Roglic's Revenge: Pro Cycling 2021

[longeared]

Fancy he might do Tirreno instead next year. I mean, he bossed this race for a week, falls off and loses the thing. Bit like the Dauphine.

[Tony C]

Daniel Friebe on Cycling Podcast saying that Roglic has worn the leader’s jersey in his last twelve stage races - the 2018 Tour de France being the last time he didn’t.

[caja-dglh]

Unsurprisingly, derailleur is fantastic on Roglic and MvdP.

[Sits]

Daniel Friebe on Cycling Podcast saying that Roglic has worn the leader’s jersey in his last twelve stage races - the 2018 Tour de France being the last time he didn’t.

The second half of that episode (Ep. 22) is excellent on Freeman/Sky/UK Cycling etc.

[Tony C]

Yes it is.

[Sits]

Actually Ep. 23 is a Life in the Peloton and it’s Robbie McEwan who is great value.

[Tony C]

Just started listening to the Bradley Wiggins Show/ESPN podcast and that’s good too.

[delicatemoth]

Happy Milano-San Remo Day to ursus arctos and everyone else who loves this long, often uneventful, yet majestic race. 60km to go.

I've had a voice in my head saying "Michael Fucking Matthews!!" for the last three days. I'd really like to see that happen actually, Caleb Ewan would also be good.

[Levin]

This is lovely. They're going so fast uphill

[Levin]

Wout having his name on his helmet is fantastic.

[longeared]

All Jumbo riders have their name on their helmet to aid identification.

Jasper Stuyven won - good, I like him - not sure how as I didn't watch it live, he got away somewhere with Soren Kragh Andersen and he managed to hold off the charging sprinters like Nibs did the other year. Pidcock got 15th finishing with the front group.

Fine example on the results sheet of how MSR is the easiest classic to finish but the hardest to win, there were only six abandons.

[Levin]

He got away at the bottom of the final descent. Kragh closed the gap while the rest of the leaders dithered.

13 riders made the bottom of the Poggio and then Stuyven went. He stayed away until the last metres.

[ursus arctos]

It looks like the prefet is going to insist on the cancellation of Paris-Roubaix, which has French cycling fans enraged

[DPDPDPDP]

Hopefully Cav’s not finished just yet - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/56501661

[delicatemoth]

The biggest sporting event named after a motorway is really delivering here, attack after attack. WVA vs MvdP vs Deceuninck is a great dynamic.

[longeared]

Classic Wolfpack there, chucking riders up the road and forcing others to chase then marking and following behind to disrupt. Particularly enjoyed van Baarle just dragging Lampaert across with him. Thoroughly deserved 1-2 from Asgreen solo and Senechal winning the sprint. Excellent race.

[delicatemoth]

It was terrific wasn't it? No time to pay any attention to Catalunya. It rekindled my desire to take a two-week spring holiday to Flanders and just watch as many races as I can.

[longeared]

E3 is always a good race, though not often as good as today which was a candidate for race of the season. I think it's because it's too hilly for any pure sprinters to bother with it, then there's a fair bit of flat after all the climbs which means we get to sort the strongest riders into a reasonable sized group then they have to work out a way to beat each other in the closing 20k. So there's an opportunity for some tactical options if a team can get numbers up there (and use them properly, unlike Ag2r) in the finale.

Not really been following Catalunya myself either, though nice to see Kamna finally get a stage win after being in the break twice already this week.

[Sits]

Unfortunately neither race was available here but I’ll definitely find YT highlights of the E3. I did chuckle when I read this quote from Van der Poel: “Van Aert and I did most of the work.”

And?

[Sits]

It wasn’t a good race for my fledgling Road..cc fantasy team though* as I’d splashed my cash on the two Vans.

*Brentford Nylons Bejam, in case you were wondering. Oh.

[longeared]

Today was a Peter Sagan day.

[ursus arctos]

Trek Segafredo's men's team have withdrawn from Gent-Wevelgem due to two positive tests

[Sits]

Ooh, we have cycling on TV overnight for me to record. SBS do the cycling here, but don’t get very much apart from the tours. They had Paris-Nice, but since then nothing. So Ghent-Wevelgem will be a treat, even if it’s shorn of Bora-Hansgrohe and Trek-Segafredo for COVID reasons.

Edit: the latter of which teams ursus had already told us about.

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/cyclingnewsfeed/status/1376144660649885700

[longeared]

Sam Bennett went proper deep going over the Kemmelberg, then.