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Cycling - 2022 the remco show


BigFatCoward
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Jump to page 16 for 2022 TDF chat

 

Last thread has hit 21 pages after running for about 4 years. 

So, I cannot remember a more open tour de france

No Froome, Dumoulin or Roglic,, Carapaz is being saved for the Vuelta

Thomas - nobody knows how injured

Bernal - 22, never led a team

Nibali - coming off a giro

Landa - the same

S Yates - the same

Quintana - hasn't looked good for years

Valverde - too old

A Yates - probably best season out of all the contenders so far this year, however as Simon showed in the Giro they are doubts about reliability

Pinot and Bardet - French, hence pressure will always be too much for them

Mas - terrible season

Kruiswijk - crashed into the snow bank and blew his best chance of winning a grand tour

Fuglsang - amazing season so far but is he a 3 week stage racer?

Aru - been shite for years

Uran - where's he been recently?

Porte - flaky as f'ck

Dan Martin - always has a bad day

That being said any of the above could top 5, and most could podium if they have got their prep right and don't crash out.  I have no idea what will happen, and I can't wait.

Decent stage relatively early on day 6, and a new finish at PDBF with extra steep final kilometre means people can't ride into form.  Pathetic amount of TT for the strong men to build up an advantage, and far too long a TTT meaning those on weak teams will have at least 60 second deficit to the likes of Ineos.   

 

Edited by BigFatCoward
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Well there are way more capable sprinters and green jersey contenders than Cav nowadays, so I wouldn't say that.

Gaviria not being fit is a much bigger contender gone. Guys like Viviani, Groenewegen, Kristoff, Matthews might give him a good run.

@BFC, your list is exhaustive and therefore I have no further candidate to add.

I'm expecting quite a bit from Fuglsang ( though as you say, unproven as a GC rider). I think Nibali might be in surprising good form. I expect a lot from Pinot. I have grave doubts about Quintana who seems to lack acceleration, no idea in what shape Landa will be and contrary to that, Valverde is super fit and doing very well. Uran is also in good shape. Buchmann is a rider who will be up there with the best IMO. Mas has focused his entire year on the Tour, was bad in Switzerland, will he be better, could be. Porte's had a very poor season and yet Trek is giving him 7 domestiques for the Tour, do they know something we don't?

I think Bernal and Thomas will actually both be excellent. Thomas will be very good, and of Bernal we alreeady know he is.

Finally, this Tour has an incredibly dense field of excellent "stage win"riders, its a really good field.

Edited by Calibandar
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I'd rate Nibali as a potential favourite. Out of the list above, he's the most experienced winner and he'll know that this is his best chance of winning with such an open field. Landa might also see it as his time to step up and take on the mantle, he looked strong at the Giro.

Sagan has the points sewn up before we've even started. Given his all-round ability to pick up points in hilly stages and finishes, the only chance for a pure sprinter to beat him is for the sprinter to win 4+ stages and survive to the end. I don't think there's any such dominant sprinter left in the field.

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18 hours ago, Jeor said:

I'd rate Nibali as a potential favourite. Out of the list above, he's the most experienced winner and he'll know that this is his best chance of winning with such an open field. Landa might also see it as his time to step up and take on the mantle, he looked strong at the Giro.

Sagan has the points sewn up before we've even started. Given his all-round ability to pick up points in hilly stages and finishes, the only chance for a pure sprinter to beat him is for the sprinter to win 4+ stages and survive to the end. I don't think there's any such dominant sprinter left in the field.

I dont think Nibali can do it. The only person to win back to back GC in 20 years was Froome, and it was his season objective. Nibali put most of his eggs in the giro basket, and he isnt 2014 Nibali anymore. 

Landa has shown he can be strong in second grand tour, depends how movistar fuck up their 3 musketeers plan. 

Cav won 6 sprints one year and didn't win green, unless Sagan gets thrown out or crashes he wins every year until he is 35.  

Edited by BigFatCoward
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Crazy day in Belgium. There were 500 000 people on the streets to watch The Tour (or more specially Eddy Merckx). 

Really happy Van Avermaert won the climb on the wall of Geraadsbergen - because he wanted to show something to his own people :D (Belgian) - and for publicity reasons.

Anyway, apparently cyclo-cross is actually great training.  

Edited by Tijgy
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14 hours ago, Tijgy said:

Crazy day in Belgium. There were 500 000 people on the streets to watch The Tour (or more specially Eddy Merckx). 

Really happy Van Avermaert won the climb on the wall of Geraadsbergen - because he wanted to show something to his own people :D (Belgian) - and for publicity reasons.

Anyway, apparently cyclo-cross is actually great training.  

Yeah the crowds were massive. I nearly went to see it myself as it was only a1 hour drive for me. The Tour still garners interest like nothing else.

As for cyclo-cross, yep.... and MvP is the biggest star I have seen in years in cycling as a whole. I'd love to see him in the Tour in the next few years, but first lets see him some win some of the Flanders classics next year :)

Edited by Calibandar
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6 hours ago, Calibandar said:

Yeah the crowds were massive. I nearly went to see it myself as it was only a1 hour drive for me. The Tour still garners interest like nothing else.

As for cyclo-cross, yep.... and MvP is the biggest star I have seen in years in cycling as a whole. I'd love to see him in the Tour in the next few years, but first lets see him some win some of the Flanders classics next year :)

The days in Belgium were at least great for the cycling of the low countries - and especially for the Netherlands. Yellow and Green for Teunissen, Dots for Van Avermaet, White for Van Aert. :P 

MVP is indeed amazing - still always root a Flemish would win the competitions :D It was a bit boring last year to guess who would win the cyclo-cross competitions. I actually think hearing what happened the last two days would convince him certainly to take part in the Tour. 

 

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I heard recently that he is planning to participate in the 2021 Tour.

Next year is too early because that conflicts with the Olynmpics where he wants to win gold.

He did completely overwhelm the cyclo cross competitors like Van Aert and Aerst the last two seasons yes. I still really like watching it, MvP's explosiveness is just amazing. And Wout might be better this winter.

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Just read that wearing the yellow jersey is only € 500 for each day. And apparently you don't even see a lot of that money - a part of it goes to your team maters, team, ...

20 hours ago, Calibandar said:

I heard recently that he is planning to participate in the 2021 Tour.

Next year is too early because that conflicts with the Olynmpics where he wants to win gold.

He did completely overwhelm the cyclo cross competitors like Van Aert and Aerst the last two seasons yes. I still really like watching it, MvP's explosiveness is just amazing. And Wout might be better this winter.

Apparently Van Aert said to Raymond Poulidor (MvP's granddad) he was happy MvP wasn't there :P

Dots and White still for Belgium! 

28 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Great win, first frenchmen in yellow since 2014. GT sloppy letting a 5 second gap between himself and Bernal, but it really want his sort of finish so its allowable. 

From a Belgian Team ^_^

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MvP would have a couple of really nice stages laid out for him this week already.

We will have to be patient. In his absence, van Aert is having an awesome season.

None of the GC contenders fell through prematurely today, no cracks to discern just yet.

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So it finally starts for real tomorrow. La blanche de belle filles is no joke, 7km at 8.7% with a steep gravel final km. Nobody is winning tomorrow, but if anyone loses 45s to 60s I guess they will struggle to find their way back in to such a wide open field. 

I expect ineos to drill it unless GT really hasn't recovered, and 2nd tier hopefuls to be spread all down the mountain. 

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I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a bit of a fizzer. It's a massive stage that should be interesting, but it's placed too early in the race. I think everyone's going to hold their fire and only make a minor dash at the end. Hoping that I'm wrong and one or two contenders really makes it an attacking stage, but I don't think it's the likeliest outcome.

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3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Honest question, how popular is cycling in Europe? And is there really an event where people blitz straight down the side of a mountain which often results in horrific pileups? 

I would say it is a strong contender for second most popular sport in a lot of countries. So it is very popular… The problem is that people only have interest in watching few competions like the grand tours, world champs and a few classics or 1 week comps (very few of these).

6 hours ago, Jeor said:

I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a bit of a fizzer. It's a massive stage that should be interesting, but it's placed too early in the race. I think everyone's going to hold their fire and only make a minor dash at the end. Hoping that I'm wrong and one or two contenders really makes it an attacking stage, but I don't think it's the likeliest outcome.

 

8 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

So it finally starts for real tomorrow. La blanche de belle filles is no joke, 7km at 8.7% with a steep gravel final km. Nobody is winning tomorrow, but if anyone loses 45s to 60s I guess they will struggle to find their way back in to such a wide open field. 

I expect ineos to drill it unless GT really hasn't recovered, and 2nd tier hopefuls to be spread all down the mountain. 

ryders like landa  or the french guy need to attack tomorrow while they still have the liberty to do it. Kind of like carapaz did in giro. Otherwise these guys don t have a chance in the long run...

Edited by divica
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11 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Honest question, how popular is cycling in Europe? And is there really an event where people blitz straight down the side of a mountain which often results in horrific pileups? 

Very in certain countries, more people watch the TDF live than any other sporting event.  there have been estimates of 1 million plus on key mountain stages in the grand tours.  In Belgium especially its like a religion. 

As for danger, there have only been 2 cyclists deaths in the TDF in 106 years (not counting Tom Simpson who died through exhaustion, overheating, drug abuse). 

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3 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Very in certain countries, more people watch the TDF live than any other sporting event.  there have been estimates of 1 million plus on key mountain stages in the grand tours.  In Belgium especially its like a religion. 

As for danger, there have only been 2 cyclists deaths in the TDF in 106 years (not counting Tom Simpson who died through exhaustion, overheating, drug abuse). 

I think you are downplaying the danger. It isn t uncommon to have ciclists colide against members of the public resulting in pretty bad lesions

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8 hours ago, divica said:

ryders like landa  or the french guy need to attack tomorrow while they still have the liberty to do it. Kind of like carapaz did in giro. Otherwise these guys don t have a chance in the long run...

Landa definitely needs to go, if he is carrying form from the Giro, as he is likely to suffer in the 3rd week.  if by the 'French guy' you mean Pinot, I don't think he would get the licence to do anything, especially after the far better than expected TTT that FDJ did.

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Just now, divica said:

I think you are downplaying the danger. It isn t uncommon to have ciclists colide against members of the public resulting in pretty bad lesions

I mean people also get run over by the caravan etc as well, but the question seemed to be how dangerous was it for the cyclists.  2 deaths in 106 years doesn't seem that bad to me. 

Also, almost every injury to a pedestrian I've seen was predominantly their fault due to running out into the road, standing in wrong place etc.

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