Ardennes Classics 2019 *Spoilers*

RichN95.

He's fairly newly divorced isn't he? A first winter without the wife, distractions aplenty

DeVlaeminck

Real shame he's not been at his best this classics campaign hopefully he comes back strong next year - potentially him and VdP both on form both employing aggressive tactics could cause Quickstep some headaches.

Alejandrosdog

ShutupJens wrote:

Alejandrosdog wrote:

Gweeds wrote:

Sagan out of LBL. Says he’s taking time to prepare for TOC.

Based on recent performance he would never really have been in it anyway

Yeah could have said that after Roubaix. Smart decision, hope to see him back to his normal self come summer time!

Deffo he’s been through a very stressful time, I hope he finds himself soon

sherer

not the best campaign for Sagan but surely thats a measure of how good he is, we think he can win every time out.
He still made top 10 in Flanders, Roubaix and San Remo so not a total loss.

An out of form Sagan might make the green jersey more interesting this year.

RichN95.

sherer wrote:

not the best campaign for Sagan but surely thats a measure of how good he is, we think he can win every time out.

He has a 6% win rate in Monuments and a 16% podium rate. Compare that to Boonen (16% wins, 34% podiums) and Cancellara (20% wins, 45% podiums) or even Gilbert (10% wins, 20% podiums)

Any expectation that he can win every time isn't supported by data.

m.r.m.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=107abrz ... dex=8&t=0s

Analysis of My Man MvdP's Strava for Amstel Gold. Think it shows he was pretty much pulling the entire time for the last 11 minutes at the very least. The numbers are truly amazing, incredible, insane...

cruff

M.R.M. wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=107abrzxj4E&list=WL&index=8&t=0s

Analysis of My Man MvdP's Strava for Amstel Gold. Think it shows he was pretty much pulling the entire time for the last 11 minutes at the very least. The numbers are truly amazing, incredible, insane...

... Supernatural? :shock:

ShutupJens

Cruff wrote:

M.R.M. wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=107abrzxj4E&list=WL&index=8&t=0s

Analysis of My Man MvdP's Strava for Amstel Gold. Think it shows he was pretty much pulling the entire time for the last 11 minutes at the very least. The numbers are truly amazing, incredible, insane...

... Supernatural? :shock:

Yet the video footage shows him getting plenty of help. Numbers lie

m.r.m.

Question is for how long people were pulling through. Think the numbers show he didn't get much rest.

bobmcstuff

ShutupJens wrote:

Cruff wrote:

M.R.M. wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=107abrzxj4E&list=WL&index=8&t=0s

Analysis of My Man MvdP's Strava for Amstel Gold. Think it shows he was pretty much pulling the entire time for the last 11 minutes at the very least. The numbers are truly amazing, incredible, insane...

... Supernatural? :shock:

Yet the video footage shows him getting plenty of help. Numbers lie

Actual measured numbers are pretty much the only thing that can't lie.

gsk82

bobmcstuff wrote:

ShutupJens wrote:

Cruff wrote:

M.R.M. wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=107abrzxj4E&list=WL&index=8&t=0s

Analysis of My Man MvdP's Strava for Amstel Gold. Think it shows he was pretty much pulling the entire time for the last 11 minutes at the very least. The numbers are truly amazing, incredible, insane...

... Supernatural? :shock:

Yet the video footage shows him getting plenty of help. Numbers lie

Actual measured numbers are pretty much the only thing that can't lie.

You can ride at 450 watts behind someone else though. There's plenty of up and down on those graphs. It could be corners or changes in elevation or other people coming through to the front.

Pross

bobmcstuff wrote:

ShutupJens wrote:

Cruff wrote:

M.R.M. wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=107abrzxj4E&list=WL&index=8&t=0s

Analysis of My Man MvdP's Strava for Amstel Gold. Think it shows he was pretty much pulling the entire time for the last 11 minutes at the very least. The numbers are truly amazing, incredible, insane...

... Supernatural? :shock:

Yet the video footage shows him getting plenty of help. Numbers lie

Actual measured numbers are pretty much the only thing that can't lie.

Maybe it shows he was glass cranking while he was on the front so still having to work as hard behind others?

ShutupJens

bobmcstuff wrote:

ShutupJens wrote:

Cruff wrote:

M.R.M. wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=107abrzxj4E&list=WL&index=8&t=0s

Analysis of My Man MvdP's Strava for Amstel Gold. Think it shows he was pretty much pulling the entire time for the last 11 minutes at the very least. The numbers are truly amazing, incredible, insane...

... Supernatural? :shock:

Yet the video footage shows him getting plenty of help. Numbers lie

Actual measured numbers are pretty much the only thing that can't lie.

Yeah but at the same time actual measured numbers can be used to "prove" anything, whereas using a little bit of context generally tells a different story

ShutupJens

Looking at the odds for tomorrow, Alaphillipe at 3/1 and Fuglsang at 5/1 are the shortest, then a big jump to Kwia at 14/1. Could be some money to be made there I reckon

rick_chasey

ShutupJens wrote:

Looking at the odds for tomorrow, Alaphillipe at 3/1 and Fuglsang at 5/1 are the shortest, then a big jump to Kwia at 14/1. Could be some money to be made there I reckon

No.

blazing_saddles

Liège-Bastogne-Liège

The 105th edition of La Doyenne will bring down the curtain on a spring classics campaign.

RichN95.

I'm sure there we're all familiar with the children's rhyme 'There was an old lady who swallowed a fly'

Now there's a sequel - There was an old man who swallowed a bee'

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/valverd ... -wallonne/

No_Ta_Doctor

So we don't think la Doyenne needs a spoiler of it's own?

:-(

ddraver

So as I draw to the end of my third season of this "career pause" and start getting used to missing the entire classics season I am more reliant on podcasts than ever and so came across this one from the Wide Angle Podium...erm...crew

http://crosshairsradio.libsyn.com/episo ... per-rookie

The CX & MTB podcast guy and a guest from the road podcast guy discuss the "surprise" victory of MvdP and how it is not at all surprising to anyone that has been paying attention (*cough* so not Lance *cough*)

I quite enjoyed it, and they give some interesting insights into the Boi...

rick_chasey

Cross is to cycling what 5 aside is to football.

RichN95.

Rick Chasey wrote:

Cross is to cycling what 5 aside is to football.

I've often described Track as the cycling equivalent to Rugby 7s - dominated by an island nation that cares about it and people only notice it when the Olympics comes around

poweredbyidris

Whoever invented ‘Watts zap’ on Eurosport should suffer death by a million paper cuts and a vinegar bath

m.r.m.

ddraver wrote:

So as I draw to the end of my third season of this "career pause" and start getting used to missing the entire classics season I am more reliant on podcasts than ever and so came across this one from the Wide Angle Podium...erm...crew

http://crosshairsradio.libsyn.com/episo ... per-rookie

The CX & MTB podcast guy and a guest from the road podcast guy discuss the "surprise" victory of MvdP and how it is not at all surprising to anyone that has been paying attention (*cough* so not Lance *cough*)

I quite enjoyed it, and they give some interesting insights into the Boi...

Thanks! Always nice to find a good (yet to be verified ) cycling podcast. There are practically none. The only one I truly enjoy is Lance's even though he hardly pays attention and his co-host is quite the imbecile (in terms of understanding cycling). It's all worth it for Hincapie though and Lance has "it" and is enjoyable to listen to.

All the rest Velonews, Cyclingnews, The Cycling Podcast, etc. have their rare moments, but are pretty much torture otherwise.

On YouTube the TrainerRoad race tactics videos are quite enjoyable when eating alone.

RichN95.

An unusual stat I found today (from PCS).

There are only 17 currently active riders who have finished all five monuments

1 GILBERT Philippe 48
2 VAN AVERMAET Greg 42
3 TAFI Andrea 42
4 ERVITI Imanol 38
5 BURGHARDT Marcus 36
6 MARCATO Marco 30
7 DEVOLDER Stijn 28
8 COSTA Rui 20
9 ROJAS José Joaquín 20
10 GALLOPIN Tony 16
11 JUUL-JENSEN Christopher 13
12 MOSCON Gianni 12
13 IZAGIRRE Ion 11
14 PIBERNIK Luka 9
15 BENOOT Tiesj 9
16 MOHORIČ Matej 9
17 BEPPU Fumiyuki 8

rick_chasey

Stijn Devolder.

Remember when he was 11th on GC in the Vuelta and followed it up with a Tour of Flanders and a win in the Tour of Portugal?

Guy could ride anything.

Pro-cycling manager that year had him with some OUTRAGEOUS numbers.

ddraver

M.R.M. wrote:

ddraver wrote:

So as I draw to the end of my third season of this "career pause" and start getting used to missing the entire classics season I am more reliant on podcasts than ever and so came across this one from the Wide Angle Podium...erm...crew

http://crosshairsradio.libsyn.com/episo ... per-rookie

The CX & MTB podcast guy and a guest from the road podcast guy discuss the "surprise" victory of MvdP and how it is not at all surprising to anyone that has been paying attention (*cough* so not Lance *cough*)

I quite enjoyed it, and they give some interesting insights into the Boi...

Thanks! Always nice to find a good (yet to be verified ) cycling podcast. There are practically none. The only one I truly enjoy is Lance's even though he hardly pays attention and his co-host is quite the imbecile (in terms of understanding cycling). It's all worth it for Hincapie though and Lance has "it" and is enjoyable to listen to.

All the rest Velonews, Cyclingnews, The Cycling Podcast, etc. have their rare moments, but are pretty much torture otherwise.

On YouTube the TrainerRoad race tactics videos are quite enjoyable when eating alone.

The CXHairs one is the best (only) way to follow CX and XCO in english.


The Slow Ride (road) podcast is basically 3 blokes chatting about the racing, very little original insight and an inability to pronounce names that borders on racism*, but hey its bike chat so...meh


(* You can see it from that podcast, bloomin Kwiatowski has been one of cycling's biggest names for...what..5 years now? Being unable to pronounce his name, WHEN YOU RUN A FFFFFFFLIPPPING ROAD CYLING PODCAST!!, is just...pathetic)

m.r.m.

Outside of Cosmo Catalano I think pretty much no one cares to pronounce his name (or others) correctly. It's such terrible arrogance to not bother to learn the few names that keep recurring.

It's KWEE-AT-KOFF-SKI not Kiwatauski or Kwiatauski
just like it's Jens FOHGT and not Jens Voy-tt (Jens Voigt)