Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Lappartient's is a virtue? Pro Cycling 2018

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Charlie Tanfield won the men's U23 race; Pidcock came third. Men's senior race is on now, Cummings is apparently a non-starter. Unclear why but that must be the final nail in any chance he had of riding the Tour. Men's road race is live on ITV4 on Sunday afternoon incidentally.

    Pierre Latour won the French TT championship by a whopping two minutes from Tony Gallopin.

    Comment


      G takes the jersey, so it'll get an airing on the penultimate TdF stage.

      That's a hell of a margin for Latour. He must be in fantastic nick.

      Comment


        Think Thomas gets to wear the champions jersey in the TTT as well. Excellent performance from Harry Tanfield to beat Dowsett for 2nd.

        If I was Marc Madiot I'd be seriously thinking about offering Latour a fuckton of money to go and sign for FdJ; have Pinot for the Giro and Latour for, erm, Le Tour.

        Comment


          Have they relaxed the rules on TTTs then? Excellent news if so, I remember they fined Fabs for wearing his Swiss one in a TTT a few years ago.

          Comment


            https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&so...rWZ48FJG_ithl8

            1.3.068 says it's not allowed - dated July last year so I suppose there's a chance it'll change?

            Comment


              In what can only be called a surprise, Elia Viviani wins the Italian Road Championship on a course featuring 3000m of elevation gain.
              Last edited by ursus arctos; 30-06-2018, 17:42.

              Comment


                That must be the only time Vivani will win a race with Pozzovivo in third.

                Pity we won't see him in the Tour, though at least Quick Step should give him a proper jersey.

                Comment


                  Indeed, I am searching for a video, as I find it all hard to believe.

                  They gave him a proper jersey for the presentation

                  Comment


                    Wow! I think Quick Step will give him the full tricolour job - they always have for their Belgians and Luxembourgers.

                    Comment


                      Five minutes plus of highlights on this Gazzetta page

                      Viviani really battled with the Bahrain pair and they couldn't drop him before the sprint.

                      Comment


                        Connor Swift won the men's British championship, attacked about 15k from the finish and held off Adam Blythe. Not an easy race to follow as it contained more picture break up than I've ever seen, even worse than the Worlds in Richmond the other year. Jess Roberts (a new name on me) won the women's race with a late attack and the chase behind being disrupted by a crash.

                        Some good news on the jersey front as FdJ managed to win two races and they always do the best designs. Anthony Roux won the French race, Steve Morabito the Swiss. Annoyingly we won't see either at the Tour. Nor will we see the German (Pascal Ackermann), Dutch (Mathieu van der Poel who sprinted through a very narrow gap) or Danish (Michael Morkov) winners.

                        Comment


                          I guess we have some idea of what Van der Poel's kit will look like if he doesn't change teams

                          Comment


                            Giro Rosa started yesterday with a TTT, highlights are available here (Italian commentary)

                            Comment


                              Stockton Circuit Race on British Cycling's YouTube channel live:
                              https://youtu.be/mXfr1b6QSoQ

                              Comment


                                Ok, so it turns out to have been the national championship circuit race and was also on ES. Matt Gibson of JLT nipped smartly past Pidcock on the penultimate bend and held it to the line to the the RW&B stripes. Anna Henderson of Onform wins the women's title.

                                Comment


                                  Van Vleuten wins the last stage to cap a Giro Rosa she dominated, with big wins on the mountain time trial and on Zoncolan.

                                  Comment


                                    Huzzah!

                                    But not for this:

                                    VeloUK (via Facebook)
                                    The Team Wiggins team which did not qualify for Tour of Britain, is aiming to get pro contracts for its U23 riders - to do that it goes into Europe because its only there riders get noticed. And they supported the British scene 100%. Very cruel not to get a ride in the national tour and to make matters worse they were handicapped because they didn't get a ride in the Tour of Yorkshire #notalevelplaying field. And to make matters worse for all the teams, the last two events have not been 'worthy' road races (proper distance/parcour) for various reasons (one a kermesse and the other shortened a lot because of crashes). All in all it shows the criteria for selection to be flawed ... Would have been much easier to give all five teams a start ....

                                    Comment


                                      So, we know that WIGGINS won't be in it, but here is the team announcement for the ToB 2018.

                                      UCI WorldTour Teams
                                      BMC Pro Cycling
                                      Lotto Soudal
                                      Mitchelton-SCOTT
                                      Movistar Team
                                      Quick-Step Floors
                                      Team Dimension Data
                                      Team EF Education First – Drapac
                                      Team Katusha Alpecin
                                      Team LottoNL-Jumbo
                                      Team Sky
                                      Team Sunweb

                                      UCI Professional Continental Teams
                                      Aqua Blue Sport
                                      Bardiani-CSF
                                      Direct Energie
                                      Wanty-Groupe Gobert

                                      UCI Continental Teams
                                      Canyon Eisberg
                                      JLT Condor
                                      Madison Genesis
                                      ONE Pro Cycling

                                      National Teams
                                      Great Britain
                                      Last edited by Kevin S; 16-07-2018, 13:20.

                                      Comment


                                        I guess the issue is that the British teams have all congested at 3rd division level, with none of them able to step up to the second tier. We end up with 6-7 teams chasing four places at the ToB and Wiggins, for all the good intentions of blooding U23 riders, are going to be quite likely to miss out on any performance-related criteria. You'd be hard pushed to argue that they should be there at the expense of any of the four others, except on a basis of 'Well it would be really good for all these young British riders to be part of a big pro peloton."

                                        Comment


                                          Trek Segafredo will join the Women's World Tour next season with Lizzie Deignan as leader.

                                          Still nothing official on the much rumoured merger between CCC and what remains of BMC

                                          Comment


                                            Struggle to muster much sympathy for Team WIGGINS to be honest. They knew what the selection criteria were at the start and although I'm not generally inclined to support the ToB organisers I do think that ensuring British teams actually earn their place in a growing race is a sensible thing. They say they weren't invited to the Tour de Yorkshire, well that's largely their fault for not contributing to editions past and Sir Brad trousering an appearance fee in 2016 then getting off on the first stage at the point closest to his home. In fact they did get three riders in the race under the Great Britain banner and none of them left an enormous impression - Pidcock was never seen, Cullaigh picked up a mountain point on the last day (guess he got in the early break?) and Joey Walker abandoned. I expect Pidcock will get in the GB team again for this, unless he's concentrating on cyclocross by September. And if you're supposedly aiming to get these young riders pro contracts then sending them to Europe would be much better for their development than riding the British pro scene, which has never prepared riders for the pro peloton and probably never will.

                                            Comment


                                              CCC/BMC announcement

                                              Comment


                                                Been to the Sheffield Grand Prix this evening, as if I haven't watched enough bicycle racing lately. Support race was won by Joe Pidcock. His big bro made a futile chase of a six man break in the main race which formed midway thro proceedings from a move by Jon Mould. All the main teams were represented so there was no cohesive chase and the move stuck. Joey Walker of Team WIGGINS won, a highly popular local victory. He's the son of 1991 Milk Race winner Chris. Crikey that makes me feel old.

                                                Comment


                                                  The decline of a sprinter is a fast and brutal journey, isn't it.

                                                  Greipel to sign for Fortuneo-Samsic.

                                                  Comment


                                                    Presume they'll sign Marcel Sieberg as well, he announced his departure from Lotto at the same time as Greipel.

                                                    Tour Down Under announced their 2019 route overnight, the big change is that they're going to have the final stage up Willunga Hill rather than in the centre of Adelaide.

                                                    Lappartient has said he wants to reduce Grand Tour teams to fielding six riders to stop big teams dominating. Take the grandstanding angle rather than considering trickier matters like legislating for a salary cap or revising the sport's business model.

                                                    Comment

                                                    Working...
                                                    X