Pro Tour/ Euro/Whatever road thread

road race is on. nasty crash already, looks like one of the austrians has busted his collarbone.

cadel!!!

Well done to the moody Aussie. It's nice to see him finally win something. I thought he was unlucky not to win the Dauphine this year, and pretty unlucky in the Vuelta as well.

World Champion Cadel Evans just doesn't sound right but whatevs.

aw good on him

great ride

are there any good articles out there that explain the tactics and psychology of these kinds of road races? watching it yesterday was really interesting but I think a lot of the subtlety was lost on me. I still don't really understand fully how cancellara lost it, was it just that he made his move too early? the commentators on the BBC were saying that he was being 'ridden out of it' by the two spaniards in front of him who 'were no longer going to ride'

ha

ha it's v.complicated or ha u silly noob?

i don't think it was that he made his move too early as he was up against some pretty strong climbers. cancellera is the world's fastest man--on flat. send him up a hill everything changes.

i didn't see the entire race but i assume the "ridden out of it" part means the people in his chase group had some incentive to stop working. cancellara couldn't do all the work himself and therefore he loses.

cycling is such a tactical/psychological sport, i wouldn't know where to start. if you read krabbe's "the rider" it's kind of a primer on road racing in narrative form.

(xpost) He's not a sprinter, but he's a great time trialist and a fantastic descender, so his best chance of winning was to break away on his own near the top of a climb, lose everyone on the descent and 'time trial' his way to the finish. However, everyone knew he was likely to try this so he was being marked and when he made his move people jumped on him and didn't let him get a decent gap. When the break got past him he was left in a very difficult situation: the Spanish wouldn't help him in the chase because they had a man up ahead in the break (they weren't going to chase down their team-mate), which meant he would have to do all the work on his own to bring the break back. The problem is, if he did that then he would be knackered and one of the other Spaniards would immediately launch another break.

thanks dudes... again sorry for the ignorant qn but what kind of 'help' are you talking about? pace setting/drafting?

Yes - they were making Cancellara ride at the front and just sitting on his wheel (which is much easier). If Cancellara had hauled them back up to the break then one of the other Spaniards would have suddenly leapt out of his wheel and broken away. If Cancellara had then towed everyone back up to that break then another Spaniard would have done the same. Not necessarily just Spaniards - there were several Italians up there as well. So he was in a no-win situation.

yeah, I noticed a few times he gestured them forward (the commentator said something about him flicking his elbow being the internationally recognised signal) but some times when he did that they continued to let him ride point, which is kinda lol

thx again

(highlights are up on the iplayer btw)

we don't get iplayer here

hotspotshield is ur pal

so was this the first bike race you've watched?

ha..... um yeah. my boss tried to get me to watch the tour de france last year but no dice.

Finally watched some highlights, poor fabian, he was just a marked man and he had no one to work with, however, can't fault cadel who kept a low profile, let cancellara break the lead group up before timing his run perfectly. Can't fault the guy, he did well.

Tour 2010:

http://www.letour.fr/2010/TDF/COURSE/us/le_parcours.html

tourmalet and Aubisque on the last tuesday, then rest day and a finish on tourmalet on the final thursday, individual TT on the final saturday. All the flat is in the first week

wait, only one tt? not even a ttt?

daer lance: FU
love, aso

Just reading about the stage that finishes at Arenberg and I can't work out if they actually go over the famous 'Forest of Arenberg' cobbled stretch from the Paris-Roubaix. It says "The finish line will be located at the entrance to the notorious Arenberg Trench", which makes it sound like they stop just before it - surely not?

They are doing the big climb from liege bastogne liege backwards on day three. The Arenberg day has 7 pavé sections totalling 13.2km. Having though the first week may be boring the barrodeur and pavé stage should make it less so.

I have to be in London on July 9th, and Lisbon the weekend before. I am definitely going to Arenberg and possibly the Ardennes as well.

Giro is going to have significant dirt roads this year, sucks to be a GT rider it seems.

yeah the 5k leading up to the pave/gravel will be a dangerous misery for the gc guys. countdown to evans crying about how unfair and ridiculous it is.

Jonathan Vaughters, Garmin-Slipstream: “It’s harder than last year. On paper, that’s better for Christian (Vande Velde) because he’s always stronger in the third week.

WIGGO TO SKY ALERT!!!

Doesn't look great for Wiggins or Cavendish, really

WHAT? VDB DIED? guess i hadn't really been following the news over the last few days.

Damn :(

saw a pic on some blog of a street corner with building painted in belgian tricolour and 'RIP VDB' sprayed on a wall!

cadel has quit big pharma-lotto and is reportedly off to either sky, or - one from left-field, i must say - BMC (who've snagged ballan, hincapie and others).

lol hang on, this sez he's off to garmin, and wiggo to sky. that sounds more sensible. everybody but contador has got what they wanted for christmas!

uh wow wat

i dreamt last night that christian v4nd3velde was eaten by a crocodile.

totally serious :/

also whoever gets contador wins until the next doping freakout

to the contrary:

http://www.cadelevans.com.au/cadelsdiary.aspx

lol was just about to post that. that's the last time i trust an australian broadsheet for cycling news!

cadel's website is hilarious

that photo of him is so lol, what a ridiculous looking person

he literally has a dick coming out of the bottom part of his face

i do admire his persona, cycling needs more people like cadel, actually

the good outweighs the whininess of cadel.

i spent like a half hour with him watching a road race in the middle of nowhere when he was a teenage mtbr with diamondback.

awesome!

you were like, cadel do it this way, on a road bike

i was like, i actually know how you are, what the hell are you doing here? something to do with weins iirc. i think weins was w/ db then too.

not "how" but "who you are."

"i know how you are, with that penis chin"

gotta add, what does it say about how big mtb was pre-96 olympics that jr upcoming mtb stars were like, pretty well known in the racing world. i mean, i raced a lot of mtb then, but domestically, that's where the money was. one of my pals who was semi-pro with aspirations was all, "man, the road scene is done. it wont even exist after 2000."

pezcycling article on the 2010 giro:

"Once they hit the Zoncolan, if anyone has thoughts of Giro glory, it's here they'll have to stand up and show their cards. The first couple of kilometers are a nice 9% introduction, a warm-up if you will, then it's 5.9k at an AVERAGE of 14.9% with sections of 20 and 22%. It's mind-boggling. The final 2k ease off a bit to a measly 8% average with only an 18% bump."

seriously my respect for professional cyclists as athletes is off the chart

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=7676&status=True&catname=Latest%20News

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/fashion/05fitness.html?_r=4&ref=fashion

yeah yeah, not pro, not tour, mostly LOLZ, but still: cutty do you see this dude ever?