lmanion

Orton looked massive and the pop was huge for him. Overshadowed by Punk however, his return was heavily rumoured weeks ago but everyone had basically decided he wasnt showing up. They did a great job keeping it quiet beforehand. Will be interested to see how long he lasts before trouble appears this time.

They have been using most of their wind tunnel time this season working on next year's car and haven't really updated the current car since mid season so I would guess the Bulls especially Max will have an increased advantage again at the start of next season, though not as big as the advantage this year.

That was an unbelievable carry job while on one leg as well

MVDP should have won, milan-sanremo, Roubaix and world champ in cylcocross and on the road

I see rumours are flying that Jumbo and quickstep might be trying to merge. Might make it more likely for Remco to go to Ineos. Probably wouldn't be the best for the overall pro peloton to lose one big team and creating one even bigger more dominant team.

Going to try and catch some of the last week of this vuelta, barely managed to watch any so far. From what I have seen Remco cracked and went way out of contention and is now stage hunting and Jumbo are dominating. Angliru is in a day or two so will definitely tune in for that.

It's going to be very interesting to see what pogacar does next year because the whole schedule trying to win everything early and through classics season hasn't worked the last 2 years. Does he go to a schedule more 'traditional' for a tour contender or maybe go after the Giro? That TT was ridiculous from Vingegaard I mean he beat Van Aert by nearly 3 minutes!

Shame that Hindley got caught up in the crash because I don't think he loses that sort of time without the crash, Rodriguez looks in the box seat for the final podium position now, I think he's a better TT than Hindley. Pogacar was killed for the bonus on top of the last mountain by the motorbikes I think he was looking for one of those big attacks to make a gap onto the false flat. This tour really looks like going down to the TT between the top 2, although there is still a lot of climbing to go it seems like they are at really similar levels to each other.

Dammit Cav that's not the way this is supposed to end

The way F1 has moved since about the 98 season makes it really hard to compare the generations much further back than that. So much more in the way of reliability issues for a start. Even a dominant car back then had the odd issue with reliability and a lot of years there were times that any one from a top half team could pop up with a win out of nowhere. Plus there are so many more races now. For a long time I remember 16 races being the number every year now the calendar for next year is I think 24?

It would be a bit Hollywood to do it in Paris but as long as he gets it done somewhere I won't care. I just can't see him taking down philipsen with that alpecin lead out

Yeah over the top of the tourmalet and Jonas and pog look like they are in a different race to the rest of the field pulled 2 minutes in no time. Will be interesting to see if they can come back at those 2 on the last climb but that's for later on because I need sleep

Yeah looking forward to seeing how Hindley goes he's not really as punchy as the other guys I don't think but it's a good sign that he hasn't really lost time like O'Connor has. I really wonder about the sport science and training side of the French teams some times I mean look at what a beast Laporte is now that he is on one of the top teams in that regard. The french would love a GC winner but I think they will struggle until a really good young guy goes to a non french team at like 20-21 to push on to really crack it like Pinot and Bardet haven't, Gaudu would be interesting at say Ineos but I'm sure he will stay at FdJ and have a career like those 2. Not bad but never quite cracking that really elite level especially over 3 weeks

The only solution to red bull dominance is for its competitors to build a better car, the end. That's how F1 has always worked and it's how it should remain. I'm not even really a red bull fan and I don't like Max. Build the best car within the regulations it's that simple currently it's the bulls for 8 years it was Merc.

I think Ayuso is targetting the Vuelta this year but he is looking really good. The lack of TT KMs is something that the French have designed to try and help their riders in recent years. The likes of Bardet and now Gaudu are rubbish at TT and Pinot was only decent on a hilly one when he felt like it. After last year the French clearly thought Gaudu might be a shot at a better finish this year with as few TT KMs as possible. Hopefully there is a big battle for yellow between the two favourites and someone else lifts up to their level. Mainly though I'm hoping Cav gets his stage win as early as possible.

Here's on odd slightly funny to my warped sense of humour anyway, story from the Albanian national champs. Sounds like some people were sick of this guy being the national champion every year. https://cyclinguptodate.com/cycling/albanian-national-championships-descend-into-chaos-people-have-seen-him-hiding-in-a-forest-oddly-enough-his-strava-data-has-disappeared

I haven't missed a Le Mans 24 in years it's always a good watch even if in past years the top class has been a bit barren the lmp2s and GTEs always put on a show right to the end. This year with the real start of the hypercar era was epic, hopefully a bit more development and some small bop adjustments will get all the other cars up to speed for next year.

Anyone who thought otherwise should look into world series cricket. Except instead of broadcasting rights Norman just wanted the bag of money and to piss off the PGA.

Once Thomas was in pink I found myself really wanting him to hang onto it. The last TT was great and would have been even better if they had of had Roglic and Thomas on camera for more of it. Don't know if they had issues with maintaining a signal to the cameras following the guys up the mountain. So happy to watch the end of the final stage today and see Cav get a win. Hopefully it's enough for Astana to really throw support behind him at the tour. Also that is his 54th grand tour stage win I heard on the move podcast.

They've been doing nothing for nearly 2 weeks now. The queen stages of the Giro seem to be cursed in recent times with route modifications and or GC neutralisation. As far as I'm aware they initially shortened the big climb because of snow on the road which is fair enough. As far as I'm aware the rest of the route was clear just wet, in some cases I've been able to see why things have been changed before but this is baffling.

Must have been the COVID slowing him down to only win the TT by a second. Shame that causes a withdrawal for the race leader hopefully a few other guys and challenge Roglic on the bigger climbs. The 2 Ineos guys are looking decent with a very strong team around them. UAE are strong but Almeida hasnt quite had that extra little bit to get to the top of the top level so far. If Almeida, Vlasov and the Ineos guys can put some pressure on Roglic in the mountains to come it should still be a very exciting race even without Remco.

Happy to see Matthews get a win. Not sure what happened with McNulty being dropped on that climb. Hopefully there isn't too many days with that sort of weather. I thought grand tour organisers were going away from these over 200km days but this giro has a few looooong days early on.

Would love to see Jay vine up there but I think Almeida, vlasov and one of either of ineos riders will be on the podium before him all things being equal. He had some good results early this year so hopefully will be in good form not sure how the injury to his knee is. Without accounting for shenanigans I think it's Remco, Roglic and Thomas on the podium at the end but the giro is always a great watch, can't wait for it to start

He was taking a week or so off anyway by all reports. His training will just be indoors for a bit I suppose. Shame was really looking forward to a big showdown. Can't wait till we get a big one day race or grand tour with Pogacar, Evenepoel and Vigegaard all going at each other. Remco looked great hopefully there is a good competition between him and Roglic at the Giro, they seem to be the top 2 favourites by some margin. Someone else might lift to that level but I can't see it happening. After the Vuelta I think Remco will have learnt some big lessons to take forward into other grand tours and his team is stronger support this year.

Yeah 2 out of 3 for Tadej but a lot more competition on Sunday, looks like another late Sunday night to watch this live.