Robert Miller Blog

tailwindhome

http://www.cyclingnews.com/blogs/robert ... l-training


This Giro d' Italia is not really bike racing any more, it's become survival training.

phreak

It does seem to be being decided by who can stay upright as much as who the best rider is. As with most things in life, a bit of moderation is always good, and for me too much in this years race has been decided by factors I wouldn't want to see deciding a race.

It would be no bad thing if organisers really looked at how they schedule the first week so that they weren't quite so consistent crash-fests.

emadden

phreak wrote:

...
It would be no bad thing if organisers really looked at how they schedule the first week so that they weren't quite so consistent crash-fests.

Even if every stage in the opening week were on an arrow-straight 8 lane motorway, there would still be crashes. Thats the nature of the opening week of GTs. Riders are nervous, more at stake being a GT and all that... etc

Pross

Bike handling and positioning in the bunch are all part and parcel of being a racing cyclist. Most of the first week crashes were due to bad weather which is outside of the organiser's control. I didn't feel any of the routes were particularly dangerous although there are a lot of road markings in some of the towns which don'y help (but again it is outside the control of the organiser). The other issue this year is the bigger peloton due to Katusha getting re-instated. It's just been a particularly bad few weeks for them on the weather front which has impacted on riders health and contributed to crashes although the first week of any GT has a lot of offs no matter what the course is like.

Yellow Peril

I think there will always be a bit of a problem with the Giro reagrdless of the weather. that's because the brutal climbs which separate the men from the boys are often matched with fearsome descents (what goes up must come down?) the roads are narrow and there is little margin for error (RIP WW). If you then add in atrocious late spring weather then it is even worse.

I'm not sure what the compromise is in a cycling Calendar that wants to run three GT's exclusively with no overlap. The Tour, quite rightly, occupies pole position for the time of year. Climatically is there any merit in flipping the Vuelta with the Giro?

hasbeen

Yellow Peril wrote:

I'm not sure what the compromise is in a cycling Calendar that wants to run three GT's exclusively with no overlap. The Tour, quite rightly, occupies pole position for the time of year. Climatically is there any merit in flipping the Vuelta with the Giro?

Years ago, the Vuelta came first in April, the Giro in May and the Tour in July. All the Vuelta has become is a 3 week training camp for the Worlds.
What would be great would be for the Vuelta to go back to April (and become a unique 2 week Tour?) and bring the Worlds back to mid August to entice the big names from the Tour to have a one day revenge match. The heady days of big names like Fignon, Kelly, Lemond, Hinault and Roche going mano e mano has been missing for too long.

iainf72

phreak wrote:

It does seem to be being decided by who can stay upright as much as who the best rider is. As with most things in life, a bit of moderation is always good, and for me too much in this years race has been decided by factors I wouldn't want to see deciding a race.

Which riders have been put out of contention by a crash?

ms_tree

I'm sure the Giro used to be a week later because the 3rd week used to overlap with the 1st week of the French open. I can remember that in the early 2000s waiting to see if the cycling would ever come on while E'sport waited for Tim Henman to play a match. :roll: I was always praying for rain at Roland Garros!

specialgueststar

not sure I'm that bothered about a R Miller blog. When he was riding he couldn't string two words together, was a cynical little fker and wholly unlikeable

Now he's telling us what we already know

salsiccia1

SpecialGuestStar wrote:

not sure I'm that bothered about a R Miller blog. When he was riding he couldn't string two words together, was a cynical little fker and wholly unlikeable

Now he's telling us what we already know

Fair enough. Don't read it.

BTW what was your attitude when you were winning stages in the Tour? How did you avoid becoming so cynical?

specialgueststar

Salsiccia1 wrote:

SpecialGuestStar wrote:

not sure I'm that bothered about a R Miller blog. When he was riding he couldn't string two words together, was a cynical little fker and wholly unlikeable

Now he's telling us what we already know

Fair enough. Don't read it.

BTW what was your attitude when you were winning stages in the Tour? How did you avoid becoming so cynical?

I saw him go past live on that stage with Delagado and Mottet and then ploughed into a bar where we were two Brits with 200 spaniards
- Ive seen over 60 stages live - it still goes down as one of the best

just don't want to hear what he's got to say - and as you say I don't read it - and got nothing against those that do -

deejay

Ms Tree wrote:

I'm sure the Giro used to be a week later because the 3rd week used to overlap with the 1st week of the French open. I can remember that in the early 2000s waiting to see if the cycling would ever come on while E'sport waited for Tim Henman to play a match. :roll: I was always praying for rain at Roland Garros!

I was lucky in that I had German DSF satelite to watch the Giro before the Druggy Telekom team came along or Henman.

As I've posted elsewhere the Dam UCI have moved the Giro 3 weeks earlier.
The 1988 Breukink/Hampsten/Blizzard on the Gavia. That Giro started 23rd May to 12th June.
I know the 1991 Giro took place 26th May to 16th June.
1980 Bernard Hinault won the Giro between 15th May to 8th June

I would suggest that the Giro be put back into it's correct place on the calendar and these UCI World Tour week long events are slotted around the Main Event.
The old system was you rode the Giro but not the Dauphine/Tour de Suisse because of the overlap.

dolan_driver

SpecialGuestStar wrote:

not sure I'm that bothered about a R Miller blog. When he was riding he couldn't string two words together, was a cynical little fker and wholly unlikeable

Now he's telling us what we already know

That's sheer heresy! I always thought Robert Millar was more something of a straight-talking melancholic than a cynic. His contribution to his retirement "special edition" of Cycle Sport magazine is a very funny read. He takes the urine out of himself as well as others who he believed deserved similar treatment. He might have lost his title of "Best British Rider in the Tour De France" but he is still a bit of a legend. Whatever he writes is usually bang on the money and is always worth reading.

DD.

specialgueststar

You can't say

That's sheer heresy!

and then say

I always thought

Heresy is beyond personal opinion and is established and acknowledged . I don't think in this case the subject is ...but I thought this was insightful

Robert Millar was more something of a straight-talking melancholic than a cynic.

Trouble is I never heard him 'straight talking'. He seemed to be suspicious and deprecating

I've read his blogs before as people do seem to like them. But..... 'the Giro has become a game of survival'. Is that so perspicacious?

inkyfingers

It's much easier for a rider to talk openly when they've retired, when your racing you have no choice but to keep your cards closer to your chest.

He always did come across as a grumpy git, but his blogs have been pretty good, though maybe not quite as insightful as some seem to make out.

edhornby

interesting what he says about it wiping out the rest of the season for the competitors - I would bet that Wiggins will still not be right when the tour comes around and he should refocus on the Vuelta and the worlds.... I don't think Nibali will do anything but with the Rosa he won't mind

if Cav doesn't win the Rossa there really is no justice

inkyfingers

edhornby wrote:

interesting what he says about it wiping out the rest of the season for the competitors - I would bet that Wiggins will still not be right when the tour comes around and he should refocus on the Vuelta and the worlds.... I don't think Nibali will do anything but with the Rosa he won't mind

if Cav doesn't win the Rossa there really is no justice

So long as he can recover from his infection then Wiggins shouldn't suffer too many physical after effects, he basically rode a slightly extended one week race, with one summit finish and one long TT. He'll be back for the Tour, can't see him doing the Vuelta, it doesn't suit him at all. I think we might see him at the Tour de Suisse as well.

His biggest issue (other than the team leadership one) will be getting his confidence back.

danlikesbikes

inkyfingers wrote:

So long as he can recover from his infection then Wiggins shouldn't suffer too many physical after effects, he basically rode a slightly extended one week race, with one summit finish and one long TT. He'll be back for the Tour, can't see him doing the Vuelta, it doesn't suit him at all. I think we might see him at the Tour de Suisse as well.

His biggest issue (other than the team leadership one) will be getting his confidence back.

Plus I guess ensuring he get his form to peak for the Tour, though if what was said Re his numbers (being produced) being the best he has ever been can imagine that the Sky approach is going to be the best place to be regards getting that part right.

dsoutar

edhornby wrote:

interesting what he says about it wiping out the rest of the season for the competitors - I would bet that Wiggins will still not be right when the tour comes around and he should refocus on the Vuelta and the worlds.... I don't think Nibali will do anything but with the Rosa he won't mind

if Cav doesn't win the Rossa there really is no justice

Nibali going to do the Vuelta

http://www.lequipe.fr/Cyclisme-sur-rout ... lta/372732

esafosfina1

RM makes some valid and insightful comments... I don't necessarily agree with all. My personal experience of RM ranges from him being quite prickly and as SGS said, grumpy, to being diffident and at times extremely witty. Whatever one thinks of his blog, one can't deny he was a hell of a bike rider!

disgruntledgoat

esafosfina1 wrote:

RM makes some valid and insightful comments... I don't necessarily agree with all. My personal experience of RM ranges from him being quite prickly and as SGS said, grumpy, to being diffident and at times extremely witty. Whatever one thinks of his blog, one can't deny he was a hell of a bike rider!

Speaking of which, I parked next to this forum's very own Dave1 at Etape du Dales at the weekend. I was too scared to say hello though...

iainf72

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Speaking of which, I parked next to this forum's very own Dave1 at Etape du Dales at the weekend. I was too scared to say hello though...

As long as it wasn't Dave_1 coz then you'd be on the wrong continent

disgruntledgoat

iainf72 wrote:

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Speaking of which, I parked next to this forum's very own Dave1 at Etape du Dales at the weekend. I was too scared to say hello though...

As long as it wasn't Dave_1 coz then you'd be on the wrong continent

I was basing my ID purely on the name on the van, so I could have been mistaken.

dolan_driver

That's sheer heresy!

I apologise. I forget to qualify that statement with the required .

DD.

hammerite

The weather is just bad luck, especially in the south of the Italy this time of year - you'd expect it to be better. Bad weather certainly shouldn't be a surprise in the mountains at any time of the year. A couple of summers ago it was snowing in July up the Galibier the day before the tour went up. A couple of years back I was sat out after skiing in early April at 1800m in shorts and t-shirt, it was 25C, this year the same time of year staying at only 800m we had fresh snow and temps below freezing most days.

You can move the Giro about, but chances are every few years there'll be some shocking weather for the riders to deal with. There isn't an easy answer to this.