TDF 24:- (be)Rate the race
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Too much down to luck imo, but that's only my opinion. Same could be said about the gravel but that's to a lesser extent and some justification can be made that's how the roads used to be. 😉
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Other people's memories are better than mine. Has a gravel stage in any of the grand tours actually resulted in a major swing through either crashing or puncture yet? People not being as comfortable on it yes, but an act of poor luck?
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That was kinda my point. Roubaix to Paris though....
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
The wheels started to come off Remco’s ‘challenge’ at the 2021 on the gravel section. Didn’t crash though. Was just shit.
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He seems to have really grown up this year. At that 2021 Giro everything was someone else's fault, including Bernal crashing into him in a tunnel before making his bad ass switch to the big ring as he accelerated on the steep bit.
"Unfortunately these days a lot of people don’t understand the real quality of a bike" Ernesto Colnago0 -
He still had his moment with Jonas refusing to ride with him and Pog on the gravel stage.
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8
Enjoyed watching it, in awe of rider's performances and that many seemed to be enjoying it. To be fair though we never watch a whole stage but use catch up and skip through the race until about 40km to go.
I thought the ending tt watch genuinely exciting at the end, unusually for a tt!
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Didn't Froome crash out of the Tour on a cobbles stage?
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Before they got to the cobbles.
Roglic hit a hay bale on a cobble stage too and relegated himself to domestique with a broken something, but not in a cobbled sector.
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8.
Really enjoyed it. Vingegaard being waaay better than expected added a level of jeopardy further into the gc race than I thought possible. Cemented the two horse (max) nature if the current gc and sets up another cracker next year.
Pog being dominant was impressive, Cav winning was awesome, when Philipsen's leadout got it right it was something special but they didn't have it their own way at all. And there were echelons and that gravel stage. There were enough good stages to make up for the dull ones.
Uae look ridiculous in the mountains like sky and Jumbo have before them, but lightweight on the flat and winds.
Bit much covid, bit too one sided in the end and a final day tt I couldn't be bothered watching drops a couple of points.
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8 for me. Enjoyed the show by Pog, though of course its tempered a little by over dominance. Nice to see the KOM jersey get a worthy winner that wasn't just a second jersey for the overall winner. Cav story ended happily, Green jersey for Girmay was great to see. Shame Covid affected so many riders who struggled through it. I dont think we had any internal drama or organisational howlers this year either?
2020/2021/2022 Metric Century Challenge Winner0 -
The question was about gravel stages with the suggestions they aren't as much of a lottery as the cobbles. Personally I subscribe to the view that both test different skillsets in riders and have as much 'right' to be included as a time trial, climb or descent - there are riders out there whose poor descending puts them out of contention due to time loss or crashing. It's not like cobbles aren't relatively commonplace in cycle racing and GTs are about more than just the GC.
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I think the main issue with gravel and cobbles is that if you have a mechanical on them then you can be waiting an age for help, and gravel massively increases your chance of a puncture. You can mitigate to some extent - Vingegaard had Tratnik with him to do a bike swap before the back of the peloton had passed - but you're still rolling the dice. That's not about skills or handling or testing a rider's (or even a team's) innate abilities, it's just about luck. And while luck always plays a part in the gc we don't want to see that amplified any more than it has to be. I'm not even talking about getting caught behind crashes here, as while there's some luck there it's also about positioning (Roglic I'm looking at you!), which is an ability in its own right (for a team maybe).
If they solve the issue of getting assistance quickly then go for it, but if you've got to wait minutes for a wheel, nah.
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You could very well argue that without that stage in the rain and mud, Stade Bianchi wouldn't be what it is today. That stage, and that Giro, was one of the most exciting of the modern era.
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It's Friday and we haven't had @RichN95.'s team evaluation thread yet. This new work thing he's doing seems like bad news.
Warning No formatter is installed for the format1 -
Also, the time gap after FOUR Tours is 1'25" to POg.
Without bonus seconds it's 3" to Vingegaard.
THREE SECONDS DIFFERENCE, after 13,667.1 km
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Pog has won every 5th Tour stage he has risen.
Cav's record is just under one win in six.
By comparison, Jonas Vingerman has won a whopping 3 stages......
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Before it started We all knew pog would win....then suddenly We didn't know who was going to win until the Pyrenees ..... Some stand out stages and some of the worst stages ever in tour history
Stage 17 should be the goto text book example of explaining to noobs how cycling tactics work in a grand tour
Cav was a moment.
8 out of 10
"If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm1 -
It's a good thing to be invested
"If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm0 -
That's what make Pog all the more unbelievable to me. In the last 40 tours only Pog, Armstrong and Nibali have won more than 3 stages while winning the overall.
Nibali's 4 wins in 2014 came in a year with a lot of crashes from other GC threats.
Even those with 3 stages win while winning the overall Hinault, LeMond and Indurain were all or 2 out of 3 TT wins. Pog and Froome both had 3 while winning the overall with 2 road and 1 TT Stage.
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