Root66
Player Valuation: £750k
Pretty much ends the vuelta too! He can ride within himself now and use it as a training session for it
Cycling thread
- Thread starter Bruce Wayne
- Start date
Pretty much ends the vuelta too! He can ride within himself now and use it as a training session for it
Sure he'll go for 5 in a row at Lombardia as well.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Yes, but this feller's full spectrum dominance is destroying cycling as a spectacle. Only VdP in a couple of Monuments have bested him this season and it's going to get boring.
Either he (Pogacar) loses form (or gets caught by WADA
) or the sport is going to lose some of its lustre.
I'm behind on watching TDF and usually have a previous day's replay in the background while busy at work, so I'm only popping in to ask one thing. Do you enjoy riding a bicycle @davek? I'm very interested in all your opinions on cycling for the masses (and maybe you've shared these but I've missed them, so my apology for asking again if so.)
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Rita_Poon
Player Valuation: £100m
Dutch former pro road cyclist Bjarne Riis set the record for the Hautacam climb record in 1996. He did so with a time of 34 minutes, 41 seconds.
Riis is an interesting subject, he admitted in 2007 to using EPO, growth hormone and cortisone over a six year period from 1993-1998. Riis won the tour de France in 1996.
Team mate to Riis was a younger cyclist named Jan Ullrich.
Ullrich is an interesting subject, having admitted to using EPO throughout his entire career, this admission was part prompted by the upper house of the French parliament (Senate) naming him along with others as having had their 1998 samples retested (2004) with the means for detecting EPO and him being guilty as sin. Ullrich won the tour de France in 1997.
Remember that famous American chap that won the tour an incredible 7 times? 1999-2005. Ullrich was second to him four times, and fourth in 2004, and third in a void race in 2005. They let Ivan Basso retain his second place (2005).
Basso is an interesting subject, he admitted involvement with doping and was banned outright in 2007, and was out for 2 years.
Jalabert, the senate finding, EPO, guilty!
Pantani, the senate finding, EPO, guilty!
French Senate releases positive EPO cases from 1998 Tour de France | Cyclingnews.com
Zabel, Ullrich, Pantani and Livingston all listed
www.cyclingnews.com
TheWinslowBoy
Player Valuation: £750k
The GC as a competition is virtually dead now....
But this race is something special.
I was at the start in Auch this morning, and it was such a wonderful, joyous spectacle.
Town centre jam packed at 9am, 4 hours before the start, a wonderful festive mood, everyone's poured in from miles around for the biggest event in the area for years.
The insane publicity caravan 2 hours before the start. I must be the only person in history not to get any freebies....feral kids and sharp elbowed parents (maybe ex-sprinters) hoovered up everything thrown in my direction.
Then a trip down to the paddock/bus park. Even Tadej has to sit on a bus in a massive traffic jam to get to the start.
Display said it was 37ºc (perfect for riding up massive mountains in the Pyrenees) so I got a beer from a little Portuguese cafe opposite the bus park and got a wave from Remco (who i used to think was arrogant) as his bus was stuck in the gridlock as I was drinking it.
Then the riders dice with death to get to the sign-on, cars driving through the middle of them, fans trying to grab them. You're literally inches away from some of the greatest athletes in the world.
A Slovenian lad in a stripy jersey clearly took my advice to "Go on lad!"
The stewards cross you from one side of the road to the other and you realise Tim Merlier and one of the Paret-Peintre brothers are waiting for you to hurry up.
Then the ceremonial roll out. No-one was even racing at this stage but the whole town is at fever pitch.
And then after they'd rolled out, I popped into a bar, everyone watching the race, and the old guys who inhabit every French bar are jumping up in excitement every time they see somewhere they know.
Because the Tour de France is in their area, at last.
And it will always be special.
But this race is something special.
I was at the start in Auch this morning, and it was such a wonderful, joyous spectacle.
Town centre jam packed at 9am, 4 hours before the start, a wonderful festive mood, everyone's poured in from miles around for the biggest event in the area for years.
The insane publicity caravan 2 hours before the start. I must be the only person in history not to get any freebies....feral kids and sharp elbowed parents (maybe ex-sprinters) hoovered up everything thrown in my direction.
Then a trip down to the paddock/bus park. Even Tadej has to sit on a bus in a massive traffic jam to get to the start.
Display said it was 37ºc (perfect for riding up massive mountains in the Pyrenees) so I got a beer from a little Portuguese cafe opposite the bus park and got a wave from Remco (who i used to think was arrogant) as his bus was stuck in the gridlock as I was drinking it.
Then the riders dice with death to get to the sign-on, cars driving through the middle of them, fans trying to grab them. You're literally inches away from some of the greatest athletes in the world.
A Slovenian lad in a stripy jersey clearly took my advice to "Go on lad!"
The stewards cross you from one side of the road to the other and you realise Tim Merlier and one of the Paret-Peintre brothers are waiting for you to hurry up.
Then the ceremonial roll out. No-one was even racing at this stage but the whole town is at fever pitch.
And then after they'd rolled out, I popped into a bar, everyone watching the race, and the old guys who inhabit every French bar are jumping up in excitement every time they see somewhere they know.
Because the Tour de France is in their area, at last.
And it will always be special.
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Also interesting to note that they were 6kmh quicker for the stage today than when Vingegaard won in 2022.
That's the cool thing about the sport, isn't it? I went to a Giro stage start in Gardena last year and it's all so accessible. Plus, of course, you can ride all of these amazing climbs and literally follow in the pedal strokes of the greatest races and riders in the world. Here's a Disgruntled Goat doing his best Pogi impression a few years ago
The lovely thing about many of these Pyrennean climbs is how quiet they are. The Tourmalet is probably the busiest in the area, but it's nothing compared to the Stelvio or d'Huez.
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