Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Ah yeah, those are possibilities too. Cav's position is reasonably sound, mind.
Ah yeah, those are possibilities too. Cav's position is reasonably sound, mind.
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Another stage win for Kittel, all the trains got disrupted by a corner with a k and a half to go, he ended up coming late up the opposite side of the road to beat Gronewegen.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
I'm not sure whether to put this here or on the WTF thread.
Crash in a race in Santa Barbara the other dayComment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Degenkolb wins today's Dubai stage in an uphill sprint, just shaded out van Rensburg. The stage itself was unusually exciting, crosswinds and a sandstorm split the field into echelons early on, though the peloton came back together once they reached the coast.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Cheers longeared, have missed the last two with meetings. A nice early Dege win is just what 2017 needed after last year.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Kittel wins a strange sprint in Dubai and takes the race overall. Most of the riders lost their trains and they all ended up trying to follow the wheels of each other. Cav looked well placed but didn't have the speed, he ended up sitting up and punching his handlebars before the line.
The queen stage of the race yesterday was cancelled owing to strong winds and sandstorms in the area (the same weather that forced the suspension of the golf) which took a lot of excitement out of the race as this finish is the only place where small time gaps can be gained over the sprinters.
Meanwhile, one of the more interesting stories of the week was that Greipel will be targetting Flanders and Roubaix. The latter would be a race that would particularly suit him, a big powerful rider with a sprint. Surprised he hasn't had a real go at it before to be honest.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Roger Walkowiak has died aged 89. He was the oldest surviving Tour winner, an accolade he held for all of six weeks after Ferdi Kubler died at Christmas. He was probably the most unlikely winner of them all when his victory came in 1956, he got in a break that gained a huge amount of time on one of the flat stages and then managed to defend the lead to the end mainly thanks to infighting among the big name French riders. He didn't win a stage that (or any) year and was felt at the time to be an unworthy winner. Indeed to win something "a la Walkowiak" is not really a compliment in France.
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Route for the Women's Tour has been announced this morning. Big headline is the London finale, they're using the same circuit as they do for the Tour of Britain. They've also said that all of the world's top 15 teams will be competing along with a couple of British domestic teams - Drops and Team WNT.
Stage one: 7 June, Daventry to Kettering
Stage two: 8 June, Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire
Stage three: 9 June, Atherstone to Royal Leamington Spa
Stage four: 10 June, Chesterfield and Derbyshire
Stage five: 11 June, London
Only negatives are that British Cycling refused their application to increase the race duration from five days using their old excuse of "don't want the race to expand too quickly". It's the fourth year of the event now and it's feeling firmly established for Christ's sake. Plus there's still no live TV coverage, nightly highlights on ITV as usual though.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Terrific finale to the Vuelta a Andalucia stage just now on the race's main summit finish. Contador put in a huge attack 3k from the top, race leader Valverde tried to follow but went pop very quickly. Contador didn't quite have the strength to get a big gap and got reeled in once the climb levelled off in the final k, Pinot came round him to take the stage and Valverde rolled in with Landa, Rosa and Izagirre about 5 seconds down - the gap had been 23 seconds on the climb. Think Contador will have taken the overall lead prior to tomorrow's time trial.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Tips for the monuments this year?Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Lot of racing to come before we get that far, but right now I'd fancy Gaviria for Milan - San Remo. Liege will probably be one of the usual suspects - Valverde, Alaphillippe, Dan Martin who won a stage of the Tour of the Algarve today. No form lines yet for the cobbled classics, most of the contenders there haven't really had a meaningful race so far, but Tom Boonen retires this spring and it'd be smashing to see him take a final win in Flanders or Roubaix.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Cycling gets Twenty20-fied.
Like the concept of making it part of a wider cycling festival. Not so initially keen on having no individual winners and determining the victor on the fourth place rider on a team. The Tour Series (British city centre racing) settles the overall outcome on team results, they had to adapt the concept to give some recognition to race winners as otherwise the racing happens in the wrong place and everything can become locked down and defensive. Handicap racing will mitigate that to a certain extent, but it might become very muddled and difficult to follow.
Also some very obvious parking of tanks on ASO's lawn having the event clashing with the start of the Dauphine, Velon will probably have it as some sort of clause that the teams have to enter a certain quality of rider in their race.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Strade Bianche on UK Eurosport 2
Pinot is part of a break, but Wellens, Dumoulin, Stybar, Van Avermat and Kwiatkowski are all in the group only half a minute back.
Someone needs to tell the commentator that the main square in Siena is the Piazza del Campo; the Palio (which is what he keeps calling it) is a horse race.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Terrific finish to the women's Strade Bianche, and an absorbing if not quite so explosive race from the boys.
This race straight away looks at home on the World Tour, which I can't say about any of the other 'new' races*. Abu Dhabi was preposterous - decent enough as an end-of-season HC race, but in its new slot is quite evidently a luxury jolly-cum-preseason warmup. That's OK, but pretending it's anything more than that irritates me.
*Not even Omloop. It's a great race, but not improved by excluding the local Conti teams (imo, obv). I suspect the same will be true of DDV and the rest.
edit - Walkowiak is one of my favourite Tour winners, and the received wisdom that a Grand Tour winner is somehow unworthy without a stage win is silly. I'd argue that such a victory is the purest of all - a win for endurance, guts, tactics and intelligence over three weeks.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Paris - Nice week, and the Race to the Sun has got off to a cracking start. FdJ ripped it in the crosswinds and sent a group of about 20 up the road including Martin, Alaphillippe, Henao and Gallopin along with several sprinters. The final hill finished off most of the latter, Alaphillippe attacked, Demare chased and won the eventual sprint. Meanwhile there were several attacks behind and the main group came in fractured around a minute back, all sorts of time gaps already. Romain Bardet hasn't had the best of starts to the season and that continued today by missing the split and then crashing and having to chase back alone, which we saw a lot of thanks to French telly. Proper racing.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Now Bardet has been disqualified from the race for excessive drafting behind team cars, which is possibly slightly unlucky in the sense that most of it was broadcast. BARDET IN CRISIS or something.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Only saw the last 15 km but looks like race of the season so far. Hopefully someone will put it up on Youtube so I can see more on catchup. The ITT is going to be immense.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Suitably chaotic scenes in Paris-Nice so far.
Wind and snow forcing riders to form echelons.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Bouhanni abandons
Miserable start for the French teamsComment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Colbrelli won the stage with a long sprint, Demare couldn't quite get round him. There's a big group of riders including Porte and Yates who lost 4 minutes plus, not sure how much as my stream froze during the action replay of the finish.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Turns out Yates was in the front group after all - not an easy day to identify riders, in fairness to Eurosport - but Porte lost a whopping 14 minutes. There's only thirty riders within four minutes of the lead and these were just the "easy" stages!Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Cycling News reports that Team Sky riders have been discussing whether they should ask Brailsford to resign.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Big win for Sam Bennett, won a full bunch sprint after coming off Kristoff's wheel. "Chapeau" said Sean Kelly quietly on the Eurosport commentary.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Great ride by Alaphillipe, who wins the stage over Contador and takes yellow.Comment
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Every day is a Peter Sagan day: Pro Cycling 2017
Sky had two or three wheels just disintegrate on them during yesterday's team the trial in Tirenno-Adriatico.
Quite scary and Shimano has some 'splainin to doComment
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