Cycling thread

Black Belt Jones said:
The mighty MvdP showing some form yesterday Armel. Has to be in with an outside chance of Flanders, van Aert as well. If it comes down to a head to head with one of the veterans you'd probably say they won't have the experience to win, but if it's a more instinctive fluid race they might do it.
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Would be surprised tbh- tbf he has surprised me before.

It's 100 kilometres extra. He was relatively 'lucky' that yesterday a lot of the big guns weren't present, or they were just there to get some exercise (not always the best idea since there aren't a lot of opportunities to win one). He'll probably win de Brabantse pijl quite easily though.

Stybar and van Aert quite easily dropped him on de Kemmelberg (van Aert improved the all time in race record for that climb). Sagan is improving, not quickly enough I fear though. Terpstra is also becoming better etc... Van Avermaet is a shame; I thought his team were relatively decent, they are horrible - and he himself is good. You just can't take Mathieu to the finish, he's too damn fast. One of the things that always irritates me; you're racing against a far superior sprinter - why do you close the gap for him in the last K. Benoot attacks, Jungels goes to get him back (especially since he has already won a race- you can gamble), why would you do that - he would have closed the gap for you.
 

Armel said:
If you can understand that, every day since 01/04 there's Vive le vélo: leve de ronde, until and including the actual day. Seventy minutes program in the run-up; mainly about de Ronde.
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That does sound like the acme of civilisation, but don't they run out of things to talk about? Still light years ahead of the men-in-pub commentary we get here with the football on match of the day or Sky.

It's 100 kilometres extra. He was relatively 'lucky' that yesterday a lot of the big guns weren't present, or they were just there to get some exercise (not always the best idea since there aren't a lot of opportunities to win one). He'll probably win de Brabantse pijl quite easily though.
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I saw a sports science presentation once where a guy had analysed the win distribution across the pro-peloton and it was really narrow - if you looked at multiple wins in world tour events it was down to a few percent of riders. In other words if you didn't follow cycling you might look at these one day races and think there's a lot of elite, strong, blokes here, the best of the best - the race is up for grabs. But it really isn't - it takes something really special to win a world tour event, so like you say if the opportunity is there you have to take it as you might not get another one.

I think progression in sport, like a lot of things, is not a linear stepwise climb up the ladder, it's more like a logarithmic series. Each step up you take - local / regional / national / world / Belgian is a bigger harder step each time. So the difference between your Peter Sagans or Tom Boonens and a pro-domestique is actually gigantic.
 
Black Belt Jones said:
That does sound like the acme of civilisation, but don't they run out of things to talk about? Still light years ahead of the men-in-pub commentary we get here with the football on match of the day or Sky.
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No it's easy mate. You just have four guests. The constant is the presenter.

E.g: yesterday it was presenter, Annemiek van Vleuten (won the RVV in 2011), José De Cauwer (one of my favourites, and incidentally the commentator on Belgian television) and Bert de Backer. Then you have competitions like the best moment in de RVV etc; yesterday it was Merckx doubling riders in de RVV, against Vanderaerden his victory. Then there is a guy who's riding the parcour in the reverse direction (obviously in pieces) and picks up stories along the way; like the day before yesterday there was a monastery on one of the hills (can't remember which one) and the spiritual relationship towards cycling etc... And the day before that: Presenter, Lefevre (never boring), Eggers (very good cycling photographer - was allowed to follow Quickstep for a year - so he also had good stories like when Gaviria was angry after his second place etc; was an easy episode that, they showed a picture and he contextualized the picture), Sven Nys. Always has the highest market share and it starts at 22.15.

You can always talk about cycling. Like every Monday, during classics season, there is de Kleedkamer (that's a program about prominent cycling races in the past e.g: RVV 1978 - and basically four protagonists of that race sitting at a table; those that are still alive obviously); and they also visit two-three of the foreign ones that participated and you can see what they are doing now; Gregor Braun, Hinault, etc...

During the TdF there's a similar program for 3 weeks every day; so it's not hard (well obviously it's hard on the crew there since they have to move hundreds of kilometres/day).


Black Belt Jones said:
I saw a sports science presentation once where a guy had analysed the win distribution across the pro-peloton and it was really narrow - if you looked at multiple wins in world tour events it was down to a few percent of riders. In other words if you didn't follow cycling you might look at these one day races and think there's a lot of elite, strong, blokes here, the best of the best - the race is up for grabs. But it really isn't - it takes something really special to win a world tour event, so like you say if the opportunity is there you have to take it as you might not get another one.

I think progression in sport, like a lot of things, is not a linear stepwise climb up the ladder, it's more like a logarithmic series. Each step up you take - local / regional / national / world / Belgian is a bigger harder step each time. So the difference between your Peter Sagans or Tom Boonens and a pro-domestique is actually gigantic.
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This really.
 

Rode quite a good time trial today - looking to get under 1 hr this year for 25miles which is a benchmark of sorts for club cyclists. Back in the day it meant you were a rider of strength and quality, but with the rise in standards and equipment it's not quite the same thing nowadays - still a good thing to aim for though. Anyhow, not done much the last few weeks so rode with the idea of just getting out there and putting a time on the board, but it was a good day weatherwise and I found I was going well and on track for the hour.

That is until I steamed into an S-bend about half way round that I forgot was on the course, on the brakes but too late, and went over the bars into a bush! Whacked my head on the ground (second time in 30 years I can remember a helmet actually doing something), cut knee but otherwise OK. Got back on the bike and prob lost 20-30 secs by the time I got back up to speed, so didn't think it was that big a deal. Got back into the pace of it and finished with a time of 1 hour and 15 secs! What tragedy. To add insult to injury my garmin isn't reading quite right at the moment and was showing me an average speed of a smidge over 25 mph, so I really thought I had done it, was a bit gutted to get back to the HQ and seeing the time. Shows me I can definitely do it though, so just need to keep it going.
 
Black Belt Jones said:
Rode quite a good time trial today - looking to get under 1 hr this year for 25miles which is a benchmark of sorts for club cyclists. Back in the day it meant you were a rider of strength and quality, but with the rise in standards and equipment it's not quite the same thing nowadays - still a good thing to aim for though. Anyhow, not done much the last few weeks so rode with the idea of just getting out there and putting a time on the board, but it was a good day weatherwise and I found I was going well and on track for the hour.

That is until I steamed into an S-bend about half way round that I forgot was on the course, on the brakes but too late, and went over the bars into a bush! Whacked my head on the ground (second time in 30 years I can remember a helmet actually doing something), cut knee but otherwise OK. Got back on the bike and prob lost 20-30 secs by the time I got back up to speed, so didn't think it was that big a deal. Got back into the pace of it and finished with a time of 1 hour and 15 secs! What tragedy. To add insult to injury my garmin isn't reading quite right at the moment and was showing me an average speed of a smidge over 25 mph, so I really thought I had done it, was a bit gutted to get back to the HQ and seeing the time. Shows me I can definitely do it though, so just need to keep it going.
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As someone aiming to get to 20mph for the hour, that's insane. I'm currently just shy of 19mph, but that was mid-Winter. I was feeling the benefits of a good winter of riding until I broke my elbow early Feb, so playing catch up in the Spring - a familiar feeling... .

Fair play to you.
 
lichfieldblue said:
As someone aiming to get to 20mph for the hour, that's insane. I'm currently just shy of 19mph, but that was mid-Winter. I was feeling the benefits of a good winter of riding until I broke my elbow early Feb, so playing catch up in the Spring - a familiar feeling... .

Fair play to you.
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Thanks, it's partly equipment driven though and getting used to an aero position, you can buy a bit of speed in timetrialling. Not the bike so much but skinsuit, helmet etc.
Do you have a decent position sorted? That makes the biggest difference, although you might need to be careful recovering from a broken elbow. Puts a lot of weight on that area.
If you can do 19mph in winter training then you'll do 20 in an event with a number on your back.
 


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