has a great roster of young talent, you really hope those guys get the right support to develop properly. I can imagine being a young cat like August, Schmidt or Leonard and thinking “damn, maybe I signed with the wrong team” or they’re already planning out where they’re going to sign next. It’ll be good for pro cycling if Ineos gets it together.
Ineos seems to have a ton going wrong for it. Even G and Rowe, whilst being professional, acknowledged the issues. Bigham jumping ship because of the issues is a huge vote of no confidence as well.
So I saw that the Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen was on today as an all-out battle royale of basically all the best sprinters, many teams doubling up (ex: Jayco lining up both Groenewegen and Ewan). It wasn’t carried on Flo, so I attempted to search it up on youtube. When I typed in “Kampioenschap” it autofilled to “kampioenschap dronken vissen” which seemed intriguing and I was not disappointed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FyXkBSPGPw
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Nice to see there are already duplicated topics being discussed in the road forum in different threads. I can’t say I’m shocked.
On to the road race. I’d love a win from someone who isn’t in the upper echelon of stars, though I think that’s going to be a big stretch.
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The biggest disappointment of this new tech is we still see threads started by people on our ignore list.
I hope Ryan’s promise of being able to avoid spoilers holds, but if I understand properly, it requires the person publishing the spoiler to identify it as such.
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Somewhat along those lines Mads’ WC win was great, somewhat unexpected but definitely deserved, and while at the time he may not have been top of mind for WC contenders, his performances since then have certainty confirmed that it wasn’t a fluke.
This course is going to be harder for an unexpected victory but you never know.
The last stage of the Tour of Luxembourg should be interesting with MvDP having a 3 second GC lead on Ayuso and 8 seconds on Hirschi. The profile is very “MdVP,” but he’s only got two teammates and UAE has six guys - so advantage UAE.
MVP, Hirschi, and Mads all looking ready for Worlds. I think all still 2nd-tier favorites the way Pogacar is looking, but ready.
Grace fn Brown! A rainbow retirement.
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