I’ve been traveling the last couple weeks, went to a bunch of CX races which was fun except for the multiple days standing through snowstorms! I’ll give a more detailed report once I’m back next week :)
I also watched the first season of the Movistar docuseries yesterday with my friend, and wow, I thought I knew the extent of their shenanigans and incompetence, but I kept learning even more. I had never actually seen the infamous trident hostage video. Absolutely hilarious team
Oh also, I’ve been hanging out on a few other sports subs lately and it’s made me yet again grateful for this sub’s moderation. I know it’s stricter than plenty would like, but I get so annoyed scrolling past the exact same low effort spam posts every single day elsewhere. So much clutter, so the actual news gets lost or not even posted.
I’ve been thinking this same thing. A hard start to training camp reminding him what he has to go through and as the reigning champion he won’t even have a chance to defend his title… I could absolutely see it being the tipping point despite what is said in press releases, etc…
jonas has been saying he would like to go to the giro since he won the vuelta it was nothing new, yates said In the presentation of the giro( he had to fly to Italy for this ) that he would be happy to be there even if it was to work for someone else while wearing number 1.
unfortunately its very difficult to believe this isn't something like Lazkano. i know he's British and he wouldn't do it, but winning the giro has been his obsession since 2018. Luke durbrige said it well in his podcast
You know the Ashes tour was shit when yesterday the BBC sports front page only had football news and a small article about a new English cricket sensation who is going to bring peace to the world and equilibrium to the force.
Anyway who would ever guess that a coaching culture promoting non accountability would end up on a drinking problem and players taking the tour like holidays.
I was looking at the 2026 Picnic roster, and this has to be one of the weakest lineups a WT team has fielded in years. Does Jakobsen “bounce back” after last year’s surgeries? His 2024 season wasn’t exactly encouraging. I'm optimistic for Poole and Bittner, but you can’t seriously build an entire season around those two.
NTT in 2020 was a disaster, but even their roster didn’t look quite this thin. They also had some aging big-name riders, but at least there were a few solid mid tier riders.
Israel in 2020 was also rough, but that was a team trying to buy its way into the WT rather than developing talent organically. DSM on the other hand has been in the WT for over a decade.
Of course 2010 Footon Servetto remains the gold standard for historically bad rosters. I don’t think anyone is ever topping that. So DSM at least has that going for them.
Aim is to guess the rider randomly picked each day in 6 attempts or less. Added only the top 100 riders for now to keep it somewhat easy. Enjoy and do let me know what you think...
I rewatched the Finestre climb from stage 20 this year to take a break from fool scrolling and…. Wow I still cannot believe what happened there in all respect. Kudos to Yates and shame on UAE. Listening to Rob Hatch and Sean Kelly’s incredulous commentary too was funny.
I watched again and I think Del Toro just didn’t realize that to a veteran like Carapaz who had already won the Giro, there was no difference between second and third to him.
I've bought a new Garmin watch, and asked it to make a training plan with an overly ambitious goal. I will ignore all the easy runs it gives me, and the interval training, and complain when I'm not any faster after 15 weeks. This is the way.
Update on cycling-related books I've read recently
Need for the Bike - Loved this little book and it's quirky reflections on riding and racing.
Sprinting Through No Man's Land: Endurance, Tragedy, and Rebirth in the 1919 Tour de France - Military history and cycling should have made this a homerun, but it drug a bit in the second half. Still, great story.
Sunday in Hell: Behind the Lens of the Greatest Cycling Film of All Time - Cinema history and cycling should also be a homerun, but I also got bogged down in the second half of this one.
Etape: 20 Greate Stages from the Modern Tour de France - This was a lot of fun and since I apparently have the attention span of a goldfish, I appreciate how Moore keeps the book moving and caught me up on great riders and stages.
The Hardmen: Legends and Lessons from the Cycling Gods - Velominati have their particular style and, if you can enjoy it, you'll enjoy this. I just assume that tongue is planted in cheek.
Mountain High - This is a fun browse and good to pull out before the grand tours. I don't think the climb profiles make any sense though.
Jumping on the second book here: I'm guessing you know about "Riding in the Zone Rouge"? If not, it's a book about a stage race in early spring of 1919 around the WWI battlefields.
Sunday in Hell suffers from Fotheringham being Fotheringham and loving Leth far too much, crediting him with far too much. If he'd taken a step or two back he could have written a better, shorter book.
The 1919 Tour book ... I didn't get why some raved about that. There's a good story to be told there, but Dobkin couldn't see what it is.
The Fournel is good. There's actually three different versions of that in English, which one did you get, the original American translation? Have you come across any of his other books? I liked the one about the Tour maps, wasn't crazy about his Anquetil one.
Mountain High is quite nice, I thought. A coffee table book to browse. Agree on the profiles.
Yes! You said it all better than I did. That's interesting about NftB--the one I have is translated by Allan Stoekl. Do you have a recommended version/translator? Tour maps one would be good to find.
Stoekel is the American one. I quite like it, it was the first version I read. Rapha did an illustrated version with some different translation and a few additional chapters - the illustrations make it a fun book. See here for details: https://www.bluetrainpublishing.com/books/velo. There's a third version which is a reworking of the Rapha version, minus the illustrations, which kind of defeats the point and so isn't really worth seeking out.
The Tour maps one is Cartes du Tour, the Rapha people again: https://www.bluetrainpublishing.com/books/cartes-du-tour Their books might be on the expensive side, but pretty much all of them are worth the read, they have high standards where the books are concerned.
Wondering how people rate teams support squad for a GT, UAE are probably top for everyone, Visma probably keep second for all round support and having Kuss in the mountains. Bora getting very close to them though in terms of depth.
To be honest, I didn't feel like UAE's team support squad was much better than Visma's.
If you look at Giro, UAE support squad didn't look that strong when Van Aert really shined.
In dauphine or TdF I think the main thing that made UAE look better was because Tadej was better. I wouldn't call Narvaez lead out sprints with 10km to go an impressive support intervention. Sivakov and mountain supports were generally below expectation for UAE.
And in Vuelta, UAE was a mess, but not going 100% for Almeida might actually have been a best strat because of how many wins they racked up when Jonas was probably going to win GC regardless of how dedicated UAE domestiques would behave.
Imo with the current state of the peloton where some GC riders are way above everyone else even on a bad day, domestiques don't need to be outstandingly strong. They mostly need to prevent some absurd scenarios to happen.
UAE's tour core squad has impressive cohesionship, but only in tour or other races with similar lineups. Most of them are years older than Pog so their level might be decreasing and UAE needs to replace some guys in the core squad, so maybe their teamwork would also be a bit shaky.
Good points, yeah they were a mess outside the Tour and maybe underwhelming at the tour. If they bring people like Almedia to domestique though I think on paper they still are way above the others as a whole.
But yeah no domestiques are going to help Jonas beat Pog and I think no domestique will help any other team beat Jonas. I have some hope an injury free year for Remco will bring him closer to 2nd but its a hope at the moment. I think a good team of domestiques/support should make Remco a level above the rest also for 3rd.
I’m interested in Trek’s plan. If Geogeghan Hart goes full domestique and Ciccione truly stage hunts, the team can draw on strong support in the mountains.
Very true Geoghan Hart needs an injury free year/find his form also. But Gee, Tao, Skej and Ciccione plus people like Mads and Simmons for hilly and flat is a great back up for Ayuso.
Got to hope Ayuso gels with the whole team as well
Huh? Bora has no clear mountain domestiques. This was evident in all the grand tours. Only one was pellizari, but then he didn't ever try to pull hard enough to drop anyone.
I mean I expect one or two of Roglic and Lipo to domestique at the tour for Remco depending on how many leaders they want. Add in Pellizari, Hindley and Vlasov they have better climbers than Visma minus Kuss.
How well all these riders take to a domestique role is obviously an unknown.
With Kuss and Kelderman not getting any younger, Yates exit and Tulett as the only step up, i would rate Visma on par as RB right now. However, it really depends on how RB can make some leaders (Vlasov, Hindley for example) as mountain support, something that, for example, was not seen in last TdF selection.
Wiebes yolo'd herself to the national keirin title. Now she has more UCI sprint points than I have, ending my 4 month reign of officially being a better sprinter than Lorena. It was fun while it lasted, onwards and upwards for 2026.
Starting with some r/cyclocross, of course - national champs chaos weekend! One race thread to cover all races, spoilers be damned, you won't have any idea what's going on anyway (edit: I think 6 live streamed races on Saturday, 14 on Sunday).
It wasn’t streamed at all last year so an improvement in someways and at least the money goes to support British Cycling rather than Warner Discovery Bros
I haven't tried this myself (as I'm Belgian), but maybe you can watch through the Sporza website with a VPN set to Belgium?
A VPN is a good investment anyway if you use a lot of streaming platforms. You can even watch the CX World Cups on the UCI's Youtube channel if you set your country to something like Algeria.
For Sporza a VPN set to Belgium has been working for me in the UK. I can only pick up probably 5% of the words (the ones that sound the same in English!), but hearing the rider names along with the commentators' enthusiasm has been enough for me to be able to follow and enjoy.
The geoblocked UCI streams are available now as well, if I choose my location carefully.
I have a problem: language. I don't follow very well cycling without commentary, especially track. It can go in English, but it depends who comment. (Discovery ones are bad in my opinion, I like only the one who do CX and I can't stand the famous couple everybody here loves tbh).
Yeah, I have that with road cycling as well, but CX is a bit easier to follow, even if you don't understand the commentary. It's also only an hour (while road races last much longer). Sometimes I watch road cycling on RAI just because I like the sound of Italian lol.
Last week I attended the CX race in Zonhoven and it was amazing. The hero of the day: Thibau Nys, who finished 19th.
After he had crashed, broken his bike and lost several minutes to the front of the race, the crowd started cheering him on as if he was on the way to becoming a world champion. Lap after lap he was getting louder cheers than MvdP himself, finished off with everyone chanting "merci Thibau" in the final lap.
It reminded me a bit of Cian Uijtdebroeks riding as if his life depended on it for a 70th place 8 minutes down during the road WC in 2021. It's the type of stuff that makes sports great, and fans rightly eat this stuff up. Never give up racing, always give the crowd the show they came for.
That came through on the broadcast as well!
Thundering applause when the camera cut to Nys tackling that
sand downhill with a broken handlebar.
The atmosphere must have been incredible on site.
It really was. I was one of the lucky few (as in, one of the several thousand) fans who had a spot in "De Kuil", and the cheering sounded a bit like how a packed football stadium would sound.
One cute little thing that doesn't seem to have made it into the broadcast, is Thibau Nys giving the crowd a little wave while he was leaving de kuil for the las time. It's a small gesture of course, but for a fan in the moment it feels pretty epic when a rider shows appreciation like that.
Yesterday finally the small gift I bought to my SO arrived: a X2O trophee bonnet. There is nothing better than a duck bonnet, trust me. She likes bonnets and wear them even at home so I thought she might like it and she did!
I've been having a thought in the last few weeks. Was the whole "good cyclists starve themselves half to death" deal a factor in why doping was even worse in cycling than in other sports? Athletes did everything right. They trained hard, they followed their malnutrition plans and did everything that was asked of them, but they just didn't get any better because of LEA. That certainly would make me more likely to try some EPO when my trainer gave it to me and I was young and stupid.
Side point: Was Ullrich's famed improvement at early season training camps compared to his team mates just his body having some energy reserves available, while his team mates' didn't?
Leigh’s improvements where mostly due to the fact that he, contrary to others, did fully enjoy is time of and arrived in bad shape. So his base level was lower compared to others that had a better diet during the off season and his peak level was higher due to genetics, so his improvements were enormous compared to the others during training camps.
The amount of superstition in sports is staggering, but it doesn’t excuse
resorting to PEDs to compensate.
Side point: Was Ullrich's famed improvement at early season training camps compared to his team mates just his body having some energy reserves available, while his team mates' didn't?
So you’re saying that Carlos Betancur might have been born a decade or
two too late!
Who is excusing anything here? I'm just trying to understand the entitlement that leads to cheating.
Pros who, according to your post, did everything “right” by yesteryear’s
standards without improving. It certainly reads like a cheap excuse to
blame bad results for their weakness towards PED slinging coaches.
I won’t argue if you prefer to call it “entitlement”, it’s just a defense
I could imagine former dopers use to rationalize their actions.
Introduction: Low energy availability (LEA) occurs when energy expenditure from athletic training and bodily functions exceeds caloric intake. This imbalance results in declines in athletic performance and increases the risk of injury. Relative energy deficiency in sport (REDs) is a condition that occurs when the energy deficit is severe enough to cause alterations to metabolic rate, menstrual function, immune function, bone health, protein synthesis, and cardiovascular function. Many athletes, particularly those competing in endurance, aesthetic, or weight-class sports, are adversely impacted by this condition.
In my incredibly uninformed opinion, EPO would have had a tremendous effect regardless of what else the athlete in question is already doing right or wrong. 99.99% of the athletes are also always punching up against stronger athletes, so that incentive to cheat is similarly always there.
These days they're definitely doing more things right (and malnutrition was a practice until a measly 15 years ago; it's something Bjorn Leukemans used to bring up in interviews to illustrate how much he suffers in order to supposedly get better). This is often cited as a reason why today's peloton can be faster yet cleaner, and even though people mock this logic I think it holds some truth.
Little side note: we don't really know if the problem is worse in cycling than it is in other sports, we only know that it gets penalized and mediatized more severely. You could also reason that due to the high level of enforcement and the lack of it in others, cycling is probably one of the cleaner sports in the world currently.
I'm having a day of extremes. It's freezing cold here in Europe, snow on the ground, and the local transport system shut down for the morning yesterday because there was too much snow on the roads to travel safely in the metropole. Meanwhile, my parents are in 46 degree heat in Australia and have had to evacuate in the face of a bush fire that is heading towards town. Crazy world sometimes - and not just because Plapp is losing nearly three minutes in a TT.
I was thinking that Kuss, although not an ideal choice given his results the past two years (though he was 7th last year while domestiquing) would probably have to be their GC leader with no Yates or Cian. This year’s Vuelta parcours seems like it would suit him better than Matteo, and the only other likely contender seems like it would be Tullett right? What’s rough is the course design is so climbing heavy that there doesn’t seem to be much opportunity there for anyone other than GC, especially if Pog goes and kills the breakaway every day.
I think we can assume that Vingegaard does the Giro and the Tour so Visma need someone else for the Vuelta. Do you think they're likely to go with a Jorgenson and Kuss dual leadership?
Great job from team Brennan in the Australian natty champs. Only team that tries to do anything against team Jayco
I just rewatched 2019 Amstel Gold. I know the outcome but still get pumped for the ending,
With 22 years old Bjorg Lambrecht finishing 6th. ❤️
I’ve been traveling the last couple weeks, went to a bunch of CX races which was fun except for the multiple days standing through snowstorms! I’ll give a more detailed report once I’m back next week :)
I also watched the first season of the Movistar docuseries yesterday with my friend, and wow, I thought I knew the extent of their shenanigans and incompetence, but I kept learning even more. I had never actually seen the infamous trident hostage video. Absolutely hilarious team
Oh also, I’ve been hanging out on a few other sports subs lately and it’s made me yet again grateful for this sub’s moderation. I know it’s stricter than plenty would like, but I get so annoyed scrolling past the exact same low effort spam posts every single day elsewhere. So much clutter, so the actual news gets lost or not even posted.
Thank you for your kind words. Wire transfer to the same account as before, right?
Do you think Simon Yates would have continued this year if he was allowed to defend his Giro title?
Considering he decided to retire so suddenly at the start of the season, it makes me wonder what was the tipping point for him.
He always did love the Giro more than the Tour if I remember his interviews correctly.
I’ve been thinking this same thing. A hard start to training camp reminding him what he has to go through and as the reigning champion he won’t even have a chance to defend his title… I could absolutely see it being the tipping point despite what is said in press releases, etc…
Nah, after the camp and the motivation speeches made by the team management he just simply said “I’m too old for this”.
Nah, if the motivation was wanting to ride the Giro again, then he’d switch to another team where he could do that rather than retire completely
jonas has been saying he would like to go to the giro since he won the vuelta it was nothing new, yates said In the presentation of the giro( he had to fly to Italy for this ) that he would be happy to be there even if it was to work for someone else while wearing number 1.
unfortunately its very difficult to believe this isn't something like Lazkano. i know he's British and he wouldn't do it, but winning the giro has been his obsession since 2018. Luke durbrige said it well in his podcast
The moment when I am the closest to retiring is always when I have to come back from holidays.
Me too. Then I remember I don't want to be homeless.
uci conti database has been updated (not 100% yet tho).
Will Wout ever return to form after a brutal ankle break/surgery/rehab? I hope so!!
2022 form? No. 2025 form? Yes.
As someone watching through the 2022 stages right now, WVA is blowing my mind. Like how??
Same with Sepp Kuss in stage 12.
My follow-up though is- why dont I care/know as much about the UAE domestiques?
Some of the UAE domestiques are a lot of fun. Pollitt, Wellens, Soler and Majka, for instance, have all gained popularity while working for Pogacar.
On the other hand, UAE obviously have their sportswashing image against them, so it's just not as easy to sympathize with that team.
Ankles are notorious for being causing a lifetime of pain. Let's hope you're right. GO WOUT!!
I just discovered a new beautiful spot near me through Google Maps. Excited to get there after work
Who is visma gonna bring on to replace yates in the grand tours as a top lieutenant?
Andrea Paqualon is out of contract
Maybe they can convince Mollema for a last season comeback.
Vingegaard as lead out for Brennan
You know the Ashes tour was shit when yesterday the BBC sports front page only had football news and a small article about a new English cricket sensation who is going to bring peace to the world and equilibrium to the force.
Anyway who would ever guess that a coaching culture promoting non accountability would end up on a drinking problem and players taking the tour like holidays.
I was looking at the 2026 Picnic roster, and this has to be one of the weakest lineups a WT team has fielded in years. Does Jakobsen “bounce back” after last year’s surgeries? His 2024 season wasn’t exactly encouraging. I'm optimistic for Poole and Bittner, but you can’t seriously build an entire season around those two.
NTT in 2020 was a disaster, but even their roster didn’t look quite this thin. They also had some aging big-name riders, but at least there were a few solid mid tier riders.
Israel in 2020 was also rough, but that was a team trying to buy its way into the WT rather than developing talent organically. DSM on the other hand has been in the WT for over a decade.
Of course 2010 Footon Servetto remains the gold standard for historically bad rosters. I don’t think anyone is ever topping that. So DSM at least has that going for them.
Worse than Cofidis 2025?
Hello hello, made a wordle like game for pro cyclists: https://cycdle.com/
Aim is to guess the rider randomly picked each day in 6 attempts or less. Added only the top 100 riders for now to keep it somewhat easy. Enjoy and do let me know what you think...
Hey, this is fun ! But I can play only once per day ?
Yes, like the original wordle.,, Maybe I can add some more puzzles so there is more to do in one day
I rewatched the Finestre climb from stage 20 this year to take a break from fool scrolling and…. Wow I still cannot believe what happened there in all respect. Kudos to Yates and shame on UAE. Listening to Rob Hatch and Sean Kelly’s incredulous commentary too was funny.
As a Carapaz fan, I'm still mad about it.
I watched again and I think Del Toro just didn’t realize that to a veteran like Carapaz who had already won the Giro, there was no difference between second and third to him.
Can’t wait for the season to start. Been playing tdf 2025 on the ps5 to get my fix over the winter
I've bought a new Garmin watch, and asked it to make a training plan with an overly ambitious goal. I will ignore all the easy runs it gives me, and the interval training, and complain when I'm not any faster after 15 weeks. This is the way.
Lies. You'll ignore one easy run, Garmin will tell you that you're not dedicated enough, and kick you from the plan.
This is the way
Update on cycling-related books I've read recently
Jumping on the second book here: I'm guessing you know about "Riding in the Zone Rouge"? If not, it's a book about a stage race in early spring of 1919 around the WWI battlefields.
I didn't know about that! Recommended?
It is very interesting, and the author tries to do the race himself, following the original roads as closely as possible and visiting war memorials.
However it can get a bit repetitive (it was tough, and cold, and hard, and tough, and cold, and hard, and...)
I'd recommend it over the Dobkin. Being a little-known race, it's the more interesting story.
Sunday in Hell suffers from Fotheringham being Fotheringham and loving Leth far too much, crediting him with far too much. If he'd taken a step or two back he could have written a better, shorter book.
The 1919 Tour book ... I didn't get why some raved about that. There's a good story to be told there, but Dobkin couldn't see what it is.
The Fournel is good. There's actually three different versions of that in English, which one did you get, the original American translation? Have you come across any of his other books? I liked the one about the Tour maps, wasn't crazy about his Anquetil one.
Mountain High is quite nice, I thought. A coffee table book to browse. Agree on the profiles.
Yes! You said it all better than I did. That's interesting about NftB--the one I have is translated by Allan Stoekl. Do you have a recommended version/translator? Tour maps one would be good to find.
Stoekel is the American one. I quite like it, it was the first version I read. Rapha did an illustrated version with some different translation and a few additional chapters - the illustrations make it a fun book. See here for details: https://www.bluetrainpublishing.com/books/velo. There's a third version which is a reworking of the Rapha version, minus the illustrations, which kind of defeats the point and so isn't really worth seeking out.
The Tour maps one is Cartes du Tour, the Rapha people again: https://www.bluetrainpublishing.com/books/cartes-du-tour Their books might be on the expensive side, but pretty much all of them are worth the read, they have high standards where the books are concerned.
Both unavailable at the Rapha site, might have to start scouring eBay. Thanks for the tip!
Wondering how people rate teams support squad for a GT, UAE are probably top for everyone, Visma probably keep second for all round support and having Kuss in the mountains. Bora getting very close to them though in terms of depth.
To be honest, I didn't feel like UAE's team support squad was much better than Visma's.
If you look at Giro, UAE support squad didn't look that strong when Van Aert really shined.
In dauphine or TdF I think the main thing that made UAE look better was because Tadej was better. I wouldn't call Narvaez lead out sprints with 10km to go an impressive support intervention. Sivakov and mountain supports were generally below expectation for UAE.
And in Vuelta, UAE was a mess, but not going 100% for Almeida might actually have been a best strat because of how many wins they racked up when Jonas was probably going to win GC regardless of how dedicated UAE domestiques would behave.
Imo with the current state of the peloton where some GC riders are way above everyone else even on a bad day, domestiques don't need to be outstandingly strong. They mostly need to prevent some absurd scenarios to happen.
UAE's tour core squad has impressive cohesionship, but only in tour or other races with similar lineups. Most of them are years older than Pog so their level might be decreasing and UAE needs to replace some guys in the core squad, so maybe their teamwork would also be a bit shaky.
Good points, yeah they were a mess outside the Tour and maybe underwhelming at the tour. If they bring people like Almedia to domestique though I think on paper they still are way above the others as a whole.
But yeah no domestiques are going to help Jonas beat Pog and I think no domestique will help any other team beat Jonas. I have some hope an injury free year for Remco will bring him closer to 2nd but its a hope at the moment. I think a good team of domestiques/support should make Remco a level above the rest also for 3rd.
I’m interested in Trek’s plan. If Geogeghan Hart goes full domestique and Ciccione truly stage hunts, the team can draw on strong support in the mountains.
Very true Geoghan Hart needs an injury free year/find his form also. But Gee, Tao, Skej and Ciccione plus people like Mads and Simmons for hilly and flat is a great back up for Ayuso.
Got to hope Ayuso gels with the whole team as well
I hope Skelly posts some results in the Ardennes so he can make a claim on a GT. His seasons are usually messy but he’s fun to watch
Huh? Bora has no clear mountain domestiques. This was evident in all the grand tours. Only one was pellizari, but then he didn't ever try to pull hard enough to drop anyone.
I mean I expect one or two of Roglic and Lipo to domestique at the tour for Remco depending on how many leaders they want. Add in Pellizari, Hindley and Vlasov they have better climbers than Visma minus Kuss.
How well all these riders take to a domestique role is obviously an unknown.
Good luck with that. No clue how you think Lipo is riding for someone who finished 3rd 2 years ago when he did it himself last year.
Eh, if you look at what each has won...
I do think Lipo would be better of trying to score some wins in 1 week races instead of throwing everything at the tour.
He's way too good to have so little wins
With Kuss and Kelderman not getting any younger, Yates exit and Tulett as the only step up, i would rate Visma on par as RB right now. However, it really depends on how RB can make some leaders (Vlasov, Hindley for example) as mountain support, something that, for example, was not seen in last TdF selection.
Wiebes yolo'd herself to the national keirin title. Now she has more UCI sprint points than I have, ending my 4 month reign of officially being a better sprinter than Lorena. It was fun while it lasted, onwards and upwards for 2026.
Starting with some r/cyclocross, of course - national champs chaos weekend! One race thread to cover all races, spoilers be damned, you won't have any idea what's going on anyway (edit: I think 6 live streamed races on Saturday, 14 on Sunday).
British will be a glorious mix of mud, ice and tears after last night storm.
And complaining about BC putting the stream behind a paywall.
Somehow all the sports mangers believe they are the football champions league.
It wasn’t streamed at all last year so an improvement in someways and at least the money goes to support British Cycling rather than Warner Discovery Bros
There was a team of teenagers unofficially live streaming it last year, it was brilliant!
I actually watched some of this, there was a vlogger who also shared his experience of the event, all great grass roots work
Will Discovery air the Belgian one?
They seem to have the French and Dutch ones, but it's Sporza/RTBF for Belgium.
Ouch. I want more cycling! I pay and I want to watch everything!
Let alone that there isn't a single track race on Discovery, I joined mostly for CX and track and well, I want my damn track!
I haven't tried this myself (as I'm Belgian), but maybe you can watch through the Sporza website with a VPN set to Belgium?
A VPN is a good investment anyway if you use a lot of streaming platforms. You can even watch the CX World Cups on the UCI's Youtube channel if you set your country to something like Algeria.
For Sporza a VPN set to Belgium has been working for me in the UK. I can only pick up probably 5% of the words (the ones that sound the same in English!), but hearing the rider names along with the commentators' enthusiasm has been enough for me to be able to follow and enjoy.
The geoblocked UCI streams are available now as well, if I choose my location carefully.
I have a problem: language. I don't follow very well cycling without commentary, especially track. It can go in English, but it depends who comment. (Discovery ones are bad in my opinion, I like only the one who do CX and I can't stand the famous couple everybody here loves tbh).
Yeah, I have that with road cycling as well, but CX is a bit easier to follow, even if you don't understand the commentary. It's also only an hour (while road races last much longer). Sometimes I watch road cycling on RAI just because I like the sound of Italian lol.
Dear diary,
Last week I attended the CX race in Zonhoven and it was amazing. The hero of the day: Thibau Nys, who finished 19th.
After he had crashed, broken his bike and lost several minutes to the front of the race, the crowd started cheering him on as if he was on the way to becoming a world champion. Lap after lap he was getting louder cheers than MvdP himself, finished off with everyone chanting "merci Thibau" in the final lap.
It reminded me a bit of Cian Uijtdebroeks riding as if his life depended on it for a 70th place 8 minutes down during the road WC in 2021. It's the type of stuff that makes sports great, and fans rightly eat this stuff up. Never give up racing, always give the crowd the show they came for.
[removed]
On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog - or in this case Belgian.
Nope, just another Belgian who likes cycling because all Belgians like cycling!
That's a remarkably cool response to someone who thought you were American.
That came through on the broadcast as well! Thundering applause when the camera cut to Nys tackling that sand downhill with a broken handlebar. The atmosphere must have been incredible on site.
It really was. I was one of the lucky few (as in, one of the several thousand) fans who had a spot in "De Kuil", and the cheering sounded a bit like how a packed football stadium would sound.
One cute little thing that doesn't seem to have made it into the broadcast, is Thibau Nys giving the crowd a little wave while he was leaving de kuil for the las time. It's a small gesture of course, but for a fan in the moment it feels pretty epic when a rider shows appreciation like that.
Yesterday finally the small gift I bought to my SO arrived: a X2O trophee bonnet. There is nothing better than a duck bonnet, trust me. She likes bonnets and wear them even at home so I thought she might like it and she did!
Iván Romeo surely has the coolest NC jersey
Agreed
I like it too, but it's actually a bit weird his jersey is NOTHING like the rest of the team.
I've been having a thought in the last few weeks. Was the whole "good cyclists starve themselves half to death" deal a factor in why doping was even worse in cycling than in other sports? Athletes did everything right. They trained hard, they followed their malnutrition plans and did everything that was asked of them, but they just didn't get any better because of LEA. That certainly would make me more likely to try some EPO when my trainer gave it to me and I was young and stupid.
Side point: Was Ullrich's famed improvement at early season training camps compared to his team mates just his body having some energy reserves available, while his team mates' didn't?
Leigh’s improvements where mostly due to the fact that he, contrary to others, did fully enjoy is time of and arrived in bad shape. So his base level was lower compared to others that had a better diet during the off season and his peak level was higher due to genetics, so his improvements were enormous compared to the others during training camps.
The amount of superstition in sports is staggering, but it doesn’t excuse resorting to PEDs to compensate.
So you’re saying that Carlos Betancur might have been born a decade or two too late!
Who is excusing anything here? I'm just trying to understand the entitlement that leads to cheating.
Pros who, according to your post, did everything “right” by yesteryear’s standards without improving. It certainly reads like a cheap excuse to blame bad results for their weakness towards PED slinging coaches. I won’t argue if you prefer to call it “entitlement”, it’s just a defense I could imagine former dopers use to rationalize their actions.
What's LEA?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39485653/
Thanks. A decade in professional cycling prior to the current fuelling paradigm could really mess your body up then
In my incredibly uninformed opinion, EPO would have had a tremendous effect regardless of what else the athlete in question is already doing right or wrong. 99.99% of the athletes are also always punching up against stronger athletes, so that incentive to cheat is similarly always there.
These days they're definitely doing more things right (and malnutrition was a practice until a measly 15 years ago; it's something Bjorn Leukemans used to bring up in interviews to illustrate how much he suffers in order to supposedly get better). This is often cited as a reason why today's peloton can be faster yet cleaner, and even though people mock this logic I think it holds some truth.
Little side note: we don't really know if the problem is worse in cycling than it is in other sports, we only know that it gets penalized and mediatized more severely. You could also reason that due to the high level of enforcement and the lack of it in others, cycling is probably one of the cleaner sports in the world currently.
I'm having a day of extremes. It's freezing cold here in Europe, snow on the ground, and the local transport system shut down for the morning yesterday because there was too much snow on the roads to travel safely in the metropole. Meanwhile, my parents are in 46 degree heat in Australia and have had to evacuate in the face of a bush fire that is heading towards town. Crazy world sometimes - and not just because Plapp is losing nearly three minutes in a TT.
We had 100kph winds last night that ripped a tree out of the yard.
Now, to be fair, it was the Christmas tree that I'd dumped there a couple days ago and forgot to dispose of. Lord knows where it landed.
GC kuss at the vuelta again with yates retiring now i guess 🦅
I was thinking that Kuss, although not an ideal choice given his results the past two years (though he was 7th last year while domestiquing) would probably have to be their GC leader with no Yates or Cian. This year’s Vuelta parcours seems like it would suit him better than Matteo, and the only other likely contender seems like it would be Tullett right? What’s rough is the course design is so climbing heavy that there doesn’t seem to be much opportunity there for anyone other than GC, especially if Pog goes and kills the breakaway every day.
Kuss prefers to be a domestique right now. Also his 2024 results on GC sucked.
Wasn’t that the case in 2023 as well?
I guess too. The Vuelta situation was clearly not an initial objective.
I think we can assume that Vingegaard does the Giro and the Tour so Visma need someone else for the Vuelta. Do you think they're likely to go with a Jorgenson and Kuss dual leadership?
GC Kuss could nothing against GC
FPiga.And here I am dreaming about GC Nordhagen.
Doubt he’s able to finish top 10 in a GT this year
First he should win some races against riders of his age...