Aye, not much firepower in the chase. Sky are having their usual classics shocker, and GvA continues to have a rubbish team.
Cycling thread
- Thread starter Bruce Wayne
- Start date
Aye, not much firepower in the chase. Sky are having their usual classics shocker, and GvA continues to have a rubbish team.
Armel
Player Valuation: £15m
Weird of Gilbert; Lampaert is looking like the stronger of the two and he's a TT rider.
The did irritate and anger a large part of the peleton with their new 'tactic' that is downright dangerous; in the previous classics. Suppose that has to count for something.
sbbefc
Player Valuation: £30m
Unless these two play about, this is the winning move. Sagan looks spent.
Pollitt should sit on here surely? Gilbert has the better sprint I'd have thought.
Sagan pop. Fair play to him, he did a lot of work. Surely Gilbert has this.
Quickstep 2 spots on the podium, which is very impressive.
What was that, 4 in the top 10 as well? Oof. Fair play to Gilbert, thoroughly deserved. Some very tired blokes.
Armel
Player Valuation: £15m
Went offline around that post, since I was having Boonen 2016 flashbacks. There was no way Gilbert could lose to Politt in a sprint; but I thought similar about Boonen back then. Deserved victory for Gilbert and 4 out of 5 monuments now. Can't see him winning Milan-San Remo though.
Saying that I was hoping for Van Marcke, since he's always unlucky, as he was today. Bike failure (had to do everything on his eleven, after one of the final cobbled sections), and no way they were dropping him he says. Plus he's quite open about his mental struggles as a result of his consistent 2,3,4,5 th places and how he visits a psychologist to cope with that. That's very good over here since in Belgium we consistently rank highest for suicide numbers in Western-Europe (14.2 to 6 for the UK and other countries), since it's very much not in our nature to share when we're struggling. Stupid.
This tactic (video below), they did it on tons of hills in the Flemish classics. Basically sprint to the foot of the hill; take the tempo out and block everyone, and repeat. Two active riders on that table and Boonen, I can't translate what they are saying because of the swear filter. It's not only dangerous (risk of creating crashes, adds to the nervousness), it's not even consistently efficient since if there's no wind they lose more energy and it's more tiring than having to put your foot on the ground.
I don't know if you're from the EU, if yes you can watch it around 49.15 (both links are fine).
VRT MAX
www.vrt.be
Bekijk Extra Time Koers van 10 april | sporza
Ruben Van Gucht praat met gasten Karl Vannieuwkerke, Tom Boonen, Sebastian Langeveld en Laurens De Vreese over De Ronde van Vlaanderen, Parijs-Roubaix en de Scheldeprijs.
He had to ride; Lampaert in behind was returning and he's also faster. Better a certain second place, then a probable third.
Black Belt Jones
Player Valuation: £25m
Just finished watching that now - fantastic race, v pleased to see a rider of Glibert's class take that. Reckon a rider of his experience must have figured Sagan didn't have his best form, so knew it was right to go with Politt.
Wasn't at all sure that he would do it in the velodrome - prime Phil Gil rinses Politt all day in a sprint, but he's ten years older and is way less explosive than he used to be. Think he might have wanted it more, and in the event Politt had nothing left.
Reckon WvA might have been the strongest man in the race, similar to MvdP last week. But that is a big, big match he burned having to chase on like that and he had to pay the price.
Was Van Marcke a Di2 issue? I guess all pros must have electronic shifting these days.
Wasn't at all sure that he would do it in the velodrome - prime Phil Gil rinses Politt all day in a sprint, but he's ten years older and is way less explosive than he used to be. Think he might have wanted it more, and in the event Politt had nothing left.
Reckon WvA might have been the strongest man in the race, similar to MvdP last week. But that is a big, big match he burned having to chase on like that and he had to pay the price.
Was Van Marcke a Di2 issue? I guess all pros must have electronic shifting these days.
Armel
Player Valuation: £15m
According to Klier his rear-dérailleur looked banged up as a result of a crash mid-race. Did work fine for a while afterwards, but then (at the start of carrefour de l’arbre) it was stuck in 11. Not something you want.
Armel
Player Valuation: £15m
Campenaerts has broken the world hour record: 55.089 Km/h.
Using a 61*14, insane. He had to use that, since unlike Wiggins (who used a 58*14), he doesn't have a track background so no way he could maintain 104 rotations/minute (his max is 102/minute). Campenaerts his major advantage is his extreme aerodynamic position on a bike - nobody else comes near it's insane (yesterday there was a professor on television who demonstrated this with all sorts of interesting graphs, his advantage is immense). Wiggins maintained 440-470 watt during his effort (he can do that because of his extremely big engine), for Campenaerts everything above 350 watt was sufficient to break the record.
Using a 61*14, insane. He had to use that, since unlike Wiggins (who used a 58*14), he doesn't have a track background so no way he could maintain 104 rotations/minute (his max is 102/minute). Campenaerts his major advantage is his extreme aerodynamic position on a bike - nobody else comes near it's insane (yesterday there was a professor on television who demonstrated this with all sorts of interesting graphs, his advantage is immense). Wiggins maintained 440-470 watt during his effort (he can do that because of his extremely big engine), for Campenaerts everything above 350 watt was sufficient to break the record.
Heck of a finish that.
Black Belt Jones
Player Valuation: £25m
Hail to the King! What a rider.
Welcome
Join Grand Old Team to get involved in the Everton discussion. Signing up is quick, easy, and completely free.
Shop
