Road Cycling

@Chris-B said in Vuelta a Espana:

Just watched the highlights - one of the fastest ever stages in a Grand Tour.

Movistar completely outsmarted TJV.

The peloton split in two and they had Quintana up the road with support and then on one of the small, later climbs they went to the front of the Roglic group with Soler and Valverde - put the hammer down and blew away Roglic's remaining support riders. Isolated him and then sat up.

Luckily for Roglic, Astana still had some firepower available and they chased the Quintana group (for Lopez) and saved Roglic's ass.

I reckon TJV would be pretty concerned at how their team is fading around Roglic.

Tonight will be massive, with questions as to who's going to turn up with some power in their legs after today's stage.

Damn. I missed the entire stage. Thanks for the great summary @Chris-B
It would be a shame for Roglic if he fades now and blows his chances. (disclaimer: I am a Roglic fan).
But I guess that makes the race more exciting.

With only the ceremonial stage into Madrid to go, Roglic holds on reasonably comfortably to win the overall tour.

Some great racing over the final stages - pretty much every stage had surprises and drama.

Second-to-last stage, Roglic and Lopez were involved in a crash - Movistar launched an attack while they were down, which pissed a lot of people off - and especially Astana (for Lopez).

Final stage, Pogacar was the man with the most left - he attacked about 40 km out and built a 90 second+ lead that he never relinquished; supplanting Lopez and Quintana in the process. The remnants of Movistar and Astana wouldn't cooperate properly with one another in a chase and for a while it looked like Valverde might even surrender second place to Pogacar (though I suspect Valverde was always saving a little bit in case Pogacar got really close).

George did some good work for Roglic early in the stage, helping to control Astana's efforts to send men up the road, and eventually was the last TJV man with Roglic, but still fell away when the big attacks came - from Lopez and then Pogacar.

Somewhat disappointing tour for George. He never seemed properly right after that big crash at the end of the first week. I wondered whether he'd got sick, but also wondering whether he was carrying something from that crash - or whether his TdF efforts just caught up with him, as they did for plenty of others.

Amazing tour for the Slovenians - first and third. Pretty amazing that Valverde rides the TdF and still manages second. Slightly disappointed for Lopez, who created a lot of the GC excitement, but eventually attacked himself into the ground and comes away somewhat empty handed (5th).

Not worth a new thread for the World Champs, but just to note - Patrick Bevin finished 4th in the ITT - two seconds off the podium! Rohan Dennis defended his title - pretty comfortably.

Men's road race goes on Sunday - Bevin probably our best shot in that as well. It looks like a "Peter Sagan" sort of course. Maybe enough climbing to get rid of many of the pure sprinters, but not enough to benefit the climbers. Seven laps around Harrogate at the end, so likely a big bunch finish.

Our team is George, Bevin, Jack Bauer and Dion Smith.

@Chris-B said in Vuelta a Espana:

Jack Bauer

still the best name in sports

@mariner4life You'd be worried if you turned up to a poker night and he was sitting at the table!

Wyatt Vogels Crockett is a contender.

George has pulled out of the road race - replaced by Shane Archibold. Wasn't likely to be his course. Pundits are favouring Julian Alaphilippe.

" Gutted that I won’t be lining up on Sunday in @Yorkshire2019 . I did what I could to recover from the vuelta but 2grand tours, a few recent rounds of antibiotics and a couple of months worth of altitude this season has put me in a bad spot the last few weeks. Wishing the @CyclingNZL team all the best. They are already off to a wicked start. It’s a highlight of the year to pull on the fern and a hard choice to make but looking ahead to a few good opportunities next year to fly the flag. Go kiwi."

Well, it pissed with rain pretty much throughout - parts of the course were flooded and must have been miserable. Only 46 riders finished the race.

Some guy called Mads Pederson from Denmark won - I'd never heard of him - rides for Trek Segafredo. Outsprinted one of the pre-race favourites in Trentin, and a well-deserved victory.

None of the NZers fired a shot. Bevin was one of the first withdrawals and Jack Bauer was the last man standing - dropped from the peloton with about 80kms still to ride (but, with only about 80 riders still in the race). To give Jack credit, about five minutes later Geraint Thomas was dropped from the peloton.

@Chris-B said in Vuelta a Espana:

Well, it pissed with rain pretty much throughout - parts of the course were flooded and must have been miserable. Only 46 riders finished the race.

Some guy called Mads Pederson from Denmark won - I'd never heard of him - rides for Trek Segafredo. Outsprinted one of the pre-race favourites in Trentin, and a well-deserved victory.

None of the NZers fired a shot. Bevin was one of the first withdrawals and Jack Bauer was the last man standing - dropped from the peloton with about 80kms still to ride (but, with only about 80 riders still in the race). To give Jack credit, about five minutes later Geraint Thomas was dropped from the peloton.

Bauer punctured.. as seems to be the norm for this world champs a lack of neutral support and nz's position in the convoy means he was waiting ages for a wheel..
..so a great opportunity to so 'fark this!' get in car get to shower!

just saw this.. so many crashes this world champs but jesus these two are BRUTAL!

@WillieTheWaiter holy shit! the first looked brutal, the 2nd kinda funny, bet he never saw that coming

Quite amazed that UCI let that start.
Oh, hang on, it’s the UCI

I rode the sportive last weekend; only 145km rather than the 260km odd. Similar conditions. It was quite unpleasant. If I hadn’t driven 4.5 hours to get there I prob would’ve flagged it. It basically hosed down for the full week after I did it.

George’s girlfriend was interviewed on tv yesterday during the race. She’s an artist who now has a lucrative line in painting pros shoes. They look outstanding!

2nd guy coulda drowned!

First faaark he slid a long way

George has had his operation - sounds pretty drastic so I hope it works for him.

Also confirmation the Tom Dumoulin has joined TJV - so George needs the operation to work if he's to get a chance to compete to win elite races.

Just settling in to watch today's stage in the Tour Downunder - and doing a bit of background reading and found this (below)...which is good news.

I'd guess George will have a bit of a second string support team, but still pretty cool for him.

Jumbo-Visma have confirmed that Bennett will lead the Dutch WorldTour team in the Giro d'Italia as Tom Dumoulin, Primož Roglič and Steven Kruijswijk focus on challenging Team Ineos at the Tour de France. Bennett also has his eye on the hilly Tokyo Olympic road race and so knows he has to carefully build his early-season form so he can be at his best in May and then again in early July.

Can we get the thread title changed here? Road Cycling?

George was interviewed on The Project last night where they made out it was his choice to not ride the TdF in favour of the Olympics. He went to correct them but went with the flow.

Regarding his op, he says he is still having problems but the docs at NZ Cycling say it will take some time to settle down.

That may explain his lack of kick on the final climb up Willunga Hill the other day, or maybe it was just too early in the season for him?

Interesting that TJV has already named its team for the TdF. Going all in for the Yellow Jersey - with Roglic and Dumoulin team leaders, Kruiswijk in an initial support role (he's to be team leader at the Vuelta), Tony Martin and Wout Van Aart to provide power on the flat and Gesink, Kuss and de Plus the climbing support.

I guess the discussions around who would do what would have been complex, but I don't think George will be too disappointed with his lot. He was apparently very big on riding at the Olympics and it's too close to the TdF for that to work.

Sounds like they'll send a split team to the Giro - George riding for the GC and Groenwagen trying for the sprints.

Just reading an article on the National Road Race Championships and a bit disappointingly for George, he got pipped by Shane Archibald in the Road Race and by Hamish Bond in the Time Trial. Would have been cool to have seen him racing in the Giro with an NZ National Champions jersey. Run down by a determined chase....

Only being beaten by 15 seconds by Hamish maybe bodes better for TTs this year.

Looking at other interesting performances - assuming they rode exactly the same course (and I imagine they would have), Finn Fisher-Black recorded a time in the U23s that would have given him 3rd in the Elite TT and also came 10th in the Road Race. That's handy, because he's also on contract with Jumbo-Visma.

And Finn's sister won the women's road race - she's contracted to Bigla-Katusha.

@Chris-B hard to read too much into the TT result. Bondy only did a months training for it. But pancake flat course suited bondy. Lucky he didn't sell his bike hes been trying to get rid of it for a while!
Loved the pic of him at 93kegs standing next to george.. not often us more "athletic cyclists" get to beat midgets.. no sympathy for us on the hills!
Stoked for the mullet too - been on the outer.. bad crash then team he was folded. Now on one of worlds best team and wearing the fern!

@WillieTheWaiter said in Road Cycling:

@Chris-B hard to read too much into the TT result. Bondy only did a months training for it. But pancake flat course suited bondy. Lucky he didn't sell his bike hes been trying to get rid of it for a while!
Loved the pic of him at 93kegs standing next to george.. not often us more "athletic cyclists" get to beat midgets.. no sympathy for us on the hills!
Stoked for the mullet too - been on the outer.. bad crash then team he was folded. Now on one of worlds best team and wearing the fern!

Out of curiosity (having lived in the race area) I looked up the course and wouldn’t describe it as pancake flat. I can see why George did what he did though. The climbs aren’t huge (it looks like once up Te Miro, Waterworks, Scotsman’s loop then twice over French Pass) but enough to leave the sprinters work to do to catch up. The final 6 laps around Cambridge are dead flat though and lazy planning by organisers. Maybe they got the race they wanted but it was slanted to the chasers.